My Jesus of Suburbia

Chapter 24: Leaving For Good

~~~~~Billie's Point of View~~~~~

     Stella was staring out of the window, studying everything that we passed. I touched her shoulder and she turned to look at me with a tear-stained face. I wiped her face with my shirt.

     "Hey, hey. It's okay now. Are you okay?" She scooted closer to me and laid her head on my lap. She shook her head no. "Okay, okay. You want some music on?" She looked up at me with puppy-dog-eyes. 

     "Trè?" she asked.

     "Okay, the sad songs. I get it. Just go to sleep. You've had a rough day." I put the cd in the stereo player and pressed play. I stroked her hair as she hummed to the first song, but soon fell asleep. I fell asleep soon after.

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       I woke up to Trè poking my face.

     "Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeu-"
      I grabbed his hand. "Dude, seriously?"

     "Whaaaaat?" he whined. "It's time to leeeeeeaaave."

     "Ugh, no," I groaned. "I'm too lazy to move."

     "MIKE!" Trè yelled.

     "Whaaaaaat?" Mike whined from a distance.

     "Help me carry Beej to the bus!"

     "Billie, no! Get off your lazy ass and let's go!" Mike yelled.

     Jeez...who put hot sauce in your coffee? I thought to myself.

     "Fine!" I slid Stella's head off of my lap. I was surprised she slept through our yelling. I slowly got out of the limo and stretched. It was actually sort of cold outside. It was the middle of the day, but also the middle of summer.

     Trè ran off to an unknown place and Mike was busy loading bags into the bus. Jason was doing nothing so I assumed he must have loaded his stuff already.

     "Hey! Jason! Come here!" He walked over to me.

     "You already load your stuff?" I asked.

     "Yeah. I even gathered your stuff and loaded that. You need help with something?" 

     "Yeah, thanks man. Can you grab Stell's suitcase? She's sleeping and I don't wanna wake her up. I'm gonna put her in my bed so she can sleep for the ride to New York."

     He grabbed her suitcase. "Does she even know that's where we're going?"

     I shushed him. "It's a surprise."

     He laughed. "Okay. My lips are sealed."

     I slipped Stella out of the limo and carried her to the bus. I put her in my bed and put the blankets over her. The bus was kind of cold, too.

Why is everything so damn cold?

     I closed the curtain and found my jacket. I slipped it on and went to see if anyone needed help. I ended up finding Trè first.

     "You need help with something, besides your head, Trè?"

     "Can you grab my frying pan?"

     "Yo-your frying pan?"

     "Yeah. My frying pan. What about it?"

     "N-nothing," I snickered. "I'm not gonna ask. Actually, no. I'm gonna ask. Why does Stella owe you a frying pan?"

     His face turned red. "W-we made a bet," he stammered nervously. "If you didn't like her, she was gonna travel with us for a year. If you did like her, she owed me a frying pan...."

     I sighed and dragged a hand down my face. "Do...do you need anything else?" 

     "My donut sprinkles." I knew about those.

     "Okay then." I found the bag of sprinkles and gave them to him. "I'm not even gonna ask about anything else."  Before Trè could say anything, I walked off to find Mike but my side started to hurt. Even though it was starting to close up, it still hurt like hell.

     I walked into the bus and found Stella's suitcase and bag beside my bed. I laid the suitcase on the table and started to unzip it when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

     "Whatcha doin'? A panty raid?" I knew it was Mike.

     "No man. I'm not like that. Get me a bag, would ya?" He handed me a plastic grocery sack.

     "Then what are you doing?" he asked.

     "I'm taking these pills out of her bag. She's been giving them to me and they completely stop the pain. They're great, but she used to-" Stella moved in her sleep. I lowered my voice as Mike sat by me.

     "Like I was saying, she used to use them as a sort of drug."

     "What do you mean, 'sort of?'"
     "I'm not gonna lie to ya, man. She used to cut herself. She hasn't done it since the day before she was beat up. She told me that sometimes, she would cut too deep. She would take these pills until the pain went away or she passed out. And-and, she told me that she almost committed suicide, man. Plus, her mom is one screwed up bitch. I'm not gonna go into detail about our argument against her."

     "That's deep, man. Shit, no pun intended."

     "If you think that's deep, you should hear what she meant by 'the first time we saved her life.' It has to do with her almost committing suicide."

     "Why don't you tell us?"

     "I ain't telling you three. It's bad enough I already told you about the self-harm. It's not my place. It's better if she does. You might ask her to tell you. But if you do, make sure Trè and Jason are with you. I don't want her to have to explain it three times. And don't pressure her into telling you. If she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to. Then again, make sure I'm with you when she does."

     "Okay. Maybe on the way to New York." Mike got up and walked out of the bus. So far, I had 49 bottles. The last one somehow found its way under her clothes. I moved them over and gasped at what I saw. She had every one of our albums, painted with all four of our signatures like the walls of her room. We had obviously signed them over and over again. The only album that wasn't signed was 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours. 

     I felt extremely sad and bothered. How could we have signed all of these and I couldn't remember her? 

     I knew what to do.

     I grabbed the albums, closed the suitcase, and found a sharpie. I was going to give her a nice surprise when she wakes up.

     I ran out of the bus to find the other three.