Pieces of Truth

When I got off work I quickly dealt with the flowers then I went to the house. I walked in the front door, setting my keys and backpack on a table in the entryway.

"Grace, is that you?" Billie appeared from the kitchen.

"Oh, so it's Grace again?" I asked, making sure to keep my distance. I wanted my body language to mirror my uncertainty. Billie picked up on it like I knew he would.

"Yeah. That's what I wanted to talk about," he sighed, "I was an asshole."

"That's putting it lightly," I told him, "You called me a whore."

"I know.. I'm really, really sorry. I have no idea why, but I was in the worst mood last week. I can be mean, but I was nasty to you." He really didn't understand why he behaved like he did.

"But then when you left after we fought… Something happened. I just- I had this creative burst. I've spent the whole week in the basement writing." He tried to explain what had changed to get his sudden explosion of creativity. Billie's eyes had gone wide and I saw that he was excited to have such a huge thing happen for him like that.

"So basically right before you get super creative, you turn into Captain Dickhead?" I wanted to try and understand a little better.

"I guess." He shrugged, then looked like he just remembered something important.

"Oh, I forgot! Come with me!" Billie grabbed my hand suddenly, leading me into the basement.

"What's going on?" Then I saw a guitar that I had never seen before, just sitting there with a red bow on the neck.

"I just had to make sure that we're ok, so.. This is for you! Ta da!" He smiled, presenting the gorgeous, dark sunburst guitar like he was Vanna White.

I was afraid to pick it up because I knew what it was.

"This is a 1962 Fender Strat… Who did you have to kill to get this?" These guitars were rare and didn't come cheap.

"I came into some money. Let's not talk about who's cold, dead hands I had to pry the thing from though." Billie was grinning. "So do you like it?"

"I love it! I'm just curious. You 'came into some money'?"

"Our video for Longview aired on MTV a while ago and our records have been flying off the shelves. We don't have to worry about any bills or anything now." He was simply beaming, which put a huge smile on my face.

"No way! That's amazing. I told you everything would work out."

"Yeah, yeah. You don't have to rub it in," he said, giving me a kiss.

Billie Joe was making it increasingly difficult to be mad at him.

"God, how do you do that?" I groaned as I pulled away.

"Do what?" he asked with a smirk.

"You're amazing at apologizing for being an asshole." This made him frown, despite my laughter.

"I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult, but I'll take it."

"So I went and looked over the flower arrangements and finalized the order. We're locked and loaded for this wedding."

"It's almost a month away, huh?" he realized.

"Yeah. Are you ready?" I picked up the new guitar and plucked the bow off of it, sticking it on Billie's head.

"That looks like it was made for you," he told me, pulling a pick out of his back pocket and handing it to me.

"I'm still mad at you, you know." I strummed each string to tune, reveling in its lovely sound.

"What? Why?!" I had totally surprised him.

"Don't think that a nice guitar and a few kisses is going to make up for the things you said to me."

"But… I apologized! You smiled, so I assumed…"

"Assuming makes an ass out of you and me. You assumed that I was out messing with some guy. What you didn't know is that John is gay."

"Oh… Wow. Yeah. Definitely didn't know that. But when I heard that you were out with some dude, the first thing that comes to mind isn't, 'oh he's probably gay.'" Billie defended himself.

"Look, I don't want to bicker with you."

"What do you want to do then?"

"I don't know. Jam?" I suggested, making him smile.

I have no idea how we do it, but time and time again we go from arguing, fighting and ignoring each other to laughing, joking around and playing music together.

That usually leads to make up sex, but tonight was different. Billie Joe was being extremely shy, which was nothing unusual because he sometimes is.

"What's going on with you? Most of the time you're more than ready to go. I get that you can be shy and sometimes I am too, you know that."

"Mmhmm. I just don't feel up to it tonight, y'know?" His shrug said it all. "It's nothing that you're doing, trust me. I'm totally drained though."

"That's fine. I'm gonna have some ice cream down stairs. Want to join me?" Billie nodded enthusiastically, so we went down to the kitchen.

It was amazing how much Billie's demeanor had changed after regaining financial stability. He never worried about it before, but now he was slowly becoming more and more responsible. It surprised me, actually.

Dookie had been literally flying off the shelves at Amoeba and across the country as well. The last week of March the guys filmed a video for When I Come Around, and they had a shoot planned in mid April for Basket Case.

Their video for Longview was constantly playing on MTV and Green Day's popularity was growing exponentially. It was fascinating to see all of their hard work paying off.

A few days before the shoot, Billie was out doing what he does and I was working on a few papers to turn in before taking finals. I was so close to being a college graduate that I couldn't stand waiting for graduation anymore.

Staring down at the paper I was currently working on, my brain was fried. I heard the front door open and I tossed my pencil onto my desk. I went down to the top of the stairs and slid down the railing, meeting Billie halfway down.

"Woah there!" His face lit up with laughter as he handed me the bouquet of sunflowers he had been holding.

"Thank you, Beej!" I wrapped my arms around his neck for a hug and gave him a kiss. "What made you decide to bring me flowers?"

"You've been busy with school lately… I just wanted to see you smile," he answered earnestly, making me grin.

"That's really sweet of you. It means a lot. I'm going to put these in water!"

"Don't forget to put the food packet in there. The lady at the store said it keeps them alive longer," Billie called as I reached the landing of the ground floor.

I put the flowers in a vase and made sure to put the plant food in too, then Billie came down into the kitchen.

"You got a haircut," I noticed, nodding at it in approval.

"Yep! It was bothering me," he laughed, running his hand through his hair.

"What did you do while you were you?" I tried to make conversation.

"I met with the guys. We're doing a tour starting May 20th, then we got invited to play at Woodstock '94 in August." Billie's nonchalant manner never ceased to amaze me.

"No way! That's awesome!" I grabbed two Coronas out of the fridge, sliding one across to Billie.

Mike and Tre came over later that day to brainstorm for their upcoming video shoot. We were all either in the pool or jacuzzi and they were coming up a little short on ideas.

"So this is obviously taking place in a mental institution." I was floating around on an inflatable chair.

"Yeah…" Mike nodded from the hot tub.

"Do some cool color thing. Have 'patients' in black and white, but you three should be in color or something." I suggested something off the top of my head and shrugged, "Mark Kohr should be able to make it happen."

Mark had directed their previous videos and they liked working with him.

"Grace, why don't you just direct all of our videos?" Tre made me blush.

"I'd give it a try but I wouldn't want to fail your vision!"

"You're pretty in tune with our point of view…" Billie tipped my float over and dumped me into the pool. When I surfaced from under the cool water, I splashed him.

"Just for that, I'm keeping my mouth shut at the shoot!"

"Damn it, Billie. Way to go," Tre groaned, getting out of the pool and backing up a bit.

"Oh no," Mike let out, then Tre came running toward the deep end of the pool.

"CANNON BALL!" Tre let out a yell as he hurled himself into the pool, creating a tsunami of waves, nearly drowning Billie and myself because we couldn't float and control our laughter at the same time.