Chapter Five

I got up and left after that one sided conversation. There was really nowhere else our talk could have gone. I had really hoped I’d get a few “Oh my, that’s so strange! Tell me more!” Or whatever the case, but the girls really just didn’t seem to care.

My mind was flustered as I made my way into my room. I laid down on my bed for a few minutes and tried to overcome my slight panic attack. Most people would have probably got over this by now, but for me, the craziness had just begun.

I got up and took a look in my mirror. My brown wavy hair was all frizzed out from the humidity and sticking out each and every way. I brushed it out and threw it up into a messy bun. My eyeliner was caking off so I painted a little bit more on. The longer I looked at myself, the more I realized just how normal I looked. Here I was, brown hair, brown eyes, average everything else…what did Billie see in me? Was Billie just a figment of my imagination?

Yes. Yes he was. As much as I resisted to admit it, I just had to. Billie Joe Armstrong? Middle aged rock musician casually interested in grabbing a bite to eat and telling a 19 year old average girl like me about his life? Why would he do that? He wouldn’t. Despite all the details that were remembered and all of the things that just screamed real, it wasn’t. It wasn’t. It wasn’t.

“I need to go for a walk.”

My brain felt like it was spinning in its skull. Was I feeling more like Brain Stew or Jaded? My energy was minimal but my train of thought was off the rails. I had never felt more lost in my own head. All my life, reality was a dream. Was it starting to flip around?

As I got closer to the main streets of my neighborhood I started to feel physically ill. A headache started to take over and things started to move too fast. So many people were out on streets and I began feeling claustrophobic, something I had never really experienced before. Usually my head was held high, but this time, I couldn’t help but stare at the sidewalk. Everything else was a little too much. “I’ve got to go home,” I mumble to myself in pain.

“Layla? Is that you?” I hear from afar. I look up but no one familiar is out there.

“Layla, behind you, you dimwit!” Quickly I turn around to see none other than…you guessed it, Billie Joe.

Just from the sight of him I nearly fall over in a faint, but quickly he catches me from behind.

“Layla! Geez girl, are you okay?”

In a muffled voice I start mumbling.

“No, it’s not possible…you can’t be here.”

“Layla, what do you mean? I’m right here? I’m fucking holding you.” He helps me stand up straight and faces me to look right at him. “Are you having a heat stroke or something? The humidity is pretty intense in this state.”

“What are you doing here?” I panic.

“Uh, I don’t know to be honest. I just kind of ended up here, I’m pretty fucking curious about this as you are, yah know? But once again, it was meant to be! Here you are!”

“What the fuck is going on?” I freak out.

He was dressed in ripped up black skinny jeans with a black &white striped shirt on. He was the one who should be having a heat stroke, not me.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he replies unsteadily.

I take a few steps away from him while shaking.

“You’re not real…” I stutter.

“Layla,” he pleads while taking a step closer to me, which only freaks me out more.

“Get away from me!” I cry out.

Billie looks hurt from my comment. I didn’t mean to make him sad or anything, but it’s like he doesn’t even realize what’s wrong. His green puppy eyes grow wide and it nearly makes me ache.

“Layla please, I don’t have anyone else to go to. We need to talk, please talk to me,” he pleads while slowly coming closer to me, as if he was the trainer and I was the lion.

I rub my eyes and look around. There were people everywhere, how could they not realize Billie Joe was in their midst? This couldn’t be real!

“Please Layla…please,” he begs. He reaches his hand out as a gesture.

If this were anyone else…if this were some random celebrity that I could care less about, or someone filled with as much shit as me, I would have ran for my dear life. Something was telling me that right here, right now, if I want answers…if I want to get rid of my new anxiety, I need to go with him. How could you say no to his puppy dog face anyhow? Have you seen it?

Nervously I grabbed his hand and he pulled me along.

“We need to talk alone,” he whispers to me mid walk.

“Why? No one knows that you’re here,” I reveal.

“They don’t know me, but they probably know you. We don’t need this distraction. Where can we go to talk?”

“Follow me,” I insist.

I lead Billie to my old elementary school so we can hang out on the playground for a little while. The whole way there I took in my surroundings and studied everything. There was no way I could be sleeping right now, it was too in depth to be fake.

Finally we arrive and take a seat by the swings and sit in silence for a minute or so.

“I’m sorry for acting dumb back there,” he apologizes.

“You do remember yesterday? You remember Boston?” I shoot back with a tad bit of excitement.

“Of course I do, how could I have known your name if I hadn’t met you yesterday?”

“Well than why did you act stupid back there?”

“I don’t know who it was, but someone was watching us out there. I could feel it.”

He starts tapping his feet together while swinging slowly besides me. Despite all of this craziness, I still found myself swooning at his every move.

“Talk to me Billie, what’s going on? My mom told me I passed out at 8:30 last night, but I don’t remember. I don’t remember a thing about yesterday other than the fact that I was in Boston all day. I have no recall of anything besides that trip…not work, not anything.”

“They’re going to try and tell you it’s a dream, but it’s not Layla. Don’t believe it for a second,” he says as seriously as possible.

“But it was? I woke up in my bed. My mom saw me pass out. My friends remember the whole trip from last weekend, not yesterday. People fucking disappeared and my phone went blank, how could that have been reality?”

He’s staring into the distance now, shaking his head no in denial.

“I don’t have all the answers, but it seems as if we are in some deep shit. You don’t remember all of your reality, and I can’t remember all of my dreams.”

Now he just seemed to be talking crazy.

“What?”

He faced me stoically.

“You have no memory of what actually happened yesterday, right?”

“I guess I don’t.”

“And I have no memory of how I got here, where I end up and all of that shit.”

“I think I’m sick.”

“Does your stomach hurt or something? I can get you some water, yah know?”

“No, I don’t mean like that. I think I’m going crazy. I think I’m getting sick. You’re not real. There’s no way you are. How could you be where I live so conveniently? Why me? Why are you here with me? Want to know why? Because you’re in my imagination. I love you, so I dream of you. There’s no other answer to it. That’s the answer. I’m sick, oversleeping, and you are the result.” My breaths are getting shorter and my blood pressure is rising from my revelation.

“No Layla! That’s not the answer!” His face begins to flush red with anger. “This is not a fucking dream, this is the real fucking deal baby, and you’re going to hear me the fuck out, got it?”

I was a little frightened by his intensity, but also comforted in a strange way. As if he was going to prove me wrong this very moment, which is what I really wanted.

He stands up out of his swing and grabs my hand.

“What do you feel?” He interrogates.

“Your hand?” I answer unassured.

“Correct!” He takes my hand and moves it to his heart. “And what the fuck is that, right there?”

My eyes grew wide and I began to lose hope in my conviction of ‘this was all a dream’.

“A…a heartbeat.”

He smiles cheekily. “Yeah, that’s right. Say it louder for the fucking people in the back!”

“Knock it off,” I smile nervously.

“That’s a fucking heart beat right there. Have you ever had a dream where your dream tries to convince you its reality?”

He didn’t give me a chance to answer, he quickly grabbed a handful of mulch and shoved it into my face.

“What’s that smell?”

“Mulch…”

“Yes! Red fucking mulch! Do you ever recall your dream trying to make you smell things to convince you it was reality?” I nod my head no. “Yeah, that’s because they don’t! Dreams don’t try to tell people they aren’t dreams because they’re totally satisfied with their falseness. Me, however I’m real! You can feel me, you can experience me. I am a real person. I’m here Layla, please believe me when I say I’m here.”

His voice was shaken. His hair was flying in the wind as a single tear rolled down his eye. He was just as lost as me. I took a look around the park, took a deep breath of air and let all the details of this scene sink in. There was the trashcan tied to the basketball hoop, just as it always was…the brand new playground from a few years ago…everything was the way it was in reality. Billie was right. He convinced me, that this was real.