Billie Joe Armstrong Is My Step-Father...and I Hate It

I sat on my bed, staring at the photograph in front of me. It was of my family, minus Hollie, because she wasn’t born. I gripped my dads arm, my smile wide and Kage was barely one, sleeping in mums arms. Dad looked happy. Mum looked happy. Kage was asleep but he looked happy. I looked happy. Now it seemed everyone was happy except me. I scowled deeper when I thought of how that prick was moving in and replacing my dad. I pictured him there, dominating my family, with Hollie perched on one arm and she was crying and his two wretched sons standing there, smirking. And mum standing there,wondering what the hell she had married. Kage was hiding behind my mums leg. And as for me... oh, he had long since gotten rid of me.

It seemed a little drastic but I always managed to persuade myself that is what will happen. I took my gaze off the picture to fall onto the one of me, five years old, scooped in my dads arms. I picked it up to look at it, deeper. Just like mum, dad was one of the best looking guys and women could dream of coming across. His smile was brilliant, his teeth pearly white. His blue eyes sparkling in the sun from the picture and I was grinning, my arms wrapped around his neck. But dad was gone now. Dead and gone. It almost seemed there was a gaping hole in the picture. Dad never got to see Hollie. And it seemed all the poor girl ever seen was that dickhead, Billie Joe Armstrong. She was being tricked into his mercy because she doesn’t know any better, she doesn’t know that he’s replacing her own blood father so she trusts this fucker to give her the fatherly care she needs. My fingers trembled as I held the phtot of me and my dad in my hands and I felt myself well up. How dare he just walk into our lives and be preapred to dictate it?! How fucking dare he?!

I looked up at the celtic dress hanging in my wardrobe and I gave a watery smile. Dad was Irish, and he was always damn proud of it. He paid for Irish Dnacing lessons for me. I didn’t like them at first but I learned to love them after he persuaded me to give it a real go. Now I can kick higher and stronger than ever before. Good. Won’t that give Billie Joe a surprise? Someday, I will kick him straight where it hurts for guys. And I have a mighty kick. My dad was always drawing celtic designs, coz he was an artist. I keep his sketch pad in my drawer. I took it out. I love flicking the pages and absorbing his charchole or pencil drawings. Kage follows in his artistic ways, I could tell. Kage always came out with these strange designs after school made from tiolet-paper rolls, milk bottles and markers whilst the other kids came out with shit like rockets or retarded looking aliens. Dad drew all sorts of things. Celtic designs, he was fond of drawing foxes and he drew us too. I loved looking at the ones he drew of mum. She was laughing in most of them. In others she was cooking, and then on the next page, she would have turned around, ordering him to stop drawing her. She would be bottle feeding Kage, playing with me little me, doing her hair and so on. He was fond of drawing mum. He ran out of pages in his sketch pad so there was loose pages flocking it. There was plenty of me Irish dancing, my legs kicked high, my hair flowing and that wide grin on my face. He told me he always felt so proud when he saw me dance. There was a picture of me inside a celtic design, flaunting my celtic dress.

Suddenly, I heard his awful voice downstairs, talking to Hollie, who squealed with laughter at whatever he said. I winced at her laughing. I wanted to scream at him that he was a drug addict, an alcoholic, a traitor, he wasn’t even worth shit over dad and that he doesn’t deserve my mother. I wanted to tell his sons that. I knew everything and anythign about Green day due to my past addiction. Although, now, I despise them due to... you-know-who. His name was a taboo to me. Billie Joe Armstrong. It was almost a curse. A curse sent from God to punish me for something. I knew everything about Billie Joe. He did drugs. Did. Not anymore. But still, just as bad! What makes him think a past-druggie can just waltz in and charm my sweet, flawless mother?! The thought of it made my blood curdle. I felt sorry for Adrienne, she should be celebrating to get rid of him. I wish I was celebrating with him but now her disease has passed onto this family.

I got off bed, unable to think about it any longer. I couldn’t bare to think of dad being forgotten about while Billie basked in his limelight. I walked towards my wardrobe and felt my celtic dress, feeling the sequins against my fingers. I took the dress out and knelt on the floor, spreading it out in front of me. I looked at it. Dad told me a story about my celtic dress when I was little. He told me each sequin was sowed on by Irish lepricuans, using sharpened clover stems and a pot of the finest gold to put the sparkle in the sequins. I would ask why it was my dress the toiled over. He always smiled at said it was because I was so unique and brilliant, they had to make a dress specially made for me.

“Get back here with my gutair!” Hell was breaking loose. Kage laughed and I heard two people running upstairs, laughing. Kage ran past my door, a gutair gripped in his hands and Billie was running after him. However, he back tracked and stopped at my door. I didn’t look at him. I was too busy tracing the sequin patterns with my fingers.

“Celtic?” he asked. I glared at him, daring him to explain why he asked. “I recognize it. I was in Ireland once. Why have you got a celtic dress?”

“My dad was Irish” I seethed, glaring at him even more. “He got me into Irish dancing.”

“Hm, really? Isn’t that all high kicking stuff?” he asked. I convinced myself he was pretending to be interested... even if he did geniually sound it.

“... yes” I said. “And if you don’t leave, I’ll kick YOU somewhere.”

“Ow” he winced. “Oh, and... you wouldn’t happen to have a spare bed, would you?”

“Why? You and mum have a tiff?” I asked, hopefully.

“Nah, Joey and Jakob are coming over for a bit.” I nearly screamed in horror. Having one of them was bad enough. I stood up slowly.

“They’re not coming in my house...” I snarled, in a deadly voice. “No. Never.”

“Shame, coz me and your mum are really serious about stuff” he said. I wasn’t sure if he was provoking me on purpose. “She wants me to move in.” I stood there, shaking, my glare turning into a shocked face of hurt. Now he was living like dad. Like my dad. No. No, no, NO! But I couldn’t speak. He lost his smile. “I know what it’s like, Gracie.”

“Don’t call me-!”

“To have some total stranger walk into your house and take over for the one person you loved most and watch it explode into disaster? I’ve been there. And I didn’t deal with it very well” he said. I looked at him.

“I know that” I snarled. “Your dad died when you were ten. But if you thought you were close to you dad, you haven’t seen anything.”

“Grace, I...” He trailed off, with a sigh. “If I could change things for you, I would. Sometimes, even I wish I wasn’t alive. But I love your mum. And I really think she’s special. And I love those two little guys, even if one of them does steal my things. And I like you, Grace.”

“WELL I DON’T LIKE YOU!” I screamed. “I HATE YOU! WHY ARE YOU HERE ANYWAY?!”

“Coz-!”

“Coz mum ASKED you?! She isn’t thinking straight! She just lost the love of her life, she doesn’t KNOW! You’re-you’re-you’re just a MISTAKE! You fucking druggie, do you even know what you’re doing to this family?! You’re gonna destroy it! Your gonna get mum on the cigerettes, Hollie will grow up smoking crack coz of YOU!” I yelled. He was silent. Good. I finally got to him. Then he smiled at me. What...? WHAT?! “Wh-what are you laughing at?!”

“You’re just... cute” he said, smiling at me. “Yenno, you can hate me but don’t hate my boys coz I’m their father.” I huffed, turning away from him. “And they’re coming over here for a while. I knew you’d take it this way, so that’s why I wasn’t surprised with your outbursts.” I didn’t say anything. “Now c’mon. I’m dropping you off at your dancing lessons today and afterwards, we’re picking up the boys. So you best get ready and- HEY! Don’t do that, you’ll break the strings!” He ran off after hearing Kage trying to play his gutair. Poor Kage was tone deaf. Artistic, but tone deaf.

I sat there. Oh Lord, now he was driving me to my dancing lessons. I heard mum talking to him after five minutes and he giggled about something he said. Then I heard her kiss him. I felt my stomach churn. I looked at the picture of me and dad again. He wasn’t there anymore. It was all about Billie now. Hollie loved him, Kage loved him, mum adored him... It seemed that everyone was happy but me. I was alone, lost in my own little world of hate, loathing and misery.

And if being found meant being with him all my life, I was happy to stay there, drowning in my depression and anger.