Remembering Billie

Twenty Four Hours After [Billie's .P.O.V.]

Its been twenty four damn hours since I left home. Well, not "left". I haven't moved out, or run away, though I actually wish that either of those two things were happening right now.

I've calmed down by a margin. I've lost the fiery anger from inside of me and been left with the sadness instead. I don't mind. Sadness I can handle, anger I can't. I'm a lot like my father in that way. I'm flicking through an old, Red Bull stained, Vogue magazine when my phone starts screaming Symphony No. 9 by Ludwig Van Beethoven. I curse under my breath and sigh because its my friend Abigail. I silently pray that my parents haven't called her and found out my lie. "Hey Abi-" I enthusiastically say into the phone. "-Where the fuck are you?" She almost yells at me. I cringe and shut my eyes. "Wow. Subtle." I mutter angrily. "I'm gonna come get you." She says, but her voice sounds far away. "Where are you?" I roll my eyes although she can't exactly see me. "I'm fine Abs." I tell her, pleading. "I'll, I'll drive to yours." I say. She's quiet, considering my proclamation. "Fine." She snaps. "Ten minutes before I freaking hack the hell outta your phone and come find you!" I giggle at her attitude. "On my way capt'n!"

I arrive at Abigail's with six minutes to spare and knock on the door waiting for her. I hear footsteps bashing down the hallway before the door is thrown open to reveal wavy tones of blue coloured hair on the head of a distraught looking Abigail. She throws herself into me, wrapping her arms around my neck. "You turd!" She squeals into my chest. "Don't you ever do that again!" I cough. "Okay. But promise me something as well?" She pulls away from me. "Don't ever freaking hug me like that again! That was a rugby tackle! NOT a hug, Abi!" She shrugs, her blue hair swishing and walks inside the house.

Abi lives in a new part of Indianapolis. A polished subdivision called the "Indy Acreage" which you can guess only means one thing... Her family is racing car crazy!!! Her dad is an engineer, her mother a retired racer who now does management work for her old brother Mich who's a top ten racer. You'd think that because they're a "polished" family that their house would be neat, tidy and pristine. But it's quite the opposite. Abi's house is a bombsite and I'm constantly stepping over crap left on the floor, tables, chairs and any other piece of furniture. I don't mind though. We dodge washing left on the carpet and make our way to her room, which is just as messy. I perch on her desk with my legs on her desk chair. "What's been happening, Bills?" She sits down on her bed, making a pile of books lurch with her weight and collapse. "Shit" She mumbles. I smile at her antics and start to explain what happened.

She orders pizza and we sit in her room devouring slice after slice as we blast music through her Bluetooth speakers. "When are you gonna go home?" She asks me, halfway through a slice of Vege Trio. "I'm not sure" I sigh and frown at my plate. "Kay, well if you're not going home then I s'pose you must stay here." I leap into her arms and give her a bear hug. "I love you so much Abs!" She giggles and I know that with Abigail by my side, I can survive this storm.

I've known Abigail since we both started school. I can remember the precise moment we became friends. She was sitting next to me, we were doing a writing test and our teacher Mrs Devons had the class silenced to the point she shot us a death glare if we breathed too loud. About halfway through the test Abi started tapping at her desk with two pens as makeshift drumsticks and dropped a beat that even P!nk would have appreciated. Poor Abi was new and didn't know a single soul either, so she wasn't to know that Mrs Devons would flip out. She marched over to Abi's desk and ripped the pens from her grasp, throwing them to the side. "Abigail Prince!" She had leaned right into Abi's face spitting at her as she said, "Let the class work without the annoyance of your disastrous tapping!" She continued to talk about how annoying music is and how horrible the drums are to play. She then started saying how could Abi's mother ever let her dye her hair such a disgusting colour (it was black with red steaks) to the point where Abi's face crumpled and tears started trickling down her cheeks. Anger bursted inside of me and I stood up, standing in front of Abi to cover her face and said loudly to Mrs Devons, "But Missus, you're only angry that Abigail has a talent that could earn her millions and you're stuck being a shitty high school teacher!" It shut her up for a second before she went beet red in the face and screamed at Abi and I to go to the Principal's Office. Every day after that we had lunch together, hung out at each other's houses and basically stuck to each other like glue. Abi and I joined the band at the same time, with me playing the violin and her on a trumpet and from there we discovered our diverse music tastes and it was almost all we ever talked about there after.

We've been friends through thick and thin. She was there through my first break up, first kiss, first Violin competition and all the other days in between, like I have been for her, too. Abi liked to joke that before I came along, her only friends were her instruments. She told me that ever since her brother turned thirteen and he took interest in his mother's profession with his father making top notch cars, the house became silent as they were always out practicing or at competitions. Abi became lonely and begged her mother for a pet. But because they were never home, the closest thing she was allowed to a pet, was a succulent plant. She started playing music on a couple pots from the kitchen before her family finally took notice to her talents and brought Abi a piano, then a drum kit, guitar and ukulele lessons before at age fourteen, she brought a trumpet and fell in love with it entirely. She's nearly up to the stage I'm at, with me just passing eight years and her onto two and a half, she's brilliant on the trumpet.

"Should we do some work for Classic Sense?" Abi asked, knocking me out of my flashback. "Yes!" I exclaimed loudly and immediately started telling her my idea about the Ringtone Game. "Basically," I was saying, "We have three different genres of music for three different people that we know well but can generalize for everyone listening." Abi nodded enthusiastically and typed down everything onto a Document in her computer. "Like for instance, mother, father and sister/brother" I was happy to have changed the subject. Abi and I run a Radio Channel called "Classic Sense" which is like, COMMON sense, but CLASSIC instead. Becuase it's common sense to love classical music. We play pieces by Beethoven and Mozart, Sarah Chang and more of the classical musicians you hear of today as well as historical pieces. We talk about competitions, events, brass bands and orchestras and anything to do with classical music. We also play games and involve the listeners with prizes like tickets to see and opera performance in Sydney or something like that. "I like that." Abi was smiling at me. "We could include the listeners and have them guess out of the three types of people which ringtone is for who!" I nodded my head and clapped my hands excitedly. "This is really good!!" I kept saying over and over.

We kept talking, thinking, writing down ideas and of course, listening to some Beethoven before finally, just after one am we fell asleep, with me on the sofa hidden by oodles of clean and dirty washing and Abi laying on the floor with a pillow over her face snoring contently.