One For The Razorbacks

He actually tried to ignore her, he did try with all his might. But he couldn't help it; he had to glance at her once in a while. She was simply acting pathetic, trying to dance to his music, but too drunk to be even knowing of what she was doing or listening to.
"I cannot call this sane, I cannot call this sane.."

When he was halfway into the interlude, he noticed Armstrong walking inside the dim lit room.
He was drunk.
He noticed Maria dancing halfway in to the crowd, and sneaked up to her from behind. Billie raised his eyebrows as he saw Armstrong snaking his arms around her waist, receiving a jump from her. She seemed startled as she turned around, but smiled drunkenly at him as she kissed his face.
Billie broke in to a guitar solo and decided to leave it that way, the crowd went insane and he smirked at all the turn of events.
If Maria only knew what kind of guy he was, she would never let him do such things to her. But he guessed she was just trying to find out everything that she wanted for herself. She didn't look like the girl that took other people's advices. She was probably extremely stubborn just like himself.

"I find it hard to be myself, can you please explain?
And I do not think that it's my health, you're the one to blame."

Armstrong whispered something in her ear and she glared at him. He then tried to drag her out of Gilman but she clearly had other plans in mind and pushed him away from her instead while she turned away. He seemed angry and abruptly spun her back around to face him as his fingers dug in to her flesh. He started to yell at her while using his hands, but she didn't want to hear it as she shot him a glare and squirmed her way out of his death grip. Then she walked away from him yelling a few profanities in his direction that Billie didn't catch.
"Can we find a way?"

She wavered away from him as he angrily clenched his fists, trembling because of the adrenaline that rushed throughout his body. Billie could almost see steam emerging out of his ears, and wondered what it was about that made him this angry.
He started to walk after her, but she clearly didn’t notice it. He quickly grabbed her wrist and spun her around again.
"So that you can stay."

She slapped him in the face and he staggered a few steps backwards, only to shoot a glare at her and walk away. Maria stared after him and walked to the back of the building, out the back door.
Billie tried to hide the grin that was forming smugly on his lips.
"I think I'm gonna pop!"

The crowd cheered and whistled at them and Billie felt proud.
Proud of his song, of his guitar play, his band mates and Maria.
"Okay you guys we're going to have a five minute break we're back at you in a few." He said in to the microphone and a few people started to clap.
Billie took a swig of his beer and told Mike he was going out for a smoke and some fresh air in the back. When Mike told him that smoking wasn't exactly providing yourself with fresh air, he chuckled and walked off stage.

*

Juliette wasn't in the mood for anything except for drinking and smoking. She was standing outside with a cigarette pressed between her fingers in one hand, and a beer clenched in the other.
She thought of Tim, he took her to Gilman in his car. But then he somehow had changed his mind after all anyway, and forced her to come back home with him as soon as they got here. She felt disgusted and angry, since she seemed to have figured him out. He only wanted her body, which was fine in the first place, but he also told her he didn't want to use a girl with memory loss; and now he was basically ignoring his own beliefs.
And that was just plain wrong in her ears.

Also, she kept having flashbacks of her memory for the past few minutes, ever since she stepped outside of the building.
She was dancing almost naked on a stage in a red light that made her skin glow, she was getting hit by an elder man over and over again, and she covered her bruises with make-up after wards listening to music with a rapid beat. Juliette didn't know much about being drunk and getting her memory back, but somehow it connected with another. As if she had put her mind to rest, so every single memory could slip in to her brain one at a time.
Miles, his name was Miles, the name slipped through her mind and she was absolutely sure about it. But that was basically all there was to. She couldn’t remember who he was.
She took another drag of her cigarette, standing clumsily against the wall on her two feet. The back door behind her opened, and a short guy with long curly brown hair stepped towards her.
Billie.

"What do you want now?" She sighed as she took a sip of her beer and looked the other way.
"Well hello to you too, Miss Perfection." He said sarcastic and she rolled her eyes.
"I just wanted to compliment you." He stated as he lit a cigarette.
"Compliment me?" she said. She grimaced and eyed him suspiciously. The booze was making her eyesight slightly blurry..
"For what..." She eventually managed to say.
He chuckled and it only angered her somehow.
"Well, for figuring out that douche bag," He stated incredibly full of himself. "It would be a shame to just watch and see how he would leave you in the same ditch he dumped the girls before you."

"You're.. Sickening me.." She slurred with a groan as she took another swig of her beer. "I can do whatever I want."
"Most girls find out after wards, when he has already aggressively used and abused them." He said not even bothering to listen to her comment as he took a drag of his cigarette and let the smoke escape his lips.
"Oh-please." She said stomping on her cigarette with one of her Chuck's and lighting a new one right away. "As if you're any better.."
He stared at her with a shocked expression and maybe some fake hurt. She, on the other hand glared at him. She still didn't like him, or maybe it was just men in general that she didn't like. It clicked in her head and it seemed right.
"A guy 's a guy, they're.. they're perverted beasts-" she started, but there suddenly went a white flash through her head as if it was on fire.
Strip club, After Midnight, Pinole, High school. All the information shot through her head like bullets and she immediately pushed both of her hands against her temples out of reflex and pain.

Billie stared at her in surprise and asked her if she was okay, just to be sure she didn't had some kind of seizure.
"I'm fine." She snapped as she blinked a few times until the pain faded away. She took out the little card in her pocket. The initials A.M. still carved in the top right corner, and the name Maria Jane in the middle. After Midnight, A.M..
She felt sick, she was a stripper, she knew that much now. And apparently she worked at that strip club outside Pinole where she seemed to go to high school.
She started to feel dizzy and slowly slid down the wall. Billie eyed her suspiciously as he squatted down besides her.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked. "I can arrange a ride to go to the warehouse or anything."
"No!" she snapped. "I don't want to go to that hell hole right now."
"Uh, alright.." He said awkwardly and Juliette glared out in front of her in to the dark.
"Did you.. Did you remember.. Anything?" he asked out of nowhere and she glanced briefly at him, squinting her eyes.
"Eh.. yeah, I guess." She said as she turned her face away from him again.
"Well, what was it about?" he asked casually, and he seemed interested, though she absolutely didn't want to confide him with the fact that she was a stripper.
"I remembered something about.. my high school in Pinole." She said quickly. "I think I go there."
"Pinole Valley High?" he asked bewildered as he flicked his cigarette away. "I go there too, but I have never seen you in my whole fucking life."
"Well I'm grateful I never met you there." She growled not amused as she got back to her feet, Billie doing the same.
Billie glanced at her and she looked him over, almost as if she was checking him out. He suddenly felt a little uncomfortable under her impudent view and turned away from her.
"Don' you have to get on stage?" she slurred and his head snapped back at her as if she just had said that he'd wet his pants.
Billie widened his eyes, muttered a fuck and a few other nasty words, and went back inside while he left her outside.

Juliette smirked, but the sarcastic expression on her face quickly turned sour as she noticed Tim walking up to her out of a car. He was damn sexy, but for fucks sake, what an asshole at the moment!
"What now." She said tiredly. More to herself than anyone though.
"Just look at you." He said trying to sound sincere, but the drunken slur in his way of speaking said otherwise. "Shouldn't you get home or anything? You could get sick or anything."
"Fuck off." She said. "Now you're playing the concerned bastard again?"
"Oh shut up Maria!" he snapped.
"My name is not Maria!" she yelled at him, and suddenly didn't even know why she had said that.
"Well whatever you're fucking name is then! I'm only trying to help you out and look after you, since you don't have anyone in your fucking life that you can actually remember! And what do I get for that huh?!" he growled and walked away. It hurt her to be hearing these words and she tried to ignore the tears that welled up behind her eyes.
"You're such a selfish person!" he slurred. "I came to pick you up and drive you home!"
"Shut up!" she yelled at him.
"I've completely had it with you!" he yelled. "And don't you dare coming back to me! You're not worth my fucking time!"
"Oh yeah, like all the other chicks you've used right?" she choked as she felt her throat tightening up.
Tim shouted a few profanities, and got back in to the car he came with and raced away.
He was drunk, and aggressive. He probably wouldn't even remember anything about it the next morning and it made her feel sad.

A tear fell from out of her eye since she couldn't stop it from falling anymore. She stared at the burnt down cigarette bud pressed between her fingers, a thin line of ash formed on the top.
She completely forgot she was smoking in the first place.
She glared, flicked it away, and went back inside the building, only to be met up with a lot of screaming and music. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and decided to listen to the music. Everything was better than this shitty feeling.
She felt a little sobered up already, and it wouldn't take long before she would be back to her own catastrophic mind again.

"Hey can you hear me, I'm calling your name. Hello? Or is this goodbye?"

She swayed on the rhythm of the music and felt her nerves flee out of her body slowly. Like rain that flushed all the unhappy thoughts away.
His voice, his husky somewhat girly voice went through her head like a melody, soothing the pain, chasing away her fears, though it wasn't enough to forget it all. There was a huge shadow hanging over her, she was a fucking stripper that got paid when she showed men her naked body.
The remembrance of the doctor in the hospital suddenly went through her head. He had obviously been one of the men in the crowd! She felt sick to know that this man had examined her, knowing that she was a stripper, and that he wanted to see her naked.
What if Mike hadn't been there?
She felt sick and ran outside to empty her stomach, this was so fucking wrong in so many ways.
The vomit splattered on the floor and strangely enough it relieved her.
She faintly heard the music that was still playing and decided to concentrate on it, before another load would emerge from out of her throat. Her head hurt, and it felt like she was barely conscious though she knew she was.

"Angel!
Dancing away!
As all of my thoughts,
Get rearranged..
Angel!
Turning away!
Just when things,
Seemed to have changed.."

She frowned. This song, it was exactly how she felt and she didn't know that something could be this fitting to her situation at the moment as it was now.
Even if it was being sung by a guy she despised.
This was even too ironic for her taste.

She felt like a prostitute, how in the hell could she have managed to do that? Why was she doing it? Did it have to do something with that Miles guy that hit her? Maybe he even forced her to do it.. No she felt like an awful person to even think that, so Miles maybe was a relative of her, an uncle or maybe a nephew.
The song ended and Juliette gathered her courage back together. She was being ridiculous, this was her life, it has been before the accident and it would be still going on after. She should just buckle up and see out the ride like she had always done.
She bit her lips, closed her eyes and took a few shaky breaths to get herself back together again. Then she slammed the back door open and walked back inside Gilman.
This was her life, and she would make it through it.

*

Billie was starting on his last song, he wished that he could make a record out of it or something. He tried his best to achieve that goal, he wanted to make something out of this band. It was his dream, and he couldn't wait until it would turn out to be real.
He noticed Maria coming inside from the back, she looked a little pale and out of place in the crowd. He wondered if she was alright, but then mentally slapped himself. He shouldn't be concerned about people he didn't even know, or even better, people he didn't like.
But it was his nature to look out for his friends if they had something bad going on, and Maria had squirmed herself in to his group of friends before he even knew what was going on.
She ordered a beer and emptied her plastic cup within mere seconds. One thing he knew about her now, is that she had a liver made of steel.
He conjured a smirk on his face and broke off into the first verse of the song: 'Disappearing Boy', as he kept staring at her. Somehow it seemed that most of his songs fit to her situation and he found it funny when he realized. Most of the songs were about himself, Mike, John, or his family situation. But now they seemed to be fitting to her as well.

When he finished playing he thanked the audience and walked backstage with his two friends, giving them random pats on the back. He hadn't seen Maria in the crowd anymore, and he thought she maybe took his advice of going to the warehouse after all.
The three of them were joking around while they were packing up their instruments. John was walking back and forth on to the stage with pieces of his drum kit.
"Hey Kiffmeyer." Billie said and he snapped his head towards him.
"What?" he asked as he wiped some sweat of his forehead.
"You did great man." Billie said and took another swig of his beer. "Not like the usual."
"You too." Grinned John as he zipped a drum in a bag. "We totally kicked their asses."
Billie laughed and Mike skipped towards them with a happy face.
"So what now?" asked Billie who eyed Mike surprised. Was he actually skipping?
"Well I don't know? Hit the town? Smoke a few Jays?" said Mike.
John agreed to Mike's proposition and seemed to be already looking forward to it.
"I think I'm just heading home." said Billie. "I've got some unfinished business back there."
"What now? Nina again?" groaned Mike with a grimaced expression written all over his flawless face. "Don't tell me you're still going after that failure man."
"What?" said Billie confused. "No, not her, screw her. It's my mom I'm talking about." Said Billie as the corner of his mouth twitched. "I tried to avoid your damn party yesterday because.. Well, something happened at home that I'm not really proud of."

"What happened?" asked Mike as he sat down on the couch and motioned for Billie to do the same. Billie didn't move though. It was like he was made of concrete.
"I.. I hit her." He said and he noticed Mike gasping.
"You hit your mom?" said John slightly angry. "Why would you do that?!"
"She was constantly nagging about the fact that my grades were dropping, and that I needed to focus more on my studies instead of lyrics. She forced me to quit music and then she started talking about my dad out of self defense."
"Fuck." said Mike.
"Yeah, that's when I hit her. In the heat of the moment, I couldn't stand her anymore. I couldn't stand it anymore."
"Well that's completely understandable." said Mike who glanced at John whom suddenly turned his face away.
"The horrible thing is," started Billie as he sighed. "It's true."