Westbound Sign ➵ Billie Joe Armstrong

How to Ruin a Punk's Edge

Collin

It was just after 2 a.m., the kind of hour that felt like it didn't belong to anyone.

Soft rain tapped against the hotel window in rhythmic little bursts, like the sky was too tired to storm but too restless to sleep. Somewhere across the room, the low hum of the bathroom fan buzzed through the walls like white noise you almost forget is there. Billie was sitting on the floor by the heater, cross legged, shoes kicked off, cradling a half empty soda from the drive thru we hit up on the way back from the show.

I was on the bed with my knees pulled to my chest, my notebook balanced on one thigh, fingers grazing the weathered edges of a folded paper I knew better than to unfold.

But I unfolded it anyway.

I hadn't meant to show him.

I didn't even remember packing it. But it was there - tucked between old lyrics and grocery lists, next to a sketch I drew of a motel key once. The notebook I pretended wasn't a journal. It had coffee stains on the corner and a little smear where I'd rubbed the ink too hard with my thumb.

A letter I never sent.

I'd written it sometime in September. When everything still felt like a dream and Billie felt like a ghost I hadn't stopped chasing. I wrote it late, with REM in my ears and the Texas heat clinging to my skin like regret. I'd never planned to let it see daylight.

But Billie was sitting five feet away. Picking at the corner of the McDonald's bag. Humming something under his breath. Wearing my old Sex Pistols shirt because it got too hot earlier for his own. And I didn't feel scared.

I felt real.

So I slid off the bed and crossed the carpet barefoot, the letter clutched like a secret I wasn't sure I wanted to give up.

"I, uh..." I cleared my throat, and he looked up at me with those tired eyes that always saw more than I meant them to. "I wrote something. A while ago. Back when all of this was still-"

"Still what?" he asked softly, like he didn't want to break the air between us.

"Before it felt real," I said. "Before I knew if any of it meant anything."

He blinked, then nodded once, eyes locked on mine. "You gonna let me read it?"

I hesitated.

Then handed it to him.

He unfolded it slowly, reverently. Like it was something fragile. Something important. And then he read it - silently, eyes skimming every word like they might vanish if he didn't take them in all at once.

The room was dead quiet except for the rain.

No jokes. No teasing.

Just Billie.

When he reached the end, he held the letter for a beat longer before folding it again, pressing the crease like he was memorizing it by touch.

Then he looked up at me.

And something about his face made me want to crawl out of my skin.

Not because it was bad.

Because it was everything.

"You really felt that?" he asked, voice a little hoarse.

"I still do," I whispered.

His jaw tightened like he didn't know what to do with that.

So he didn't do anything.

Not at first.

He just set the letter down on the bed and reached for my hand, pulling me down to the floor next to him.