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

“Are you sure you don’t want to wash out frist? You smell... really bad” Joey said. I hated to admit it, but he was right. I stunk of raw eggs and paint. And together as a combination, it was terrible. Not that I cared what Joey thought of me much, though. But I did worry on what his friend will think. They’ll probably think I’m a homless girl he dragged off the street for drugs or something. I could try to explain I suppose. Joey did say he hated Jessica, the probability these guys hated her too were pretty high. Or at least I hoped so.

“Does it matter what I smell like?” I asked. “We need to be back by seven or something, we have to babysit Hollie and Kage tonight. I have to anyway but I’m not doing it alone.”

“Why? Scared of the dark?” he sneered. I narrowed my eyes. He was just like Billie Joe. A sneering, sarcastic dickhead... the type I hated.OK, yea, he wasn’t dim like the football team. Nor did he take steroids. And he probably didn’t fuck girls and ditch them the next day either. But I still hated him. I mean... he’s the son of Billie Joe Armstrong. I’m pretty much entitled to hate him. It would just be out of order if I didn’t.

“I am not scared of the fucking dark” I muttered.

“But you were, right? C’mon, everyone was afraid of the dark once!” Joey said, smiling at me.

“... no” I said, as if it were the most stupid question to reach human ears. “Kage was never scared of the dark, niether was Hollie. And my cousin Jane loves the dark since she was an infant.” Joey was silent. “Why, are you scared of the dark?”

“Hell no!”

“But you were, right?” I said, putting on a painfully innocent voice and batting my eyelashes like Jessica would. “C’mon, everyone was afra-!”

“Oh, shut it, Grace” he said. I cackled in amusement before frowning instantly. A crowd of teenagers, defintely around my age, stood leaning against a different wall (not the preppy God wall), talking about something.

“Is that them?” I asked.

“Yea. Come meet them!” I was dragged away a bit too fast for my liking. His hand kept slipping off my wrist due to the raw egg and paint but he always grabbed it again never-the-less. About five seconds passed for me to think of something witty and sensible to say.

“Hey guys, this is Grace!” Joey announced.

O.K Grace... this is your big shot. Just... go ahead. Think before you speak, what are you gonna say...

“I’m covered in egg” I said, blankly.

You fucking dipshit.

“... right” one said, quite strangely.

“So, you’re Samia’s daughter?” the girl asked, with a slight smile. At least she was nice.

“Yea. Grace Reict” I answered.

“Grace, this is Leon”, he pointed to a boy with blue hilights in his hair who was busy trying to open a can of... whatever, “John”, he signalled out another boy, who was taller then Leon with dark brown hair and hazel eyes, “That’s JJ” he gave another wave of a hand at another boy, possibly the tougher out of all of them who had pitch black hair with mismatching blue eyes, “and that over there is Rosalette.” The girl who had spoken to me smiled and waved. She had dirty blonde hair with green eyes. Green eyes. I tried not to make any sign that I knew her eyes were the same shade of green as Billie’s.

“Hey” I said. I got a mixed answer of greetings back, including a “hm” from JJ. I stood there for a while, noticing Leon looking at me now.

After a moment of silence, he sighed and said, “Look, I’m just gonna ask what everyone else is thinking, why are you covered in egg and paint?”

“Jessica” Joey and I replied, both at the same time. Spooky. We caught each others gaze before snapping are sight away from each other.

“Did I just sense a moment happening there?” John asked.

“Oh, fuck off” Joey muttered. Joey looked alpha here. Looked. Well, behind JJ anyway but hey, he was Billie Joe Armstrong’s, the lead singer of fucking GREEN DAY, son so it was only natural.

“Jessica, huh? She’s a fucking whelp, that bitch” Leon answered, gruffly. “She acts tough but when you confront her she goes and cries to the ‘man of the day’ to go beat you up.”

“You must’ve done something to piss her off” Rosalette asked.

“She’s a cheerleading reject” John said, looking at her. “Honestly. She was in the squad for this many months.” He held up four fingers. “But they kicked her out when she walked into practises not dressed in barbie clothing.”

“True story” Rosalette said. “Jessica said I wasn’t worthy and she told the coach I quit.”

“You hated it anyway” Leon said.

“Yea, well” she shrugged. “It was either that or you guys and fuck, I would hate to be Jessica’s friend after... yenno...” She inhaled through gritted teeth before shaking her head. I had a good feeling

I knew what she was talking about. Beth was Jessica’s right hand cronie. Jessica slept with her boyfriend and Beth confronted her about it and told everyone Jessica stuffed her bra, fucked boys in the school bathrooms and that she ate McDonalds every day but stuffs her two fingers down her throat to cough it up. Jessica made sure she was rid off. She made Beth’s life a living hell. She black mailed her, spread rumours, kicked her off the squad, made sure every boy hated her and the dedicated that pathetic “loser” chant cheerleaders do on one of their games. After that, Beth was reduced to a sniffling, shaking and paranoid wreck. No one knew her name anymore. She barely went out either.

“Jessica is a nasty piece of work” Joey agreed, nodding. “See what she did to Grace? All because she pushed her.”

“She has worse coming” JJ sneered. “No one can make themselves THAT happy like that for very long if you know what I mean. She’s gonna have a downfall. Every queen has to give up their crown someday.”

“Isn’t that Joey’s jacket?” Leon asked me. An awkward silence fell.

“She was squirted with water too, she was cold, what was I supposed to do, let her freeze?!” Joey exclaimed, noticing JJ’s and John’s weird stares they were giving him.

“Good enough excuse” John said, shrugging. JJ was slow on drawing back but he did so eventually.

“Don’t blame you. Grace is a pretty sweet piece of work” JJ said, giving me a grin that I figured was intended to be sexy. It wasn’t. It made him look like a perveted pedophile. I handed Joey back his jacket. I didn’t need it anymore.

Two hours passed by. Rosalette chatted to me non-stop about high school and how much it sucked ass, Leon liked to gloat to me about his record of whores he fucked, JJ enjoyed hitting and perving all over me and John seemed to have the same music tastes as me. All in all, they were pretty awesome people. Well... JJ was a little creepy, alright, but he was funny. I just wasn’t appealed to him in the way he would like. After another hour, Rosalette suggested we get chips or something. So, we did. John and JJ got into a “heated discussion” (and by that I meant basically insulting each other if they thought differently) about which was better, coke or pepsi. For once, I actually felt included in something. For once, I was enjoying someone else’s company. It was almost like Billie wasn’t even there anymore. He was gone, away, I was free from him. Even Rosalette’s eyes didn’t remind me of him. My confidence was up and I actually liked these people. I haven’t felt that way since I was ten. Now, Billie didn’t exsist. Now, the love between him and mum didn’t exsist. At that moment, my dad was still alive and I was in a happy lifestyle. However, this soon came to a halt at half seven.

Joey grabbed my arm as I walked alongside Rosalette and John, talking about whether we thought Lady Gaga was a man or not. I turned to look at him. “What do you want, Joey?”

“It’s half seven, we better be getting back” Joey said. I checked my watch. He was right, half seven.

I didn’t want to go back to the life where I was living under the gaze of Billie Joe. I didn’t want to get back to being miserable. I was happy here. I frowned at my watch before frowning at him. “We can wait fifteen minutes.”

“No, we have to be THERE, Grace. What, do you think Jake will be fine on his own, you clearly don’t know him that well!”

“Why, gonna be late for you bedtime, Joey?” JJ cackled, with a sharp smirk. I laughed along with him for a while before meeting Joey’s stare. Woo, if looks could kill...

“Jeez, fine, I’ll go” I said, frowning again. “See you guys later.”

“Oh, defintely” JJ said. “See you later, sexy.” I raised an eyebrow.

“WAIT!” Rosalette grabbed my arm when I began to walk off. “Do you have a mobile phone?”

“Yes...”

“Where is it?”

“Home.”

“Ohhh, fuck, why?! No matter” she said, adding on a really bad fake english accent on the words ‘no matter’. She pulled out a black pen from her jacket and wrote her number down on my arm. “Text me your number and I’ll give it to the rest of the guys. None of these shitheads remember their number.”

“It’s a bunch of numbers in a line, it’s so confusing!” Leon stressed. “How does anyone remember that?”

“See you later” I said, as Joey began to pull me off. I over heard Rosalette answer Leon’s question.

“Females can, because we are the ultimate gender.” I smiled back before looking ahead as Joey turned a corner.

“What’s with the rush?” I asked. “I need to sneak through my bedroom window or something.”

“Or you can let the rain clean you off” Joey spoke and the sky began to spit at us from above. I looked up. The clouds were eerily dark and a few rain drops were falling before they began to multiply rapidly. It was harsh, cold rain. We stopped running for a moment to take in this new weather change. It was still rather humid. “Here, take it back.” He took off his jacket again and wrapped it around me again.

“I don’t want your jacket” I hissed, trying to struggle. Suddenly, his face was in front of mine. Only millimetres apart. And for one moment... for one slow, dragging moment, I though he was going to kiss me. I tried to tell myself that the fluttering in my stomach was disgust. We were standing out there in the rain. It would’ve been a perfect kiss... that is, if I liked him. Which you DO NOT! I thought to myself. He didn’t kiss me. He left his jacket around me and backed off a bit. I stood there, transfixed. He seemed just as shooken up from the moment as me and he looked away hastily.

“C’mon, we better get out of this rain” he said. We ran down the road to the familar house at the end of the block. With all that happened I ran through the front door, forgetting I was covered in now freshly wet paint and eggs. A tiny part of me wanted to slip back... wanted to slip back to feel his arms around my waist...

Um... EW!

“Grace? Is that you?” mum called from the kitchen. I looked down, striking me that I was still covered in egg.

“Yea, gonna take a shower, bye!” I said, running upstairs as fast of possible, after flinging Joey’s jacket back at him.

Shit. That was an awkward few minutes. A very... very awkward few minutes.