It's Not A Question But A Lesson Learned In Time

So Go Do What You Like

As I sat staring at the clock during my fourth period, History, I was well and truly close to falling asleep. The only way I could keep myself awake was by tapping my pen on the table, to familiar beats, a habit I’ve had since I was a little kid and one that still annoys the hell out of everyone around me. My teacher continued to drone on about how Senator McCarthy made a fool out of himself on national television. I mean, don’t get me wrong and call me a loser if you will, but I actually love history, and this stuff about McCarthyism and the Red Scare is actually quite interesting in my opinion, just not the way this woman teaches it. It’s a good job I already know all of this stuff; otherwise my finals in a couple of months are going to be hell.

“Oi!” Someone whispered loudly from behind me, throwing a balled up piece of paper at my head. I turned around to see my best friend, James, grinning at me.
“What?”
“Would you stop with the damn tapping?! That’s what a drum kits for!” he hissed at me, still smiling. “And check out that piece of paper!”
I laughed and nodded, putting my pen down. I picked up the piece of paper from the floor opened it out. It was a flier;

They’re Back!
Green Day play their first gig in over two years!
Do not miss it!
Gilman’s. Friday. 7pm till late!


“What the hell?!” I said loudly before clamping my mouth shut. I don’t know why I bothered, the old bat was still babbling, she hadn’t even noticed the extra noise. I turned back to James, whose eyes were wide. “Where did you find this?” I asked him, talking quietly again.
“It was on the notice board by the entrance.”

I screwed the paper back up and shoved it angrily into my pocket. I went back to staring at the clock, but I was now waiting for the bell to ring because I had to make some enquiries.
When it finally did ring the whole class seemed to shoot towards the door, trying to get out as quickly as possible.
“This cannot be right!” I burst out as soon as James and I were outside the door.
“That’s just what I found.” He shrugged.

I stormed quickly down the corridor and very soon I reached the room I was looking for.
“What the hell is this?!” I exclaimed walking up to the desk at the front of the room, slamming the flier down on it. I had checked there was no one else in the room before I walked in, or that could have been embarrassing. I looked my dad dead in the eye and he just shrugged.
“We thought it would be a good idea.”
“But you swore you wouldn’t do this again. Not after…” I calmed down pretty quickly.
“Look kid. I know it’s still hard. And I know what I said. But we miss performing. Can’t you understand that we used to do it so much, that being on stage in front of loads of people just came so naturally to us, that it’s hard to stay away?”
“You’ve managed this long.” I folded my arms. I knew I was being unreasonable, but he knew the reasoning behind my behavior.
“Ok. Look, why don’t we talk about this later? Do you two want a lift home, or are you going to walk?”
“We might as well get a lift. See you later.” I mumbled, knowing he wasn’t going to talk any more about it now.

James was still waiting outside the room when I left, so we walked off and went to lunch. He was used to these situations, and hell, he was used to the oddness of my family.

So just to put things in perspective: I’m Francesca Armstrong, but I’m normally just called Frankie. I’m 17. And yes, Billie Joe Armstrong is my dad, and I have a younger brother called Joey. My mom died over two years ago. She was killed by two guys who had had a run in with my dad and Tre Cool, at a gig that Green Day was playing. The guys were wrapping up the tour they had been on after they released Warning; that being the last album they released. I don’t really know what happened but the thugs decided to show us that they were pretty pissed at it all, and thought it would get the point across more if they killed her instead of my dad or Tre. So that’s exactly what they did. The guys did get caught about a week later, and they’re both now doing pretty long sentences in jail. It was after that, when the guys decided things were too bad. They swore they would never play another show again, and thus, Green Day was no more. My dad then became a history teacher at my school. This is how I know everything in history already. Well, most of it anyway, I was the one who helped him study during his training. They still jam together and stuff. But they haven’t played a gig or recorded anything since.

Until now apparently. So that’s the reason I’m pissed off.

At the end of school James and I headed back towards my dad’s classroom. He was just packing away some paperwork.
“You kids ready to go then?”
“Guess so.” I mumbled. I was still annoyed at him.

Dad made the usual detour to pick Joey up from school and the proceeded home.
The whole journey home was endured very awkwardly. Joey didn’t notice the tension in the atmosphere, but I suppose being 7 he didn’t really pay much attention to that kind of thing. He was still happily chatting away to dad about his day at school. James sat staring out the window drumming on his legs, while I glared out the front, sinking down in my seat. I know I shouldn’t have been so angry. Maybe I should have even been happy for my dad in a way, because he does deserve to be happy and should be able to move on. It’s just that he promised he would never do it again, and here he is doing the exact opposite.

“Thanks for the ride Mr. Armstrong.” James said as we all climbed out of the car.
“You not sticking around for dinner then?”
“Nah not today thanks. Mum wants me home for tea at least once a week.” He grinned. Dad nodded in understanding and then beckoned for Joey to go inside with him.
“See you later on tonight then James yeah?” I said giving him a hug goodbye.
“Yeah. Give me a ring or something and I’ll head up here, or you can come over mine. Whichever.”

He started walking down the road in the direction of his house, while I followed my dad into the house. He dropped his case on the counter and I just chucked my bag at the foot of the stairs. It’s still so weird seeing my dad like this. I spent fifteen years knowing him as the same punk that never cared about what anyone thought, he wore whatever he wanted, and could act like the idiot he is. But now… now he has to wear appropriate clothes, which, in fairness, still involve black skinny jeans, all black converse, and usually a black buttoned shirt, but he can’t really wear eyeliner to work, which is the weirdest thing to see, and he has to keep his tattoos covered up as much as possible.

He also has to actually act like a responsible adult, and actually teach kids. It’s probably pretty hard though, I mean, the amount of questions he gets asked about being in Green Day is still pretty ridiculous.

No one else really knows the reason Green Day split up. We decided to keep it quiet, we didn’t need any more hassle than we already got, so we told anyone who asked that my mom had been really ill, and that Green Day just had some issues and decided it would be best to split.

The only people that know the truth are me and dad, Tre and Mike because they were all involved, and James because he’s my best friend. I trust him completely and I needed him a hell of a lot when the whole thing was happening, and plus, he practically part of my family and doesn’t just want to be my friend because Billie Joe is my dad.

“Go on then.” He said turning to me, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded. Joey had already run upstairs to his room, like he usually did straight after school. “Scream at me, yell, argue. Do whatever you want. Might as well get it over and done with.”
“I don’t want to argue with you all the time!”
“So what then? That’s what it seemed like earlier. What’s the deal?”
“I don’t want to argue. I just want to know why you’re doing it. You swore you wouldn’t!”
“Listen Frankie, I know you don’t want to. But we’ve got to move on some time! When… when your mom died, I was so devastated. And I know you were too. But Mike, Tre and I gave up our whole lives after that, we gave up our jobs and something that meant so much to us, because your mom meant more. But it’s been over two years, and there’s nothing we can do to change what happened, it just did! We know what we said, but we just miss performing so much!”
“But don’t you remember why you gave it up?!”
“Yes. Because I have never regretted anything more in my life than what happened at that show. But as I said, there’s nothing neither me nor Tre can do to change it. I still miss your mom so much, every day. And there is not a single day that goes by when I don’t think about her, and I never forget how much I loved her, or how much she loved you and Joey. But living in the past is not helping us in any way. That’s why we’re doing this. Ok? We’re trying to be able to move on from it. Not forget about it, but just move on.”
“Then do it some other way. I don’t get why you have to do this!”
“Are you not listening to me?!” he raised his voice slightly. So much for not arguing.
“Of course I am! But why can’t you do it some other way? Because it was doing this exact thing that caused the whole disaster two years ago.” I exclaimed, also raising my voice
“But it won’t be like that this time! We won’t be so stupid this time!”
“You know what. If you feel you have to do it. Fine. Go ahead do it. I don’t care! But don’t expect me to be there.”
“Frankie please don’t.” his voice lowered, and he sounded like he was going to practically beg.
“Don’t what?” I threw my arms up in added emphasis. “Don’t stick to how I feel? I’m sorry dad. But just because you’ve suddenly changed your mind doesn’t mean I’m going to. It’s your fault mom died, and if you think I’m going to be there to watch you start this all over again, then you are so wrong!” I continued to argue at the same volume.

He didn’t say anything to that. I’d never said I blamed my mom’s death on him before. Because to be honest, I didn’t blame him. I know he and Tre probably shouldn’t have such idiots like they were. But they weren’t the ones who killed her. And my dad’s right, it can’t be changed now. I just said it out of anger. I wish I hadn’t. He looked pretty hurt at it. That was it then. I knew the discussion was over.

He picked up his stuff and went downstairs to the basement, where he kept his guitar, without saying anything else to me.
As I walked to the stairs, I picked up my bag and started to go up to my room, I saw Joey’s door shut quickly as I got to the top of the stairs, meaning he had been on the stairs and heard the whole argument. I wanted to go in and talk to him, to make sure he was ok, but I had a feeling it wasn’t me he wanted to talk to. It was our mom. So I thought it would be best to leave him for a little while.

When I was in my room I texted James asking if he still wanted to come over, and to climb up to my window when he got here. My plan was to stay locked in my room for as long as possible, so I didn’t have another run in with my dad. He replied saying that he would be up after he had eaten.
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So yeah... Here's chapter one. I hope it's ok, I'm not very good at starting stories normally so this was the best I could come up with. I'm hoping it will get better as I get further into the story. If you guys could leave comments about it, that'd be great. I'd really appreciate your input.

Cassie x

P.S. In case you didn't know, the chapter title is from When I Come Around.