I Lied When I Said I Didn't Love You

I still can’t believe they were able to just leave me like that, and it has been more then two years since that fateful day. Yes, just over two years or so since they showed me how strong their joint resolve could be.

A lot happened between now and then.
For starters, I went to therapy. And this time, I managed to stick at it because I had a logical reason to want to go. It wasn’t the fact that I had issues (although I did, it wasn’t my motive), oh no. The reason was Billie, of course. I didn’t want to lose him for real. I had lost his romantic feelings towards me long ago, but at least I still had the honour of being his best friend.

My therapist was a hard-as-nails knife called Melinda. She was on the more elderly side, her tight spiky curled hair a dull grey and sharp enough to prick anyone that came near. A pair of tarnished framed glasses sat on her pointed shrewd nose, her steel grey eyes somewhat weak from age but still piercing and bright as the day she was born. Everything about her reminded me of weapons, to tell you the truth. I always found myself calling her an old battle-axe or even a pike (whatever the hell that was). She sussed me out from the moment I walked into her office, not bothering to pussyfoot around. She just took one look at me and said coolly:

“You’re not coming here for yourself, are you?”

Although she was biting with her words and quick to criticize self-pity, I liked her. She didn’t buy my lies like other people but wouldn’t prod me too hard for information if I seemed very uncomfortable. Sometimes I would even give her personal information without a question needing to be asked.
As for my relationships with Tre and Billie, we were still friends. I just wasn’t as close to them as before, knowing they could easily abandon me if they felt they had to. After about three months or so of making me stick it out on my own (I stayed at Eggplant’s place for that time), occasionally importing me out for random gigs and jam sessions, Billie and Tre decided to go on tour. They told me to come along, of course, and I did. Eggplant’s place was kind of small for me anyway. It was smaller then my old apartment, and that was saying something. So I packed my ropey old bass plus some road-worthy clothes and we travelled across the country in an ex-book mobile. We played a shit-load of great gigs on that tour. It even got to the point where we were selling more tickets to our gigs then actual records.

And then, we got noticed.

It all started with a couple of A&R guys hanging out at our gigs. Then they actually started approaching us, trying to get us to sign with all these major labels. We were sceptical at first. We didn’t think that we’d be the kind of band to be interesting for mainstream companies. No, we were strictly indie stock, bound by the unbreakable laws of Gilman.

But then the offers just kept coming, seeming to get better with each different proposal. Meanwhile, we weren’t selling any records at Lookout.
The band wouldn’t be able to break out of old habits if it just kept relying on word of mouth to get by. And besides- the money had appeal too. We all wanted to see our families be better off, especially me, as my two little sisters lived in a trailer with my Mom at the time.

Then, finally, we met Rob and decided to sign onto a major label.
It wasn’t so bad at first, when we kept it secret. We worked on a new record, putting together some really great songs (like “Longview”, where my bass line was the main feature). But then, when it came out-

We were kicked out of Gilman. Old friends suddenly hated us, and assholes we didn’t even know started treating our name like mud. No one remembered how hard we worked, or how much we did just to even be in a band. All that they chose to see was the fact we were on a major label, and that meant we had sold out on everything we ever believed in.

Something else happened with the new record we hadn’t bargained on either- now we had a giant base of psycho fans to worry about. None of us seemed to be able to even get a cup of fucking coffee without somebody saying something about our music, or asking us about our music or whatever the hell they wanted to say. Now, at the start it was kind of fun, what with the “glamour” of being recognised. Then we quickly realised how annoying it could get when you were in a bar, trying to get drunk off your ass in peace and some random person starts acting like they know you because they’ve heard your goddamn music on the radio. No thank you, I don’t need to be reminded of the fact I’m a fucking rock star. It was like someone had tattooed “BOTHER THESE PEOPLE” on our foreheads.

But, anyway, more changes had happened then that.

For starters, we didn’t really live in a tiny apartment any more. Oh no, as soon as we found out just how much money the record was making us, we split the profits and each bought our own place. Privately, I kind of wanted us to stick together, used to the comfort of having them just on the other side of the wall from me. But, my new house was big and full of cool stuff.
Tre got his girlfriend to move in with him; they were pretty serious about each other, which was odd for Tre. He kept talking about getting hitched too. That was weird in all. Tre couldn’t even keep a steady girlfriend for more then a couple of months, let alone face the commitments of matrimony.

But then again, maybe it wasn’t that odd.
Billie and Adie lived together too. Billie eventually managed to steal her back from her boyfriend, and then she uprooted herself and came to California.

That was after, of course, Billie told her he had a crazy idea about them getting married…

He didn’t bother to tell me anything beforehand, of course. It was a completely spontaneous thing for him, asking someone to marry him.

No pre-thinking, no planning, and no consulting of his best friends so they could tell him how a decision like that shouldn’t ever be rushed.

In fact, he hadn’t even told me yet.

Tre was the one that warned me about Billie’s snap engagement. For some reason, Billie had told him first instead of going straight to me. Hell, I knew the reason why. Billie obviously thought I couldn’t handle the gravity of his idiotic decision. He underestimated me deeply. I only punched the wall once when Tre told me about it on the phone.

This was the second time Tre had told me about something Billie did behind my back.

Now it was just a matter of waiting until Billie found his balls and told me himself…

I wasn’t feeling the best the day Billie decided to randomly come over my house with a six-pack of beer.

In truth, I was asleep on my bed when he came over. He must’ve found the spare key I stupidly kept under the mat (just in case I ever got drunk, lost my keys and had to get into my house without accidentally alerting the authorities) and let himself in, because the next thing I knew he was shaking me awake from his perch on the edge of the bed.

“Mike? Come on, wake up, ass face,” I heard Billie say cheerily, grabbing my leg and giving it a sharp tug.

“Hmmm?” I mumbled sleepily, rubbing my face against a pillow to try and get rid of the crud in the corners of my eyes. It felt surreal and nostalgic, waking up to that voice. It used to be something I’d wake up to every single morning, something familiar and regular. A small whisper, the feeling of a comforting hand sliding down my bare back…

But now I cracked an eyelid open, looking drowsily at Billie with feigned annoyance. As pathetic as I was, I wasn’t about to go and fuck everything up by blurting out the stupid things in my thoughts.

However stupidly tempting it was.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I grunted, scratching the side of my face before attempting to pull myself up. Billie shrugged, yanking me up by my arm, ignoring my protests that I needed time to get the blood flow going in my head.

“Since when have I needed a reason to come over to your house? I’m your fucking best friend- you should have a permanent open-door policy for me. Now, anyway, get up.”

“I am up, asshole. You just pulled me off the fucking bed.”

“Someone has a potty mouth this morning.”

“I’m not the only one, and the last time I checked, it was the afternoon.”

“Actually, its evening time now,” Billie corrected me, glancing at his watch as he strolled casually out the room. I sighed, picking up the beer and trotting after him. Typical. He’d wake me up then as soon as he started to talk to me he’d walk out the room. Bastard. He was trying to keep me from falling back asleep, like I’d been planning to. He knew me too well.

I followed him down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Billie pointedly sat down and gestured for me to chuck him a beer. What a lazy little bastard! I ignored his gesture, opening one for myself to spite him and deliberately sitting across from him.

“Alright. I’m awake. Now, tell me why you had to even wake me up in the first place?” I asked, taking a sip from my beer and trying to look like I was savouring every single golden drop. Billie rolled his eyes at my facial expressions, clueing in on what I was trying to do at once.

“You’re a bitch when you wake up, you know,” he commented, putting his feet up on my table. I immediately pushed them back off.

“Don’t do that! I don’t want my table stinking of feet!”

“Why do you care? You live on your own. No one to complain.”

“Have you ever thought maybe I don’t like the smell of feet?”

“Mike, I swear you’re turning into a fussy old lady.”

“No I’m not!”

“You’ve been living on your own too long. Either that, or you really need to have sex.”

I snorted at that. As far as I knew, Adie had put a total ban on sex between her and Billie until they were married (Tre told me that also). She wanted to see if they could cope with it as a couple, thinking it would prove their love if they could conquer abstinence. Billie, unsurprisingly, had only agreed so she wouldn’t leave him. Knowing Billie, he was probably sick of the whole no-sex thing by now.

“And your sex life is excitingly wild?”

Billie shrugged for the second time since he woke me up.

“Well, maybe not as… active… as I would hope, but at least I have somebody there. You, on the other hand, only have the option of getting a hooker, which is pretty damn risky when you’re famous.”

“I doubt anyone would care. You’re the main face of the band, not me. I’m just the guy on bass. Besides, we aren’t technically that famous-“

“We can’t go into bars any more without being asked for autographs. I count that as being famous.”

“Look on the bright side- at least no weirdoes are following us around with cameras.”

“Yet,” Billie said darkly, his eyes flickering to the window. “It’s only a matter of time before they start trying to get snaps of us in the bath.”

“Or shower.”

“Or shower,” Billie agreed, snatching the beer away from me and draining it. “Anyway, we’re completely off the subject.”

“What subject?” I asked wryly, flicking the empty bottle over. It landed with a thud on the table and rolled dangerously near the edge. I quickly righted it before it smashed onto the floor. “You haven’t mentioned anything that could be remotely related to being a subject.”

“Okay, Mr I-Finished-Fucking-High-School, I’ll give you the subject. Give me a break, would you? I came over here with a six-pack of beer and all you’ve done is whine about me waking you up. Where’s the gratitude?” Billie teased me, trying to look like he was deeply offended by my rudeness. He didn’t succeed. The corners of his pursed lips kept twitching up into a smile, like they’d forgotten how to keep still. His eyebrows twitched as well, looking like they were locked in a crazy dance to very offbeat music.

He looked a bit like his face was trying to jump off his head.

“Okay, thanks for the beer. Now can you stop twitching and just tell me?”

Billie’s facial features composed themselves immediately, his eyes dimmed until they looked serious. He dragged his chair around the table until he was sitting right in front of me, our knees almost touching. I shifted uncomfortably; nervous about accidentally touching him and him thinking I was trying to touch him on purpose. God, I was paranoid about that kind of stuff now. All about not letting anyone get the wrong idea… My shrink was very stern on that subject, decreeing immediately that it was destructive behaviour. I disagreed. I knew what destructive behaviour was, and this wasn’t it.

No, this was just a necessary precaution.

“Well…” Billie began, his voice somewhat hesitant and slow. Of course he didn’t trust me to be good with handling things. And if he was telling me what I think he was, he had all the right to be wary.

“Yes?” I prompted him, motioning with my hands for him to continue. On the outside I looked the picture of innocence, calm, quiet, just patiently waiting for Billie to complete his sentence.

On the inside, however, I was debating whether or not to suddenly find a reason to walk out of the room.

Yes, I already knew what he was probably going to say. I’d heard it before.
And to be honest, I didn’t care that much. Billie could marry whomever he damn well pleased.

I was just worried I might hit him for not trusting me enough to tell me right away.

Which, of course, was hypocritical on my part. How many times had I neglected to tell Billie important things over the past few years? How often had I forgotten to trust him? But, in the end, I was right, wasn’t I? He couldn’t be totally trusted. No one can, because no matter whom you trust, they will always let you down at some point, whether it is big or small.

God, I was just confusing myself at that point.

“Mike? Are you even listening?” Billie asked suddenly, his annoyed voice penetrating my concentration. I snapped out of my confused stupor, looking at him in puzzlement.

“Huh?”

Billie sighed impatiently.

“The one time I try to tell you something life-changing and you don’t listen- Mike, I said, I asked Adie to marry me. We’re engaged!”

This came out in a blunt, jumbled mass, barely understandable under the rush of excitement in his voice. He looked at me expectantly, an idiotic grin under his messy blonde hair.

I hated his blonde look.

I just looked back blankly, my face a piece of stone. How was I meant to react to that sudden rush of garbled information he bestowed upon me?
Should I laugh? Hug him? Tell him I already know? Don’t react at all?

The last one seemed the safest- I wasn’t too sure that I would be able to act that well.

So I kept my blank stance, not shifting an inch at Billie’s sudden outburst of already known news.

Billie’s smile started to sag as he realised I wasn’t going to say anything, his joyful expression slowly falling in on itself like a crumbled foundation of a building. His mouth tucked back into a thin line, pressed together in disappointment.

“I’m glad to see you’re so happy for us. Your enthusiasm is catching,” he said sarcastically, edging his way into a bad mood. I really should’ve said something at that point.

But I didn’t. I just kept looking him quietly with that stupid blank expression.

Billie got up from his chair, shaking his head in angered disbelief.

He stood tall above me, reminding me of one of those foreboding Greek Gods.

“I thought you, of all people, would’ve at least had the dignity to pretend you were happy,” he said quietly, his eyes still riveted to mine with a heart-wrenching gaze.

I should’ve at least tried to say something then.

But I didn’t.

I just kept sitting there, watching silently as he walked out of the room, frustrated by my inability to untangle my tongue.

I should’ve said something, anything at all.

But I never had the courage to try.