chapter forty-three
JULY 7
I woke up before Jeremiah’s alarm went off. I took a shower, brushed my teeth, put on the same clothes as the day before.
When I came out, Jeremiah was on the phone and Conrad was folding up his blanket. I waited for him to look at me. If he would just look at me, smile, say something, I would know what to do.
But Conrad didn’t look up. He put the blankets back in the closet and then he put on his sneakers. He undid the laces and pulled them tighter. I kept waiting, but he wouldn’t look at me.
“Hey,” I said.
He finally raised his head. “Hey,” he said. “A friend of mine is coming to get me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s easier this way. He’ll take me back to Cousins so I can get my car, and J can take you home.”
“Oh,” I said. I was so surprised, it took a moment for the disappointment, the utter disbelief, to register.
We stood there, looking at each other, saying nothing. But it was the kind of nothing that meant everything. In his eyes, there was no trace of what had happened between us earlier, and I could feel something inside me break.
So that was that. We were finally, finally over.
I looked at him, and I felt so sad, because this thought occurred to me: I will never look at you in the same way ever again. I’ll never be that girl again. The girl who comes running back every time you push her away, the girl who loves you anyway.
I couldn’t even be mad at him, because this was who he was. This was who he’d always been. He’d never lied about that. He gave and then he took away. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, the familiar ache, that lost, regretful feeling only he could give me. I never wanted to feel it again. Never, ever.
Maybe this was why I came, so I could really know. So I could say good-bye.
I looked at him, and I thought, If I was very brave or very honest, I would tell him. I would say it, so he would know it and I would know it, and I could never take it back. But I wasn’t that brave or honest, so all I did was look at him. And I think he knew anyway.
I release you. I evict you from my heart. Because if I don’t do it now, I never will.
I was the one to look away first.
Jeremiah hung up the phone and asked Conrad, “Is Dan on his way to come get you?”
“Yeah. I’m just gonna hang out here and wait for him.”
Jeremiah looked at me then. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to go with you,” I said. I picked up my bag and Taylor’s shoes.
He stood up and took my bag off my shoulder. “Then let’s go.” To Conrad, he said, “See you at home.”
I wondered which home he meant, the summer house or their house-house. But I guessed it didn’t really matter.
“Bye, Conrad,” I said. I walked out the door with Taylor’s shoes in my hand and I didn’t bother to put them on either. I didn’t look back. And right there, I felt it, the glow, the satisfaction of being the one who left first.
As we walked through the parking lot, Jeremiah said, “Maybe you should put your shoes on. You might cut your feet on something.”
I shrugged. “They’re Taylor’s shoes,” I said, as if that made sense. I added, “They’re too small.”
He asked, “Do you want to drive?”
I thought it over and then I said, “No, that’s okay. You drive.”
“But you love to drive my car,” he said, coming around to the passenger side and opening my door first.
“I know. But today I just feel like riding shotgun.”
“Do you want to get breakfast first?”
“No,” I said. “I just want to go home.”
Soon we were on the road. I opened my window all the way down. I stuck my head out and let my hair fly everywhere, just because. Steven once told me that bugs and things get caught up in girls’ hair when they ride with it hanging out the window. But I didn’t care. I liked the way it felt. It felt free.
Jeremiah looked over at me and said, “You remind me of our old dog, Boogie. He used to love riding around with his head out the window.”
He was still using his polite voice. Distant.
I said, “You haven’t said anything. About before.” I glanced over at him. I could hear my heart thudding in my ears.
“What’s left to say?”
“I don’t know. A lot,” I said.
“Belly—,” he started. Then he stopped and let out a breath, shaking his head.
“What? What were you going to say?”
“Nothing,” he said.
Then I reached across, and I took his hand and laced my fingers around his. It felt like the most right thing I’d done in a long time.
I worried he’d let go, but he didn’t. We held hands like that the whole rest of the way home.
a couple of years later
When I used to picture forever, it was always with the same boy. In my dreams, my future was set. A sure thing.
This wasn’t the way I pictured it. Me, in a white dress in the pouring rain, running for the car. Him, running ahead of me and opening the passenger door.
“Are you sure?” he asks me.
“No,” I say, getting in.
The future is unclear. But it’s still mine.
acknowledgments
My heartfelt gratitude to Emily van Beek, Holly McGhee, and Elena Mechlin at Pippin Properties, and to Emily Meehan and Julia Maguire at S&S. Thanks also to my first readers—Caroline, Lisa, Emmy, Julie, and Siobhan. I’m so fortunate to know you all.
Contents
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
chapter thirty
chapter thirty-one
chapter thirty-two
chapter thirty-three
chapter thirty-four
chapter thirty-five
chapter thirty-six
chapter thirty-seven
chapter thirty-eight
chapter thirty-nine
chapter forty
chapter forty one
chapter forty two
chapter forty-three
chapter forty-four
chapter forty-five
chapter forty-six
chapter forty-seven
chapter forty-eight
chapter forty-nine
chapter fifty
chapter fifty-one
chapter fifty-two
chapter fifty-three
chapter fifty-four
chapter fifty-five
chapter fifty-six
chapter fifty-seven
a couple of years later
acknowledgments
There comes a moment in every girl’s life when she must make an impossible choice – do or die, all or nothing.
For Belly, that moment is now.
Once and for all, will it be Conrad or Jeremiah?
Whether you’re Team Conrad or Team Jere, I truly hope you’ve enjoyed Belly’s story.
I know I’ve enjoyed telling it!
jenny han
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For my two Emilys:
Emily van Beek, you are my ambassador of quan
Emily Thomas Meehan, let’s stay together forever love, your girl
chapter one
When it’s finals week and you’ve been studying for five hours straight, you need three things to get you through the night. The biggest Slurpee you can find, half cherry, half Coke. Pajama pants, the kind that have been washed so many times, they are tissue-paper thin. And finally, dance breaks. Lots of dance breaks. When your eyes start to close and all you want is your bed, dance breaks will get you through.
It was four in the morning, and I was studying for the last final of my freshman year at Finch University. I was camped out in my dorm library with my new best friend, Anika Johnson, and my old best friend, Taylor Jewel. Summer vacation was so close, I could almost taste it. Just five more days. I’d been counting down since April.
“Quiz me,” Taylor commanded, her voice scratchy.
I opened my notebook to a random page. “Define anima versus animus.”
Taylor chewed on her lower lip. “Give me a hint.”
“Umm … think Latin,” I said.
“I didn’t take Latin! Is there going to be Latin on this exam?”
“No, I was just trying to give you a hint. Because in Latin boys’ names end in -us and girls’ names end in -a, and anima is feminine archetype and animus is masculine archetype. Get it?”
She let out a big sigh. “No. I’m probably going to fail.”
Looking up from her notebook, Anika said, “Maybe if you stopped texting and started studying, you wouldn’t.”
Taylor glared at her. “I’m helping my big sister plan our end-of-year breakfast, so I have to be on call tonight.”
“On call?” Anika looked amused. “Like a doctor?”
“Yes, just like a doctor,” Taylor snapped.
“So, will it be pancakes or waffles?”
“French toast, thank you very much.”
The three of us were all taking the same freshman psych class, and Taylor’s and my exam was tomorrow, Anika’s was the day after. Anika was my closest friend at school besides Taylor. Seeing as how Taylor was competitive by nature, it was a friendship that she was more than a little jealous of, not that she’d ever in a million years admit it.
My friendship with Anika was different from my friendship with Taylor. Anika was laid-back and easy to be with. She wasn’t quick to judge. More than all that, though, she gave me the space to be different. She hadn’t known me my whole life, so she had no expectations or preconceptions. There was freedom in that. And she wasn’t like any of my friends back home. She was from New York, and her father was a jazz musician and her mother was a writer.
A couple of hours later, the sun was rising and casting the room in a bluish light, and Taylor’s head was down, while Anika was staring off into space like a zombie.
I rolled up two paper balls in my lap and threw them at my two friends. “Dance break,” I sang out as I pressed play on my computer. I did a little shimmy in my chair.
Anika glared at me. “Why are you so chipper?”
“Because,” I said, clapping my hands together, “in just a few hours, it will all be over.” My exam wasn’t until one in the afternoon, so my plan was to go back to my room and sleep for a couple of hours, then wake up with time to spare and study some more.
I overslept, but I still managed to get another hour of studying in. I didn’t have time to go to the dining hall for breakfast, so I just drank a Cherry Coke from the vending machine.
The test was as hard as we had expected, but I was pretty sure I would get at least a B. Taylor was pretty sure she hadn’t failed, which was good. Both of us were too tired to celebrate after, so we just high-fived and went our separate ways.
I headed back to my dorm room, ready to pass out until at least dinnertime, and when I opened the door, there was Jeremiah, asleep in my bed. He looked like a little boy when he slept, even with the stubble. He was stretched out on top of my comforter, his feet hanging over the edge of the bed, my stuffed polar bear hugged to his chest.
I took off my shoes and crawled into my twin, extra-long bed next to him. He stirred, opened his eyes, and said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said.
“How’d it go?”
“Pretty good.”
“Good.” He let go of Junior Mint and hugged me to him. “I brought you the other half of my sub from lunch.”
“You’re sweet,” I said, burrowing my head in his shoulder.
He kissed my hair. “I can’t have my girl skipping meals left and right.”
“It was just breakfast,” I said. As an afterthought, I added, “And lunch.”
“Do you want my sub now? It’s in my book bag.”
Now that I thought about it, I was hungry, but I was also sleepy. “Maybe a little later,” I said, closing my eyes.
Then he fell back to sleep, and I fell asleep too. When I woke up, it was dark out, Junior Mint was on the floor, and Jeremiah’s arms were around me. He was still asleep.
We had started dating right before I began senior year of high school. “Dating” didn’t feel like the right word for it. We were just together. It all happened so easily and so quickly that it felt like it had always been that way. One minute we were friends, then we were kissing, and then the next thing I knew, I was applying to the same college as him. I told myself and everyone else (including him, including my mother especially) that it was a good school, that it was only a few hours from home and it made sense to apply there, that I was keeping my options open. All of those things were true. But truest of all was that I just wanted to be near him. I wanted him for all seasons, not just summer.
Now here we were, lying next to each other in my dorm-room bed. He was a sophomore, and I was finishing up my freshman year. It was crazy how far we had come. We’d known each other our whole lives, and in some ways, it felt like a big surprise—in other ways it felt inevitable.
chapter two
Jeremiah’s fraternity was throwing an end-of-year party. In less than a week we would all go home for the summer, and we wouldn’t be back at Finch until the end of August. I had always loved summertime best of all, but now that I was finally going home, somehow it felt a little bittersweet. I was used to meeting Jeremiah in the dining hall for breakfast every morning and doing my laundry with him at his frat house late at night. He was good at folding my T-shirts.
This summer, he would be interning at his dad’s company again, and I was going to waitress at a family restaurant called Behrs, the same as I did last summer. Our plan was to meet at the summer house in Cousins as often as we could. Last summer we hadn’t made it out there once. We’d both been so busy with our jobs. I took every shift I could to save money for school. All the while, I’d felt a little hollow inside, my first summer away from Cousins.
There were a few lightning bugs out. It was just getting dark, and it wasn’t too hot of a night. I was wearing heels, which was stupid, since on a last-minute impulse I’d walked instead of taking the bus. I just figured it was the last time for a long time I’d walk across campus on a nice night like this.
I’d invited Anika and our friend Shay to come with me, but Anika had a party with her dance team, and Shay was already done with finals and had flown home to Texas. Taylor’s sorority was having a mixer, so she wasn’t coming either. It was just me and my sore feet.
I had texted Jeremiah to tell him I was on my way and that I was walking, so it would take me a little while. I had to keep stopping to adjust my shoes because they were cutting into the backs of my feet. Heels were dumb, I decided.
Halfway there, I saw him sitting on my favorite bench. He stood up when he saw me. “Surprise!”
“You didn’t have to meet me,” I said, feeling very happy he had. I sat down on the bench.
“You look hot,” he said.
Even now, after being boyfriend and girlfriend for a whole two years, I still blushed a
little when he said things like that. “Thanks,” I said. I was wearing a sundress that I had borrowed from Anika. It was white with little blue flowers and ruffly straps.
“That dress reminds me of The Sound of Music, but in a hot way.”
“Thanks,” I said again. Did the dress make me look like Fräulein Maria, I wondered? That didn’t sound like a good thing. I smoothed down the straps a little.
A couple of guys I didn’t recognize stopped and said hi to Jeremiah, but I stayed put on the bench so I could rest my feet.
When they were gone, he said, “Ready?”
I groaned. “My feet are killing me. Heels are dumb.”
Jeremiah stooped down low and said, “Hop on, girl.”
Giggling, I climbed on his back. I always giggled when he called me “girl.” I couldn’t help it. It was funny.
He hoisted me up and I put my arms around his neck. “Is your dad coming on Monday?” Jeremiah asked as we crossed the main lawn.
“Yeah. You’re gonna help, right?”
“Come on, now. I’m carrying you across campus. I have to help you move, too?”
I swatted him on the head and he ducked. “Okay, okay,” he said.
Then I blew a raspberry on his neck, and he yelped like a little girl. I laughed the whole way there.
chapter three
At Jeremiah’s fraternity house, the doors were wide open and people were hanging out on the front lawn. Multicolored Christmas lights were haphazardly strung all over the place—on the mailbox, the front porch, even along the edge of the walkway. They had three inflatable kiddie pools set up that people were lounging in like they were in hot tubs. Guys were running around with Super Soakers and spraying beer into each other’s mouths. Some of the girls were in their bikinis.
I hopped off Jeremiah’s back and took my shoes off in the grass.
“The pledges did a nice job with this,” Jeremiah said, nodding appreciatively at the kiddie pools. “Did you bring your suit?”