Words I Might Have Ate

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The first couple of weeks at Berkeley pass by in a whirlwind of freshman activities and homework. I was slowly slipping into the routine of classes, breaks and savoring those precious time slots when I could sleep. It had been difficult the first few days and I had truly felt like I couldn’t do it, like I would have been better off staying back in San Diego and working at my job in the library.

But my friends had rallied around me and after a surprise package from home that was filled to bursting with homemade cookies and a long, breezy letter from Mom, my bout of homesickness was appeased. Faye and I made plans to go back home for a visit over a long weekend and I couldn’t be more excited.

Other than that, I was settling into college life quite well. This semester I was taking five classes which brought me up to a credit total of eighteen—it was a lot, but I had waived a fee and opted into an introductory French course. I had taken two years of French in high school, so it would be an easy A for me and I figured it would be a good idea to knock out my language requirements now.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, just after 12. My English 101 class had let out at noon so I was free until 1:30, when I had to be across campus for my Math 101 lecture. I walked Louisa, who took English with me, to her next class before I began my journey back to my dorm. A quick pit stop to the cafeteria so I could grab something to eat was in order before I went back to my room to finish my math homework.

I take the back stairwell up to the third floor where my dorm is situated, munching quietly on my apple. I unlock the door and step into the room. The air conditioner is humming quietly in the window and as I throw both my keys and my textbooks onto my desk, I unconsciously sigh and toe off my sandals so my feet are free.

From across the room I can see my math binder sitting innocently on the floor, nearly half-hidden under the bed. The responsible part of me knows that I have problems that need to be completed if I want to do well on the quiz in class today, but I can’t bring myself to pick up the textbook and do the work.

Instead I find myself sinking down onto my soft mattress and curling up, the bit of apple that I hadn’t finished resting on my nightstand table carefully. I could nap for half-hour or so before I’d get up and somehow muster up the energy to work on at least a few of the problems.

The fan spins listlessly above me and as I watch the blades go about repeatedly, I find my heavy eyes drifting shut. Delicious waves of warm sleepiness are washing over me and I bring the cool sheet up to my chin as I find myself teetering on the edge of consciousness.

Just before I’m about to drift off, there is a loud knock on the door and my eyes crash open. I nearly whimper as I briefly contemplate just ignoring whoever is on the other side in order to nap, but then the knock comes again so I push the blankets back and swing myself out of bed.

I undo the lock before I pull open the door to reveal a pretty girl who I vaguely recognize from seeing down in the canteen a few times. She smiles at me. “Hi, Rilla, right?”

I nod, returning her smile with one of my own. “Yes, I’m Rilla.”

“Cool,” She nods, her long dark hair falling over her shoulder. “You have a visitor downstairs in the lobby.”

My first thought is that it’s Mom making a surprise visit or even Mitchell, since he asked just last week if he could come up and visit. But then I remember that he should be in school and Mom is busy since Miri and Josh came down to San Diego to visit for the week. So I genuinely have no idea who could be waiting downstairs for me.

“Thanks,” I reply, running a hand through my hair absentmindedly. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

She waves before going back down the hallway. I shove my feet into my sandals before I grab my keys and shut the door behind me. It takes me only a few moments to use the front stairs to reach the bottom floor and when I do, I look all around me for someone familiar.

I don’t see anyone—just the security guard stationed by the entrance of the building and the receptionist busy at her desk, aside from the few students lounging around. A wave of disappointment washes over me; I had been looking forward to seeing who came to visit me.

I turn on my heel and prepare to walk back up the stairs when I come face-to-face with a familiar head of blue hair. Unconsciously, I take a step back and a soft ‘oh’ slips out before I realize who is standing before me.

“Hi,” He grins, smiling so widely I get a good view of his crooked teeth. “How are you?”

“I’m alright,” I say slowly, feeling thoroughly confused. I haven’t seen him in nearly three weeks, since I left his apartment in the early morning. The last thing I had seen was him sleeping on the sofa, cocooned up tightly in the blankets with that sweet, serene smile on his face. “I’m not trying to be mean or anything, but why are you here? How did you find me?”

He looks amused, shrugging his shoulders and shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’m not stupid, I can work an information desk—I had no idea your full name is Marilla.”

“Who told you that?” I ask immediately, tipping my head to one side as I gaze up at him. I rarely told anyone my proper name—it was an old family name and though naming me after my great-grandmother was a sweet gesture, my name itself proved to be quite a thorn in my side throughout grade school. Kids are terribly cruel, especially when it comes to things they don’t understand.

Billie smiles and the corners of his eyes crinkle up adorably. “The kid working at the welcome center did. It’s a pretty name.”

This takes me by surprise. I close my mouth slowly; I had been fully prepared to go on the defensive and stand up for my name. “Thank you,” I reply quietly, laughing a bit as I tuck some hair back behind my ear. “I was about to defend it if you’d said something—“

“My full name is Billie Joe,” He interrupts me, a crooked smile appearing. “Not William Joseph and not as two separate names—it’s all one name: Billie Joe Armstrong. So I’m in no position to make fun of anyone else’s name.”

“Billie Joe,” I murmur, rolling the words over my tongue fluidly. Finally I nod, a shy grin dancing on my lips. “It suits you.”

He laughs, glancing all around him. But he makes no effort to speak and I wonder briefly what he was doing here on campus. It’s not like he had any reason to be—he was a high school dropout. And as if he were reading my mind, he ducks his head a bit. “You spelled my name wrong.”

“I’m sorry?” I wrinkle my nose in confusion. I hadn’t written his name down anywhere, all I had been doing was speaking. Maybe he was on something—I’d have to be stupid to not be aware of the fact that he and both of his friends did copious amounts of drugs. So it wasn’t unlikely that he took something and was having a bad trip. It would explain why he was suddenly on campus without any apparent explanation.

Billie’s eyes sparkle in the artificial light and he removes his hands from his pockets, crossing them over his chest easily. “That note you wrote and left for me on my bed—you spelled my name wrong.”

My mind scrambles to recall what exactly I had written on that note. That night seemed like it happened years ago in my head and I can’t remember what I had wrote. I’d spelt his name Billy—was there really any other way with which to spell the name? “B-I-L-L-Y,” I say slowly, looking up at him from under my eyelashes, confusion coloring my words.

He shakes his head and that infuriating smirk lights up his face. “B-I-L-L-I-E. No –y at the end,” He makes a vague motion with his hands as he speaks. “My mom was that drugged out when I was born. I’m well aware of the fact that it’s how girls spell their names.” He makes a disgusted face. “I fully blame my mother for that.”

“So,” I draw the word out. “You came all the way to my campus, went through all the trouble of finding my name in the data base and then find out which dorm I’m living in just to tell me that I spelled your name wrong in a note that I left you three weeks ago?”

His face remains difficult for me to read; he looks completely uninterested in the fact that I made him sound psycho and extremely stalkerish. “Well yeah, but also because you left without saying a proper goodbye to me.”

This guy has to be insane. Why else would he go through all the trouble of finding me? Who cares if I spelled his name wrong in a little thank-you note and who cares if I wasn’t able to say goodbye to him when I left? He was passed out, I wasn’t about to wake him up just to say two words to him—especially when everything I had to say to him was already down in ink on the paper.

I give him a slow nod, already mentally wondering how I could politely excuse myself from this conversation without setting him off completely. Where were my friends when I needed them? “Okay then,” My laugh comes out as strangled and rather high-pitched. Surely if he tried anything, the security guard would come to my assistance. “So you just want a goodbye?”

He nods and the smile on his face seems a bit too serene and more deranged now. He’s watching me closely, clearly enjoying how much he’s making me squirm uncomfortably. I can only imagine what’s running through his head. He honestly hadn’t come off as weird the other times I had run into him and normally I was pretty good at deciphering people.

“Alright, so,” I make a halfhearted attempt at a wave. “Bye then.”

“Bye,” Billie replies cheerfully, his eyes glittering mischievously.

I turn slowly on my heel and start to walk towards the stairs, well aware of the fact that his gaze is burning into the back of my head. Just when my hand reaches out and grabs the handle to the door, I hear him speak again.

“Hey Red.”

He was using the nickname he had given me weeks ago at the beach party. Surprisingly, my heart flutters in my chest and I find myself smiling because of the fact that he remembered our conversation that vividly.

I turn and look at him from over my shoulder. “Yes?”

“I also came because I-I finished my book,” He looks down at the ground, scuffing the floor with the toe of his worn-out Converse. He looks back up at me and he looks unbelievably proud of himself. “And I wanted to let you know that you were right—Holden didn’t disappoint me. I loved the book. It-it,” He hesitates as he searches for the right words to say. “It was amazing and I’m really glad that you made me finish it.”

“I made you finish it?” I raise an eyebrow up at his words and I slowly let go of the handle so the door shuts by itself back into place. “How did I make you finish?”

He shrugs, a lopsided grin appearing on his face. “I wasn’t going to finish the book at all honestly. We just signed that recording contract and now that my band’s taking off, I didn’t see the point of me spending my valuable time reading when I could be using it to work on our album. I don’t know how to explain it—you said he wouldn’t disappoint and you seem like you know your literature really well. I trusted you and I’m glad that I did.” He trails off at the end and a faint hint of color darts over his face, like he was embarrassed that he had let himself go on for so long without filtering any of his thoughts. “So I guess the real reason I went through all that trouble to find you on this campus is because I wanted to thank you. I never would have done it without you.” Finally he shrugs and a quiet, unamused laugh slips out before he turns and starts to walk towards the exit.

I’m well aware of the few students that were in the lobby are watching me curiously. It wasn’t every day that one saw a blue-haired guy with a worn Ramones shirt invade the dorm housing and talk to an unassuming freshman.

I watch as he pushes open the glass doors and steps out into the bright Californian sun. He seems to stop for a moment and soak up the sunlight hungrily before he rummages through the pockets in his pants and pulls out a crushed package. He lights up and exhales, the smoke hanging around his face briefly before he waves it away and shoves his hands in his pockets. And he leans into the summer breeze as he starts to walk away from the building.

I wonder briefly if he had walked all the way to Berkeley University from his apartment—it was quite a long walk—before I hurry across the polished tiled floor and fling open the doors. I know I’m most likely earning myself the title of crazy freshman girl, but something inside compels me to walk after Billie. Because I can’t just let him walk away thinking that I don’t care.

“Billie,” I shout but my words get carried away in the wind. Heady waves of desperation wash over me as that familiar head of blue hair starts to blend in with the rest of the students milling about campus busily. There is no way he’ll hear me over the drone of their voices.

I take off running, the cool steely sting of my keys biting into the palm of my hand as I grip them tightly barely distract me. I run straight through a mini cluster of students until I very nearly collide with a kid on a bike.

“Billie!” I cup my hands around my mouth and he pauses on the curb, looking around him curiously for the source of his name. “Billie,” I call out again, my footsteps thundering on the concrete as I come to a rather ungraceful stop next to him, clutching at his bare arm.

He tenses at the sudden skin contact but he relaxes once he realizes that it’s just me holding on to him tightly. An amused smile lights up his face as he takes his cigarette out of his mouth and blows his smoke over my head. “Red, what are you doing?”

I open my mouth to explain that I really had no idea why I came after him, that I should have stayed back in the dorm and gone up to my room to work on my math homework. But I take one look into his green eyes and all of that fades away into oblivion. “I wanted to know if you’d like to talk about the book with me,” I pause when I see the look on his face and I know he’s probably never properly discussed literature with someone willingly. “I don’t know, it was just a thought. Maybe if you have any questions, I can answer them or-or talk about them with you or something.”