“But you hate Slurpees.” Which was true. Conrad didn’t like sugary drinks, he never had.
“I don’t care. I’m thirsty.”
I handed him my cup and turned around and watched him drink. I was expecting him to make a face or something, but he just drank and handed it back. And then he said, “I thought your specialty was cocoa.”
I stared at him. Did he really just say that? Did he remember? The way he looked back at me, one eyebrow raised, I knew he did. And this time, I was the one to look away.
Because I remembered. I remembered everything.
chapter forty-one
When Conrad left to take his exam, Jeremiah and I bought turkey and avocado sandwiches on whole wheat bread and we ate them out on the lawn. I finished mine first; I was really hungry.
When he was done, Jeremiah balled up the foil in his hand and threw it into the trashcan. He sat back down next to me in the grass. Out of nowhere, he said to me, “Why didn’t you come see me after my mom died?”
I stuttered, “I d-d-did, I came to the funeral.”
Jeremiah’s gaze on me was steady, unblinking. “That’s not what I mean.”
“I—I didn’t think you’d want me there yet.”
“No, it was because you didn’t want to be there. I wanted you there.”
He was right. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be anywhere near her house. Thinking about her made my heart hurt; it was too much. But the thought of Jeremiah waiting for me to call him, needing someone to talk to, that hurt so bad. “You’re right,” I told him. “I should’ve come.”
Jeremiah had been there for Conrad, for Susannah. For me. And who had been there for him? Nobody. I wanted him to know I was here now.
He looked up at the sky. “It’s hard, you know? Because I want to talk about her. But Conrad doesn’t want to, and I can’t talk to my dad, and you weren’t there either. We all love her, and nobody can talk about her.”
“What do you want to say?”
He leaned his head back, thinking. “That I miss her. I really miss her. She’s only been gone for two months, but it feels like longer. And it also feels like it just happened, like yesterday.”
I nodded. That was exactly how it felt.
“Do you think she’d be glad?”
He meant glad about Conrad, the way we’d helped him. “Yeah.”
“Me too.” Jeremiah hesitated. “So what now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, are you going to come back this summer?”
“Well, sure. When my mom comes, I’ll come too.”
He nodded. “Good. Because my dad was wrong, you know. It’s your house too. And Laure’s, and Steve’s. It’s all of ours.”
Suddenly I was struck with the strangest sensation, of wanting, needing, to reach out and touch his cheek with the back of my hand. So he would know, so he would feel exactly how much those words meant to me. Because sometimes words were so pitifully inadequate, and I knew that, but I had to try anyway. I told him, “Thank you. That means—a lot.”
He shrugged. “It’s just the truth.”
We saw him coming from far away, walking fast. We stood up and waited for him.
Jeremiah said, “Does it look like good news to you? It looks like good news to me.”
It did to me, too.
Conrad strode up to us, his eyes gleaming. “I killed it,” he said triumphantly. First time I’d seen him smile, really smile—joyful, carefree—since Susannah died. He and Jeremiah high-fived so hard the clap rang out in the air. And then Conrad smiled at me, and whirled me around so fast I almost tripped.
I was laughing. “See? See? I told you!”
Conrad picked me up and threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing, just like he had the other night. I laughed as he ran, weaving left and right like he was on a football field. “Put me down!” I shrieked, yanking at the bottom of my dress.
He did. He set me down on the ground gently. “Thanks,” he said, his hand still on my waist. “For coming.”
Before I could tell him you’re welcome, Jeremiah walked over and said, “You still have one left, Con.” His voice was strained, and I straightened my dress.
Conrad looked at his watch. “You’re right. I’m gonna head over to the psychology department. This will be a quick one. I’ll meet up with you guys in an hour or so.”
As I watched him go, a million questions ran through my head. I felt dizzy, and not just from being spun around in the air.
Abruptly, Jeremiah said, “I’m gonna go find a bathroom. I’ll meet you at the car.” He fished his keys out of his pocket and threw them to me.
“Do you want me to wait?” I asked, but he was already walking away.
He didn’t turn around. “No, just go ahead.”
Instead of going straight to the car, I stopped at the student store. I bought a soda and a hoodie that said BROWN in block letters. Even though it wasn’t cold, I put it on.
Jeremiah and I sat in the car, listening to the radio. It was starting to get dark. The windows were down and I could hear a bird calling somewhere out there. Conrad would be done with his last exam soon.
“Nice hoodie, by the way,” Jeremiah said.
“Thanks. I always wanted one from Brown.”
Jeremiah nodded. “I remember.”
I fingered my necklace, twisting it around my pinky. “I wonder …” I let my sentence trail off, waiting for Jeremiah to prod me, to ask me what it was I wondered about. But he didn’t. He didn’t ask me anything.
He was silent.
Sighing, I looked out the window and asked, “Does he ever talk about me? I mean, has he ever said anything?”
“Don’t,” he snapped.
“Don’t what?” I turned toward him, confused.
“Don’t ask me that. Don’t ask me about him.” Jeremiah spoke in a harsh, low voice, a tone he’d never used with me and one I didn’t recall him using with anybody. A muscle in his jaw twitched furiously.
I recoiled and sank back into my seat. I felt as though he had slapped me. “What’s the matter with you?”
He started to say something, maybe an apology and maybe not, and then he stopped, he leaned over and pulled me toward him—like by gravitational force. He kissed me, hard, and his skin was stubbly and rough against my cheek. My first thought was, I guess he didn’t have time to shave this morning, and then—I was kissing him back, my fingers winding through his soft yellow hair and my eyes closed. He kissed like he was drowning and I was air. It was passionate, and desperate, and like nothing I had ever experienced before.
This was what people meant when they said the earth stopped turning. It felt like a world outside of that car, that moment, didn’t exist. It was just us.
When he backed away, his pupils were huge and unfocused. He blinked, and then he cleared his throat. “Belly,” he said, and his voice was foggy. He didn’t say anything else, just my name.
“Do you still—” Care. Think about me. Want me.
Roughly, he said, “Yes. Yes, I still.”
And then we were kissing again.
He must have made some noise, because we both looked up at the same time.
We sprang apart. There was Conrad, looking right at us. He had stopped short of the car. His face was white.
He said, “No, don’t stop. I’m the one who’s interrupting.”
He turned jerkily and started off. Jeremiah and I stared at each other in silent horror. And then my hand was on the door handle and I was on my feet. I didn’t look back.
I ran after him and called his name, but Conrad didn’t turn around. I grabbed his arm and he finally looked at me, and there was so much hate in his eyes I winced. Even though, on some level, wasn’t this what I wanted? To make his heart hurt the way he made mine? Or maybe, to make him feel something for me other than pity or indifference
. To make him feel something, anything.
“So you like Jeremiah now?” He meant to sound sarcastic, cruel, and he did, but he also sounded pained. Like he cared about the answer.
Which made me feel glad. And sad.
I said, “I don’t know. Does it matter to you if I do?”
He stared at me, and then he leaned forward and touched the necklace around my neck. The one I’d been hiding under my shirt all day.
“If you like Jeremiah, why are you wearing my necklace?”
I wet my lips. “I found it when we were packing up your dorm room. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You know what it means.”
I shook my head. “I don’t.” But of course I did. I remembered when he’d explained the concept of infinity to me. Immeasurable, one moment stretching out to the next. He bought me that necklace. He knew what it meant.
“Then give it back.” He held his hand out, and I saw that it was shaking.
“No,” I said.
“It’s not yours. I never gave it to you. You just took it.”
That’s when I finally got it. I finally understood. It wasn’t the thought that counted. It was the actual execution that mattered, the showing up for somebody. The intent behind it wasn’t enough. Not for me. Not anymore. It wasn’t enough to know that deep down, he loved me. You had to actually say it to somebody, show them that you cared. And he just didn’t. Not enough.
I could feel him waiting for me to argue, to protest, to plead. But I didn’t do any of those things. I struggled for what felt like eternity, trying to undo the clasp on the necklace around my neck. Which was no surprise, considering the fact that my hands were shaking too. I finally got the chain free and I handed it back to him.
Surprise registered upon his face for the tiniest of moments, and then, like always, he was closed off again. Maybe I’d imagined it. That he’d cared.
He stuffed the necklace into his pocket. “Then leave,” he said.
When I didn’t move, he said, sharply, “Go!”
I was a tree, rooted to the spot. My feet were frozen.
“Go to Jeremiah. He’s the one who wants you,” Conrad said. “I don’t. I never did.”
And then I was stumbling, running away.
chapter forty-two
I didn’t go back to the car right away. All I had in front of me were impossible choices. How could I face Jeremiah after what just happened? After we kissed, after I went running after Conrad? My mind was spinning in a million different directions. I kept touching my lips. Then I’d touch my collarbone, where the necklace used to be. I wandered around campus, but after a while, I headed back to the car. What choice did I have? I couldn’t just leave without telling anybody. And it wasn’t like I had another way home.
I guessed Conrad was thinking the same thing, because when I got back to the car, he was already there, sitting in the backseat with the window open. Jeremiah was sitting on the hood of the car. “Hi,” he said.
“Hey.” I hesitated, unsure of what was next. For once, our ESP connection failed me, because I had no idea what he was thinking. His face was unreadable.
He slid off the car. “Ready to go home?”
I nodded, and he threw me the keys. “You drive,” he said.
In the car, Conrad ignored me completely. I didn’t exist to him anymore, and despite everything I’d said, that made me want to die. I never should have come. None of us were speaking to one another. I’d lost them both.
What would Susannah say if she saw the mess we were in now? She would have been so disappointed in me. I hadn’t been a help at all. I’d only made things worse.
Just when we thought everything was going to be okay, we all fell apart.
I’d been driving for what felt like forever when it started to rain. It started out with fat little plops and then it came down heavy, in hard sheets.
“Can you see?” Jeremiah asked me.
“Yeah,” I lied. I could barely see two feet in front of me. The windshield wipers were swishing back and forth furiously.
Traffic had been crawling along, and then it slowed almost to a stop. There were police lights way up ahead.
“There must have been an accident,” Jeremiah said.
We’d been sitting in traffic for over an hour when it started to hail.
I looked at Conrad in the rearview, but his face was impassive. He might as well have been somewhere else. “Should we pull over?”
“Yeah. Get off at the next exit and see if we can find a gas station,” Jeremiah said, glancing at the clock. It was ten thirty.
The rain didn’t let up. We sat in the gas station parking lot for what felt like forever. The rain was loud, but we were so quiet that when my stomach growled, I was pretty sure they both heard. I coughed to cover up the noise.
Jeremiah jumped out of the car and ran inside the gas station. When he ran back, his hair was dripping wet and matted. He tossed me a packet of peanut butter and cheese crackers without looking at me. “There’s a motel a few miles down,” he said, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm.
“Let’s just wait it out,” Conrad said. It was the first time he’d spoken since we’d left.
“Dude, the highway’s pretty much shut down. There’s no point. I say we just crash for a few hours and leave in the morning.”
Conrad didn’t say anything.
I didn’t say anything because I was too busy eating the crackers. They were bright orange and salty and gritty, and I stuffed them into my mouth, one after the other. I didn’t even offer one to either of them.
“Belly, what do you want to do?” Jeremiah said it very politely, like I was his cousin from out of town. Like his mouth hadn’t been on mine just hours before.
I swallowed my last cracker. “I don’t care. Do whatever you want.”
By the time we got to the motel, it was midnight.
I went to the bathroom to call my mother. I told her what had happened and right away she said, “I’m coming to get you.”
Every part of me wanted to say Yes, please, come right this second, but she sounded so tired, and she’d already done so much. So instead I said, “No, it’s fine, Mom.”
“It’s all right, Belly. It’s not that far.”
“It’s okay, really. We’ll leave early tomorrow morning.”
She yawned. “Is the motel in a safe area?”
“Yes.” Even though I didn’t know exactly where we were or if it constituted a safe area. But it seemed safe enough.
“Just go to sleep and get up first thing. Call me when you’re on the road.”
After we got off the phone I leaned against the wall for a minute. How did I end up here?
I changed into Taylor’s pajamas and put my new hoodie on over them.
I took my time brushing my teeth and taking out my contact lenses. I didn’t care that the boys might be waiting to use the bathroom. I just wanted time alone, away from them. When I came back out, Jeremiah and Conrad were on the floor, on opposite sides of the bed. They each had a pillow and a blanket. “You guys should take the bed,” I said, even though I only partly meant it. “There’s two of you. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Conrad was busy ignoring me, but Jeremiah said, “Nah, you take it. You’re the girl.”
Under ordinary circumstances, I would have argued with him just for the principle of it—what did my being a girl have to do with whether or not I slept on the floor? I was a girl, not an invalid. But I didn’t argue. I was too tired. And I did want the bed.
I crawled onto the bed and got under the covers. Jeremiah set the alarm on his phone and shut off the lights. Nobody said good night or suggested we see if there was anything good on TV.
I tried to fall asleep but I couldn’t. I tried to remember the last time the three of us had slept in the same room. I couldn’t at first, but then I did.
We’
d pitched a tent on the beach and I’d begged and begged to be included and finally my mother made them let me come. Me and Steven and Jeremiah and Conrad. We played Uno for hours and Steven high-fived me when I won twice in a row. Suddenly I missed my big brother so much I wanted to cry. Part of me thought that if Steven had been there, things wouldn’t have gotten this awful. Maybe none of this would have happened, because I would still be chasing after the boys instead of being in the middle.
But now everything had changed and we could never go back to the way things used to be.
I was lying in bed thinking about all of this when I heard Jeremiah snoring, which really annoyed me. He’d always been able to fall asleep at will, as soon as his head hit the pillow. I guessed he wasn’t losing any sleep over what had happened. I guessed I shouldn’t either. I flipped over on my other side, facing away from Jeremiah.
And then I heard Conrad say, quietly, “Earlier, when I said I never wanted you. I didn’t mean it.”
My breath caught. I didn’t know what to say or if I was even supposed to say anything. All I knew was, this was what I’d been waiting for. This exact moment. Exactly this.
I opened my mouth to speak, and then he said it again. “I didn’t mean it.”
I held my breath, waiting to hear what he’d say next.
All he said was, “Good night, Belly.”
After that, of course I couldn’t sleep. My head was too full of things to think about. What did he mean? That he wanted to be, like, together? Me and him, for real? It was what I’d wanted my whole life, but then there was Jeremiah’s face in the car, open and wanting and needing me. In that moment, I’d wanted and needed him, too, more than I had ever known. Had it always been there? But after tonight, I didn’t even know if he wanted me anymore. Maybe it was too late.
Then there was Conrad. I didn’t mean it. I closed my eyes and heard him say those words again and again. His voice, traveling across the dark, it haunted me and it thrilled me.
So I lay there barely breathing, going over every word. The boys were asleep and every part of me was fully awake and alive. It was like a really amazing dream, and I was afraid to fall asleep because when I woke up, it would be gone.