The next morning, Izzy woke up to find herself asleep on Nick's couch. Sitting up and rubbing her eyes she looked down to find herself still in her now rumpled party clothes. How did I get here and what am I doing at Nick's? she wondered to herself. Then all of a sudden the night before came flooding back to her and she remembered every single moment of our argument.

"You up yet sleepyhead?" Nick called from the kitchen.

Izzy just groaned in response. "Barely. God, I was such a mess last night I hardly remember anything after the argument."

"Nothing much happened," Nick filled her in. "You were really upset and I figured if Kevin saw you he'd freak and give you some huge inquisition, so I suggested you spend the night here. You were so emotionally drained you crashed on the couch the minute we walked in."

"Thanks," she told him gratefully as she got up from the couch and stretched. "I better give Kevin a call though. He's probably worried about me."

"Oh, yea sure. I'll be here in the kitchen if you need me," he told her as he went back to cooking breakfast.

Taking a deep breath Izzy picked up the phone, trying to figure out what to tell Kevin. Not like he could punish her or anything. She was 22 years old, if she wanted to stay out all night she had every right to. Before she lost her nerve she dialed his number and listened it to ring until finally somebody picked up.

"Hello?" Kevin's voice answered. He sounded a little frantic, like he hadn't slept very well the night before.

"Kev? It's me Izzy," she softly spoke.

"Izzy?! Where are you? Where have you been all night? Do you know how worried I was about you?"

"Kevin I'm fine," she assured him. "Mel and I had a stupid fight last night and I was really upset. I'm over at Nick's house."

"Nick's house? What are you doing at Nick's?" Kevin asked in a confused voice. If anything he'd expected her to be at Ashley's place if she was upset. "What about Ashley? Did you have a fight with him also?"

"I guess you could say that. Look, Kevin I'd rather not talk about it. I just called to let you know that I'm fine. Nick took me home after the party and I spent the night at his place."

"So you're mad at both Ashley and Melissa, so you spent the night at Nick's?" Kevin repeated, making sure he got everything straight. "You didn't do anything stupid for revenge did you?"

"Kevin! Eww! Of course not! Nick is like my brother!" Izzy exclaimed, shuddering at the thought. "I slept on the couch. Look, I just called to let you know that I'm okay. I'll be home later on tonight."

"All right. Thanks for checking in. I was worried."

"I know," she said a little coldly. "I'll talk to you later. Bye."

"Breakfast is ready!" Nick announced, hearing Izzy hang up the phone.

"You cooked?" Izzy asked rolling her eyes.

"Yes," he answered, sounding a little insulted. "What you don't trust my culinary skills?"

"You could say that," she answered with a laugh as she sat down and helped herself to some eggs anyway. "Hey by any chance did any of your sisters happen to leave any kind of clothing that I could go jogging in here? I kind of want to just go out and clear my mind a little."

"I'll have to look. There's probably something that you could use laying around here somewhere. I think BJ may have left a pair of shorts the last time she came to visit and you can just borrow one of my shirts. I never knew you jogged?"

"Only once in a while. Like I said I need to get this whole mess with Mel and Ashley off my mind," she confessed, but suddenly changed the topic. "Let's forget about them though. Let's just enjoy breakfast and pretend that nothing happened all right?"

"Okay," Nick agreed with her even though a little voice in the back of his head was saying, that's much easier said than done...

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When I woke up the next morning I instantly groaned and pulled the covers back over my head. After Izzy and Nick had abandoned me on the beach I just sat there crying for what felt like hours. I was so upset that I lost all sense of time. Finally Erika and AJ had somehow found me and AJ had dropped us back off at my apartment. It was all a blur to me though. After the argument last night I couldn't care less. I doubt I said two words for the rest of the night. Just stared into nothingness and cried. Now not only had I lost my boyfriend, but my best friend as well.

"Are you up?" Erika's voice asked, knocking at my door.

"Go away," I grumbled. "Try coming back in 10 years."

"I bought you some coffee," she offered as she opened the bedroom door. "You really can't stay in bed forever Mel. It's not going to make your problems go away."

"Well, then do you have a better solution?" I asked her nastily as I finally pulled my head out from under my pillow.

"Here," she told me, handing me the phone. "Call up Izzy and try to talk to her again."

"I don't think she's ready to talk. Besides I can't try to make this up to her over the phone."

"So, then go over there!" Erika urged. "You have the perfect excuse. You still have to return her dress right?"

"I guess so..." I mumbled.

"I'll leave you alone and let you think about what I said," she told me as she left the room. The last thing I wanted to do right now is think anymore about the horrible situation.

Finally after finishing up my cup of coffee and taking a nice hot shower, I felt ten times more human and I actually began to consider doing just what Erika had suggested. Before I lost my nerve I picked up the phone, but instead of dialing Izzy's private line, I dialed Kevin and Melanie's number instead, figuring that they could give me a clue if it was a good idea to talk to her.

"Hello?" Melanie's voice answered the phone.

"Hey Melanie," I greeted her, sounding a little nervous.

"Hey! How are you doing? I heard about your fight with Izzy last night? Are you doing okay?" she asked.

"I guess so," I said with a sigh. "Actually that's the reason I'm calling. Is she around? I'd like to talk to her if that's possible."

Melanie hesitated a little. "Uhh... no she's not. She's uhh... out..."

"Out where?" I asked a little suspiciously. Melanie sounded like she knew something, but was trying to hide it.

"Promise you won't freak out?" she begged.

"I promise," I answered, sounding a little confused.

"She's over at Nick's... She spent the night there, but NOTHING happened," she quickly added.

"Oh," was all I could say. I didn't know what else to think. Izzy wasn't the type to do something like that anyway just for revenge, but who knew anymore when it came to Nick. "Thanks anyway. I guess I'll try talking to her later or something. Don't tell her I called though please."

"I won't," Melanie promised. "I hope you two can work this out. It would be a shame if you let such a good friendship fall to pieces over something stupid."

"I hope we can too," I agreed before hanging up and sighing. Now I was left with one of two choices. Stay at home and crawl back underneath the covers to cry some more, or try to talk to her at Nick's house and risk the possibility of seeing him and things getting ugly. Both of them didn't really sound like very desirable choices, but I had to do something. Finally I decided to get dressed and go out for a walk. I'd bring the dress with me just in case and if I got the courage to face her at Nick's I would.

I quickly pulled on a pair of baby blue track shorts and a black muscle tank and stuck my hair in a messy ponytail. Slipping on my Pumas, I grabbed the dress that was laying in the corner of my room and stuck it on a hanger. "Hey Erika!" I called to her as I walked out of my bedroom. "I'm going out for a bit. Are you going to be okay by yourself?"

"Are you going over to see Iz?" she asked, avoiding my question.

"Maybe," I answered vaguely. "Will you be okay here?"

"Yeah sure," she answered. "Actually uhh AJ's coming over pretty soon, so I won't be alone."

AJ's coming over? I thought to myself. Something definitely must have happened between them last night. If I wasn't so damn depressed I'd definitely be trying to pull the story out of her right then.

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If there's one thing I hate about Florida it's how it can be totally sunny out and beautiful one minute, and the next you can have a total downpour. By the time I was a little more than halfway to Nick's it started to POUR. Stupid me hadn't thought of that possibility and naturally hadn't bought a jacket with me. I was already soaked, but I was almost at Nick's anyway, so there was no sense in going back. Oh well, I thought to myself, Maybe showing up on Nick's doorstep in soaking wet clothes will get his attention. Then I remembered. I wasn't there to see Nick. I was only going over there to give Izzy back her dress.

As I slowly made my way up the driveway I began to feel a knot growing in my stomach. Even though Melanie had assured me that absolutely nothing had happened between Izzy and Nick last night, I was still imagining the worst. Please don't let me walk in on anything, I silently prayed as I rang the doorbell.

A few seconds later Nick arrived at the door obviously very surprised to see me there. I think I was the last person he expected to just pop over like this. "Uhh hi," he greeted me a little awkwardly. He didn't say it out loud, but I could tell that he was thinking, what is she doing here?

"Hi," I squeaked out a little nervously. "I just stopped by to drop off Izzy's dress. I called Melanie and she told me that Izzy was over here so..."

"Izzy went out for a little bit. I'm not even sure if she's going to be back here, but you can leave it with me and I'll make sure she gets it," he promised.

Wow... this was awkward. If somebody had been watching us just now and knew that just a few days ago we were happily dating, they never would believe it. We were being so polite too each other that it was driving me literally crazy!

"It's a little wet," I apologized as I handed it to him. "I got stuck in the rain and it got soaked."

"Yea... I can see that," he remarked as he glanced up and down at my soaked appearance. "Hey, you're shivering."

"I'll be okay," I lied. In reality I was starting to feel a little bit cold and I could feel the goosebumps starting to pop up on my arms and legs.

"Bullshit. Come inside and warm up," he told me as he opened up the door for me. "I'll go get you a towel."

I couldn't think of an excuse fast enough not to take him up on his offer. Besides, I really was starting to get cold! Without arguing I followed him inside pulling my ponytail holder out, and letting my wet hair shake loose. A little wet had definitely been an understatement on my part!

"Here you go," Nick told me handing me an oversized bath towel. "I still have some leftovers from breakfast. You can help yourself."

"No, that's all right. I ate earlier," I told him, as I dried myself off.

"Do you want to like borrow one of my shirts or something?" he offered. "Because you still look like you're freezing."

"All right," I reluctantly agreed. It would feel weird, but I WAS cold!

"Just go on upstairs and pick something. You know the way," he told me.

I trudged up the stairs towards his room, not being able to control my discomfort. As soon as I opened the door to his room, a million emotions seemed to rush through me. Trying my best to ignore them I started to rifle through his drawers trying to find one of his huge hooded sweatshirts that I used to love to wear. Finally I found one and pulled it on almost wanting to laugh at how huge it was on me. It did keep me warm though and it still had that lingering scent, that no matter how many times you would wash it, it would still smell like Nick. The smell made my eyes tear up again and as I surveyed the messy room that I often teased him about I knew I should probably just go before I completely lost it.

Blinking back my tears I turned and tried to hurry back downstairs as fast as possible, but unfortunately I wasn't watching where I was going and bumped right into his desk, sending a pile of papers and other miscellaneous items scattering to the floor. Shit, I thought as I knelt down and frantically began to pick them up. God, he was even a bigger slob than I was!

For some strange reason my eyes were immediately drawn to a certain piece of paper. Maybe the reason why I was pulled to it was because I wasn't meant to see it. Whatever the reason was it wasn't important. It seemed to be like some kind of bill or something from the doctor's office. According to the piece of paper Nick had been in earlier that morning for a series of tests for STDS and an HIV test.

Okay... Should I just put it away and pretend like it's not a big deal or try and confront him about it or what? It was obvious this was because of Katie which was understandable, but what if the reason that she came by to see him was to tell him she has HIV or something? I know, that's a little extreme, but you never know. The thought was so scary that I decided that I should be honest and tell him that I knew and that I was there for him, even if we weren't dating anymore.

Nervously I gripped the piece of paper and headed downstairs. "I see you managed to actually find something in my room," Nick commented when he saw me with a chuckle.

"Nick? What's this?" I asked him bluntly, thrusting the paper in his face.

"You went through my things?!" Nick cried out, ignoring my question.

"No!" I insisted. "I just knocked some papers off of your desk by accident and I found it while I was trying to pick everything back up. I swear that's the truth!"

"That didn't mean you had to read it!"

I sighed. This was not going well at all. "Well, I saw it was from your doctor and I got a little concerned all right?"

"Great! What are you my fucking mother? It's none of your damn business Mel," he argued.

"Oh, excuse me for caring about you and by the way I think that it might be my damn business that you could have HIV."

"No, it's not! It's not like we are still dating anymore. Why should you care?"

"Because I just do!" I told him stubbornly. "Granted I may not be your 'girlfriend' anymore, but I do actually still care about you for some strange reason."

"If you cared you wouldn't have been snooping around my business in the first place!" he pointed out.

"Oh my God! Okay I admit that I shouldn't have read the paper, but it's too late to argue whether it was right or wrong. I read it so now I would like to hear what you have to say."

"Nothing's wrong! I just thought it would be a good idea to take the test," he said insistingly, avoiding direct eye contact.

"You're lying!" I accused him. "You can't even look at me directly in the eye! Would you just quit lying to me already? We used to be able to tell each other anything and now look at us! You don't even have enough balls to tell me that you took an HIV test because you have no clue who Katie could've slept with before you! What happened to us?"

Nick just shrugged. "Things change," he said coldly.

"You can say that again," I bitterly agreed. "Ever since you got back from touring it's like you're a totally different man than the one that I've been dating."

"I guess I've grown up," he told me as he turned his back on me.

I couldn't believe what lengths he was going through just to hurt me. I could see it in eyes that he wasn't really telling the truth, just covering it with painful lies. "It's Katie, isn't it?" I pressed on, refused to admit defeat.

"What about her?" he answered back, sounding a little confused.

"She's the one who made you change. She's the reason that you are acting like this, right?" I asked him. "If you really want her that badly than just tell me and I'll walk out of your life for good, if that's what you want."

Nick sighed and opened his mouth like he was going to tell me something, but quickly closed it again. Finally after a moment's hesitation he spoke up. "I want you out of my life."

Those words cut through me like a knife, they came so unexpected. This was serious. How could somebody that you cared so much about at one time never want to see you again? "Fine," I replied my chin quivering, but not letting any tears fall. "I'll just be going then. Here's your shirt back," I told him as I pulled it up over my head.

"Keep it. You're gonna need it out there," he insisted.

"No thank you. I don't need any souvenirs," I said defiantly as I threw it at him. Without looking back I strode out of the house without looking back. Once outside though I couldn't help but let the tears flow down my cheeks.

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I didn't see Nick looking out at the window at me, but he was. Deep down he did feel horribly guilty for everything he said to me, but he honestly felt like he was doing it out of love. Only this time he hoped that he hadn't pushed me so far away that there was no getting me back.

"Don't lose her over something stupid." Izzy's words at the beach just the previous night rang through his head and he wondered if it was already too late.