Westbound Sign ➵ Billie Joe Armstrong

Said Fast, Meant Fully

Collin

Billie was in the shower, and the sound of the water running through the old pipes echoed faintly through the house like a white noise machine trying its best. I stood at the doorway to his bedroom for a moment, staring at the mess we'd left behind.

The bed was a tangle of sheets and memories I wasn't ready to sort through yet, but my body moved before my brain could catch up.

I pulled the fitted sheet off first, then the top one, careful not to think too hard about the way it still smelled like both of us. Like sweat and smoke and the heavy kind of want that clings. The pillowcases followed, one by one, each one holding the imprint of a night I wasn't sure how to categorize, too much for casual, too tender for reckless. Somewhere in between.

I shoved the bundle into my arms and carried it to the laundry room off the hall, dropping it all into the washer without ceremony. Detergent. Hot water. Start. I watched the machine spin for a moment, the rhythm steady, hypnotic. It felt good to do something useful.

Back in the bedroom, I scanned the floor and started picking up clothes. My pajama shorts. His shirt. His jeans. A sock that didn't match anything, but looked like it belonged here. The laundry basket was already half full from the days before - shirts, flannels, a hoodie with a cigarette burn on the sleeve.

I tossed everything in, working in quiet circles around the room like a ghost trying to make peace with the space.

The nightstands were cluttered - an ashtray with one stubborn stub, a pen with no cap, a glass with dried up water stains, a couple of guitar picks scattered like breadcrumbs. I gathered what I could, wiped down the surfaces with the corner of a clean shirt, and lined the picks up neatly beside the lamp.

I wasn't trying to erase the night. I just needed the room to breathe.

And maybe I did too.

The door to the bathroom creaked open behind me, and I heard the familiar thud of bare feet against the old floorboards. Billie's voice followed, muffled by the towel he was using to dry his hair.

"You're gonna reorganize my soul next?"

I didn't turn around. Just smiled softly. "Only if it fits in the basket."

He laughed, quiet and warm.

And I kept folding the edges of the room back into place, pretending it wasn't the only thing that felt like control.

He padded into the room, hair dripping and sticking to his forehead, a towel slung around his neck like a lazy afterthought. His shirt clung to him in patches where he hadn't dried off all the way, and he looked at me with that infuriating, crooked smile that always made me feel like I'd just been caught doing something I shouldn't.

"You good?" he asked, eyeing the stripped bed, the neatly stacked laundry basket, the clear nightstands. "Or should I be bracing for another full scale spiral?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, but I couldn't help the twitch of a smile. "It's not a spiral. It's productivity."

"Oh, my bad." He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "Is that what we're calling it now? Collin's patented emotional productivity plan, step one: sanitize all evidence of intimacy."

I chucked a throw pillow at him. He caught it with one hand, grinning like a menace.

"I'm just trying to be helpful," I said innocently, walking past him to grab the last of the laundry. "God forbid your house actually be livable."

He sniffed the air dramatically. "It smells like pinesol and psychological avoidance in here."

I stopped in my tracks, turned around slow. "I'm gonna ignore that because you're damp and vulnerable right now."