Always There

Okay, so he lied.

Maria was someone Billie Joe wanted to involve himself with. The morning after his birthday when he'd first met her on accident in her bedroom, and then gotten high with her, he'd woken up to find her changing as discreetly as possible in the corner by her closet. He pretended to still be asleep, but kept sneaking a peak at her through his eyelashes that gave the impression his eyes were closed.

He had found her this way after she'd already changed into her pair of jeans that had the knees so worn that they were frayed and ripped. He did, however, get to see as she lifted her top over her head. He saw the smooth expanse of her bare back, even the curve of a breast as she leaned to the left to grab a bra from her dresser. She snapped the contraption on with such ease and when she pulled a knitted sweater over her head and untucked her hair, Billie Joe took the opportunity to 'wake up.'

He learned why she was the only one who had a bedroom to herself. Her uncle was the landlord. Quite the deal. He owned the building and she was the first one to move in. He allowed her to screen all the people who moved in, but eventually she didn't care anymore. She said her uncle was a bit of an asshole, so more people stayed in the house that he would allow...if he had any clue what was going on.

Maria and Billie Joe had gone downstairs together where he found Mike passed out with some girl on the couch and Tre was walking out of the downstairs bathroom, pulling up his pants as he did so.

"Hey ya Billie."

Billie Joe nodded to his friend with a smile. "Hey."

The drummer pulled his friend aside and gestured to Maria. "Did you and her sleep together last night?"

"No. Well...yes and no." Off Tre's confused face, Billie Joe relented. "We slept together...but with me in her bed. Not...in her. Catch my drift?"

Tre nodded. "Yeah, I gotcha."

Maria had walked back over to Billie Joe, slinging a backpack over her shoulder and holding car keys in her hand. She asked him if he wanted to go to IHOP with her before her class, and he obliged. Leaving Mike and Tre to their own devices, Billie Joe and Maria went to breakfast together. They talked over pancakes about lots of different stuff, like...life and music. Love and the future. Money problems and sex. Views on pop culture and some politics.

Afterward, when they left, she had to go to her class and she even offered to drive him back to the house at the expense of her being late. He shook his head and said he'd walk. For a few minutes that followed, they bantered back and forth about what they'd do...about him getting back. They finally decided on him tagging along with her to Cal Berkeley and sitting in on her classes.

And Billie Joe had never been so bored in his life.

He sat beside her in the lecture hall with a piece of paper and a pen she'd given him to doodle on as if he were a toddler tagging alone with his mother. He drew stick figure people, wrote random lyrics, and anything to keep him busy. Sometimes he listened in when students got heated with some sort of debate on social issues like the recession the country was in and how Bush needed to get out of office. All the students, with the exception of a handful, seemed to unanimously agree that they needed to get that Arkansas governor into office. That guy named Bill Clinton.

All of Maria's classes came and went for the day. She only had three, and by five in the evening, the two of them were sitting in her beat up, light blue '74 Ford Pinto that had a black hood and a right windshield wiper that wouldn't work if you paid it to.

Billie Joe learned Maria was from San Diego and going to Cal Berkeley as a Political Science major with aspirations to either become a Lobbyist, a Campaign Staffer or Social Worker. Even though her parents had come to San Francisco in the late sixties for the peace, love, and anti-war goodness, they returned to their homestead of San Diego where Maria was raised with her younger brother, Catcher David. She was an over achiever and proud of it. She graduated from a private high school as Valedictorian and loved listening to groups like Boyz II Men, Color Me Bad, REM and Madonna...much to Billie Joe's horror.

It was then and there that he decided to introduce her to his world.

First thing he did was to bring her to one of Green Day's shows. He couldn't help but laugh at how she clung to the graffitied wall to the right of the stage as everyone in the pit moshed like there wasn't a tomorrow.

Despite her nervousness about the mosh pit, she quickly became infatuated with their sound. And with Billie Joe. As the weeks went by, they spent more time together when she wasn't in class and when he wasn't rehearsing with the guys.

By May, the assumption that they were a couple came to a head when Maria's uncle had to forceably kick out the people squatting in the basement apartment. Maria's first choice for who to move in was Billie Joe, Mike and Tre who were already living between different friends' places, crashing on the floor. On a couch, if they were lucky. So, they obviously jumped at the opportunity for an actual place to live. They shared with a couple other guys from the East Bay area. But most of the time, Billie Joe was upstairs making out with Maria in her room.

To say the least, they became a couple.

As soon as Maria's sophomore year at Cal Berkeley was over, she began to work full time at a McDonalds close to her home, mainly working the drive thru window. Sometimes the guys would leave for a few days to weeks in a van or Tre's dad's bookmobile and tour the country, lucky if they could find a gig. But when they came back, Billie Joe would always meet Maria at McDonalds when her shift ended. She would grumble about how disgusting the place was and seeing how they made the burgers made her nauseous.

Then one night she was so fed up, she came home on edge, bitching about how she should just become a vegetarian. Then she began to complain about her coworkers and how they had the audacity to throw hamburger meat at each other when the day manager wasn't watching.

Her frustration was reaching a boiling point when Billie Joe tried to assure her it was just a temporary job. That they were all fucking losers and not to let it get to her. The way she looked at him made him wary, as if she was gonna beat him up or something. But she did just the opposite. She climbed up on him as he sat on her bed and pushed him down onto the mattress, kissing him all the way.

And he couldn't believe it. Billie Joe and Maria were about to make love.

He was a little nervous, mainly because this was about to be their first time together. Granted he'd had sex before and she'd admitted so had she, but how much experience could two twenty year olds have? He just didn't wanna...you know...fail to deliver.

The fact that Maria took control of the situation was enough to make Billie Joe wanna scream 'yeehaw!' right then and there. But it wasn't like it was purely physical, the emotional level attached to that moment was enough for both of them to pant they loved each other over and over.

Afterward, upon feeling incredibly satisfied, they laid side by side on her twin bed, wrapping their arms around each other.

There's something to be said for youthful love. You loved with all your heart and it was exciting. It was constant, dramatic and you dreamt about how everything would be perfect and happy.

For Billie Joe, Maria was this vivacious, strong-willed woman. She knew what she wanted, expressed her opinions, was smart and witty and, damn, was she a wild ride. Every day was something new for them. One day they might be arguing only to make up by way of sex, and the next day they would be separated and thinking of the other nonstop but when they happily meet up later that night they get into a petty argument.

It was, to say the least, a wild ride. Something Billie Joe felt addicted to. Maria was this drug he had to have, and vice versa. He had loved Adrienne. She was this sweet older girl who had caught his eye one night at a show in Minnesota. Maria, personality-wise, was a little more dominant. She seemed freer, a little stubborn, a little anxious at times...a lot like Billie Joe, which might have been part of the initial attraction. Here was someone who was as starving to make it in their respective lifestyle and unwilling to compromise their beliefs for anything.

That's why he loved Maria.