Blondie Wannabe: A Billy Hargrove Fanfic

This is Not Wonderland

Driving Steve to the party was a bad idea to start with, but it only got worse the deeper into it we got.

"What do you think of this?" my brother asked me an hour before the party, coming into my room wearing tight jeans and a red turtleneck.

"It's nice," I said honestly. "Very you."

That it was. Only Steve could wear something as mama's boy looking as a cranberry turtleneck to a house party and pull it off. His overly-coifed hair and white Converse high-tops completed the look; even his stitches couldn't ruin it.

After examining himself in my mirror, he came and sat down next to me on my bed. I was reading Sula by Toni Morrison, which I'd purchased because she was Craig's favorite author, but, sensing he wanted to talk, I dog-eared my page and set it to the side. "Do you need something, bud?" I asked hesitantly.

"Can I ask something very faggotish?" 

I rolled my eyes at the term but nodded my head.

"Just for fun, could I pick out your outfit and makeup, like I did when I was in middle school?" He put his hands together like he was praying, sitting up on his knees like an excited child.

The offer should've made me suspicious, but I was so excited to do something like this again, I didn't really give a shit. So I agreed, and he pawed through my closet, pushing things all the way to the left, then all the way to the right. I swear, he would've been a better girl than me if he'd been one. 

He finally decided on a powder blue dress with bobbin lace sleeves down to the elbow and a knee-length skirt. Craig had called it my Alice in Wonderland dress. 

"You look so sweet in this one," Steve said, handing it to me. "Like an angel."

I rolled my eyes but went to go put it on.

"Let me do your makeup first, so it doesn't get dirty."

This was the part that really got me. He could always do my blush and eyeshadow and lipstick as well as I could paint a face. If he hadn't been so determined to be the manliest man that ever lived, he would've been a terrific artist.

On the car ride over there, we listened to a station that played Cyndi Lauper and Madonna and Olivia Newton-John and sang along loudly.

When I parked three blocks away from Hannah's house, he said, "You could drive a little closer; I don't mind." He smiled sweetly when he said it, so I turned down the radio and pulled up closer, closer, closer, until I was literally parked one house over. "Deb?" Steve said finally. "Do you wanna come in for a little, just a little?"

"No, Steve, I don't want to go to a party with your high school-aged friends." Worrying that sounded harsh, I added, "I wouldn't want to cramp your style."

He took my hand in his and looked me in the eyes. "I'm not embarrassed of you."

As kind as he was, that wasn't something I was afraid of. I was far more terrified of having to see Billy, talk to him. I'd said we'd discuss what had happened outside of school, and I made that promise with the best of intentions, but, now that an opportunity was in front of me, I became complete chicken shit. But the look in my brother's eyes was so sincere, I gave a nod and followed him in.

I was dressed completely wrong, in my lace dress, blonde hair fluffed and side-parted, with black flats, and pale blue eyeshadow and shiny pink lips like I was going to prom. I didn't know if Steve hadn't planned on inviting me when he picked out my outfit, or he just misunderstood what kind of party this was.

I followed him to the kitchen where he immediately went for the drinks. "Do you want a beer?" he asked, offering me a bottle.

"No thanks, I shouldn't."

He shrugged, taking two for himself. "C'mon, let's go sit on the couch, I don't feel like dancing." I trailed after him till he found us seats surrounded by some of the basketball crew and their girlfriends, also the Hannah and her friend from yesterday. But no Billy.

"Glad you two could make it," Hannah gushed.

I was mostly zoned out during the conversation, Steve drinking and laughing, until he mentioned my name.

"Deb, I love that you're back home," he said, slurring slightly. "I missed having someone around who wears church clothes to parties."

My eyebrows pinched together at that, and so did a few other peoples. It was a pretty rude thing to say, especially since he was the one who dressed me. Bet he wouldn't like it if I told people that.

"No, you were always the smart one, I used to think you were boring, in all honesty, but now I wish I had the ability to fall asleep in a library after studying for hours." He was drunk, but also strangely calculated. Now I saw the boy who was known for years as 'King Steve'. "I mean, I guess that whole thing didn't help you get through college..."

He was trying to be funny, but no one was laughing. That's why he wanted me to come, why he dressed me up like this, so he could put me down to boost himself up. He was the popular Harrington, and I was the nerd, and he needed people to know it.

"Quick, someone ask her how many books she's read since she got here."

No one did, and I was grateful, but more than that, I was disappointed in my brother. I thought we'd come farther than this, that he'd come farther than this, but I was wrong. 

"You're a dick when you're drunk, and a dick the rest of the time too." I stood up, smoothed down my skirt, and put my hands on my hips. "Find your own ride home, asshole."

With that, I stormed off, taking the back door out to the patio, itching for some reason, like I had fleas. When I saw a few guys smoking, I realized that was what it was, I wanted a smoke. I'd never even touched a cigarette until I met Craig, but he loved to chain smoke watching the stars, on the way to class. I think it made him feel like a Beatnick. It'd been months since I'd so much as touched one, and I was dying.

"Hey, can I bum one?" I asked one of the guys in a jean jacket.

"Sure," he said, fishing for his pack.

"I got it, man." I turned to see Billy holding one out for me, smirking. I took it out of his hand and put it between my teeth, letting him light it for me. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Yes, fancy." I coughed a bit on my first exhale, making him giggle.

"You alright?"

I rolled my eyes, mostly because I didn't want to look at him. He was wearing a leather jacket with no shirt underneath, which was absolutely insane considering how cold it was. But he wasn't even shivering. 

"What happened to your shirt?" I asked with faux-nonchalance. 

He looked down at himself and shrugged. "Must've lost it." There was a lilt to his voice implying he'd been relieved of his shirt in a sexual encounter; how typical.

With an eye roll and a brief, "thanks for the cigarette," I walked away, going around the house to get to the front instead of going back inside where I ran the risk of running into Steve. All I wanted was to go home and read and sleep, maybe cry, but certainly not hang around here like a loser.

"Hey, wait up." Billy fell into stride with me, dropping his cigarette on the sidewalk and grinding it into nothingness. "Why'd you just leave?"

"Because this is a high school party, and I don't belong here."

"Okay, let's go somewhere else."

We had arrived at my car. I turned around to tell him to get lost, but I made the mistake of looking into those ocean eyes. I wasn't going to fuck him, no, that couldn't happen. I'd been avoiding talking to him for Steve's sake, but he treated me like shit back in there, so what did I owe him? If anything, it was Billy who deserved an explanation.

I flicked my head in the direction of the passenger seat before stubbing out my cigarette. "Get in."