Restless Heart Syndrome

Tre looked at me with an expression of hurt disbelief on his face. I felt like a terrible person for coming to him with this. Sure, there was a slight chance it could be his baby, but it was far more likely to be Billie Joe's baby. The look on his face said he knew that.

“You do realize that it's damn near impossible for me to be the father of your baby, right?” Tre questioned.

“It's possible, Tre. You know that. I may have been cheating on you, but we still slept together.” I was ruining things even more for myself with this. If I was smart, I would have apologized for wasting his time, got into my car, and went home. But I wasn't smart, obviously. I kept talking and talking despite knowing it was the wrong thing to do.

“I know, Audrey. But you spent more time with him than you did with me. I'm just being realistic.”

“So am I.”

“Why the fuck would you want to put yourself through the drama this would cause? Why don't you just leave me out of it and be happy with Billie Joe? I thought that was what you wanted, anyway.” A bitterness had made its way into his voice at the mention of my relationship with Billie Joe, understandably. He was right, I didn't want the drama this could cause, but I couldn't just leave it alone.

“I'm just trying to do the right thing for-”

“You should have thought about that before you cheated on me. It's a bit too late to think about doing that now, don't you think?”

“I'm sorry I came here, Tre. I just thought you had the right to know what was going on,” I said quietly.

“How does Billie Joe feel about this?”

“He doesn't know yet.”

“I'm sure he'll be happy about it. He'll need something to do with his time.”

“What the hell are you talking about? He has plenty of things to do with his time. I know you're taking a break from the band until things get-”

“Is that what he told you?” Tre shook his head and laughed to himself. “Billie Joe lied to you, Audrey. I left the band because I can't possibly work with him anymore given what happened. I can eventually forgive him, sure, but things will never be the same. I can't spend a lot of time with him, or you for that matter. I need to forget you. If I see him all the time, I'll be reminded of that. Don't you fucking get how much you hurt me, Audrey? I loved you so damn much. I thought I could live a lie, but I couldn't do it anymore.”

I stared at him in disbelief. I knew I hurt him, but I never thought what I had done affected him that deeply. I felt worse than I did before, but I also felt hurt that Billie Joe had lied to me about it. “I'm sorry, Tre. I don't know what else to say to you. I know it'll never be okay and I know you'll probably never forgive me for it. I don't know what else to say to you other than what's done is done, and I can't change it. All I can fucking do is apologize to you. If you want to know if you're going to be a father or not, you know where I am.”



When I got home, I was relieved to see that Billie Joe hadn't come home yet. I needed some time alone to process all that had happened today. I knew what was going on, of course, but I didn't let myself process it. It seemed like a bad thing to do at Tre's house, which was disastrous enough without me breaking down over everything, and thinking about everything while driving home didn't seem too wise, either.

Billie Joe had lied to me about what was going on with Tre. I felt like he was doing it to protect me, but from what? My guilt? I already felt guilty about what had happened. Sure, this might have added to it, but what was the difference? I already felt like shit. Being lied to made it worse. I hated being lied to more than anything, especially when Billie Joe was the one who lied to me. I thought we were past lying to each other, but maybe I had been wrong.

I went upstairs, laid in the bed, and finally let myself cry over what a fucking mess this day had been. There was no sense in getting mad at Billie Joe for lying to me. I was hurt, still, but he probably did what he thought was best. I had been the one that fucked everything up. I fucked up Billie Joe's life. I fucked up Tre's life. I fucked up my life. And worst of all, I had probably fucked up my unborn child's life, too. That made me even worse of a person than I was before. Nothing anyone could say or do could possibly fix the mess I had made of things. And I got the feeling that things would get a lot worse before they got better.