Writing Words To The Music In Her Head

I listened to the sound of Green Day’s new song ‘One Of My Lies’. It was one of the song that would be on their new record. They were going to release it in a couple of weeks, and had been practicing their new songs since Tré joined the band. I was kind of worried about them releasing it, because that meant a tour. A real tour. I couldn’t let go of Tré that easily… And not the other guys, either.

When the song ended, Billie turned to Adie and said,

“We have a song that I wrote for not so long ago, and…” He cleared his throat. “It’s another one for you, Adrienne. It’s called ‘80’.”

I stared at him. Not only a song to her, but a song named after her. What had she done to him that made him love her so damn much?
Didn’t that night Billie and I shared a week ago mean anything to him? Sure, it wasn’t about sex, but how much with him and me was about sex, anyway? I was in love with him, and sex had nothing to do with love. Besides, we almost fucking kissed. We did. I knew we did. If I hadn’t caught myself like that, and if he had just shut up (“Sarah, I…”) I would’ve known what his lips tasted like now. I would. It felt weird. Like it hadn’t even happened… And, as usual, Billie didn’t let it show.

The song started, and Billie’s voice sounded through the mini-speakers they had connected to the microphone he was singing into.

“Everything she does questions my mental health,
It makes me lose control. I just can’t trust myself.

If anyone can hear me; slap some sense in me.
But you turn your head and I end up talking to myself.
Anxiety has got me strung out and frustrated.
So I lose my head, or I bend it up against the wall.”

If only those words were meant for me. That it was my eyes that he stared into, showing more emotions than the words he sung to her. Adrienne stared back, tears in her eyes. She let out a small laugh. I guess she couldn’t help it; I’d laugh if I was as lucky as she was.
My eyes drew back to Billie, and to my surprise he was watching me now. I bit my lip and looked down. He thought that I was good at acting; but I wasn’t. He just believed what he wanted to believe. And who wouldn’t do that? If I had a friend, whose brother was deeply in love with me, I wouldn’t want to know about it either. At least not if I didn’t have feelings for him.

The song ended, and Billie started playing some random tune on his guitar, as Mike put away his bass and sat down next to me, running his fingers through his chocolate-brown hair.

“You’re so talented,” I smiled and kissed him.

He leaned in and kissed my earlobe. “We need to talk,” he whispered quietly.

Talk?

“Why..?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll talk tonight, okay? It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? ‘We need to talk’ sounds like a pretty big deal to me.”

“Just don’t worry, okay?” Mike said. “See you tonight.”

And with that, he walked out.

-

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Was he going to break up with me? No. That was not going to happen. We had been together for months, and I hadn’t said a word about my true feelings for him. And now, he was the one who would leave me ‘heartbroken’, when he had had feelings for me in the first place.
Maybe I should be happy, though. This meant that he didn’t have feelings for me anymore, and was worried that I’d be sad. And I wouldn’t be. I would have to pretend I was, but… That was better than having him upset for real.
I sighed. It would work out after all. Not like I’d have thought, but it would work out. At least I told myself it would.

I kicked the pebbles on the asphalt. Goddamn rain. I was literally dripping of water when I rang on Lucy’s doorbell.

“Hi!” She said and stretched out her arms in an attempt to hug me, but when she saw how wet I was she changed her mind. “Jeez, what’s happened to you?” she asked instead.

“Guess three times,” I muttered. “It’s raining like fuck.”

“Well, you ought to know,” Lucy grinned and I stepped inside her house.

I hadn’t slept at home for a week now. When dad kicked out Tré, it felt like he kicked me out too. I wasn’t welcome there. What the hell would I say to dad, anyway? And it wouldn’t be fair to Tré either.
So I most often slept at the guy’s place. But tonight, I wanted to be with Lucy. Not only because I didn’t want to face Mike… I swear. Lucy was my friend too, right?

She was friend enough to let me in to her home, at least. Come to think of it, she had been pretty awesome since I moved to Oakland. She had been with me through it all. Sure, I hadn’t told her much about me, but… She was a safe place. Something that wasn’t changing all the time or made me nervous. Not very nervous, at least. She thought I was head over heels for Mike, but I always had that nagging worry in the pit of my stomach that someone would find out about who I truly wanted to be with…

When I had taken off my wet clothes and replaced them with a pair of Lucy’s sweatpants and one of her hoodies, I almost felt human again.
As usual, we ended up talking on her bed. I still loved how her room looked. The black and white thing, remember? She always kept it so clean, and it smelled good. Not like any sort of perfume or something just good. It smelled like Lucy.

“Can’t you tell me something about yourself, you know, that I don’t know?” Lucy asked suddenly.

My heart started to beat faster. Did she know anything?

“… Like what?” I tried to sound cool.

“You know, just anything,” she said. “It feels like I don’t… know you too well?”

If she only knew…

“Hm,” I managed. “Really? There’s really not much to say… Did you know that I was obsessed with the Back To The Future trilogy when I was younger?”

She laughed.

“No, I did not know that,” she giggled. “Aw. That’s adorable.”

I wrinkled up my face.

“Adorable?” I asked. “Try pathetic.”

“Oh, shush!”

“What the fuck?” I tried to suppress a giggle, without success. “First adorable, and now ‘oh shush’? What’s wrong with you?”

She laughed with me.

“I can’t help which words I use…”

“Yes, you can! Anyway, tell me something about you!”

I found myself having a good time.

“Well, as you know, I like someone…,” Lucy started slowly. “Do you want to know who it is?”

Oh jeez, she could be such a Drama Queen… Why didn’t she just spill? It wasn’t like it really mattered to me who it was…

“Sure,” I simply replied.

“You’ll have to promise not to tell anyone,” she warned me.

“I promise.”

“It’s… God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. It’s Adrienne.”