It's Not As Easy As It Looks

You Feed The Beast I Have Within Me

Henry Ellis once said, 'All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.'. I felt like I had finally let go of my old life, the worries that came attached to England, and I had finally made a home for myself in America, yet I had held onto all my family and friends back there, never letting them go.

Life was finally perfect, and I made it happen myself. I took the opportunity, grabbed it and never let it go. I felt so accomplished, and so proud of myself.

Then what was this nagging feeling in the back of my mind, like it wasn't going to last, like something was going to happen.

You could put it down to anxiety, I was always a natural worrier, but even so this felt excessive. I guess I was used to have a moment of happiness, for it to be crushed by something or someone.

I blinked my eyes open, forcing myself to get out of this negative thinking. I rolled over to be met with a sleeping Billie. He looked so calm, so cute. I just wanted to stay curled up to him all day, but I knew I had to get up and become active, or I'd be worrying in my mind all day.

But through all my thoughts I wondered if I had done the right thing by advancing something like this, well, we had jumped straight into sex, without the dining dating section first. I knew practically nothing about relationships, only that they tend to be messy and end terribly with a lot of crying involved.

Billie didn't look like he could make me cry right now.

I stood up out of bed to force my mind to focus on something else, but realised I had stood up completely naked. I grabbed one of my towels; for some reason still shy even though Billie was asleep, and went for a shower--hoping it'd take my mind off of things.

As I started washing my hair, facing the wall, I suddenly felt something press against my body, causing me to jump a mile. I turned around to see Billie, grinning like an idiot. I rolled my eyes at him and smiled. "You scared me half to death!" I exclaimed, whacking him on the arm. "Idiot."

He just laughed.

***

The rest of the day we spent taking my mother around Oakland and San Francisco; luckily the weather wasn't too hot. She was like me, or well, I guess any other English person. We liked cold weather, no matter how much we complained that we wanted hot weather, whenever it was above 20 degrees, it was too hot, and we shielded away from outside and wished for cooler weather.

By the time Morgan came back from university, I suggested all four of us head out for dinner somewhere nice, everyone agreed and we found a nice little Mexican restaurant close by. As a huge fan of Mexican food--I couldn't wait.

"So you two," Morgan started, as we waited for our food to arrive. "Are you like... dating now?" She asked looking between us.

Billie just grinned, as I remained silent. We were playing with her, we knew the answer, but she seemed to eager to know--it was fun watching her squirm.

"Come on just tell me!" She screamed impatiently. "Pleaaaase."

"Alright alright, yes, we are," I said, leaning into Billie subconsciously as I did so.

Morgan squealed, much to the dismay of everyone else in the restaurant, Billie and I just laughed. "I'm sooooo happy for you both right now," She gushed, taking both of our hands. "You will make the cutest babies."

My eyes widened, and for some reason I blushed. It was way too early to be discussing babies. "Let's not go down that path just yet, haha," I joked, looking nervously at my mother.

"Why not? I'm ready to become a grandmother!" She grinned at me, obviously eager for a grandchild since I was her only daughter, and everyone else in my generation had had children by now. I rolled my eyes at her--she wasn't going to sway me.

Maybe in a few years time.

The idea of marriage still freaked me out. I lived with my parents for so long that I gave up on the 'sanctity' of marriage. I watched a woman being beaten down so hard she was scared to have a personality, she had become a shadow of her former self, and it was sad. I didn't want to be held down like that--not now that I was finally free from the shackles of my father.

I guess I just didn't want anyone to be like him, and I didn't... I had Billie who was the total opposite, which I couldn't be any more thankful for. Even though he was perfect for me, I still shied away from the idea of true commitment.

"Let's change the conversation," I said, furrowing my brows at Morgan who sat with a pout on her face. I giggled and playfully slapped her face. "Stop it, the wind will change!"

Morgan raised her brow at me questionably. "Huh?"

I laughed in reply, "nothing, don't worry."

Almost with perfect timing our food arrived and we tucked in, finding the perfect balance between eating and talking--sometimes it could be a whole lot of eating, and not a lot of talking, and vice versa.

I looked slowly up from my plate when I felt something move slowly up my leg, I anchored my neck towards Billie who smiled softly at me. I bit my lip and smiled back coyly, letting him carry on with harassing my leg.

After we had finished eating, we decided to walk back home since it wasn't too far, and it was surprinsgly quite warm for the evening in winter. We got into talking funnily enough about the weather, I think we had covered every topic at dinner that we finally had to resort to this.

I looked down at my hand when I felt the warmth of someone else's grasp mine--it was Billie's wrapped around mine. I smiled softly to myself and looked back to the path, blushing slightly.

Morgan broke the moment when she took my other hand, swinging it madly and giggling like a little kid, even though I was a little annoyed she had stole that moment, I giggled with happiness at what she was doing.

"Hold on," I said, breaking the line of holding hands. My mother was all left out and I felt sorry for her. I took her hand and Morgans, forcing Morgan to hold Billie's hand. "We should totally skip gayly down the boulevard," I grinned, glancing to everyone who were raising their brow, bar Morgan, at me "Well it was just a suggestion," I shrugged, forcing Morgan and my mother to shrug.

Morgan's eyes lit up, "no, no, I want to!" She grinned, taking my hand and yanking me from the others to skip down the street.

Billie and my mother looked on in disbelief--my mom had known me my whole life and was used to this, but poor Billie must have been worried as to what he had just let himself into.

My mother glanced to Billie and grinned, "hope you know what you're getting yourself into," She laughed, patting his arm, "good luck," she simpled said, walking off to catch up with Morgan and I who had stopped half way up the street when we realised how far behind everyone else was.

"God, you're such slow coaches," I joked, pulling Billie closer with his jacket, forcing him to walk at my pace. I grinned at him, and winked, "come on, we're gonna put on a movie!"

As we all rushed home, Morgan flicked through my DVD cabinet and chose Jurassic Park for us all to watch. My mother decided she was going to head to bed instead of watching Sam Neill evade dinosaurs for 2 hours, which was fine with me--as long as she was happy, so was I.

"I wish I could go there," I said quietly, catching Morgan's attention. I looked to her and continued, "I'd love to see dinosaurs like that... y'know, in real life?"

"Me too," She smiled. "Let's rent a boat and go look for it--I bet it exists," She said with a serious face. "I'm not even joking."

"I know Morgan," I laughed. "I know."

We spent the next two hours huddled together with a bowl of microwave popcorn watching Jurassic Park, once it was over Morgan left with a simple 'night' and a yawn and went to bed, leaving Billie and I sat on the sofa alone together.

That's when realisation hit.

We had slept together last night.

...and we hadn't even talked about it. We hadn't even talked about being a couple apart from when Morgan questioned us. Maybe I was over-thinking it but it had felt like we had carried on like it was normal.

I sighed deeply, stuck in my own thoughts.

"What?" Billie asked, causing me to jump out of them.

I looked to him and pursed my lips, "Last night... did we rush it?"

Billie looked askance at me, so unsure as to why I was questioning last night. "What?" He asked again.

I sighed and looked away. "Nevermind."

"No, go on, I'd like to hear this," Billie said, with a face like thunder.

I looked at him worringly, not quite finding the right words to say. "I... I'm terrible at this relationship thing," I admitted. "I'm not just saying that--and it's a bit of a shock that we jumped from friends to a romance in one night, I guess I'm not fully accustomed to it yet," I looked down shyly, but felt Billie finger tilt my head up.

He smiled askew and kissed me softly. "You're doing just fine," he let his breath linger on my lips before pulling back slowly. "I think all you're accustomed to is the old fashion way of fifty dates and sex after marriage."

"I'm not religious, Billie," I said, furrowing my brow at him. "I know what a relationship is like now, I just didn't want to rush us, I didn't want to get it wrong because I..." I froze. I had to think quick on my feet... I was almost going to blurt out the three worded sentence to him, how stupid could I get? That's almost a forbidden sentence!

"I?" Billie poked, I think already knowing what I was going to say.

"I hold you very dear, Billie, we've known each other for nearly half a year--you're my best friend already, you're... you're amazing. I've never met anyone like you in my life," I admitted truthfully, without going too overboard.

He smiled softly in reply, most likely a little let down I didn't push the relationship fifty steps further. "Same here... I've never met a girl like you before and... I've never felt like this with anyone before," He bit his lip, almost biting back his words. "I knew since the first moment I saw you, and like you... I didn't want to ruin it, I didn't want to rush something and screw it up like normal, I mean hey look at Violet and Tiff."

I giggled at the mention of those names. "Talk about a rebound and a half."

Billie's eyes caught mine for a moment and he sighed. "It was hard... getting over Adrienne, I had been with her a long time, and she was my first love... but it's over, and I only love her for being the mother of my children, nothing more. I have found something much better in my life and I'm not about to let it go."

All of a sudden I felt a warm trickle down my face, when I noticed what it was it was too late--Billie had noticed too. I was crying, but it wasn't sad tears, no, it was happiness. I had never in my life felt this much love from someone apart from my mother.

It felt so warm and secure, it made everything feel so right, and it pushed all the doubts I had into the back of my mind.

It was true.

I had fallen totally and completely in love with Billie Joe Armstrong.
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