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

10. Desensitized [Edited]

I don't know what time I had gotten back to the house at but my mom wasn't at home. I assumed her and Billie were out looking for me, seeing as I had been gone for a while. I stepped through the front door and looked at my house. This was the house my dad painstakingly painted from top to bottom himself. The stairs he used to carry me or Kage upstairs when we were younger and we fell asleep on the sofa. The living room he would spend hours in painting something on his trusted easel and the kitchen he used to help my mother cook dinner in. This was his house.

Tears stung my eyes suddenly. I wasn't sure if they were falling or if it was the rain still on my cheeks and dripping down from my hair. I stormed through the house and straight out the back door, into our small back garden because I felt as though I couldn't breathe standing inside.

I took in the air from outside, smelling the rain that still lingered in the rain and couldn't help but hyperventilate. My head was thumping and I ran my hands through my soaking wet hair, looking upwards to the sky covered with grey clouds and the only thing I could think of to do was scream at the sky. So I did.

"Grace? What the fuck are you doing?"

I turned suddenly and seen Joey standing at the back door, giving me a strange look. I didn't blame him, I would probably think I was crazy too if I seen myself. I dropped my arms by my side, feeling defeated and rather pathetic all of a sudden. I tried to get my breath together to form a proper sentence but my breathing was still erratic. I had never had a panic attack before and I was starting to worry that I was having one.

I tried to say what I could. "There was... food and... Billie and... married, and I just..." I stopped, noticing that it clearly wasn't making a lot of sense to him so I resulted to doing what my body had been wanting to do for a while. I started crying. Then I started sobbing.

I was looking at the ground so I didn't notice Joey walk out to me until I seen his vans on the ground in front of me and he pulled me into a hug, despite the fact I was dripping with rain. "Hey, it's alright," he said, gently. "You're fine. Just take deep breaths, okay? You don't have to tell me what's wrong if you don't want to."

If I felt bad about insulting him to Aiden before, I felt especially bad about it now. So bad, in fact, it only really made me cry even more and I gave him a hug back as if trying to apologise for being such an asshole about him on Saturday night.

Once I had managed to calm down a bit, though still sniffling and rubbing my eyes with my sleeves, I told him what happened. "Mom and your dad... They're getting married."

Joey looked surprised - obviously they hadn't told him either. Then he looked a little hurt. He obviously had it in his mind that his parents were going to get back together so it must have been a pretty big blow to him as well.

"They are?"

I nodded and took a deep, shaky breath. "Billie told me. He took me for food and... I lost it... In front of everyone in the place and then I left him there." I sniffed again, feeling the cold of the rainfall finally starting to hit me and I was beginning to shiver.

"Fuck," he said, "I actually didn't see that one coming. Are you okay? Well, I mean obviously you aren't, that's a stupid question."

I shrugged and took another quick, trembling breath and wiped away from tears with my already drenched sleeve. Then I looked up at him, "Are you okay?"

He took a deep breath and looked over my head for a moment before he looked back at me. "Don't worry about me right now, okay? You're practically freezing to death here, we need to get you dried up."

I shook my head. "I don't really want to stay here. I don't want to look at them right now when they come back."

Joey looked thoughtful for a few seconds. "Did you eat much when you were out?"