Billie Joe Armstrong is my step-father... and I hate it [EDITING]

5. Wild Girl [Edited]

If I had any doubts Andy wouldn't be waiting for me outside the school like she promised, she thwarted them when I seen her standing right outside the front doors. When she seen me, she smiled and made her way down the front steps towards me and took me by the wrist. "Come on," she said. "We're going around the back for a bit."

I frowned a bit but she was fairly strong for someone her size and I was being pulled along behind her. "Don't we have class now?" I asked, feeling like the question was a bit redundant where Andy was concerned. However, I had never skipped class before in my life.

She looked back at me and laughed a bit. "Yeah," she said, "We do. But as long as no one seen you, as far as they know, we had a dental appointment or something this morning and had to come in late. But I'm dying for a cigarette. Mom was home this morning so I couldn't smoke before leaving the house and Aiden is a cunt and wouldn't let me smoke in his car when he dropped me off this morning."

When we got to the back of the school, she slipped a packet of Marlboro's out of her bag and sparked on up. Then she offered one to me.

I looked at them, feeling a bit uneasy. "I've never actually smoked before," I admitted to her.

"Oh, it's easy," Andy assured me. "I mean, you'll choke the first time, everyone does. But I'll teach you." She rattled the box in front of me, prompting me to take one out. She lit it for me and gestured for me to watch her. "You have to inhale but not swallow the whole way down. Don't hold the smoke in your mouth though, it will burn." She took a long drag from her cigarette and pointed to her throat where she was holding the fumes. She took another short breath in and then blew out, the smoke clouding the air in front of her.

"You take a breath in as you're holding it, that's what takes it into your lungs. I think. I'm not good at the science part of it. Then you just blow out. See? It's not that hard. Now you try."

I looked at the cigarette like it was a foreign object. I glanced up at her and she gave me an encouraging smile and I raised it to my lips, taking a drag of it. Obviously, I must have done it wrong for as soon as the smoke went into my system, I started coughing so much, I thought I would suffocate.

She laughed, but not spitefully. "You'll get the hang of it. I remember when Aiden gave me my first cigarette, I thought I was going to die."

Once I was able to breathe again, I asked, "Whose Aiden? Is that your boyfriend?"

She laughed again, but much harder this time. "Oh fuck, no! Aiden is my older brother. Same age as Jarms, actually - 21. They went to school together."

"Oh - I keep forgetting you lived next to him," I lied, even though I had been looking for the perfect way to bring him up. "That's crazy you're his neighbour."

Andy shrugged and took another drag of her cigarette and indicated that I should as well, so I gave it another go. I managed it a bit better this time, but it was still pretty pungent. "Once you get use to it, it's not very exciting, na'mean?" she said. "Like... ol BJ is a pretty nice dude and all but he's a bit weird, isn't he?"

I scoffed lightly and rolled my eyes, taking another experimental drag of my cigarette. "You don't have to tell me that twice. What about Joey?"

Andy snorted a bit, shaking her head and she grinned, taking another long drag of her cigarettes. "Lil Jarms is alright by me. Not by Aiden. But I always got on with him. He was my first kiss."

I nearly choked on my cigarette, even though it really shouldn't have been that shocking. Andy was a very pretty girl, he would have wanted to kiss her, even now. I just hadn't expected it, that's all. "He was?" I coughed, after I had caught my breath back.