My Everything

Chapter Four: American Idiot

Today was going to be the best day of my life, I could feel it. I could barley contain myself: which was why I woke up Friday morning at 5:30. I figured it would be too early in the morning to call Emi, or so I thought. About fifteen minutes of lying in bed staring at the ceiling I heard ‘I see you, down on the front line, you’re a sight for sore eyes....’ coming from my cell phone. I picked it up looking at the screen before answering it.

“EMI!” I yelled in a loud whisper. I didn’t want to wake my Aunt. Then I would be dead.

“JEWELS!” was her reply before she fell into a fit of giggles. It sounded to me like she had already had way too much sugar.

“You’re up early Em! I wonder what could have you up this early.” I played dumb but the next thing I knew I thought I was deaf in my left ear for a few minutes.

“ONLY FOR GREEN DAY WOULD I BE UP THIS EARLY!” She yelled.

“I know ONLY FOR GREEN DAY!” I whispered loudly once again. “What time do you wanna leave?”

“Well, it’s about 6:00 now and it only takes us three hours or so to get to St. Louis depending on traffic. Sooo…, how bout 8:00 cause then we could go to the mall to Hot Topic for clothes.” Emi said.

“Ohhh…..Good idea. YAY! I was thinking Hot Topic! I’ve never been able to shop there but I’ve been saving up!” I said happily.

“ME TOO!” Emi screamed. “I’m coming over.” I didn’t even have a chance to reply before she hung up.

“Alrighty then!” I got up and began getting my things together. Hopefully Emi would remember to be quiet when she came in the house. I didn’t pack much, just something to wear to sleep in and something to wear home on Saturday. If I was going shopping I wasn’t gonna pack a lot. I walked into my bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush and was putting it is my bag when I heard the front door slam loudly.

~DAMN IT! ~ I thought. I rushed out of my room running to the living room and smacked Emi on the back of the head.

“DUMB FUCK!” You want to have Aunt Karla yell at us?” I asked Emi before I looked at all her bags. “What are you moving in?”

Emi followed my gaze to her bags by the door and looked back at me. “What? You never know what you’ll need!” I just rolled my eyes and turned around walking back down the hall.

I walked into my room; Emi left her bags in the living room, and followed me. Reaching my room she looked at the bags on my bed. “That’s all your going to take is one bag.”

“Yeah, I’m going shopping up there. I plan on buying a couple outfits. So I don’t need anything else except the essentials.” I replied.

“Well I know one thing you need to do before we can leave.” Emi replied in her know- it- all tone with a smirk on her face.

“What?” I asked confused. I already had everything done. I had no idea what she was talking about.

“GET DRESSED, DUH!” She yelled loudly.

“EMI! You’re going to get me killed!” I said putting my hand over her mouth only to have her lick it. “Ewwww….gross Emi!”

I gave her a look before continuing “You don’t know where my hands have been.” The look on her face was priceless. “Didn’t think about that now did ya?” I walked into my closet and grabbed the clothes I was gonna wear today.

I took a quick shower and got dressed in a hurry. I put on my black dickie shorts with my black Green Day hoodie and my red converses. I left my long black hair down falling down my back showing off my burgundy highlights. I left the bathroom almost running into Emi.

“Nice lip ring.” She said reaching out and touching my lip. I pulled away.

“Don’t touch! It’s new.” I touched it also. It was small silver star. I turned around and grabbed my bags.

“Let’s get out of here!” I said practically running as quietly as I could through the house towards the front door. I reached my jeep realizing that Emi had already been out here and put all her bags in the back. I threw my bag in the back with hers and getting in the car before realizing I forgot to do something.

“SHIT!” I said getting back out of the car and running inside. Once inside I had to search for paper and a pen. Finding some I quickly wrote a note and pinned it to the refrigerator for my Aunt to find.

I ran back outside and jumped in the car and turned it back on and backed out. So our trip had now begun with me driving down the road with ‘Prosthetic Head’ blaring out of my speakers.

Three and a half hours later

“ST. LOUIS! HERE I AM! MISS ME NO LONGER!” Emi yelled leaning far out of her window. I shook my head and grabbed the back of her shirt to keep her from falling and to pull her back in the car.

“Em, I really don’t think that St. Louis cares.” I said this as she started pouting. “Oh, right. You’re not even close to being upset; you couldn’t be upset right now if you wanted too.” I smiled as her as her grin reappeared. “Told you.”

I stepped out of the car only to hear Emi yelling again.

“YAY! LET’S GO FIGHT THE SEA OF POSERS. HATERS AND GASP SHOULD I SAY IT FUCKING PREPPY GIRLS GOING INTO AMERICAN EAGLE!” She was yelling this in a high pitched girlie voice that made her sound like a gay man. It also caused us to get a few glances from aforementioned people. I just shook my head and followed her smiling. My cousin was a crazy, crazy person. I wouldn’t have her any other way.

It actually did take us forever to wade through the sea of people just to get to Hot Topic. The only store we were going too. I knew that I had died and gone to punk heaven. Emi of course went nuts but that’s nothing new. Neither of us has ever been able to afford to buy this stuff. Today was a very special day though. We were in the store for four fucking hours. In the end I bought three outfits and Emi found two. After paying for our purchases we got back in the car and drove to our hotel. That took us thirty minutes considering I got lost downtown.

Once inside we found our room was on the top floor and man was it beautiful with a great view. Walking in the room we found that it was in fact a suite we both got our own rooms.

“Jesus of Suburbia Jewels your mom did well!” Emi said in awe. Suddenly we looked at each other and ran in opposite directions grinning as we reached the beds. Both of us jumped up and down on them for awhile laughing the whole time and yelling “MINE!” over and over again. After we calmed down a bit we ordered room service. We sat there and ate in silence. I could barely believe that this was happening to me of all people. The closer it got to 7:00 the more nervous I became. I was gonna see my hero’s in concert. Of course I would never tell them that they were my hero’s I was only 11 years younger than all of them. I was brought from my thoughts by Emi who had begun talking.

“I’m gonna get ready. You should too, for your first concert. I know that you probably want to look beautiful for BILLIE FUCKING ARMSTRONG.” She yelled the last bit smiling. I would be surprised if people out in the hall didn’t hear her. I got up and walked slowly to my room. “Who knows Jewels you might just get to meet him.” She disappeared into her room.

“Yeah maybe.” I whispered to myself. I walked through my room into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t extraordinary but I wasn’t ugly either. I wore my hair long, it was naturally black to I had added burgundy highlights. I loved it. I had other piercings beside my lip. My nose and my bellybutton: my nose ring was another silver star and my bellybutton ring was a red star. If you couldn’t tell I loved stars. I had piercing bright green eyes that I often had kohl eyeliner around. I put my hand up to the mirror and turned away and went to get dressed.

I grabbed my new black pants that had red straps hanging off of it everywhere. I put my green studded belt on before grabbing my red shirt that had a black star with green lettering that said ‘you pick’em, we wank’em. I had bought the shirt plain with the black star when Emi stole it from me and took it and got the words printed on there. I slipped back into my red converses to complete my look. I waited for Emi and we finally left our room. Missing the three rock stars coming out of their rooms down the hall.

Before we knew it we were handing our tickets over and walking into the venue. We walked down to the front row right in front of the stage.

“Emi!” I said looking at her.

“Yeah?” She answered just looking around the arena taking everything in.

“Pinch me!” She reached over and pinched me right above my elbow.

“Owww….FUCK! You didn’t have to pinch that hard. That’s gonna leave a mark.” I replied rubbing my arm while I looked up at the stage. I just realized that we were going to be right in front of Billie Joe. My arm still hurt from Emi pinching me but at the moment I could care less.

Minutes later the crowed roared as Billie Joe followed closely by Mike and Tre came on stage. I screamed as loud as I could. The music began and I was having a blast. I sang along with all the songs. I sang along with Billie Joe. I cried when he sang ‘Wake me up When September Ends’ and ‘Good Riddance’.

I noticed that Billie had tears in his eyes when he sang both songs. I think I was the only one that paid close enough attention to see that. Billie looked directly at me a few times. Then the unbelievable happened, he gave me, ME, a high-five in the process dropping something at my feet. I looked at him and saw him wink before I bent down to pick it up. It was his guitar pick. I held it in my hands the rest of the night. It wasn’t much longer before the concert was over. I thought it was over much too soon.

I played with the guitar pick in my hand as Emi and I waited for almost everyone to leave before we left ourselves heading to the hotel.

“I’m not tired Emi! I wanna go do something else!” I looked at Emi who had a wicked grin on her face.

“LET’S GO CLUBBING!” She yelled loudly before laughing and saying, “of course I want to take a shower first.” I laughed and grabbed her arm.

We both ran the rest of the way to our room. Reaching our floor we continued running to our room. I didn’t notice who had excited their room down the hall. They had stopped and stared at me as I cussed at my keycard trying to get in the room. Little did I know in about an hour my life would begin to change.