I Left My Heart in San Diego

"Arizona, let's go! You don't have to look beautiful to sit in the car for eight hours! I'm the only one that's going to be seeing you anyway!" my mom yelled up the stairs for the third time.

"Mom, God, I'm coming!" I yelled back at her, coming down the stairs with my two suitcases and my cat carrier.

"I thought you said you were only bringing one suitcase, Arizona," Mom said, eying my last-minute second suitcase.

"Mom, even expanded, I still had, like, half my clothes that still weren't packed yet. Hence the second suitcase," I answered.

"Fine, Arizona, but your carrier will have to sit in the back seat." Mom opened the glass door, holding it open with her foot as she dragged her lone silver suitcase out the front door.

"My carrier has a cat inside of it, and the cat has a name!" I called angrily after her as the glass door shut behind her. I peeked in the carrier, sticking a finger inside so my 3-year-old calico, Daryn, could nuzzle it and not feel so trapped. "Her name is Daryn," I muttered. She purred and nuzzled my finger lovingly.

"And before you ask," Mom said as she came back inside for one of my suitcases I had placed by the door, "You can't let the cat out while the car is moving."

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Fine. As long as she can get out for a few minutes every time we stop so she doesn't go completely mad," I argued.

"Whatever, Arizona. But how will the cat go to the bathroom?" my mom asked, hand on her hip as I opened the glass door, holding it open with my elbow as I rolled my suitcase over the metal step under the door.

"I left her some pellets in her cage, Mom. She'll be fine," I answered, my voice cut off by the slam of the glass door.

"I just don't want to smell anything." Mom shoved the last suitcase in the trunk, and shut it as I placed Daryn's carrier in the driver's-side back seat. "Are you ready?" she asked, taking a deep breath with a smile on her face.

"Ready to leave my whole life behind? Yeah, sure, let's go," I said, hopping in the passenger seat. My mom didn't make a move to get in the driver's side. A few minutes later I asked, "Well, are we going or not?"

"Do you want to drive?" she asked.

My face brightened. "Okay!" I climbed over the stick shift, careful not to jostle it, and strapped myself in eagerly, waiting for my mom to strap herself in on the other side. I'm seventeen, and I had just gotten my license, so I was always eager to drive.

My mom smiled at me as she strapped herself in and laid back, her shoes already off. "Let's go," she said, still smiling, and I started the car.

I took one long, last look at the house -- and life -- I was leaving behind before I pulled out of the driveway, the huge-ass moving truck lumbering along after us.

~~~

"Which one is it, Mom?" I asked, nudging her awake.

She opened her eyes and stretched as I slowly drove down our street, headlights piercing the darkness like knives.

We drove about another one hundred feet before my mom pointed to a white-sided house with shutters that looked black in the dark, but so did all the others, so I would have to wait til morning to see what color they really were. "This one," she said. "Fourteen oh-one."

I pulled in the driveway and took the key out of the ignition, sighing with relief that I could finally get out of our white 2003 Honda Accord and stay out of it, at least until tomorrow, when I was going with my mother to the nearest school to enroll for the latter half of junior year and senior year of high school.

The moving truck turned around painfully slowly in the narrow cul de sac our street ended in, and pulled end-first up to the curb at our driveway. "Okay, let's get this done," one of the movers said, holding something that resembled stake lights under his arms.

Well, they were stake lights. The mover staked some temporary lights in the ground adjacent to the driveway, and went back to the open-ended truck. My mother and I stretched our legs and arms and other limbs as we exited the car for a while, and while Mom opened the trunk and started heaving out suitcases, I was at the back door, getting Daryn's carrier, which she had been stuck in for the past four hours, and crying to get out of for the past sixty minutes.

Forgetting my suitcases, the movers, and my mother yelling after me as I ran into our new house to release my cat. But as my senses came to, mostly my common sense, I forgot that the movers would be moving around and Daryn would have a higher possibility of getting squished by either our furniture or the movers themselves. So I just went upstairs, carrier in hand, and explored, turning on lights as I walked.

I fell in love with the first room I walked into. It had, like, Easter-egg-purple walls, deep purple carpet, and a huge closet with off-white doors. I set down Daryn's carrier in the corner, and went back outside to bring in my suitcases and help direct the movers.

I suppose the lights the movers had staked in our driveway were attracting some attention to my mom and I, because I saw a tall guy's figure walking toward our new house, hands shoved in his pockets. I couldn't really make anything out about him, though, it was too dark and he was still too far away.

The first mover brought out a bed frame, which happened to be mine, and I directed him inside to the room which I had just claimed. He set it up, and we both headed back out to pick up more furniture. The mysterious tall guy was standing right by the first light stake by the driveway, lighting up his entire body.

Holy shit. This guy was my neighbor? Well...I wasn't just going to stand there.

I walked up to him, smiling. "Is this tradition for you?"

He turned his head to me, the light stakes lighting up his eyes in addition to that sexy smile. His eyes were green as I had ever seen. "Is what tradition for me? Watching my new neighbors move in at 11 at night? If so, then yes," he answered smartly.

I smiled, chuckling a little. "So are you going to introduce yourself or just stand there anonymously and watch as my mom and I move into our house?"

He laughed. "Billie Joe Armstrong."

I smirked at him. "That's a unique name."

"I've heard that before. And what is the name of the doll I'm talking to?" Billie Joe asked.

"Arizona Willows," I answered, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

"Unique name yourself. So, where did you come from?" he said.

"San Diego. You been here long?"

"Since I was brought into this shit-hole we call a world," Billie Joe answered proudly.

I laughed. "Arizona, I can't arrange your bedroom for you!" my mom called from the back of the moving truck.

I sighed. "Guess you have some more pressing matters to attend to," Billie Joe remarked, nodding his head toward my mom.

"Yeah, it looks like it. See you around?"

"Definitely. I live down there," he said, pointing at the house with a half-open garage, light spilling out onto the asphalt driveway.

"The house with that half-open garage. Got it," I said.

"Arizona! Get moving!" my mom yelled, getting annoyed. I sighed again.

Billie Joe laughed. "I'll see you later," he said, and started walking away.

"Later," I called after him, watching him walk away the same way he approached.

The movers had my mattress in hand, and were carting it inside. Once they had laid it down on my bed frame, I laid down on the mattress, thankful to be on a bed after being in that car all damn day.

Billie Joe was the first thing I thought of. Holy shit. Again. Maybe this eight-hour move from my life wasn't all bad...