I Left My Heart in San Diego

CURRENT STORY DATE: 11/20/10

"I hate going to sleep," I muttered.

Billie laughed, rolling over on his side to look at me. "You say that just about every night."

"But I'm not over here every night," I argued.

"Yeah, but when you aren't, you text that to me," Billie rebutted.

"Yes, but you usually send me messages of you playing songs, and I play them till I fall asleep," I said, smiling and rolling onto my side to close the gap between our faces and kiss him.

Billie smiled and kissed me back, a bit more passionately. I squeaked, pulling back but reconnecting right away. Billie chuckled, continuing to kiss me. Our tongues met in familiarity, Billie placing one of his hands in my strawberry blonde hair, the other down on my slightly protruding belly.

I was coming up on the three-month pregnancy benchmark, at which point I would pass out of the first trimester, and into the second trimester, the trimester I had read in which the most growth occurs because that's when the baby is, like, developing limbs and stuff. I was very excited to have this baby, yes, but, right now, I was just eager to figure out the sex of the baby.

Billie pressed into me, the hand he had on my belly moving to my back, keeping one in my hair. He broke off slightly, the tip of his nose joined with mine. We were both breathing a bit heavily from our make-out, but there were big smiles on our faces. "I love you, Izzie."

I smiled even wider, kissing him again. "I love you, too, Billie."

Billie inched back, the hand in my hair coming out, smoothing it down and gently running down my cheek, giving me chills. I shivered. Billie chuckled. "I still get chills when you do that," I muttered, smiling.

"Well I suppose that's a good thing," he said, smiling as well.

I giggled, and moved in to kiss him, but his phone rang from his jeans pocket. His jeans were on the floor behind me, so I rolled over and picked them up out of his pocket, checking the ID to see who it was. I cocked my head to the side slightly upon reading the name. "Who's Rachel?" I asked.

"Who?" Billie asked.

"Rachel. That's who your phone says is calling you," I repeated. I showed him the lit-up screen, listening the phone redirect the call to his voicemail.

"Oh, shit."

That was when I became concerned. I slid Billie's now-beeping phone toward him, but he didn't touch it. Instead, he dropped his head, holding it in his hand. "Who is she, Billie?" I asked, slowly but firmly.

Billie sighed, looking up at me with his yellow-green eyes glistening with moisture. Before he could stop it, a single tear fell down his cheek. He looked down at his sheets, his fingers moving aimlessly about them, then back up at me, another tear falling. "Izzie, babe...," he began quietly.

I continued to stare at him, almost stare him down, willing an answer out of him. "Billie, why won't you tell me who she is?"

"I wasn't completely honest with you that night in the hospital after the crash," Billie finally said.

I gasped. "What do you mean?" I asked, my eyes starting to tear.

"I told you that Mike, Tre, and I were all in Mike's truck, driving to Long Beach from Los Angeles for our next show, but that was a lie."

Tears started to fall. "Why did you lie to me, Billie?" I whispered.

Billie took in a deep breath before answering me. Oh, shit, this was big stuff. "Because I was with another girl."

I gasped, audibly this time, clamping my hand over my mouth and letting the tears flow freely. Billie tried to put a hand on my arm to comfort me, but I yanked my arm away, scrambling to my feet. "Don't even fucking touch me, you cheating bastard!" I yelled.

"Izzie, please calm down," Billie said, sitting up, tears falling from his eyes, too.

"No. You don't get the right to call me Izzie anymore." Billie's face fell. "And calm down? How the fuck am I supposed to calm down?? You just told me that you were with another girl while you were on tour, you dirty son of a bitch!" I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. "What else did you lie to me about?"

"The part about me driving was true. I was driving, but I had Rachel in the passenger seat, Mike and Tre sitting in the back. I was the only one with a girl. Both Mike and Tre threatened to send you pictures of me with her, but I told them I would leave the tour and go home if they did that, so they just kept quiet.

"Anyway, Rachel was a very seductive girl. She was practically leaned over the gear-shift the entire time, giving me kisses on my cheek and neck." I snorted, standing with my arms crossed over my belly about three feet away from Billie. "At some point, probably because I was tired and I couldn't think straight, I finally turned my head and started kissing her, and she was eagerly kissing back. Mike and Tre had fallen asleep a while back, so they only woke up just in time to try and help me swerve out of the way, which obviously didn't work," Billie finished. "I've felt so bad about it, Arizona, but I didn't know how to tell you."

"How about just saying it, you dirty fucking liar?!" I said, yelling the word 'liar.'

Billie's tears started freely flowing now. "Arizona, I didn't know what I was thinking! I don't know why I did it, but I did! I just did! And I'll regret it for the rest of my life! Why can't you just forgive me? At least I had the guts to tell you!" he choked.

"It's gonna take a lot for me to forgive you for this. Just tell me one thing," I said.

"Anything," Billie said, wiping his face with his hand.

"How far did you go with her?"

Billie sighed, hanging his head, almost smiling when he looked up at me. "I did nothing more than kiss her since I was driving," he answered.

I sighed. "Well, I suppose that's the good news." Billie nodded, sniffling. I did the same, wiping the tears from my eyes and seeing streaks of mascara coming off on my hand. I wiped it off my my jeans, swearing. "But the bad news for you is that I'm leaving."

"Leaving me?" Billie asked, his eyes spilling fresh tears.

I shook my head. "Don't be stupid. I'm not leaving you permanently, I'm just leaving your house right now," I said, grabbing my bag of the floor and shouldering it.

Billie sighed, staying seated on his bed, not even attempting to try and make me stay because he knew it was useless. "I'll talk to you tomorrow," I said as I walked to his door. "If you're lucky." I opened his bedroom door, leaving and closing it behind me.

"Arizona, wait!" I heard him call. I turned around on the step of the staircase I had just landed on, seeing his tear-streaked face in his doorway. "I love you," he said.

I snorted. "Bullshit," I said, turning around and walking out his front door, ignoring his calls after me.

As I walked home in the cool autumn night, I checked the time on my phone. Ten-thirty. Perfect. My mom would probably be upstairs with Alaska, and I would get to avoid her and maybe Aran, too, if I was lucky. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it, seeing that Billie had sent me a text message. I opened it, to be nice. 'I'm so sorry. please forgive me </3' I closed out of the text message, not even deeming it worthy of a reply.

The tears really started flowing when I walked up to my front door. On my way up to my room, I ran into Aran in the hallway, who seemed to be coming downstairs to get something. He noticed my red, eyeliner-smudged face, despite how much I tried to hide it from him.

"Arizona? What's wrong?" he asked, taking a step closer to me and placing a hand on my shoulder.

I shrugged it off, glad that he didn't try and put it back. "Nothing," I mumbled, slowly walking to my room.

Aran didn't say anything as I closed my door behind me. I dropped my bag on my floor, pulled back my covers, climbed under them, shoved a pillow over my face, and cried myself to sleep.

How could he do this to me???