Synopsis: Casey forgets something important and Izzie can't take it anymore

Neither of them remember how they got here.

Casey sometimes wonders if she made the right decision. The right decision of going back to Newton. Izzie sometimes wonders if when she asked Casey if "they were still a couple when she goes back to Newton", Casey really meant it.

Izzie knew the space apart from each other would hurt but her optimism reminded her that they could pull through. Just because they were in different schools doesn't mean they would love each other any less.

So why was this happening? Why did the unexpected slowly start to becoming the expected?

It was a Friday night. Casey had just finished practice at Newton and Izzie dropped her siblings off at her grandma's.

"Hang out tonight?" Izzie had texted Casey an hour before. When her girlfriend replied that she would pick her up after training, her heart skipped a beat. But it was because she was nervous. Casey was slowly starting to feel like a stranger with all the missed texts and phone calls and the cancelled dates. Izzie wants to believe it's only because Casey is busy. She's not forgetting her or replacing her with the next best thing in Newton. But what would she say to a stranger? Does she talk to Casey about Clayton? Does she even want to know about Clayton? Would Casey talk to her about Newton? Selfishly, Izzie doesn't want to know. She just wants to know where they are right now. What they think about each other.

Their one year anniversary was tomorrow. Izzie was never a sucker for things like that. On her 6 month anniversary with Nate, he bought her a cupcake and was very clear he only wanted the sex. Not that it bothered Izzie. She was only with him for show. In fact she was glad that he didn't care about her as much as she didn't care about him. But Casey is different. They have history. Casey's the kind of girl Izzie can imagine herself writing songs about. She can imagine herself looking at Casey's pictures for hours and smiling giddily until her face hurts. This was their milestone. And Izzie was sure that whatever bump they were facing right now wouldn't ruin its significance.

"Hey grumpy, you've got your thinking face on," was the first thing Casey said when Izzie entered the car.

"Hey you..." she mumbled, hoping that Casey wouldn't ask further. She bent over to plant a kiss on Casey's lips, moving away before she had the chance to reciprocate.

"How was your day?" Casey asked as Izzie put on her seat belt. "Good... good... dropped the kids off at my grandma's."

Casey continued by asking how the kids were and Izzie overly explained with a lot of details about her brother's new football obsession and how her sister has picked up on her feisty attitude. She really didn't wanna talk about herself.

"How's the track team?" Casey asked and Izzie pursed her lips. "They're fine. Missing our star runner though," She said with a smile and Casey rolled her eyes. "Ummm... how's your training coming along?" Izzie dared to ask.

They've never had a more strained conversation in their lives. Casey had parked outside the 711 which meant that now she only had to focus on Izzie. How was she to strike up a full conversation with her beautiful girlfriend without addressing the obvious underlying tension between them.

"Training's fine. Coach has been on my ass. No different from Clayton, of course. How's Crowley?" Casey asked, finding a window of opportunity to change the subject.

"Same old, same old..."

This conversation was so painful. So Izzie took matters into her own hands.

"Anyways what time are we seeing each other tomorrow?" She asked and Casey looked at her apologetically. "Sorry babe, I've got plans with my track team."

Izzie's smile dropped. "Oh... well can I see you after that?"

"I'm gonna be with them the whole day. We're going back to Sharice's place after that for a sleepover but I will definitely come over after that," Casey said, smiling bashfully before returning to sip her slurpee.

The silence was deafening and Izzie felt the heat rush up to her ears as she plopped her head back onto the head rest and sighed in defeat.

"Ooo maybe you can go with Penelope to that art fair she was talking about. Seems like something you would be interested in," Casey continued before finally looking at her girlfriend.

"What's wrong?" She asked slowly, when she saw Izzie's clenched jaw.

"Are you serious?!" Izzie yelled and Casey furrowed her eyebrows. "What're you talking about?"

"You're unbelievable!"

With that, Izzie opened the door and walked out, grabbing her bag and leaving the slurpee cup in the car.

"Izzie! Wait, come back!" Casey pleaded. "Hope you have fun on your sleepover," Izzie said as she continued to walk. "But you didn't even make plans with me!"

Izzie stopped in her tracks and turned around fuming and Casey felt her heart beat faster. "Plans?! It's our fucking anniversary! I don't need to make plans to spend time with you!"

Casey's face dropped and she instantly became pale with realisation. "Oh... Izzie I'm so sorry I-"

Izzie put her hand up to stop her from walking any closer. "Just save it. I need some space from you."

"Space?! Izzie we've literally had the worst week and you wanna talk about space? Look how awkward our conversations have been!"

"Yeah and whose fault is that?!" Izzie shouted back. "Every time I send you a text, you reply really late and it's always a one-word answer. Every time I offer to pick you up from school it's always 'Oh so and so is bringing me back today'. So whose fucking fault is it Casey?!"

Casey stood rooted to the ground, terrified to defend herself right now. The words couldn't come out of her mouth.

"You know I was really looking forward to tomorrow because I've been missing you so fucking much. And it gets so hard being in school without you and I thought... I just thought that maybe things could go back to normal. But now my girlfriend can't even remember our fucking anniversary."

Casey didn't stop her as she walked away.

The next morning, Izzie scrambled to find her phone, still half asleep. She turned it on and was greeted by her wallpaper of her and Casey together with the date and she sighed. "Fucking Newton... fucking... Casey... fucking everything..." she muttered before throwing her phone back on the bed and flipping to the side.

"Dude it's already 10. Don't you have plans with Casey?"

Izzie groaned and sat up to see her sister Ruby who crossed her arms and leaned on the door frame. "We got into a fight," Izzie said before falling back on the bed. "Yikes. Trouble in gay paradise. Haven't you guys been going through some issues even before?"

"Yeah... we kinda drifted but I didn't think it would affect our anniversary..."

"What did y'all fight about?"

"She forgot."

"Oh. Shit, that sucks."

Izzie hummed before covering herself with the blanket. "She messaged you," Ruby said and Izzie threw the blanket off to see Ruby holding her phone.

"Talk it out with her or something," She said before leaving the room.

Izzie watched her sister leave and stayed seated for a while before slowly taking her phone.

Casey [9.07pm] : Iz I'm really sorry. I fucked up I know that.

Casey [9.07pm] : I would never wanna hurt you. Can we please talk?

Casey [8.03am] : Hey good morning. I cancelled all my plans. I'm all yours for the day

Casey [8.03am] : I really wanna see you baby

Casey [10.24am] : Izzie please don't ignore me

Izzie doesn't know why she did it. Or what caused her to do it. But her fingers started typing faster than her brain could process.

Izzie [10.25am] : Maybe we should break up.

"Fuck, no what're you doing. Delete that," She thought to herself but before she could, Casey started typing.

Casey [10.25am] : Izzie are you serious? Come on don't be like that

Casey [10.26am] : Please don't do that to me. I know we can work this out.

Casey [10.26am] : I love you so much, you know that.

Izzie [10.27am] : Have fun at your sleepover

Casey [10.27am] : Izzie...

Izzie rolled her eyes and powered her phone off before hopping into the shower.

She spent the rest of the day doing things to get her mind off of Casey and the anniversary as a whole. She saw the bag under her table that had Casey's present- new running shoes that she really wanted and matching rings that they stumbled upon when they had gone to the mall. It burned a hole in her pocket to spend that kind of money but she never even for a second thought of it as a burden to get it. But now she thought about how Casey didn't even KNOW it was their anniversary and suddenly Izzie wished she didn't know too.

It was around 9pm when the door bell rang. Izzie had just finished clearing the table and her siblings were upstairs either watching TV or doing homework. Confused, she went to look through the peep hole and her heart dropped when she saw Casey outside, looking nervous.

She opened the door and not so subtly rolled her eyes. "What the hell do you want?"

"Happy anniversary," Casey whispered, revealing the bouquet of flowers that were hidden behind her back. Izzie felt butterflies in her stomach when she realised that she had never gotten a romantic gift before but she was too angry to be happy. Izzie slowly took the flowers from Casey and looked at it for a while before looking back at her.

"You... you didn't mean it when you said we should break up right?" Casey asked, fiddling with her fingers. "Because you know... I can't... I can't do that. Not again..."

Izzie sighed and moved aside to let Casey enter.

"Actually I was hoping we could go for a drive," Casey said. "My siblings will be alone," She said quickly.

"I texted your grandma to ask if she could take care of them. She's on the way."

Izzie didn't know what to make of this. She reluctantly looked at Casey who slowly caressed her cheek. "Please baby? You trust me right?"

The girls sat in silence as Casey continued to drive.

"I'm sorry I forgot our anniversary," Casey started, this time more confident and sure of what she was gonna say. Izzie didn't argue back and let her continue. "It's not an excuse but... Newton's really been sucking the life out of me," She laughed dryly and Izzie looked at her with concern. "It has helped with the... anxiety and stuff... but going back there it's like... people think I've given up or I've failed. And having to deal with all this... it's just made me forget about everyone around me... and there's new classes and new people and I'm happy I still have Sharice and Beth and other old friends but..."

Casey bit her lip and held the steering wheel tighter as she came to a stop.

"I don't have you."

Izzie's eyes never left Casey as Casey looked out of the window.

"You know we still have around 2 hours before the end of the day," She said, showing Izzie the time on her phone. It was then that Izzie realised that they were parked outside of Clayton. "Casey what're we doing here?" Izzie asked but her girlfriend had already gotten out of the car.

Izzie followed suit and got out too and Casey slowly intertwined their fingers. "I'm sorry I ruined our day," Casey whispered, teary-eyed and Izzie smiled softly. "You didn't ruin it," Izzie promised, holding her hand more firmly.

The girls walked slowly in the cool breeze along the track. "I don't miss the intense training on these grounds but... this place means the world to me... it's where we first kissed," Casey said and Izzie bit her lip. "My life changed the day you kissed me," Izzie replied. "I always knew that I wanted you but... at that moment I was just sure you were the one for me."

Casey smiled before letting go of her. She quickly turned on some slow music and Izzie giggled. "Come here baby," Casey whispered, dipping lower to wrap her arm around Izzie's waist. "I have no idea how to dance," Izzie sighed. "Same here."

The girls moved in the most uncoordinated fashion but Izzie couldn't care as Casey moved closer to her. "I can't imagine being this in love with anyone else. God, I miss you everyday in school," Casey whispered against her lips.

"Do it again," Izzie said desperately.

"Do what?"

"Kiss me again."

Casey didn't need to be told twice before she attached her lips on Izzie's moving fast but sensually. At that moment, every single memory that had shared together came flooding back as they held each other tight.

"Best one year of my life," Casey whispered.

"Happy anniversary Casey Gardner."

"Happy anniversary Izzie Taylor."