Our Little Secret

"Mom?"

Ollie looked up from the book she was reading and noticed her son standing at the entrance to the living room. "Billie?" she asked worriedly. "What is it? Do you need anything?"

Billie stepped further into the room. "No, Mom, I'm fine," he said half-heartedly. He wasn't actually sure why he even came down here. He probably wanted a little company, which wasn't all that common with him.

"Billie," Ollie said, "What's wrong? Are you feeling okay? Your eyes are all red."

Maybe he should have waited a little more than five minutes before coming downstairs. After Mike and Tre had left, he'd spent a while alone in his room with his thoughts, which, though he didn't intend to tell anyone this, led to him tearing up upstairs. "Yeah, I'm fine," he fibbed. "I just wanted to come and say hi, see how you were doing, y'know?"

"Oh. Well, I'm fine sweetie." She patted the seat next to her. "Come here, sit down," she instructed. Something was on her son's mind and she wanted to know what. Billie did as he was told and sat down on the couch next to his mother as she set her book on the coffee table. "What's wrong Billie?"

Billie looked down in thought. Hell if he knew what was wrong. Yeah, he was upset his dad was dead; he'd been dead for seven years. He figured he should be over it by now. Okay, he didn't actually believe that, but no one else really seemed to think about him anymore. Everyone seemed to move on while Billie constantly ached for him.

"Billie?" Ollie asked worriedly. "What's wrong?" she repeated.

Billie looked up at her as he was brought back into the conversation. "I just… It shouldn't be that big of a deal." And he believed that. It was just a picture; he shouldn't amount it to anymore than that. "I was just, y'know, thinking about Dad."

After a second, Ollie gently placed her hand on her son's leg. "Billie…"

"It's nothing," he said quickly. "I just didn't wanna be alone right now." He shrugged. "It's no big deal."

"Are you sure, Billie? Because if you want—"

"Why do we never talk about him?" he asked abruptly. "It's like he disappeared without a trace. I mean, other than his birthday or when he… y'know… died… we don't really mention him. It's like I'm the only one who ever thinks about him anymore."

Ollie sighed. "I don't know, Billie. It's… hard."

"I know that," Billie murmured quietly.

"Well, what are we supposed to do, Billie?" she asked. "Talk about him like he's still here?" Billie didn't say anything. "Complain about how he's not? 'Cause he's not. He's not here," she said softly.

"I know that," he sobbed. "But he's not a fucking ghost either," he said, not catching himself cursing in front of his mother. "It's not like we're forbidden to talk about him. It wouldn't kill us." He sat staring at his hands in his lap, waiting for his mother to respond. When she didn't, he started to stand up. "I'm just gonna go to my room."

Ollie grabbed his hand. "Would it really make you feel better if we talked about him more often? Or even right now, just the two of us?" she asked sympathetically.

Billie stopped moving away from his mother. "I don't know. Maybe," he replied quietly. "I don't even know," he said a second later. "Just… don't worry about it, Mom. I don't know why I even brought it up."

Ollie's hand was still on Billie's, and she pulled back on him gently when he tried to walk away again. "Billie… you obviously wanted to talk about it, otherwise you wouldn't have brought it up. Don't leave this hanging, sweetie." She rubbed his back comfortingly. "Come on, I'll make you a little snack and we can talk about him, okay?"



Mike and Tre's evening was going better than Billie's, but not by much. Their's was much more frustrating than his. Billie had given them directions to get to this place; the only problem was he had told them to turn onto a seemingly non-existent street a couple miles back, and now they had no clue how to get there.

"I'm telling you, Tre, we should have just turned back at that 7-Eleven back there," Mike laughed. The least they could do was try to find humor in the situation.

"We should've taken Billie's car; then we could burn all his gas and take a road trip."

Mike laughed. "Yeah, until we get back and he kicks our asses."

Tre laughed as well, knowing that Billie would in fact be pretty peeved if they had taken his car without him knowing. "Hey!" Tre said suddenly. "Speaking of gas, there's a gas station up there. Pull in and get some directions."

Mike nodded and did as Tre instructed when they got nearer the gas station. "Where's that sheet of paper?" he mumbled absentmindedly looking for the address. Tre handed it to him, and Mike thanked him and headed inside. A couple minutes later, he walked back to the truck and got in. "What a dumbass," he chuckled.

"Who? Billie or the dude inside?"

"Who do you think?" he asked. "Billie. Apparently he left out, like, half of the directions. I guess we are supposed to turn onto Arbor, but only after turning onto about six other streets first." He put the truck back into gear and backed out of the spot to come back the way they came. "I guess we should probably cut him some slack since he's been puking for the past three days, but I'm still gonna give him shit for this," he joked.

Tre turned the radio up to hear The Replacements singing to them. "Okay, so how long is it supposed to take us to get there?" he asked.

"Uh, I guess about ten/twenty minutes. She didn't really say in there. But on the bright side, I don't think Billie really threw us off time-wise all that much. And we weren't really gonna get there right when the party started anyway."

"What time is it anyways?" Tre wondered audibly. Mike's truck wasn't in the best shape, so it didn't actually display the time anymore. As long as it still managed to get them from point A to point B, Mike wasn't going to complain. God only knows how the radio still managed to work. Mike reached his left hand over in front of Tre, and it took Tre a second to figure that he was showing him the time on his watch. "Quarter after five," he mumbled. "Wait a second," he realized. "We've been driving for over a hour?"

"I don't know. You got over there at, like, four, right?" he asked as he turned a corner. Now they were getting back on track. "We were there for a little while before we actually left, and then we got gas, so I mean, we haven't been driving that long. Billie said it'd take about twenty minutes to get there," Mike said. "If he had given us the right directions, of course," he quipped.

"Mmm, well, I can't complain. At least we get to listen to some good music."

"Yeah, and we've gotta be having more fun than Billie," he said.



"Oh, god, this is so much better than some stupid party," Billie said. He and his mother had been sharing stories about his father for the past twenty minutes, effectively cheering Billie up. As much fun as it would be to be out with Mike and Tre, he had to admit this was even better.

"Party?" Ollie asked. "What party?"

Billie froze. 'Fuck.' Him and his big mouth. This evening had started horribly, and it looked like it was about to end horribly too. "Uh…" he stalled as he tried to come up with an excuse. "The party… that… I was invited to… but refused to go to… because I knew you wouldn't approve," he suggested questioningly.

Ollie sighed at her son. "The party that Mike and Tre are at?" she wondered. "The party you'd be at right now if you weren't sick?"

"Um… No?"

"Billie Joe, you and Mike are my responsibility. Were you two going to go to some party without even letting me know? And more importantly, is Mike at that party?"

"It's Tre's birthday," he mumbled. "They're celebrating."

"Do I even want to know what they're doing there?"

Billie shrugged. "Probably not."

Ollie groaned. "Billie, what am I going to do with you? You're going to get yourself in trouble eventually. And even worse, you might just bring Mike and Tre with you."

"It's just a stupid party," he said quietly.

"Billie…"

"I think I'm just gonna head to bed, Mom," he said as he stood from his chair. Unlike earlier in the evening, Ollie didn't stop him. He brought his dish over to the counter and then made his way up to his room, locking the door behind him.