Westbound Sign ➵ Billie Joe Armstrong

Punk's Not Dead, But We Are

Collin

The sunlight was barely crawling through the crooked motel blinds, casting long gray stripes across the foot of the bed like prison bars. Billie's breath was slow, steady against the back of my neck, and the sheets were tangled somewhere between our legs.

It was quiet.

Not the comfortable, sleepy kind of quiet that you settle into with someone after a while. This was the kind that had weight. The kind that knew.

His hand rested on my hip, fingers twitching slightly like he was dreaming. I didn't want to move. I was afraid that if I did, I'd jolt the spell. Break the thing we'd built in the dark hours of the night.

I wasn't thinking about last night like it was something to replay. It wasn't even about the sex, not really. It was about how it felt to be wanted without having to become someone else to deserve it.

To just... be. And be chosen anyway.

I stared at the water stain in the corner of the ceiling, the one that looked like a warped Texas.

Everything felt so fragile. Like if I said one thing, if I breathed too hard, it would all disappear. The hours left were stacked like dominos. I could feel the pressure behind them, waiting to fall.

Billie stirred behind me, letting out a soft groan like his body had remembered the weight of the world before his mind had. He didn't say anything. Neither did I. We just lay there in the quiet, like the silence was a language we were both fluent in.

Eventually, he rolled onto his back, arm still draped across me. His hand fell to my stomach, fingers absently tracing circles, like he didn't even realize he was doing it.

"I hate mornings," he muttered.

"Yeah?" I said quietly.

"Yeah. Especially the ones that mean something."

I swallowed. There it was.

I could've pretended not to hear it. But I didn't.

"Are we gonna talk about it?" I asked, still staring at the ceiling.

"About how everything feels like a goodbye already?" he said. "Nah. Let's not ruin it just yet."

I nodded. Not because I agreed. Just because I didn't have the strength to disagree.

He shifted, propping himself up on one elbow to look at me. "We've still got today. All of it."

And God, the way he said it. Like he was trying to convince himself as much as me.

I finally looked at him. His hair a mess, pillow creased cheek, that sleepy softness in his face that only ever showed up when the world hadn't reached him yet.

"Okay," I whispered. "Then let's use it."

And we stayed there a little longer, wrapped in that fragile kind of stillness - the kind you know you won't get back.

Eventually, we'd get up. Put on our clothes. Find coffee. Pretend the end wasn't coming. But right now, in this moment, we were just two people in a shitty motel bed with sunlight on our skin and a whole day stretched out in front of us.

A whole day to be selfish.

To pretend.

To love without saying it.

Even if it killed us.

We weren't talking about the end.

Not yet.

But it was in the room with us - curled up somewhere in the silence, in the pauses, in the way his fingertips kept tracing my ribs like he was trying to memorize me by touch alone.