For Never

He stayed that way for months. He spoke to Billie Joe as if they were strangers, because anything more would have stung. But the silence stung enough. Billie was hurt, fatally wounded from the inside out and it showed. And nothing Mike said or did or tried was enough to make it go away, because he would never know—he could never know.

So as the months passed, Billie Joe and Tre poured their hurt, their hate, their love and their anguish out through their bodies, steady streams of unceasing emotion and questions. Tre found solace in physical intimacy: boys, girls, and everything in between, taking a few days or weeks at a time, letting him pretend he forgot. It was his outlet.

Billie Joe’s was a lined, spiral-bound red notebook.

He wrote his soul into that notebook. Sometimes, he took his time and neatly wrote out verses, silently dripping tears onto the pages as he wrote. Sometimes, he would be so shaken that he simply opened the notebook and ran over the pages with pen, pencil, marker, whatever was at hand to tear down pent-up hurricanes onto paper. He wrote about Mike, the one person he was so sure would never leave him, never hurt him or distrust him. The one person in whose eyes Billie Joe was perfect. But Billie knew he was so, so far from perfect and it went into the notebook. He wrote about Tre, whom he hurt and wanted. He wrote about how he wanted to apologize, how stupid he felt, how it was all his fault for ever even leading Tre on like that. For getting drunk and making mistakes. He wrote about how much he wanted to be with Tre. He wrote about how he could never, would never leave Michael. He wrote in so many words everything that was plaguing him from the moment he stared into the drummer’s baby blues.

It was the most beautiful and most terrible thing anyone had ever seen.

There were 150 pages in that notebook and when every single one was filled, Billie closed it. Staring at the strawberry-red cover, he knew what he would do with it. He wouldn’t sing those words; he could hardly even write them without breaking down. He couldn’t hide them away forever; they would eventually be found. Billie knew who he wanted to find them. Only once had the thought of showing Mike occurred to him and the image of his boyfriend, his best friend breaking down in front of him for all the smoke and mirrors was too much. It was just too much.

He knew he would have to offer the book, his confessions and his apology to Tre. Whether he’d accept it or not was irrelevant, though Billie hoped with every atom of his being that he would. Tre knew. He knew like no one else did and he connected to Billie like no one else ever had, ever would or could even try to. Tre was different. What they had was special.

Did they still have it? Billie hadn’t spoken to Tre outside of practice for a long time. He needed to know, but more importantly, he needed to apologize. And so he woke up one morning, resolute, and decided that would be the day.

He looked softly at Mike’s sleeping form for almost thirty minutes before finally getting up. He left a note, just in case Mike wondered; he always did. Billie grabbed a shirt and his 150-page shrine and forced himself into the morning.

It wasn’t exactly cold. It was breezy, cool enough to make Billie shiver. It was a short walk up the hill, but it seemed like forever. Despite that, he found himself at Tre’s front door before he knew it. A million thoughts raced through his brain, but the minute the door opened, he forgot every single one of them. Behind the old wood, his eyes connected with a pair of bright blue ones, made even brighter by surprise.

“Hey…”

“Hey…”

They stood there, just looking at each other. They hadn’t looked at each other in such a long time.

“Can—can I come in?” Billie asked. Tre nodded and led him inside.

“So…uh...hi.”

“Hi.” Billie sat down in front of Tre at the breakfast table. He suppressed a smile, remembering how cute he always thought the drummer’s destructive appetite was. Tre seemed to realize and, a little self-consciously, cleared some of the empty plates and boxes away.

“What’s up.” He asked, even though it wasn’t really a question.

Billie Joe inhaled deeply. He opened his mouth and moved his jaw like a character in a silent movie. He put the notebook on the table and took another deep breath. “This.”

Tre stared at it. “And this is…?”

Billie didn’t know how to answer that. “Just read it.” Their tones were polite and flat. Dead.

Tre slowly took the notebook in his hands, turning it over, looking at the front and back cover, thumbing through the pages. And as Tre observed the notebook, Billie observed Tre.

His blue eyes, the ones that surprised him the day they met. His rough hands and the memory of them against Billie’s cheeks. His hair, green with its natural brown peeking out from the roots. His lips, now closed in thought. Billie found that he missed Tre more than he ever let himself realize, and even though this hyper, insane, fascinating boy destroyed his life just by existing, he forgave him.

That was in the notebook. That Billie would have hated to die without knowing Tre. And that the only person he couldn’t forgive was himself. It was on the third page, the page that Tre had just flipped to. And Billie Joe’s heart sped up frantically.

God only knows how long they sat at that table. Tre read from the notebook, sometimes furrowing his brow, occasionally smiling, but never speaking a word. And Billie watched him, just thinking. He wasn’t quite sure what he was thinking. Mostly, he was waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Finally, Tre looked up. He looked like he was about to speak, but he didn’t. His eyes fell to the pages and then came back up to rest on Billie Joe’s malachite. He parted his lips, but then closed them again.

Billie Joe was patient. Not that he had any other choice.

“So, you…” was all Tre could manage. And despite Billie Joe’s patience, the sound was so sudden that it startled him.

He found his words in time. “I, uh…yeah. Yes, Tre. I do.” It wasn’t particularly eloquent, but the time for eloquence had probably passed. Billie wasn’t even completely sure it was ever there.

Silence took over again. Tre’s eyes swam. The blue came brighter and clearer, but there was something in there like a coiled spring, poised and tense. They pointed themselves down away from that hurtful, hateful—

Billie Joe leaned in close and whispered an apology. Green locked on blue.

“That doesn’t help.” Tre’s voice wasn’t at all like Tre’s voice.

Billie was taken aback at the hiss. “But…but it’s true.” The answer came from a child, unsure and afraid.

The face that Billie saw was hardened, somewhere between anger and disbelief. Tre seemed flat and dry, completely devoid of anything as he dropped the notebook to the floor. “Yeah. Whatever.”