Westbound Sign ➵ Billie Joe Armstrong

Something Sheer, Something Sharp

Collin

The first week of October smelled like dust and cinnamon and plastic spiderwebs. I was standing on a step stool, half tangled in orange string lights, trying to wrap them around the exposed beam above the paint aisle without falling to my death. Again.

My dad had the radio going - some old Johnny Cash song humming low through the hardware store like a slow heartbeat. His voice, gravel and honey, twined through the quiet like an old friend.

I found myself humming along without thinking, matching the lazy pluck of the guitar as I stuck a cutout pumpkin to the window.

Everything felt... easy.

I couldn't remember the last time it had.

The decorations were cheap, black cats with googly eyes, foam tombstones that said "R.I.P. TO HIGH PRICES," ghosts made from mop heads - but I didn't care. I liked the way they made the store feel different. Like something soft had been let in. Like the rules didn't apply for just a little while.

And I was happy.

Not the manic kind. Not the kind that comes with guilt or makes you question when the floor's gonna drop out. The quiet kind. The kind that settles behind your ribs and makes everything feel a little warmer, even if the world outside still looked like dry leaves and cracked concrete.

I glanced up at the window. The plastic bats swayed a little in the A/C breeze, casting tiny, crooked shadows against the glass.

Billie was running wild through my mind - jumping fences in my thoughts, grinning with his stupid sharp smile, leaving cigarette ash and lyrics behind. And for once, I wasn't fighting it. I wasn't shoving him into some locked box marked too much.

I was letting it in.

Letting him in.

He'd gotten past my walls like it was nothing. Like he'd seen me for two seconds and decided I was worth the trouble. And yeah, maybe that should scare me. Maybe it did. But right now? With fake cobwebs in my hair and Johnny Cash in my ear?

I didn't care.

I liked feeling this way.

I liked thinking about him and not having to dig my fingernails into my palm to make it stop. I liked remembering his voice on the phone, late at night, whispering something stupid and tender. I liked that he kept showing up in the quiet moments, not asking to be let in but never really leaving either.

A witch hat fell off the rack and hit me square in the face.

I laughed.

Maybe this was what it felt like to stop surviving and start living. Just a little.

"Dad," I called, still laughing, "you're gonna have to ban me from store if this keeps up."

He looked up from behind the counter, a pencil tucked behind his ear. "You? Get banned? You're the only reason the place has any personality."

I smiled and turned back to the window.

Somewhere in my chest, something fluttered, light and real.

Maybe I was still half made of panic and sharp edges. But I was also a girl stringing up ghosts and singing to Johnny Cash. A girl thinking about a boy who made her laugh and burn and believe.

And for the first time in forever, I didn't feel like I had to apologize for that.

I was rearranging the ceramic jack o' lanterns on the windowsill when I heard the unmistakable sound of my dad clearing his throat behind me - the kind of throat clear that meant he was gearing up to say something that wasn't about socket wrenches or oil filters.