Time of Your Life - Green Day

Tell Me Don't

Rodeo, August 1988

Constance's POV

"Do you really want to know the truth?," I asked Billie Joe.

I was sick and tired of playing this game. Emrys could've come down and found me at this very moment so I was done. I'm done with feelings, I'm done with nice, I'm done with lying to the people I care about and hurt. If Billie Joe really wants to know the truth, he'll hear it. And if he doesn't... he can just think I'm crazy and forget me faster.

He nodded while still panting, "I do. I don't care, whatever it is, I just wanna know. Or if I can't, at least tell me why I can't know."

I sighed, "When I tell you, you're going to think its a joke at first."

"What? I won't, I swear," he said.

"No, it's... you just will. And it's fine," I told him, "But I just need you to know that every word that comes out of my mouth from here on, it is nothing but the wholehearted strange and honest truth. Because I'm done lying, and I'm done keeping secrets from you. I care about you too much to keep doing that."

"Okay, I believe you, now just please tell me what's going on," he pleaded with me, gently grabbing my arms.

I took a deep breath. I'm really doing this.

"My name isn't Constance Smith. It's Constance Hyde. I wasn't travelling around the west coast with my American cousins, I don't have American cousins, and I'm not waiting for them to pick me up," I explained calmly and honestly, "I'm waiting for my friend Emrys to find me, and take me home and to my own time. Emrys is a time traveller, and I fell through time and space before landing here. I came here from the year 2023. I was born in the year 2006. I am from the future."

As I explained, Billie Joe's expression grew more and more confused and yet, when I finished, he said nothing. He just stared at me, possibly waiting for me to tell him it was all a joke. But I didn't back down, I didn't fake him out, I stayed stern and honest.

Finally, Billie Joe held his face in his hands before asking simply, "What?"

"I'm stranded here and waiting for Emrys to take me back to London in 2023. Those songs I sang you by my 'classmate', Mitski is a famous singer who wrote those songs in 2014 and I'm a fan of hers. All those songs I sang, I didn't write them, they're just from the future."

I waiting for Billie Joe to star at me in horror, tell me I was crazy, run for the hills. Instead, he just sat down on one of the swings and sighed into his hands.

I sat on the swing next to him and meekly spoke up, "Billie?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore."

"I know. It's utterly absurd and I don't expect you to fully understand it, but I swear on my life, I am telling you the entire truth."

"Okay," he said, "Then what about my dad? You still haven't told me how you know that."

Shit.

I was trying to avoid details about him but it makes perfect sense why he'd ask that. That was the catalyst for all this. Fine. Hopefully I won't vanish from existence or somehow accidentally kill Billie Joe.

I took a deep breath, "In the future, I'm a fan of you and your music. Eventually, you're going to write a song about your dad passing away. That's how I know. And before you ask, the reason I'm not telling you or showing you too much is because I don't want to accidentally change the future somehow by telling you what's going to happen."

"Yeah, I get it, Back to the Future shit. I saw the movie," he nodded before pausing, "Can you at least tell me what I call the song?"

I genuinely couldn't tell if he believed me or not. He had virtually no proof that I was telling the truth, only my measly word. I had every opportunity to make him believe me. I had my now dead iphone in my bag, I had all the Green Day patches on my hoodie, I even had the knowledge that they'd change their name to Green Day, that Tré would join the band in 1991, that he'd meet the girl of his dreams, Annabel Winters later this year.

But I, and possibly he, understood that if I did, it could risk his entire future.

We sat there in silence, me watching him think, for what felt like several more months before he finally got to his feet, turned to me and said, "C'mon," before walking back towards his house.

Its funny, around when we first met, he told me I somehow always knew what to say. But now, I was lost for words.