Archive of Our Own

He thought it was an earthquake. A sudden rip through his body, like the ground itself had shook, kicking him into fight-or-flight immediately. One of his teammates jostled him on the shoulder, shouting something as he walked away, off to the locker room, thinking it would snap him out of it—it didn’t. He stood there for twenty seconds, choking on October air, hearing his mother’s shriek over and over in his head. 

She’d fallen. Slipped really, but from his angle and with the context of the hissed argument he’d overheard the night before it looked for a split second like his father had pushed her. Fear, blinding and feral, rooted him where it was and sent tremors through every limb. 

My mother’s going to die , he thought. My father’s going to kill her.

And in that moment, the words couldn't have been more true. There was nothing to disprove him, nothing to dispel the thought, just terror, brewing and boiling within him. He couldn’t remember why he was here. Couldn’t remember where he had come from. That earthquake brought upon the end of the world, and then—

“Conrad!” his mother called, waving, smiling.

With the call of his name, his terror shrank into discomfort, and it was over. 

That was the first one. 

There were others, after that, small ones. Sometimes in his room, hearing the house rattle from the heavy pressure of holding his parent’s collapsing marriage, his heart rate would kick up and he’d count the amount of videos he could scroll through in one minute to calm himself down. He buried them deep directly after they happened, denying their existence for as long as possible, until they simply couldn’t be ignored.

The biggest one to date came on the boat. Ripping it apart. Rot underneath everything, seeping deeper than he’d ever thought, contaminating, spreading even as he tried to push it away. Cleveland’s hand on his shoulder, asking him what was going on, telling him you’re having a panic attack . Breathe with me. In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight. 

These little earthquakes not earthquakes then—just things that were wrong with him. 

Now that they are off the beach he sits staring at the water dripping slowly from the kitchen tap and thinks more about that very first panic attack, the one that had happened in October out on the football field, the reason deep in his heart why he’d quit the sport. Anyone else would have been startled for a moment and then moved on; the earthquake of emotions that ensued indicated something broken inside of him, different from anyone else. He sits and reflects and comes to the realization that that very first earthquake had scared him bad enough that he began to pull away from all the things that used to make him happy, a process he’d never quite finished, and seemed to just be doing more and more these days.

With the summer over and the adrenaline gone, he doesn’t know what to do with that revelation. He already knows the source of all these earthquakes. It lives with him in his house, it follows him in his phone, it was with him on the beach, it’s sitting on his shoulder, it’s rising and setting with the passage of time. It’s his identity, it’s the money he was born into, it’s the Sun, it’s his mother, it’s cryptic messages, it’s the knowledge that You Are The Oldest and You Should Have Taken Care Of Them and Your Brother Deserves Her More Than You. But even though he knows where it all comes from, he aches with the desire to know how to fix it.

He watches the water drip from the tap and remembers a conversation with Cleveland.

“After you had your panic attack… after you learned the coping mechanisms… How did you make sure it didn’t happen again? How did you fight off that anxiety?”

“Listen, Conrad. It’s hard, it really is. There’s only so far coping can get you—practice the breathing I taught you, download some meditation apps, do all that stuff. But at the end of the day, if there’s something incredibly strong that’s bugging you, something that comes back again and again and the attacks keep getting worse… No amount of coping is going to fix that. At some point, no matter how much you try to make do with your situation, the best thing to do is to get the hell out of dodge.”

Despite the fact that Conrad’s dad went to Hobart and William Smith, his dad’s dad had went to Hobart and William Smith, and his maternal great-aunt had been been the first female director of their economics program, the school had been low on Conrad’s list of colleges until he made the last minute decision to stop doing football. Following that, he went from desperately seeking out a football scholarship to desperately seeking out a sailing scholarship, and HWS was the place to go for that. He got one (of course he did) alongside the scholarship to thank him for applying Early Decision and his discount for family contribution to the college’s legacy. The money is nice, the college is good, Conrad knows he’ll make the most of it, but it doesn’t take away the itchy feeling he gets sometimes when he thinks about it. 

Seven years ago, when Great-Aunt Deborah died of lung cancer, the college named a residency hall after her. It doesn’t escape Conrad that since the name switch three suicides had been committed in the building, but he doesn’t bring it up. Steven had seemed so bewildered at the party at the idea that the ultra rich weren’t the ultra happy, and Conrad isn’t eager to repeat that experience of explaining it. He lets it lie. Breathes in for four and holds for seven and reminds himself that he’s got an easy excuse with his mother’s cancer and doesn’t need to explain his deep aversion to staying on campus.  

They live in Clifton Springs—a twenty minute drive from campus. Close enough to justify the daily drive, close enough for the parties Jeremiah will want to sneak him into, close enough for a lot of things but not for a four-year relocation. 

Conrad thinks he might regret staying so close to home when the first week of classes flies by in a blur and he sits listening to the other freshman chattering about how many hours away they are from home, the homesickness setting in, the way they just feel free, you know? like it sucks to be away from home cooking but like—I’m my own person now. He wishes to know what that feels like. 

He thinks he might regret it. But then he goes with his mother to a clinical consultation about the trial treatment, hears some of the numbers being floated around, and becomes incredibly relieved he doesn’t have to worry about paying room and board on top of tuition costs. 

Jeremiah insists on coming along to the consultation, with that jittery look he’s getting a lot these days, so Mom makes it a family outing, and they’re off, off, off. Driving to the people who will save or condemn their mother. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a normal Friday afternoon, Conrad’s knuckles stuck with a white-hot grip on the steering wheel as he listens to his mother chitter about her beautiful boys, so strong, so precious, my darling angels, always stay this way, forever and ever. It goes well. Mom signs the papers, they start making plans, and this dragon that is her cancer starts to emerge from its cave for them all to behold and fight.

They get home after hours. Conrad turns the engine off and Jeremiah scuttles back inside: still a child even though he insists he’s grown. The crickets are chirping. He can still taste the blizzard they got from Dairy Queen on the way home, too sweet on his tongue, as his mother’s hand lands on his wrist.

Her blue eyes stare into his. His heart stops. Feels the ground underneath him shake even though Earth’s tectonic plates are undisturbed and only he is faltering.

“Maybe next time just you and I go,” Mom says with an enigmatic smile, like this is a conversation between childhood friends, college roommates. “Jeremiah is such a sweet boy, you’re both my sweet boys, but Connie… This will be very hard for us. And I think you and I should keep him a bit away from it.”

The world shakes under the car’s tires. Conrad feels himself nod. His mother kisses his cheek. He waits, a few seconds, then stumbles out of the car and vomits into the bush. 

Yes, they will keep Jeremiah out of it—poor little boy who sobbed because his brother hid his mother’s cancer from him, because his mother didn’t value him enough to consider a treatment that could possibly save her, because his parents don’t love each other, because the girl he loves can’t forget his dumb, brooding brother. Keep Jeremiah out of it, let him be immortal, keep him how you want, Hermes standing in his winged shoes, laughing at the gods and chasing nymphs. 

But keep Conrad involved. Let him parent where she cannot, take care of things she looks over, clean up after her when she gets high off her edibles and pull the blanket over her when she falls asleep on the couch and carry her up the stairs when she falls. Keep Jeremiah young but Conrad ancient. Let Hermes fly away but keep Atlas holding up the sky. He feels the weight of it all on his back—the aching pressure of all the things his mother wants to hold onto the knowledge that all of it is gone . 

In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Get up. Lock the car. Stumble to the door. He throws the duvet onto the floor and lays on his mattress trying to crawl back to a state where he feels at least a little bit human. 

He can’t recognize the person in his head. Doesn’t know the face that stared back at him when he glanced in the mirror. Who is this pathetic fool who stumbled into this life and can’t work his way through it? He can’t do this. He’ll never be able to do this. 

Another little earthquake. Panic attack. Whatever you want to call it. His phone buzzes, he picks up on reflex, and sees that Belly has messaged him. 

Tastes stomach acid again. Throws his phone to the side.

Aug 26, Friday, 10:03pm

Belly: Hey! How are you? 

Aug 27, Saturday, 8:23am

You: all good thanks
You: you?

Aug 27, Saturday, 11:56am

Belly: I’m good! Junior year is living up to the warnings haha
Belly: How’s your mom?
You: Jere and I went with her to a consultation yesterday.
Belly: Oh how’d it go?
You: She’s cleared for it, starts the procedures in three weeks. Insurance covers most of it which is good. 
Belly: Yay! 
Belly: Listen, I don’t know how busy you are, but can we FaceTime at some point? I miss you 💕

Conrad remembers the first real date he went on with Nicole. They liked each other the way salt likes the sea; it always seemed natural to fall together, diffuse in each other’s humors. Dissolve in other ways too. Nicole had been his first dance, first love, though not his first real relationship—Aubrey held claim to that. He learned a lot from her. Mostly, that the things he’d done for her had never been enough.

During the summer, they went to watch In The Heights. A small local theater was showing it again despite the fact that it came out the summer before. Conrad hadn’t seen it yet; Nicole had been excited. They sat together in the theater and held hands and sang along to the songs because Nicole is relaxed and confident and blasé but she loves to sing and Conrad loves watching her sing. She has a beautiful voice. 

“Vanessa,” she sang, looking over at him in the dark movie theater, only lit by the screen, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. He stared at her, smiling in a way he’d never felt himself smile before. 

“What?” she asked, smiling as well. “You’re gonna miss it, it’s an important scene!”

“You’ve seen this before?”

“Yeah,” she admits, blushing. “On Broadway and in the movies. But you were so excited…”

He laughed, pulling her close and kissing her cheek, a brilliant emotion swelling violently in his chest. 

“You know,” she had said as the movie was over, when he was driving her home and playing the movie’s soundtrack through the bluetooth, “this was really nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled and leaned over to kiss him as he pulled into her driveway. “It was really nice. I liked this.” Another kiss. Then a pause. “I like you.”

He kissed her back and put his hand on her knee, tracing the divots and bumps between bone and muscle reverently. “Like me enough to stick around for a bit longer?”

“What’re you saying by that, Conrad Fisher?”

He moves his hand up, cups her cheek, staring into her eyes. “Would you,” he asks slowly, a smile gradually spreading across his face, “like to be my girlfriend?”

She smiled as well, wide and brilliant, and said, “Yes,” onto his lips as she leaned in to kiss him again.

A month or so later, they had an argument. Looking back, it wasn’t the biggest argument they had—Nicole confronting him about the text he sent to Belly would always hold that title. But it stuck in his memory nonetheless. 

“Remember when we went to the movies?” she asked, hostile and despairing. “We sang along to all the stupid songs and watched Anthony Ramos dance with Melissa Barrera and you asked me to be your girlfriend afterwards? That was the best you ever were. Ever. After that—God, Conrad, I don’t know what happened after that. It’s like you don’t see me anymore, don’t want to sleep with me, don’t want to have fun with me—I don’t know! Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but this doesn’t feel the same!”

He read the wrong thing into that. Pulling her close and kissing the top of her head, he thought back to how he touched her knee the night they watched In The Heights, how he kissed her on the drive home and held her hand in the movie theater. He tried to do all of that more, retreating behind what he could do for her. 

For her. For her. For her.  

There’s a failure in that, he thinks now. He did things for her without asking what she wanted. Truly, Nicole was right. The entire relationship, for someone like her who knows how to assert her wants and needs, was a waste of time. But a few weeks removed from the end of it, Conrad begins to think that she gave him the second biggest wake-up call of his life. 

Things done for other people, especially girlfriends, without their input… They simply aren’t worth the effort. He would never gain anything from martyrdom. 

He leaves the message from Belly read but unresponded. There’s a lot more that he has to do before he can even come close to thinking about their kiss on the last day meant for them—together and separately.

Things have been different with Jeremiah since the summer. While as a family they’ve tried to address the emotional difficulty of Mom’s cancer, he and Jere haven’t talked about Belly at all. Conrad elects to leave Belly on read, but thinks of Jeremiah and knows that he needs to talk to him. Sunday morning, while Mom is off with a friend, Conrad locates a leftover joint from high school graduation and approaches his brother with it, with a singular mission in mind. He has to make things right with him. 

“Want in?” he offers, waving it in the air. Jeremiah’s whole face lights up, grinning in a way Conrad hasn’t seen in weeks. They skirt upstairs and light it, sharing it between them like they used to before things were complicated.

“I’m so relieved we got Mom to agree to the treatment,” Jeremiah says as the smoke curls around the attic. 

He takes another hit, holding it in his chest for a moment, his limbs going lax, before handing it over to Conrad, who copies the motion. The weed burns as it goes down, but it’s nice. He’s been trying to wean himself off of this after a late night spiral had led him down the trail of what if the weed becomes coke becomes fentanyl becomes crippling addiction becomes selling the shit becomes being in jail becomes ruining everyone’s lives. Belly’s comment about his smoking tendencies hadn’t exactly helped his spiraling either. But right now he’s grateful for it. It’s a much needed ice breaker. 

“You got Mom to agree to the treatment,” he corrects. “I had no hope left.”

“Man, if you’d told me as soon as you found out, I could’ve helped with that.”

A lopsided smile from Jeremiah. A violent pang of guilt from Conrad. He takes another hit and passes the joint to Jeremiah, resolving not to smoke any more of it. 

“I was upset and resentful,” he says. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I really am.”

Jeremiah’s expression changes, acquiring that same anxiety that he’d had when they sat crying on the couch with Mom. Takes a hit and then squashes out the blunt. Full focus on Conrad.

“Resentful? Of her? Or me?”

“Never of you,” Conrad whispers. Swallows hard. Grateful for the THC coursing through his veins, which is probably preventing a larger breakdown. “You’re my brother, I love you, I could never resent you. Hold onto that, okay?”

“Okay.”

Jeremiah isn’t placated. He’s still got that glint in his eye: deep worry and fear. Conrad recognizes it too well in himself. He pushes past the urge to smooth it away and tells himself that Jeremiah should get the ability to learn how to process this anxiety. Don’t be like me. Don’t brood this away. I’m the oldest for the sole purpose of making all the mistakes—feel this now so that you know how to handle it for later.

“So you resent Mom then? Because she never came clean?”

“More than that. I resent her because I clean up after her more often than she’s there to help us these days. Because she’s chosen to leave Dad at a time when we need him around the most. Because…”

Conrad realizes he should have never said all of that out loud and trails off, but it’s too late. The words have made their mark. Jeremiah has tears in his eyes. 

“I was too distant from you this summer,” Conrad continues in a whisper, too choked up to speak normally. “I’m so sorry, Jeremiah.”

“You were going to let her die because you felt hurt. You were just going to let the cancer develop quietly and brood away your feelings and we would have lost our mother.” 

“Yes.”

A tear slips from his eye. Trails all the way down to the cupid’s bow of his lips, catches there and doesn’t slip further. Conrad tells himself that this is good, that they need to face this together as brothers rather than let it consume them in silence. But right now it just hurts. And he’s never sure if he’s making the right decisions these days. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say you’re sorry, dipshit, say you want to take it back, that if you could do it all again you’d come and tell me the minute you found out, that you’d confront Mom, that you’d talk to one of us about all of this instead of just holding it all inside and making us think you hated us or something stupid. Don’t say you’re sorry.”

Conrad nods, looking at his feet. “There’s nothing I can say to make it better.”

“There’s nothing I can say to change the past either, so we’re both sad for nothing.”

They stare at each other for a moment—identical blue eyes meeting, glossed over by tears in the late August sun.

“You’re so fucking lucky your weed is good, man,” Jeremiah huffs, tucking his knees close to his chest and rest his forehead on them. “Couldn’t do this shit sober. I’m still not high enough for this. Fuck.”

“Can I… Do you want a hug?”

“Yes, fucking—yes. Get over here.”

They don’t talk about Belly.

There’s a girl in his criminal law class: round in the face and stomach, big glasses and long braids of green hair, always in hoodies despite the heat. First week of classes she’d been chatting with some other kids from Michigan—her home state—but the second week of classes she’s quiet. Conrad is quiet too. They end up being quiet together.

She doesn’t have a car and needs a ride to get groceries; he has a car and needs to drive to avoid his mother and all the stress that comes with her. After a moment of hesitantly glancing between him and his car keys, she approaches him to ask for help. He gladly complies.

“They named a building after your great-aunt?”

“Beck Hall. Yup.”

“Hmm. Did she deserve it?”

“I mean, being the first female director of the economics program warrants a certain level of respect, right? She deserved to have a legacy.”

It’s silent for a moment. Then—

“I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, like, as a person.”

“Oh.” Conrad pauses. “Well, I mean, yeah. Yeah, sure, she was a good person. Nice to be around. She made… chicken casserole, I think it was? Or tried to, at least—I remember at Thanksgiving one year that was her designated contribution, and it burnt while Mom was warming it up, and there was a heated debate over who really ruined it. Yeah. Aunty Deborah was nice.”

“The three suicides in her building is a bit of an odd omen though, don’t you think?”

A dam breaks inside Conrad’s chest and he feels himself smiling. “Yeah, I thought so too. Don’t tell or anything but… That’s kinda why I don’t live on campus. Didn’t want to run the risk of them putting me in Beck Hall. That shit freaks me out.”

Laughter fills Conrad’s car and a warmth fills his chest. The trip to get groceries (which amounts mostly to her just getting snacks for her dorm and tupperware for said snacks) goes smoothly. Conrad gets a few recommendations for food he just has to try, along with a new contact in his phone: Alicia Emerson, someone to be quiet with, and maybe someone who could help make the thoughts in his head feel less troubling.

“Are you going pre-law?” she asks as he’s dropping her off back on campus. 

“That’s the plan.”

She hums, looking at him curiously. He feels heat rush to his neck: she can hear it in his voice; he’s not completely sold on the plan. Feels like he should tell her his father is a lawyer and he knows he needs to get a high-paying job to maintain his lifestyle, but can’t get the words out.

“I’m going into computer science,” Alicia tells him. “Just figured knowing about criminal law would be useful for broader life things. There’s crime everywhere you go, y’know? Thought I should know the names for it. The ways the government likes to deal with it. All those things.”

He nods, watches her linger at the car door as he pulls to a stop outside the freshman residence hall, knows there’s a place to say more, invites himself in, helps her arrange her groceries, but can’t take it. He lifts his hand in a wave. She adopts a half-smile.

“Thanks for the ride, Conrad. I’ll see you Wednesday?”

“See you then. Need help?”

“Nope. I’ll be good.”

Being close to legal adulthood gives Conrad a certain clarity that his previous years of being under the age of majority haven’t. He’s dealt with all sorts of anger before, physical and otherwise, and he’s learned that of all the ways for someone to be pissed off with him, he prefers being punched than being given the cold shoulder.

All this to say, he knows Jeremiah is mad at him. And he also knows exactly why.

“Could you pass me the milk?” he asks on Tuesday morning.

Jeremiah stares coldly ahead, not moving an inch.

“Please?” Conrad adds. 

Grudgingly, Jeremiah pushes the milk in Conrad’s direction, with enough unbalanced force that it goes toppling off the counter. Conrad catches it at the last second, and thank God the cap is on, but it’s so petty that he ends up shouting nonetheless.

“God, Jere, could you just be a bit more careful?”

“Well, would it have killed you to get the milk yourself? It was literal two feet away from you, use your fucking arms, man.”

“I asked you for help, if you didn’t want to hand it over you could’ve just said so, no need to push it over!”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! It literally just fell; are you saying I invented the principle of gravity just to piss you off?”

“No, I just want you to be more careful.”

Jeremiah gets up abruptly, taking his unfinished bowl of cereal to the sink and dramatically throwing it down. Conrad scrambles to his feet, breakfast forgotten, calling his brother’s name, but Jere has already stuffed his feet in his shoes and left for school. Conrad stands in the doorway and watches as Jeremiah drives away, knowing that he’s failed and not knowing how to fix it.

“Are you boys okay?” his mother asks as she comes around the corner, done with putting on her makeup, her perfect brows creased with concern.

“Yeah,” Conrad lies, because telling the truth would mean admitting to her that he told his brother he would have let her die just to save himself the difficult confrontation, and he will never, ever be capable of telling her that.

I’m sorry, he texts Jeremiah an hour later. I should never have told you all that. I was so high. I should have just kept my mouth shut.

Doesn’t get a response until much later, when all Jeremiah says is: don’t fucking say that. You keeping your mouth shut is what got us into this mess to begin with.

He has three classes today: one in the morning, two in the afternoon, then an hour to work on as much of his homework as possible before he has sailing practice. The team is around twenty-five people, a few freshmen, a few sophomores, mostly juniors and seniors. The sailing team, alongside the lacrosse team, are the only Division I sports teams at the college, and it’s more intense than Conrad is used to but it’s nice. Sailing is grounding. He needs a bit of grounding today.

He’s part of the crew, as he has always been—the skipper is a junior named Donna Toland, taller than him, with broader shoulders too and bleached eyebrows that catch the sun in a funny way. He turns away before she can catch him staring. 

They use as much daylight as possible: sailing in loops around their course, practicing turns. Conrad ends up throwing his weight around to get the ship to turn, holding tightly onto the rope, tying it back down as soon as they finish, swapping places with another freshman and listening to Donna as she shouts instructions. Some other freshman ends up getting hit in the head with the boom and everyone spends five minutes making sure he doesn’t have a concussion. 

“Y’all need to learn to pay attention,” Donna criticizes as practice wraps up, but punches Conrad in the shoulder and tells him, “You’re worth the scholarship we gave you.”

“Scholarship?”

She raises her bleached eyebrows—and again they catch the light in such a powerful way—and walks away without responding. He begins to follow her without really meaning to; how did she know that he specifically got a scholarship? Was that information public? He didn’t mind people knowing, but it did make him feel strange to be evaluated based on the amount of money he was getting to do this… Did the coach tell her? Did she care?

He catches up to her and waits for her to break off from her group long enough to ask her, “Are athletic scholarships made public?”

“Not public, but—Oh, it’s you. Listen, I… Okay, I shouldn’t have made that joke, I didn’t know how it was gonna land, I should’ve just kept my mouth shut. Sorry about that, dude, your worth isn’t based on your scholarship money.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the sentiment. But how’d you know?”

Donna looks around for a moment. “The coach is a family friend,” she says finally. “I overheard him talking about you. The school puts a lot of effort into the sailing team, they take pride in being DI, and your dad had reached out and told us you were worth the money. Simple stuff. Again, like I said, it was a joke in poor taste. Sorry about that, Conrad.”

“No, it’s okay.” He hesitates. “It just caught me off guard, is all. Have a good day.”

“Yeah, you too—and hey, any questions, anything at all, campus stuff or class stuff or sailing stuff, you can come to me, yeah? Coach is having a team dinner in two weeks; you should try to go. They’re actually a lot of fun.”

“Yeah. I’ll think about it.”

“Do more than think about it, dude. I mean it; they’re worth your while,”

She holds her fist out. He bumps it with his own, trying for a smile. 

He gets home around nine o’clock, after stopping to refill his stock of gum and buying some of the White Rabbit candy Alicia had recommended. He’s tired after a long but fulfilling day, and is worried to see Jeremiah’s car missing from the driveway, and his dad’s car where it should be.

“Hey, son,” his father says as he comes in the door. Mom gets up from the table immediately, where it looks like they’d been filling out paperwork, and goes to make tea. His father must see his eyes following Mom into the kitchen, because he sighs and beckons Conrad over. 

“Your mother and I were just—” he begins, but Conrad waves him away.

“Adult stuff, I get it. It’s okay. No need to explain.”

“Right.”

Conrad drops his bag down onto the ground. The sound echoes throughout the quiet house, harmonizing awkwardly with the sound of the boiling water.

“Connie, how was sailing?” Mom calls from the kitchen. An easy conversation. 

“Good. Yeah, I’m really enjoying it, it’s intense, but I don’t feel like I’m the odd one out—like everyone else knows more than me, sort of thing.”

“Did you expect to feel like that? You? Really?” his father asks, and something in the inflection of his voice makes Conrad incredibly uncomfortable. 

“The coach is nice,” he continues, longing to get away from the silent battle being fought between his parents but utterly stuck where he is. 

“Ah, yeah. Nick Abrams, real nice guy, friends with your uncle.”

“Adam, didn’t you say his daughter had been sent to juvie last year for a DUI?”

“Yeah, but Suzie—I mean, it’s not that deep, how many kids drink these days? Nick’s a real nice guy, the thing with his daughter isn’t a reflection on him at all. I met his son once—the oldest, y’know, Hunter, I think it was—and the kid’s a prodigy, I mean, Nick really did a good job with that one. Graduated summa cum laude from Columbia! Reminds me, Conrad, I should really introduce the two of you. He’s working for a big firm now, and by the time you’re there he’ll have paved the road for you; he’s a good connection to have. I’ll send Nick a message, ask him about a dinner around Thanksgiving; Hunter will be back in town, it’ll be a small thing, easy to organize—”

“Did you ask Coach Abrams about getting me a scholarship for sailing?”

His father stops talking immediately, zeroing in on Conrad in a way that makes him itch. Adam Fisher is by no means an intimidating man, but he commands attention. Working on making partner as an attorney, getting pretty damn far, holding his own amongst the Massachusetts elite, taking his divorce in stride… But Conrad is upset, slightly, not that his father advocated on his behalf, but that he didn’t tell him. It coils tight in his gut and reinforces him, even when his father falters and laughs it off.

“Of course I did! And I’m glad I reached out; it got you 3.5K a year, didn’t it? You’re worth every last cent, Conrad. Abrams just needed a little nudging to see it.”

“Yeah, I’m grateful, it means a lot, but Dad—”

“Connie, don’t you want to go shower?”

His mother comes up to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. The coils of upset burn hotter. His fingers twitch, longing to make fists. 

“I wish you would have talked to me about it,” he continues, as if his mother hadn’t spoken. Looks his father dead in the eyes. Holds his ground. “It’s okay, just—I feel like a lot happens that impacts me without you two telling me.”

“Oh, Connie.”

His mother hugs him side-on, pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

“Baby, you get it. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about the difficult things. Go up and shower, I’ll heat up some spaghetti for you.”

Without him telling them to move, his legs start to take him upstairs, and it isn’t until he’s in the shower with the water running that he fully processes what happened. You let them push you off, says a voice in his head, treacherously. Just so you could get upset about it now. You let things lie and then you brood cuz the brooding makes you feel better than combatting shit—isn’t it your own damn fault that you’re this upset?

He’s red and raw when he steps out from the water, toweling himself off harshly and searching for his phone to ask Jeremiah where the hell he went.

Aug 30, Tuesday, 9:48pm

You: hey
You: just got home from sailing, where are you?
Jeremiah: anywhere dad isn’t
You: makes sense. 

Aug 30, Tuesday, 11:13pm

You: where are you?
Jeremiah: chill, i’ll be home soon
You: seriously where are you
Jeremiah: just south of nonyabusiness, dipshit
You: jere i’m worried
You: please just be home before midnight, mom won’t go to bed until you get back. Dad left a while ago, you don’t have to worry about him being here. please jere.
Jeremiah: omw now
Jeremiah: cool ur jets.
You: thank you
Jeremiah: i was coming home u know
Jeremiah: u don’t need to nag

“So what do you want to research; MPC-based jurisdictions or Common law based? I’m thinking we divide and conquer then compare our notes. We’ve only got forty minutes to do this; I’m really hoping Professor doesn’t expect an in-depth composition.”

Conrad runs a hand over his face, staring at the blank document Alicia had just shared with him and shrugging. He hadn’t slept well last night; Jeremiah had stumbled in through the door close to 1am, and both of them had to help carry Mom upstairs. His 9am Criminal Law class isn’t exactly the thing he wants to be doing right now.

“Whatever. I don’t really care. We can divide and conquer.”

“Okay, so you’ll take Common law and I’ll take MPC?”

“Sure.”

He opens a new tab. What is common law jurisdiction. Clicks on the first thing that comes up. Frowns. Looks up what stare decisis means. Looks up what litigation means. Copies down a basic definition to the document. Pauses. Checks the time. Sees he has a message from Mom. Do you have sailing practice today? Replies: yes, 4-8pm. Goes back to document. Forgets what he was supposed to be doing. Looks at what Alicia’s doing. Feels bad. Checks phone. Realizes it’s been ten minutes. Curses himself. Breathes in for four, holds for seven, out for eight—

“Are you okay?”

He blinks rapidly and turns to face Alicia fully; she’s frowning.

“Yeah,” he says faintly. Lying. Obviously. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry, you’ve got a lot more down than I do, I’ll put more on the doc and we can compare in ten minutes.”

“Okay, but if you’re not feeling it, let me know and we can just research together.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll get it done.”

“Alright.”

His phone buzzes again: Jeremiah this time, asking him if he remembers how many lates you have to get before you get a detention. Four, he replies, and then asks Jeremiah why he needs to know. Doesn’t get a response. Leaves it alone, tells himself it’s a problem for later. He doubles down on research, gets a good six bullet points down and manages to do some compare and contrast with Alicia before the class ends and they have to submit. 

“Sailing today, Conrad!” calls Nate Maugham, one of the other freshmen on the team. “You ready?”

“I’ve gotta be, right?”

“God, that’s my attitude too. Man, Donna hates me. I know I’m a freshman but I’m not that much of an idiot that I don’t know how to turn! And everyone gets hit by the boom at some point, she was way too salty about that.”

“Sure, sure.” Conrad pulls his backpack over his shoulder and glances over at the door. Alicia is lingering there, waiting for him. “See you later, Nate.”

“Yeah, you too, man. I gotta hit the gym.”

He and Alicia walk side by side for a while, off to Alicia’s next class, presumably, until Alicia finally pipes up and asks, “How are you?”

“Tired. It’s a Wednesday.”

“It certainly is.” She glances at him, still frowning a bit. “Who was blowing up your phone during class? Every time you replied you looked more and more closed off.”

She reads him so well. He wonders if it’s because she’s insightful or if he’s gotten sloppy and he’s just that obvious with his emotions.

“My mom and my brother. It’s all okay. I’m sorry about class today, you basically did that entire project on your own.”

“It’s no skin off my back, I find this stuff interesting, and you clearly weren’t in the mindset to do the harder stuff.”

She stops as they’re about to enter the science building, waving her phone in the air and looking at him seriously. 

“You’ve got my number,” she says firmly. “Text me if you need anything. I’ve had my fair share of family issues and I’m far enough away from home that I’ve got no one to micromanage anymore. Trust me, you’re not being a burden for reaching out. I’m bored otherwise. I liked hanging out with you on Monday.”

He tries for a smile, knowing that she’s genuine, but it comes off as more of a grimace.

“Thanks Alicia. Listen, it’s… Well, it’s my birthday tomorrow. I’m gonna be eighteen. Maybe that’s what’s setting me off; I just need to come to grips with being a legal adult soon.”

“Eighteen?” Alicia whistles. “I remember my eighteenth. You’re five months younger than me, man! I had my birthday in March. It snowed. A lot. We got off from school; that was really nice. We also lost power, which was less nice.”

She’s so effortlessly funny, in a similar way that Nicole is. Sarcastic, but well-meaning. He finds himself smiling, feeling a little bit lighter, and thinks that she doesn’t deserve to get saddled with someone like him. Someone dark and broody and who has days where he hates the whole world even though it did nothing to him. 

“Thank you, Alicia,” he says, hoping she’ll know what he’s thanking her for. “I’ll see you on Friday.”

He gets another text from Jeremiah right before practice is going to start. Reads it about five times before finding a way to respond.

Jeremiah : heyyyy so i might’ve might’ve gotten a mild detention but it’s okay okay don’t worry and i already told mom so we’re good. u don’t need to worry about me it’s okay it’s next week thursday. mom said u had practice today with sucks ass cuz i need to talk to u about some small stuff. there’s this guy in my psych class that’s psyching me out hahaha. i’m so funny. got anymore weed left?

Eventually finding the words to send a message back, he promises Jeremiah that he’ll be able to talk when he gets back from practice, puts his phone away, and tries to get into the right mindset to sail.

He’s much more distracted than he was yesterday and it’s noticeable. He narrowly avoids getting hit by the boom, doesn’t commit to a turn hard enough and ends up nearly capsizing them, and gets called out by both the coach and the senior he’s crewing for this time.

He feels Donna’s eyes on him when they take a break. Doesn’t get the chance to run away when she walks up to him. 

“Hey, need me to walk you through some things? No harm asking for help; I’d rather you humbled than concussed.”

She laughs at her own joke and he manages a small smile, but again, it feels forced. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Why does today feel so difficult? Nothing’s happened. Nothing for him to be so wound up like this.

“I’m okay,” he says, and wishes he meant it. “Thanks, though.” And then, because he’s stupid, he says, “I like your eyebrows.”

Donna laughs again, seeming shocked. “Wow, Conrad. I mean, thanks, but wow. Genuine concern met with flirting? Impressive, but not what I really meant.”

“No, I wasn’t—I wasn’t flirting. I mean it, they look… nice? I’ve never seen someone with bleached eyebrows before.”

“Okay, dude. So if you’re not flirting, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

Donna rolls her eyes and shakes out her shoulders, shooting him a cheeky half-smile before completely relaxing the muscles in her face and slowly re-engaging them one by one, taking on an expression of unabashed interest. Eyes directly focused on him, lips slightly parted, head a little bit to the side, a slight raise to her eyebrows. Was this what he looked like when he talked to people? Is this what Belly sees every time he directs his attention to her, no matter how innocently? Had he gone countless summers unintentionally saying things with his face that he hadn’t meant to? How many conversations had gone misunderstood… 

“I didn’t know I—”

“Hey, Conrad! Someone’s calling you, your phone’s been going off like crazy!”

Donna treats him to a knowing grin, waving and turning away, leaving him to track Nate down and take his phone from him. Five missed calls from his mother. 

“Thanks, Nate,” he says, immediately calling his mom back and momentarily ignoring the odd looks from everyone else on the team.

“Oh my god, Connie,” his mother exclaims. “Thank god you picked up—I’m on my way to the hospital now, pass me over to the coach really quick, babe, I’ll tell him what’s going on so he can let you go early.”

“Mom, what’s—”

“Pass me over, baby, come on!”

Dumbstruck and confused, he waves Coach Abrams over and hands him the phone. Coach spends a few moments exchanging stilted words with Mom (“Yeah. No, I understand. Oh, God. Okay. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yup. Tell him I—yes, and you too. Okay. I hope he’s okay. Alright, yeah. Yes, you too.”) before giving Conrad his phone back. Mom had already hung up. 

“You’re free to go, Conrad,” Coach says with a sympathetic look. “Tell me how it goes, okay?”

“Go? Why am I—what’s going on?”

Coach Abrams’s sympathetic look only grows stronger. “Your brother got into a car accident. Your mom wants you to drive to the hospital and meet her there.”

And suddenly he’s flying, throwing his shit in his bag, zipping it up and racing over to his car, only mildly slowing down when Nate chases after him, telling him he nearly forgot his dry shoes, asking him if everything is alright. He brushes Nate off, gets in the car, starts it up, presses his foot hard onto the gas and speeds away into the night. 

Jeremiah. In a car accident. Taken to the hospital. Thoughts of his text race through Conrad’s mind—is his dumb little brother going to get a DUI? Is his dumb little brother okay? Is the last thing Conrad ever said to him going to be a placation over mutterings of a bigger crisis that he’d been too caught up in his own problems to notice? His phone rings. He ignores it. He’s five minutes away when it rings again. He looks down. It’s his mom. 

“Baby, can you get some coffee from the place nearby? Jeremiah’s out of urgent care, he’s gonna be fine, I just need something real quick—I’m filling out paperwork, I need something strong to get me through this. God, he can be so stupid.”

“Mom,” Conrad chokes out. “Mom, I want to see my brother. I’m four minutes away, Mom, I’ll get you coffee later.”

“I know, Connie, but I need your help right now. Be my big boy for me? It’s a lot of stress on my shoulders, and I just need some coffee. Your brother needs both of us to be strong for him right now okay? Just one coffee, and I’ll be all good to go.”

“Mom, I want to see him—”

“Baby, it’ll be okay. Get something for yourself too; I’ll pay you back when you get here. I love you, Connie. See you soon.”

She hangs up. 

Conrad makes it to the parking lot of the hospital before it bubbles over. He turns his car off. Stares blankly at the darkness in front of him. Feels gutted and raw and uncomfortable and feverish all over, like there are invisible ants crawling over him. He pictures Jeremiah lying in a hospital bed. His baby brother. Thinks, why aren’t I there right now? why wasn’t I with him?, and then remembers what his mother wanted him to do for her and feels a different sort of discomfort. 

Anger. It boils within him quickly, and just seconds after remembering her call he can’t remember anything besides being angry. He swallows, balls his hands into fists, shakes from head to toe, and feels the corners of his eyes burn with unshed tears. 

Jeremiah is unconscious when he arrives in the room, coffee in hand. Mom smiles tearfully at him, tucks him under his arm, and even though he vibrates with anger, the sight of his brother takes all the heat out of it. Now, all his anger does is hurt. Bitterly. It’s masked by a fear and sadness too powerful to voice out loud.

“My boys,” his mother says emotionally as she presses a kiss to his head, and takes all the fight out of him with those two words.

Aug 31, Wednesday, 7:08pm

Belly: Hey! I heard about Jeremiah’s accident, are you guys okay?

Aug 31, Wednesday, 9:26pm

You: hey
You: sorry it’s been really busy, i haven’t been on my phone. trust Jere to wreck his car the day before i turn 18. it’s fucking with mom’s head 
You: i’m sorry
You: thanks for reaching out

Aug 31, Wednesday, 10:46pm

Belly: omg don’t be sorry!
Belly: Want to call?

“Happy birthday to you,” Jeremiah sings from his hospital bed, laughing a bit as Conrad rolls his eyes and brings his younger, idiotic brother into a tight hug. “Bravo on being a legal freaking adult, my dude.”

“You’ve got a lot of sass for someone who broke two ribs and fractured his wrist. Sure you don’t have brain damage as well?”

“Nope. You’re the one with the brain damage, buddy. Too much football.”

Their mother swoops in and hugs Jeremiah tight, kissing his forehead a hundred times and chatting anxiously with the doctor, who assures her that Jeremiah will be fine. It was a stupid accident, really. Jeremiah ran a red light coming back from a friend’s house and caught the bumper of someone else’s car, spinning into a tree of all things. The physics of it perplexes Conrad more than the accident itself. Deep down, he had been waiting for something like this to happen, he’s just so devastated that his worst fears had been proven true.

The anger from last night is gone. Now all he is is empty. 

“Run any more reds and I’ll revoke your license myself,” Conrad says under his breath while Mom isn’t paying attention. Jeremiah scoffs.

“It was a stupid accident. The other driver didn’t have his lights on; that’s also breaking a law. Really, it wasn’t my fault at all. It should’ve been fine.”

“But it wasn’t fine.” Conrad looks at Jeremiah seriously. “Don’t be dumb, Jere Bear. Your broken ribs don’t really care about how they broke. They’re just broken.”

“You and your bleeding heart, man.”

“Yeah. Me and my bleeding fucking heart. I care, idiot. I love you. Don’t die.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You know that, right?” He stares Jeremiah dead in the eyes, searching for understanding, pathetically high-strung and panicked. “I love you. When I heard you crashed all I could think about is that the last thing we seriously talked about was my fucked up relationship with Mom and I was so scared that would be how it ended for us. I was terrified, Jere. I still am.”

“I’m not mad at you anymore,” Jeremiah says. His smile is wobbly but it’s there. Tension inside Conrad begins to lessen. “I understand. And even if the crash did do me in, my ghost would never be mad at you. I’d haunt you until you realized that I could never truly hate you.”

“That’s a nice sentiment, Jere, but I’d prefer if you just didn’t die at all.”

Jeremiah salutes with his good arm. “Aye, aye, captain.”

Conrad gets his smile back, and feels good enough to say, “Belly and I talked last night. She forwards her well wishes, though she’s probably texted you separately.”

“Ah.” Jeremiah gets an odd look to his face. “You two call a lot?” 

“No. I’ve been putting her off. Repressing things, like I usually do.” He cocks an eyebrow and raises a finger gun to his head, miming shooting it. He’s in an odd mood today. Joking. Sardonic. “Me and my bleeding fucking heart. But Belly’s all good. Hopes you get well soon.”

“Is that all she said?”

Outloud? Yes. Outloud, all she had said was that she hoped Jeremiah got better, that she wanted to know more about how it happened, if Jere had been more reckless this year than last year, if Conrad was worried about him, how they were both adjusting to their mother’s official prognosis. But her silences were more telling than her words, and he knew there were other things she wanted to talk about. Their kiss on the last day, the fact that he left her on read the last time she asked if he wanted to call, what he saw as a future for them… Things she didn’t say out loud, but he knew she wanted to.

“Yeah,” he tells Jeremiah. “Yeah, that’s all she said.” And leaves it at that. “Listen, before your accident… You texted me, said you wanted to talk?”

Jeremiah’s smile falters. He opens his mouth, looking ready to say something, and then their mother swoops in again and starts explaining things the doctor has told her, explaining when Jeremiah can go back to school and what the consequences are. Conrad catches his brother’s eye and conveys without words that he’ll be bringing this up later. Jeremiah just looks away. Guilty, almost, in a way that breaks Conrad’s heart.

Mom buys him a cake, Dad comes to visit for a while, Conrad only has two classes and decides to skip sailing practice; overall it’s not a bad birthday. He gets calls from relatives and messages from Belly and Steven and even Nicole, which is a surprise. Alicia texts him as well, and he replies to say thank you, but there’s more that he wants to say. It can wait, though. He needs to talk to Jeremiah first.

Jere was cleared to leave the hospital mid-day, so around four in the afternoon Conrad finds him and wordlessly sits down on the end of his bed. He’s on his phone, staring at the screen with a mix of emotions as he types furiously away at someone. Conrad feels no remorse in plucking the phone out of his hands and tossing it aside.

“Dude,” Jeremiah protests, but doesn’t put up that much of a fight. “Belly was talking to me.”

“And you were texting instead of calling?”

“She’s at an afterschool event. Couldn’t call, but still wanted to talk. That sort of thing. Come on, she was telling a really cool story.”

Conrad takes a long look at his brother, and sees things he doesn’t want to. Sees the cuts, bruises, and scrapes, yes, but also sees the desperate glint to his eye, the way his smile borders on wild. Sees too much of himself in him. Sees the part of him that’s angry but too scared to act on it. Sees the part of him that snapped at Belly all throughout the summer, that gets possessive over girls, that flirts without meaning to.

“Which friend were you with before the accident?” he asks.

Jeremiah laughs. “Like you didn’t know what I was doing.”

“I had guessed. But I didn’t want to assume. I know how much that grates on you.” Stares at Jeremiah with a look that says I was there when you got called a slut at homecoming last year, I held you as you cried, I know how much people’s assumptions hurt you. Jeremiah looks down. 

“Look, it doesn’t matter, okay? It’s that guy from psych that I texted you about. Maks. He’s cute, in like an asshole sort of way. He wanted to fool around while his parents were out. I thought, why the fuck not? You know me. It was fun. Didn’t exactly think I was going to break my ribs coming home from it.”

“Maks.” Conrad tilts his head to the side. “He plays cello. His mom’s on the PTO. She organizes pretzel day. You like his mullet.”

Jeremiah goes pink. “I don’t talk about him that much.”

“No, not really. But I listen to you when you do.” Conrad hesitates for a moment, knows what he’s about to say is going to make things messy, then dives in for it. “I remember things you talk about, especially when they make you happy. I remember you talking about Maks the same way I remember how happy you looked with Belly at the deb ball before… everything happened.”

“We’re going there?”

“I feel like we have to.”

Jeremiah sighs, then winces. “Fuck, my ribs hurt.”

“Serves you right, dumbass.”

“Didn’t you say you love me? Where’s this antagonistic attitude coming from?”

“You’re avoiding the conversation.”

“We both are.”

“I guess we are.”

They look at each other and then both look away. Stare at Jeremiah’s phone as it lights up with more messages from Belly. Seconds tick away. Birds chirp outside.

“She sent something to me that she meant to send to Taylor,” Jere blurts. “It was about you. She said it’s crazy that I like him as much as I do because ever since I can remember he’s always been dark, dark, dark. And I asked, who’s him? She panicked. Tried to take it back. And I was like, fuck me. Because I know she’s talking about you. And she’ll always be thinking about you. So what’s the point of even being attached? Of liking her at all?”

“Jere—”

“I mean, dark? She thinks you’re dark. And I think, not my Conrad. My brother isn’t dark three times over, he’s an emotionally unavailable wreck. Probably has some undiagnosed depression working for him, to be honest. Maybe that’s what makes you so sexy, Connie, you just reek of repressed emotional problems and people like Belly just want to kiss all the pain out of you. And maybe you want that. But it leaves me not knowing where to go. Punching you on the dancefloor. Crying my eyes out. Crashing my car. Breaking my ribs. Stupid shit like that.”

There’s so much to unpack in what he said, but with Jeremiah sitting staring at the wall, mouth still slightly open like he can’t believe what just escaped it, Conrad can only really latch onto one thing.

“Undiagnosed depression? You think I’m depressed?”

Jeremiah closes his eyes. “You took AP Psych last year, man. You’re taking Psych 201 now. How the fuck do you read about depressive disorders and study the parts of the brain that cause it and not think that sounds a lot like you? Maybe it’s because people normalize the fuck out of it. Bad boy with a heart of gold. Dark, brooding gentleman who just actually needs a hug. I don’t know. But Belly’s obsessed with it. Sometimes I get cynical and start to think you’re meant for each other—you love the idea of being loved and she loves the idea of being in love. You’re perfect for each other.”

“I love the idea of being loved?”

“Yeah.” Jere wipes his eyes and laughs as much as his broken ribs will allow. “You want people to love you; you feed off of it. But you push people away who get too close, who might love you enough to want to help you. You’re so hungry for it you don’t actually know what it feels like to have it. It makes you uncomfortable. You really made me pause the last time we talked, you know? I hoped it was the weed that made me feel like my world was rocked, but nope, it was you and your talk about resentment and Mom and all that other shit—it told me a lot about you. And myself, if I’m honest. You’re right about Mom. She was so obsessed with the perfect summer that she missed so much that was going on with the both of us, and you just lost all faith in her… I think I might’ve gotten there too. If it had gone on that long. But now that problem’s gone and you’re still resentful. And we haven’t really talked.”

“When you crashed your car—”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

His brother smiles at him knowingly. Says with his eyes, hey dipshit, I know you just as well as you know me. I know where your monkey mind was going. 

“I was too wrapped up in myself. It’s on me that I ran that stupid red—I won’t do it again. But it wasn’t on you. Even though I know Mom probably made you feel like it was in some way or another. Can we just talk more? When I’m off these stupid fucking painkillers and can speak without doing this crazy word vomit? I miss you.”

Tears spill openly from Conrad’s eyes. “I miss you too,” he says quietly, and gives Jeremiah the gentlest hug he can muster.

Later that evening he stares at his phone, Alicia’s contact open on the screen, fingers hesitating as he wonders whether he should send the message or not. She’d said he could talk to her, but he hasn’t known her for that long, barely a week, and she doesn’t understand the complexities within his family. A better person to text would be Steven or Belly, but—

No, neither of them would work. Steven can’t comprehend his anxiety. His relationship with Belly is too complicated to get any real comfort from these days. 

“Fuck it,” he whispers, and begins to type.

Her responses come within minutes, sending shots of dopamine through his veins as he reads her words of immediate sympathy, outrage on his behalf, empathy through her similar experiences, comfort and offering of help without him ever needing to ask.

Thank you, he sends, puts his phone on to charge, rolls over in bed and marvels at how fast he begins to cry.

During Criminal Law the next day, they have a cursory lecture over different ways you can be charged for crimes and the ways being tried as an adult is different from getting tried as a minor. Death row is brought up, talked about, glossed over, and discarded in favor of explaining the complexities of probation and parole and bail and retries, but Alicia doesn’t let it go. 

Watch out, mister legal adult, she mouths from across the room, raising her eyebrows. Conrad finds himself smiling. Can anticipate that he’ll be driving her for more groceries before she even comes up to ask him at the end of class.

“Did your brother get charged with anything for his accident?” she asks as they’re on their way to the nearest Starbucks for corporate fortification.

“He got fined and a few points off his car insurance, but I think everyone figured that his broken bones were enough of a punishment. He’s in pain but he’ll be alright.”

“Has he ever done anything like this before?”

“No. He’s a super safe driver, always. I mean, he was teaching our—teaching a friend of ours to drive this summer. He’s good. He’s a good kid. It’s just…”

Alicia’s eyes burn into him. He keeps his eyes on the road, waiting for the light to change and trying not to panic too much. 

“Our mom has cancer,” he says as the light switches to green, putting his foot on the gas a bit too hard and muttering an apology under his breath. “It’s not the first time; she went through chemo three years ago, right before the world shut down, y’know, pre-COVID times, but this time it doesn’t look like she’s getting better. And our parents are getting a divorce, which is perfect fucking timing, and I realized I’ve been having panic attacks? For a while, since last fall, but I had a bad one when we were at the beach, and I’ve been waiting for Jere to start buckling under stress as well. Saw some sort of an accident coming a mile away. Just sorry it had to be this bad. Oh, I’ve got the Starbucks app on my phone, let’s order ahead—I’ve got points saved up. My password’s 0-9-0-1-2, just find it and put in whatever you want. I won’t have anything.”

“Um, yeah, okay.”

She falters, reaching for his phone, flicking through options. “I’m getting you a latte.”

“Okay. Sure.”

There’s silence until he pulls into the parking lot a few minutes later, when Alicia says, “Oh, you just got a text. Belly, it says? She wants to know how you are.”

Conrad locks up before he can think to block the reaction, and Alicia raises her eyebrows. “Let’s go get our coffee,” he says quickly, stepping out of the car and quickly making his way into the shop.

“So first of all, that was some crazy trauma dumping, thanks for… opening up?”

Alicia bites into her cake pop and watches him. Conrad stares into the iced latte Alicia had picked for him and tries to think of a way to tell her he doesn’t like iced lattes.

“Are you getting help for the panic attacks? Therapy or something?”

“Not worth it, really. They’re just small inconveniences. It’s fine.”

“I’d beg to differ, but I’m not your keeper, so whatever. I’m sorry? I think. I don’t know what to think. You’re strangely blasé about this that it’s really difficult to navigate everything you just told me. Are you okay?”

Conrad looks around at the Starbucks, at Alicia, at the iced latte he doesn’t want to drink.

“Yeah. I’m alright.”

“Okay. Good. Nice. Listen, we don’t really know each other, but comradery, okay? Gotta fight the capitalist machine together, conquer differences and stuff. I mean I’m biracial and neither of my cultures accepts me? I struggle with the financial state of my future? My twin sister died when I was nine? Look, now we’re even. Both of us have trauma. What’ve you been doing to combat the panic attacks? If you don’t mind talking about it, that is.”

“Breathing,” he says, wincing, knowing how pathetic it sounds. “I downloaded a mediation app? I don’t really use it. I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Don’t be; I was nine. I’m alright now. But yeah, I get it. Um… do you like music?”

Conrad tilts his head to the side; a silent question. Alicia runs her hand over her hair, sipping her drink and clearly thinking about something.

“Music helps me. I struggled with anxiety in high school, and I’d just find albums to listen to over and over that would ground me in reality. I’m not sure if that would help, but it’s an idea. Meditation apps are fine, but I could never remember to keep up with them.”

“I like music,” Conrad says, smiling a little bit. “I’ll give it a go.”

“Nice. Motomami is a good one to start with, if you’re alright with latin music. Or Graceland , for some classic Paul Simon. I’ve got more. Want me to text them to you?”

His phone buzzes. Belly’s name lights up his screen again. Both their eyes are drawn to it, but Alicia has the kindness to pretend like she isn’t paying attention.

“Yeah,” he says eventually. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Sep 2, Friday, 11:03am

Belly: Hi Conrad 👋
Belly: Jeremiah said he was feeling better but I figured you’d still be a bit shaken. Do you want to call again?

Sep 2, Friday, 2:35pm

Belly: I’m available anytime this evening.

He finds himself at sailing practice, and the team immediately asks him if he’s okay, how his brother is. Nate begins recounting a story of an accident his mom got into, Donna comes clean about her two speeding tickets, practice kind of gets hijacked by group bonding, and he feels better afterwards. The coach reminds them all about the team dinner coming up. Conrad knows that for once he’s actually going to go.

When he gets home, Jeremiah is sitting on the couch playing that stupid zombie video game with a boy he thinks is Maks. Conrad raises his eyebrows and proceeds silently upstairs. Jeremiah flushes pink, but doesn’t shout after him. 

A few hours later, Conrad hears the door close and Maks leave, and Jeremiah makes his way upstairs into Conrad’s room. He collapses onto Conrad’s bed and flops his head into Conrad’s lap, all loose limbs and bruised cheeks and broken ribs, like a puppy that just got hit by a truck. Conrad, by some odd miracle, finds himself laughing.

“Shut up, dude,” Jeremiah groans.

“I’m literally not saying anything!”

“He just came over to see how I was, then Mom invited him to stay for dinner and we ended up playing video games while she did work in her room—he felt bad about me breaking some ribs, I was like, literally don’t even worry, it’s all fine and normal , alright? Wipe that dumb look off your face.”

Conrad smiles wider. He will not wipe the dumb look off his face. He likes the feeling of being dumb for a change, not broody. 

He feels better. Deeply, deeply better. Ruffles his brother’s wild curls and laughs a bit more when Jeremiah groans in pain.

“Everything fucking hurts, man, don’t touch me.”

“Alright, Jere. Okay.”

Smiles at his brother. Likes the way the smile feels on his face.

He feels good. Very, very good. He begs the universe to let it stay this good, for this euphoria to never vanish. When his mother comes into his room to say goodnight, he maintains this wish, feels her kiss fall onto his forehead and refuses to let himself feel diminished by it, as he usually does.

“My baby boy,” she whispers adoringly. “An adult now. All grown up. Though I suppose you’ve been grown up for a long time now, haven’t you?”

His eyes begin to burn with tears; he breathes in deep and forces them down. She’s hugging him from behind, arms wrapped around his shoulders while he’s sat on his bed, her face tucked into his neck. She can’t see his face. She can’t watch his eyes glaze over with tears unshed. Doesn’t feel the pain spike through his chest. 

“I’m always grateful for how you support me,” she says, kissing his cheek. “You are the best son a mother could ask for. I’m proud of you, Connie. So proud.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he whispers. She squeezes him tight, presses another kiss into his hair, and leaves, closing the door on her way out.

He lies staring at the ceiling for a long time after she leaves, trying to grasp onto that euphoric feeling he’d experienced early. It’s no use. The feeling is gone. He feels hollow in its absence. 

Where is that glow he felt when Jeremiah was laughing with him just half an hour ago? Where is the ease he felt when he was sharing stories with the sailing team?

It’s a long, hard evening, and he doesn’t find much sleep. He scrolls and scrolls and scrolls and scrolls and searches for something on his phone that will get him even a little bit close to the euphoria of earlier.

Euphoria, contentedness, sleep, peace—it all eludes him. The day has a bittersweet end. The beginning of eighteen not entirely different to the feeling of seventeen.

Sep 2, Friday, 10:34pm

You: sorry for not responding, belly
You: i’m pretty busy, but thanks for checking in. 
Belly: It’s okay!
Belly: Want to call?

Sep 3, Saturday, 1:36am

You: maybe sometime later.

“Alright, give me the differences between common law and MPC.”

“Umm… something about charges and convictions?”

“Nate, something tells me that Professor isn’t gonna take that as an answer.”

“Okay, well if you’re so smart —”

“Common law allows you to convict and charge for both conspiracy and crime,” Conrad interrupts, looking up from his flashcards. “MPC lets you charge with both but only convict with one, but I don’t know which one. Alicia took most of the notes for that.”

“I took all the notes for that,” Alicia corrects, but half-smiles in his direction anyway. “Impressive, Conrad. You’re not nearly as grumpy as I thought you’d be.”

“You thought I’d be grumpy?”

“Well, you’re always sort of grumpy.” She nudges her knee against his in a way he assumes is affectionate. “And it is 11am on a Saturday. Most people would rather be sleeping. Though I’m not sure you slept at all. You sent a message confirming you’d come to the study session at 3am. Witching hour, my dude. I think you’re cursed now.”

Nate laughs, Alicia grins broadly at her own joke, and Vanessa Flynn, who takes the same Criminal Law class as them and somehow got invited to the study session, looks between the three of them with intrigue. 

“There are, like, a hundred small things we have to know for this test beyond just common law and MPC,” Conrad points out. “Maybe we should get started on those?”

“Look at you being responsible,” Nate jeers goodnaturedly, still laughing to himself as he pulls up his highlighted copy of the study guide and begins needling Alicia about the overlaps between parole and bail.

They’re all sitting in the campus library gathering their notes and combining their knowledge for their upcoming criminal law test. The Professor openly told them that most people struggle with it. Alicia has turned out to have a mean competitive streak; if other people do poorly, she’s determined to do the best. Nate is happy to make friends and enjoy the ride. Conrad needed something to do with himself in order to get out of bed. But he doesn’t know why Vanessa is here.

Maybe it’s because she’s also far from home? Nate, after some digging, has been revealed to be born in Ohio, which Alicia ribs him endlessly for, Alicia is five hours away from her home in Michigan, and Vanessa is a whopping six hours away from her hometown of Fairfax, Virginia. She might’ve gravitated towards them because of their shared distance from home. But there are other people in their class who are also from Virginia, other people who would have more in common with her. Why is she taking the time to study with them?

“Conrad, how confident are you in your comparison of common law versus MPC jurisdiction?” Alicia asks, turning the conversation back to him. “Because the one I have in my notes is much more convoluted than yours.”

“I’m not that confident in anything,” Conrad admits. He turns to Vanessa, hoping to involve her in some way. She hasn’t spoken the entire time. “What do you have written down?”

“Oh, I didn’t bother taking notes,” she says, a bit sheepishly. “I took a criminal law class in high school that pretty much covered everything through the first four months of this course; the credits just didn’t transfer, which is why I didn’t move onto taking criminology. I’ve been super interested in law since forever. My mock trial team won states last year.”

“States?” Nate echoes, like he can’t believe it, and Alicia and Conrad share a look. Alicia tips her head in Vanessa’s direction with her eyebrows raised. Conrad turns his attention to her and looks at her closer than he has been before. 

Vanessa has her hair in twin french braids tumbling over her shoulders and curling slightly at the tips. She’s playing with one of the ends now, looking at Conrad like Belly sometimes does when they’re sitting around the breakfast table. Realization clicks inside of him all of a sudden, and heat rushes to his cheeks. The mystery of why Vanessa wanted to come to this study session is solved.

“That’s amazing,” he says, feeling hot and uncomfortable and trying to swerve the conversation into safe waters. Vanessa’s eyes are burning into his, staring at him expectantly. He sees the way she looks at him and it scares him. He’s not ready for that again. 

“Thanks! You know, they always say where you go to college is probably the area you’re going to end up working in, given the time you’ve spent networking there and all. I’ve always loved the idea of practicing law here. Maybe start off at a big firm and then start up my own or something like that.”

“Impressive,” Alicia remarks. “What brought you to HWS?”

“I wanted a small school in upstate New York before I hit the big leagues in the city. I’m thinking of Columbia for law school.”

“Coach Abram’s son just graduated from Columbia,” Conrad hears himself saying. “If you’re really interested, I could have him talk to you? Maybe he has connections in admissions.”

“Oh, that would be great!” Vanessa smiles brilliantly at him. “Thanks, Conrad!”

“No problem,” he says, still flushed all over, and they return to studying. Alicia doesn’t lose her shit-eating grin for at least another ten minutes.

He’s relieved when he can leave the library. He makes sure to be polite about it; the amount of terse interactions with Belly over the summer has left him scared to unintentionally let his emotional distress cause distress in other people. But he feels safer when he’s back in his car—safer, that is, until his phone lights up with a message from Mom saying that Dad will be there for a few hours in the afternoon, and he realizes that home isn’t any more safe than here is. 

Alicia walks by his car and taps on the window. “Mind driving me to Costco to get pizza and endless supplies of snacks?” she asks. 

And, even though the nearest Costco is half an hour away, he gladly welcomes her into the car and lets her sift through his Spotify to find a playlist she likes, letting her easy conversation wash over him while he recovers from the sudden spike of anxiety that the thought of romance had brought upon him.

Conrad finds Jeremiah lying in bed with headphones on on Sunday morning. He taps him on the shoulder and when Jeremiah opens his eyes he waves the joint he found in the air. Another invitation.

“We’re gonna smoke up my room,” Jeremiah complains, but takes the headphones off anyway and fishes a lighter out from his drawer.

They end up talking mostly about the baseball game from yesterday—the Red Sox beat the Rangers 5-3, and Jeremiah had a lot of opinions on the Rangers’s rapid gain in points following the Red Sox’s five runs. It’s easy conversation, fueled by the weed and the hot weather. Their mother is downstairs, on the phone with their grandmother. The birds chirp outside and the joint burns down slowly. By the time it’s gone, both of them are a pile of loose limbs on Jeremiah’s bed, Doja Cat playing from Jeremiah’s phone because he doesn’t do well with silence and has gotten majorly into her new album.

“Nicole is a big Red Sox fan,” Conrad mutters after a brief lapse in conversation.

“Yeah, dude, and it fucking set Belly on fire.”

“Why?”

“Cuz you hate the Red Sox, and when she pulled up to the bonfire you were making out with Nicole and Nicole had a Red Sox hat on. I heard her ranting about it to Taylor later. She was like… he hates the Red Sox, why’d he like her if she likes something he hates.”

“I didn’t know that happened.”

“There was a lot you didn’t know. That I didn’t know. We’re both kinda dumb.”

“She wants to call me.”

“Nicole? Didn’t you guys break up?”

“No. Belly.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Are you going to?”

Conrad, utterly delirious from a mix of the heat, the Red Sox’s victory last night, and the THC, responds with complete honesty. “I’m not ready to. I’m not ready to confront anything that I did this summer. It scares me.”

“Fuck, Connie, I’m not high enough for this, we gotta find some more weed.”

“Doesn’t it scare you too?” Conrad whispers. 

Jeremiah goes quiet. The only sound filling the room is Doja Cat and SZA singing about a need for intimacy, and the central air conditioning buzzing softly in its fight against the open window to keep the house cool. There’s a watermark on Jeremiah’s ceiling, small, and kind of shaped like a duck. It fascinates Conrad long enough for Jeremiah to figure out how he wants to reply.

“The things that scare you don’t scare me,” he says. “I don’t know man… You get scared of being in love. I get scared of, like, death and shit. Death terrifies me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Not like—not like how it’s gonna happen, but the fact that it happens to everyone. You can’t stop it. Mom’s gonna die. You’re gonna die.” Pauses. Looks over at Conrad. “I’m going to die,” he says vulnerably. “We’re all going to die, Connie, and we don’t know when, and what if I die and everyone hates me when I’m gone? Cuz I fuck shit up, Connie. I’ve been slipping. I feel like a fucking frat boy sometimes. I left Belly alone on the dance floor. Mom didn’t trust me enough to tell me about her cancer. Maks joked about catching an STD from me cuz I’m such a slut.”

“Maks said that?”

“Yeah. Yesterday. When you were out studying—it honestly isn’t that big of a deal, I just… y’know, I was making out with him and I made a move like I wanted to do more, and neither of us had a condom, so I was like, it’s fine, I’m clean, and he just… said it. You’re such a slut, Jeremiah, I’m not fucking playing around with you bare. Which is fair, I mean, he’s right, safe sex and all that bullshit, but… It hurt.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Conrad breathes, and means it. 

How dare Maks say that to his brother? How dare anyone say that to his brother? He feels rage like never before… but it vanishes as soon as Jeremiah’s land clumsily on his cheek, drawing his gaze to focus on his eyes, blue, blue, blue in the September sun. 

“We’re not good people, Connie,” he slurs. “And we’re all going to die.”

“But not today,” Conrad says. Jeremiah is still staring at him, eyes slightly glazed over and bloodshot from all their smoking but focussed. He still has his attention. “We don’t die today. Sometime later—then we’ll go, but not today.”

“Mom doesn’t trust me.”

“She wants to protect you.”

“Belly doesn’t love me.”

“It’s okay, Jeremiah.”

“Maks thinks I’m a slut.”

“Jere, it’ll be okay.”

“You’re scared of love and so why aren’t you scared of me?”

Conrad’s had enough. He scooches up the bed and brings Jeremiah into his arms, his embrace rough and uncoordinated but the feeling there. His brother’s face is leaking tears, pressed firmly into his neck, Jeremiah’s entire body arching towards him and soaking up every bit of comfort he can get. Conrad breathes in the smell of Jeremiah’s shampoo, mixed with the weed and the diffuser Jeremiah insists will prevent the marijuana smell lingering in the room. Jeremiah cries quietly. Conrad closes his eyes and lets himself feel. 

“You’re like Elsa,” Jeremiah mumbles when he calms down enough to speak again. “And I’m like Anna. And Belly’s like… I don’t know. She’s not very Kristoff. And Elsa wasn’t really interested in anyone Anna was.”

“Isn’t Elsa a lesbian?”

“I don’t know, man, maybe you should try being a lesbian—it would add some color to your life.”

A grin spreads through Conrad’s face. Jeremiah pokes his head out from where he’s been hiding it in Conrad’s chest and their eyes meet; Conrad’s grin spreads to Jeremiah and soon they’re grinning at each other like idiots, still high and delirious and suddenly laughing so hard tears spill out of their eyes, singing off-key renditions of Let It Go and healing, maybe, in a way they hadn’t let themselves before.

All things considered, his first test in Criminal Law goes well enough. He sits deliberating and sweating over the questions for every second of their allotted time and hands it in knowing he didn’t do as well as he had on tests in high school, but not disappointed. 

“How do you feel?” Alicia asks as they walk out of the classroom.

“I think it went okay. There were a few things I absolutely forgot existed, but other than that… It was okay.”

“Yeah, same. Although I could identify pretty much everything on there—I didn’t spend half the classes running up to the test sleep deprived and stressing over my stupid brother’s broken ribs. I feel like if this grade isn’t what you want it to be, you could bat your eyelashes a bit and get the professor to change it on those grounds.”

“You want me to flirt my way to a better grade?”

“Why not?”

Conrad opens his mouth to shoot something back when both of them catch sight of Vanessa, walking out the room and waving at them both. He and Alicia wave back, watch her walk away, and then turn to each other in sync. 

“The look on your face when you realized she was into you is already a core memory,” Alicia teases. “How does it feel being a little bit of a dumbass?”

“I don’t know why she would like me,” Conrad replies indignantly. “I barely said two words to her, I don’t interact with her at all, I mean, she’s pretty, but how would she know I think that, and it was you who invited her to come along with us, not me.”

“When she introduced herself, you started serenading her with that song from In The Heights; of course she developed a crush. Your singing voice is pretty good.”

“It was not a serenade; there’s a character in that movie called Vanessa, and there are a lot of musical numbers that contain her name. It’s memorable! I was making a connection! Not… serenading. I don’t serenade.”

“So you’ve never pulled out a guitar on a date and sang love songs to a girlfriend?”

Conrad goes pink and elects to not respond. Alicia howls with laughter. 

“You’re classic,” she chortles. “Absolutely classic.”

“Laugh it up, Alicia,” he grumbles good-naturedly. “You’re the one complimenting me on my singing skills and implying I could flirt my way into a grade curve. Where’s your incentive for asking about my guitar skills and asking me to drive you everywhere? How’s this not some form of serenading?”

Alicia levels a serious look at him. “Ever heard of being friends?”

He smiles broadly. “Nah, it’s a foreign concept.”

“Well, let me fill you in. Friend is a term for someone who has a bond of mutual affection with another person, typically exclusive of sexual or familial relations.”

“Okay, Oxford Dictionary.”

“Where is this sass coming from?”

“Your mom.”

“Jesus Christ, Conrad,” she laughs, pausing so she can brace herself against a lamppost so that she doesn’t fall over. “Vanessa does not know what she’s getting into; what part of middle school did that comeback emerge from?”

“Vanessa’s not getting into anything,” Conrad says, his smile slipping away by small but constant degrees. “I’m not ready for another relationship.”

Alicia nods, getting her laughter under control enough to keep walking. “I respect that. Just make sure you don’t sing to her too much; she might get the wrong idea.”

“How have you not gotten the wrong idea?”

She hesitates for a while, looking between him and the sidewalk a few times before replying, “I don’t really like people like that. So I just… assumed that you cottoned on to that and ran with it from there. Friends are more important to me than… all that. Romance. Sex. Kissing. My first kiss grossed me out so much, dude, you have no idea. I never want to do that ever again. It makes me feel weird, deep in my gut. I don’t expect you to know what I’m talking about, but whatever. That’s how it is with me.”

“No, I… I understand.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He feels an uncomfortable lump grow in his throat, and works very hard at not locking up. “Romance makes me feel weird in my gut,” he admits, not able to meet her eyes even though he can feel her staring. He’s determined to get this out. “Though I’m not sure if that’s because I don’t know how to have a constructive romantic relationship or if it’s because all the relationships I’ve been in have shown me how hollow passion can be. My parents getting divorced doesn’t help either. I don’t know what good romance feels like.”

Alicia nods, hip-checking him as they near the cafeteria. “Valid,” she says simply, and brings his attention to something inside of him that he didn’t know had been swirling.

He watches her eat her lunch in the cafeteria, not really hungry enough to get something for himself, tracking the intensity of his internal swirling and trying to gauge if acknowledging it outloud really had done him any good.

“You don’t talk about your feelings often, do you?” 

Conrad blinks, taken aback by Alicia’s comment. “Does anyone?” he asks.

“You’re deflecting. And no. I suppose not. But it would be better if people did.”

“I mean, yeah, true, but why’d you bring it up?”

Alicia shrugs and takes another bite of her salad. “My best friend of eight years couldn’t talk about her emotions to save her life. Can’t, sorry. Present tense. She’s not dead or anything, we just don’t talk as much as I thought we would because she doesn’t know how to share how she feels. I decided I had enough of that bullshit in highschool. I have two goals in college: make meaningful relationships and engage in some meaningful classes. Guess which one you are?”

She grins, her brown eyes catching the cafeteria light behind her glasses. Conrad’s chest grows tight, and a weird, melancholy feeling spreads through him. 

“That’s really sweet, Alicia,” he says. The words come out a lot more tender than he meant; he ducks his head down and lets his hair hide his face, not sure how to feel.

“See,” she says, nudging his shoulder. “This is what I’m talking about. You lock up when emotions come into it. I think we need to get you into some exposure therapy. Tell you what, I’ll confront you with some big emotions at least once a week and by the time we graduate you’ll be totally zen, ready to melt your emotional iceberg one shared breakdown at a time.”

“You know…” He trails off, half-smiling to himself and staring at a scratch in the table. “The thing that always bothered me about that sort of… emotional awareness rhetoric, I guess, is that the emotions keep coming back. And if I talk about them, obsess over them, then all I do is keep them around for longer.”

“Yeah, that’s what I like about emotional awareness. The emotions are always going to be there. I just want to know what to do with them, and doesn’t that come with repeatedly reflecting  on them? Obsessing over emotions—I get that, that’s a bit weird. But reflecting isn’t the same as obsessing. I find a bit of reflection helpful.”

Conrad thinks he should say something, opens his mouth and everything, but gets stuck before the words come out. Alicia watches him, smiles, and then returns to her salad. He’s got two classes in the afternoon to get ready for. Eventually he has to leave. But her words follow him for longer than he would have liked. 

Emotional iceberg indeed. He hadn’t realized how cold he can be, not until now at least. A lot of what Alicia says to him strikes at qualities he’d never understood about himself before. He’s not sure he wants to know what would happen to him if she and Jeremiah were left in a room together.

“Get me Takis,” Jeremiah moans, rolling on the couch in a way that must not be good for his broken ribs. “God, Conrad, I’d marry you for some freaking Takis.”

“That’s illegal and incestuous.”

“Dude, does it look like I care? Takis. Please.”

Mom watches them from the kitchen counter with a fond look on her face; she’d been on the phone with her divorce lawyer since midday and the bags under her eyes have been growing all week. It’s been ten days since the three of them drove for her first consultation. Her first treatment day is rapidly approaching. Conrad feels the weight of it looming as if it’s a physical presence. 

“Fine,” he says, ruffling Jeremiah’s hair as he makes his way to the door. “One ultra small bag of Takis, coming right up.”

“Bro, I swear to God —”

Conrad grins as he walks away, the last of Jeremiah’s threat cut off by the sound of the door closing. He gets in his car and music immediately starts playing through the bluetooth: the soundtrack from In The Heights. Alicia had begun playing it incessantly since he unintentionally serenaded Vanessa with it. He finds he doesn’t really mind.

Humming along to the music, he pulls into the nearest CVS and parks, ambling in, unbothered by the time. It’s nearing midnight, but it’s Thursday tomorrow, and he only has one class, which is at 2pm. He can afford a late night. 

It’s been a good week so far. Monday started off with the criminal law test, Tuesday he got to skipper during sailing practice for the first time, Wednesday (today) he got the grade back for the test and he, Alicia, Nate, and Vanessa went out for pizza to celebrate the fact that none of them failed, then he and Nate headed out for sailing practice in the afternoon. He might rewatch In The Heights with Jeremiah until he falls asleep when he gets home. He walks through the isles of CVS relaxed by the thought of it.

Takis purchased (as well as some Pringles for himself and Mom), he makes his way back to his car. There are kids outside, fooling around in the parking lot. He doesn’t pay them much attention until he slows down enough to recognize one of their voices.

“Nah, nah,” one of them laughs. Maks, Conrad identifies, and slows to a full stop to listen closer. “He’s fine. Yeah, I saw him over the weekend. And he’s in my psych class. Yeah, he’s fine. Broken ribs never killed anyone. And it’s his own damn fault, right? Running a red like that; did he even pass his test? That’s dumb shit.”

Conrad opens the passenger door and puts the snacks away. Grits his teeth and tells himself to let it go. Jeremiah’s problems aren’t his problems; Maks is a kid, still seventeen, probably just a dumb senior doing dumb things because his brain hasn’t fully developed yet. 

But then, as he’s walking around to the driver’s side of his car, Maks gets jostled backwards into him, and Conrad’s elbow connects with his side-view mirror. It sends pain up his arm and knocks his mirror out of position, and suddenly there’s no way he can continue to ignore Maks and his words.

“Oh, dude, I’m sorry,” Maks says immediately, fumbling to try to help fix his mirror. “Conrad? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”

It’s silent in the parking lot. Conrad finds himself staring at Maks, entirely too close to him, and his posse of friends. Feels anger bubble back up inside of him, as he remembers the look in Jeremiah’s blue eyes when he recounted what Maks said to him.  No one calls his brother a slut and gets away with it. No one makes Jeremiah cry without Conrad doing something about it. Fuck being civil. Maks looks too casual and nonchalant for him to let go of this.

“My brother told me what you said to him on Saturday,” Conrad says coldly, staring Maks down. “No one talks to him like that. Don’t do it again.”

“Like what? Dude, I don’t even remember what I said.”

“Don’t play around with me. You don’t say shit like that and then not remember it. Call him a slut again and I’ll make you regret it.”

There are mutters from Maks’s friends. The lights from the CVS sign are painting his face in a sickly red glow. Maks’s eyes narrow.

“I was being safe, dickwad. Jeremiah gets around. And it’s not like no one else has called him that before. Chill, man. It’s not that serious.”

Conrad’s glaring now, back to brooding, anger like a wildfire slashing through him. One of Maks’s friends shouts something to him, but Conrad can’t even hear him over the rapid beating of his heart. 

“Jeremiah deserves to be happy,” he says. “Don’t be the one to wreck his self-image past the point of fixing.”

“Yeah, your brother deserves to be happy,” Maks snaps back, waving for his friends to start walking away. “If you ask me, he deserves to be happy without you getting in the way, but maybe you’re not ready to hear that. Back off, Conrad. You graduated already; I think it’s time for you to leave Jeremiah alone.”

Maks turns to walk away and Conrad’s hand shoots out to grab onto his wrist, holding on firm, nails digging into his skin. The other boy whips around to stare at him, mouth slightly opened with the slack-jawed look of surprise. Conrad holds tighter, making Maks feel the same anger that’s currently setting his brain on fire, eyes locked with the kid and watching the way his gaze darts around, frightened. 

He wants to beat Maks’s face in. But it’s when he sees the fear that he falters. He can’t do this. He lets go. Steps back.

“Don’t fucking hurt him again,” he says, gets in his car, and drives away.

“Yo,” Jeremiah calls as he walks back into the house. “Did you get my Takis?”

“Yeah,” Conrad replies, tossing the bag to him. I got a lot more than just Takis , he thinks, but doesn’t say it. He’d rather freak out about it in his room than explain it all to his brother. And he gets the feeling that Jere wouldn’t be too happy about him confronting Maks in his honor anyway. 

He deserves to be happy without you getting in the way, Maks said.

Fuck that. Fuck the concept of deserve . Fuck this feeling, the crawling ants along his skeleton, the way all his feelings came back more complicated than they’d been before.

He’s in a dangerous sort of mood. After kicking his duvet off his bed, he picks up his phone and pulls out Belly’s contact. Finger hovers over the call button. Decides to make ugly decisions to conclude an ugly evening.

Sep 8, Thursday, 12:02am

<voicemail left to Belly Conklin>

“Hey. I know it’s been a while. I’m sorry. I called knowing that it’s too late and you wouldn’t pick up. I don’t know if that’s — I don’t know. But I know you’ve been trying to reach out and I’ve been shutting you down. I’m sorry. I nearly beat up one of Jeremiah’s friends in a CVS parking lot. It was a real low for me. Has me thinking about a lot of things. I remember Junior year, I remember it was a lot of bullshit that I didn’t know would pay off later — just enjoy it. Enjoy high school while you can. The other side of things is weird. Which I suppose you already knew. Goodnight. Or good morning? I don’t know. Sorry for the mixed messages. Talking has been difficult.”

Sep 8, Thursday, 8:34am

Belly: You nearly beat up one of Jeremiah’s friends in a CVS parking lot?
You: i should’ve known that’s what you would latch onto.
Belly: What happened?
You: the idiot called jeremiah something he shouldn’t have. i took offense.
You: it’s okay, nothing actually happened. 
Belly: Okay. And you’re alright?
You: i am

Sep 8, Thursday, 10:57am

You: thank you belly
Belly: You’re welcome.
Belly: But I’m not sure what you’re thanking me for.

Their first regatta is that Saturday, and the weather holds until it doesn’t.

Gusts come in at 18 knots about an hour in, throwing them all for a loop, causing them to lose their lead. They place progressively worse in each event: third in the first race, seventh in the second, thirteenth in the third. He hears his mother cheering for him through it all, sees his father leave after the second race. 

Feels Jeremiah’s eyes burning into him the whole time, watching, stony and silent like the Greek Gods their mother always models him after. 

“Not too bad for our first one,” Donna mutters in the locker room, bumping her shoulder into his: silent consolation. “It’ll get better. The weather just messed with us.”

Coach Abrams reminds them all about the team dinner coming up on Monday, tells them that they made a good first attempt, they’ll continue to iron things out in practice, and sends them all home sweaty and tired. 

Jeremiah is silent in the car ride home, while their mother fills the car with chatter about the races, remarks about the weather, praise for Conrad’s sailing. He isn’t really listening to her. He’s waiting for the moment when Jeremiah finally says what he’s been waiting to say; he must’ve found out about what happened with Maks, or had gotten a text from Belly saying how weird of a voice message he’d left her, or maybe both at once. Or something else. He never knows. 

Mom gets out of the car as soon as they get home, carrying Conrad’s bag in and saying she’s gonna call for takeout. Conrad lingers by the car, under the pretense of making sure Jere doesn’t break another rib getting to the door.

“What’re you waiting for?” his brother says sharply as he closes the car door. “Go shower. You stink.”

So he does. Barely feels the water run over him as his hands shake, drops the bar of soap about a hundred times, ears still ringing from the wind and his heart pounding in his chest, beating so hard it feels like it’s going to explode. He wishes Jeremiah would hit him again. He can feel an argument coming and doesn’t know what to say.

His hair is still dripping and his clothes feel scratchy against his skin as he steps out his room and into Jeremiah’s, raising his hand in a wave as Jere looks up from his phone. 

“You look like you wanted to talk?” Conrad says, asks, more like, and his brother sighs.

“Yeah, Connie. Pull up a chair. You’ve gotta tell me why Maks is convinced you nearly murdered him in a parking lot Wednesday night.”

“I wouldn’t have killed him.”

“What’d I say about that damn chair? We can’t have this conversation with you standing over me. Sit down. Then we talk.”

Conrad finds Jeremiah’s chair. Drags it away from his desk and swings it in front of Jere’s bed. Sits. Fidgets. Lifts his eyes and meets his brother’s. Breath getting caught in his chest.

“He made you cry, Jere,” he says quietly. “No one’s allowed to make you cry.”

“People say shit whether you’re happy about it or not, Conrad. You’re not my keeper. I never asked you to threaten him.”

“I didn’t seek him out—he was just there, and he was talking about you, and he was so fucking cocky—”

“I never said shit to Aubrey.”

The words vanish off Conrad’s tongue. Stares at Jeremiah. Dumbstruck at the resolution in his baby brother’s face.

“You know how much I wanted to ring her neck after you two split?” Jere asks with a harsh laugh. “She’d say shit too. All about how you played her, how you were just in it for a fuck, how you never listened to her. So many days I’d picture choking her Darth Vader style, slamming her on the ground and telling her to keep your name out of her mouth, because I could see how gutted you were after the breakup and I knew none of what she was saying was true. But you know what I did instead?”

“Jere—”

“I fucking did nothing,” Jeremiah snaps, interrupting him mercilessly, glaring now. “I let it be. Because it was your business, not mine. All I ask is that you give me the same courtesy. Maks, and anything he says, is not your business. If I want your help, I’ll ask for it. Yeah I’ve got my problems, but communication isn’t one of them. I know how to ask for help when I need it. You need to learn how to back off.”

“I know.” Conrad swallows. Digs nonexistent dirt out from his nails. “I’m sorry. I just…”

Jeremiah’s glare loses his heat, until eventually he just looks morose.

“Just what?” he asks.

“I get so mad. Mad, like out of the blue mad, like I can’t remember anything other than being mad. And I don’t know what to do with it. I shouldn’t have stepped in between you and Maks. I’m sorry. I’m shit brother, I fuck things up for you so much—”

“Oh, come on, Connie—”

“I do! You and Belly were so happy and I couldn’t let you have that; I know how I make her feel and I knew what I was doing when I stepped onto that dance floor with her. I shouldn’t have led her on, shouldn’t have kissed her on the last day, shouldn’t have taken away your chance at happiness without even asking you. I think I was trying to make things right when I threatened Maks? Like if I could protect you from him it would make up for taking Belly from you.”

“You didn’t take Belly. Belly’s not someone that can be taken. She’ll always pick you over me. She’s not the only one.”

“I hate that you think that,” Conrad whispers, heartbroken. “Jere, you know that’s not true. You’re incredibly kind, attentive, intuitive…”

“Dad compares me to you all the time,” Jeremiah says with a wry smile. “Told me I’m headed for varsity over the summer and I tried to say football wasn’t my thing, but he brought up how well you did and I guess it didn’t matter what I had to say because all he could think about was what you had done. Mom asked you to go with Belly to the deb ball because she doesn’t think I’d like it—doesn’t trust me, always thinks about the two of us like race horses she can size up and slot in to secure herself a win. And I’ll never be what Belly wants. I can’t be dark, dark, dark. Sad thing is that I don’t think you can either. At least not without collapsing.”

Silence overtakes the room. Jeremiah’s eyes drop down to his bedsheets, exhaling in a way that makes his whole body deflate. The anxiety has left Conrad. But there’s nothing to replace it. 

“I have to text her, don’t I?”

Jere shrugs. “You don’t have to do anything. She’s not dumb. A few weeks of you not responding anymore and she’ll get the message.”

“What message?”

“That you don’t like her anymore. Right?”

Conrad avoids Jeremiah’s eyes, shame rushing in to fill the space anxiety left behind.

“Oh,” Jeremiah says quietly. “I see. You still want her.”

“I don’t know how to not want her,” Conrad confesses. “She makes me feel seen. Like I’m not so ugly when I’m around her. Like she can give me forgiveness.”

“Belly’s not God. Or the Virgin Mary. You’re talking about her like you’re talking about a religion. Is that what love should be? She can’t breathe on a pedestal like that. And you don’t deserve a love where you’re constantly chasing acceptance.”

“Deserve.” Conrad huffs out a laugh, running a hand over his face. “Maks said you deserve to be happy without me getting in the way. Isn’t it such a funny thing to deserve?”

Jeremiah stares at him for a while without saying anything, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he searches for the right thing to say.

“Things that seem so clear to me just don’t click with you,” he says finally. “How do you not look in the mirror and see depression? I’ll tell you what, that’s what scares me, Connie. The fact that you’re already dying inside and you’re not doing anything to stop it.”

Monday comes around a little too quickly. He spends the whole weekend lying in bed, eating small meals and avoiding his brother. His mother’s first appointment with the trial treatment is on Friday. That coupled with the itchy feeling his relationship with Jeremiah had taken on makes him feel a lot less excited for the team dinner tonight. He knows he’s going to go anyway.

“Hey,” Alicia says as he walks into their 9am Criminal Law class. “Tough regatta on Saturday, or so Nate tells me. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah. We did alright.”

“Mmm. You don’t look alright.”

Does he explain what happened? He doesn’t really feel like it. Belly had sent him another message this weekend, saying that she saw Instagram photos of the race on HWS’s page and wanted to know how it had gone. He didn’t even bother opening the message, just swished it away. He can’t deal with confronting his feelings surrounding her right now. 

Alicia is still staring at him expectantly, even as the Professor begins his lecture. She’s sincere in a way not a lot of his friends have been before, never mind friends he’s only had for a handful of weeks. Jeremiah’s words had scared him. He doesn’t want to die.

“There’s a team dinner this evening that Coach Abrams is hosting,” he says. “I had a rough weekend. Come with me for moral support?”

She pulls out her phone immediately, humming as she taps through her calendar. 

“It appears I’m free this evening,” she replies, looking up at him with a smile. “I’d be happy to come. What’s the dress code?”

Despite their less than amazing performance on Saturday, the sailing team is jovial. Coach Abrams has a big voice, stretching over the chatter with a roaring laugh. His wife is there as well: Julie Abrams, the coach of the girl’s lacrosse team, who is just as loud and bustles around all of them with her fourteen-year-old son grudgingly in tow. Rushed introductions are made. Conrad, meet James; James, meet Conrad. Coach Abrams assures him that he’ll be introduced to Hunter when he comes back for Thanksgiving. Conrad smiles, says thank you, doesn’t bring up Genevieve Abrams, who’s still in juvie.

Alicia isn’t the only one not on the sailing team who’d been brought along; one of the seniors brings his girlfriend, a sophomore brings her sister. Donna walks in with her roommate, who flits over to flirt with one of the juniors on the team. Donna rolls her eyes, the warm lamp-light catching her bleached eyebrows strikingly. He finds himself staring. Meeting his eye, Donna winks. Conrad looks away.

At dinner he’s seated between Alicia and Donna, digging into the pasta salad and listening in to conversations more than he participates in them. 

“Winnie’s my ride home,” Donna tells him at some point, jerking her head to the roommate. “We live in off-campus apartments. She promised me she wouldn’t get caught up with Brendan and actually follow through on her promise, but you know how roommates can be.”

Conrad, who doesn’t have a roommate and never intends to, nods sagely. 

“Conrad has a car,” Alicia pipes up, leaning around him to grin at Donna. “And he’s a very good driver.”

“Are you, now?”

Looking down into his food, he takes another bite. “Sure. I’m a good driver.”

“Nice. Mind giving me a ride then?”

Nods. Smiles a little bit as Donna lets out an overexerted cheer. She gets engaged in a cross-table joking argument with her roommate and her roommate’s hook up for a while, Alicia listening in and providing sarcastic commentary when she feels like it, Nate laughing, just for the sake of it, and Conrad contemplates. Stares at Donna’s eyebrows again. Drifts between numbness and anticipation. 

“Why’d you bleach your eyebrows?” he asks Donna in a quieter moment.

She shrugs. “I felt like it. Why’re you so interested?”

He hesitates, and glances briefly at Alicia, who’s pretending like she isn’t listening for his sake but who he knows is hearing every word. Her green hair is up in a ponytail today, different from the usual box braids she wears. It gets him thinking again. 

“I think I want to dye my hair,” he tells Donna. 

She raises those striking eyebrows of hers, a grin spreading over her face. “Sick,” she says, taking one last bite of her dinner. “I think the party’s over; we can sneak out whenever we want. Wanna go now?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, I know how to dye hair. I’m pretty sure your girlfriend knows something too.”

“Not his girlfriend,” Alicia corrects automatically, giving up on pretenses now. “And of course I know how to dye hair. How else would I keep mine looking fabulous all the time?”

She swings her ponytail around over dramatically and the ice breaks around Conrad’s heart. Donna snatches the keys out of his pocket; he yelps and scrambles to chase after her; Alicia cackles and dashes after them, sliding into shotgun before he can, relegating him to the back seat as the girls commandeer his car to go get some bleach and hair dye.

They decide to do it at Donna’s apartment, where they’ll have the most privacy. Conrad finds himself sitting on the lid of the toilet, eyes closed as Alicia carefully layers bleach onto the front locks of his hair, the ones that frame his face and usually flap in front of his eyes. They’ve got to bleach the pigment out of his hair before they dye it one of the colors Donna made him pick out. It’s either pink or teal. He’s leaning more towards the pink. 

“I lied earlier,” Donna admits from where she’s perched on the edge of the bathtub, Dvorak Symphony No. 9 playing from Alicia’s phone. “I didn’t bleach my eyebrows just cuz I wanted to. My boyfriend sophomore year had a habit of making these comments about my body—one of the first things he said was that my eyebrows looked like they walked straight off a homeless man, that it was a shame, cuz it made the rest of me look crap as well. It got worse from there, but somehow that’s what I remember. So when we broke up I was like, fuck it, you think my eyebrows look bad? Well, now they’re not gonna look like anything at all. And I liked it. So they stayed like this.”

“My story isn’t nearly as dramatic,” Alicia says, her voice quiet, blending effortlessly with the music. It’s soothing. Like water running over stones. “My best friend—y’know, the one who never managed to talk about her feelings—got highlights last year and, desperately wanting something to talk about, I decided I wanted them too. So my mom and I bleached sections of my hair to lighten it, but it turns out black hair is too finicky for that bullshit—it came out looking orange. I hated it so much, I just kept going. Bleached the fuck out of it and then dyed it green. It actually didn’t look too bad, so I kept it up. Best decision of my life.”

“Do I have to have a reason?” Conrad asks, half-smiling, looking for humor as the brass section swells. 

“Nope.” Alicia gently wipes some bleach off of his forehead with a paper towel, muttering an apology under her breath. “You can do it just because you want to.”

She gets up from where she’d been crouching on the floor and removes her gloves.

“We’ve gotta let the bleach do its magic, and then we can start coloring it. Teal or pink?”

“Pink,” Conrad says, cracking a smile. “I think I’m confident enough in my masculinity for that.”

Donna laughs and picks up the bottle of teal dye, shoving it into the depths of her cupboard. “Nice. I’ll save the teal for later. Maybe we can talk one of the other freshmen into giving their hair a bit of color too. Hey, anyone wanna play heads up while we wait for the bleach?”

Alicia readily agrees, Conrad offers a nod and a smile, and proceeds to destroy them both, ignoring his phone in the corner, lighting up with more messages from Belly and his mother, ignoring the tightness in his chest, just trying to ground himself in the moment. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Gets home at 1am with his newly dyed hair and tries to think of happy things as he lays staring at his ceiling. 

The dinner went well. He has friends who care about him. A brother who cares about him. Why oh why is it so hard to fucking breathe ?

“Woah,” Jeremiah says as he sits down for breakfast the next morning, eyebrows raised. “Pink hair?”

“It’s not my whole head, just a little bit.”

“Yeah, but still. Pink hair.”

He leans over and runs his hand through the front sections that Alicia and Donna had helped him dye, an easy smile on his face. Conrad guards his expression carefully, making sure he returns the smile and shakes his head out of Jeremiah’s grasp casually, like there’s nothing wrong with him and he’s just as normal as everyone else. 

“Any particular reason why you dyed your hair?” Jere asks.

“I just needed a change,” Conrad says, in a tone he knows is perfectly level and controlled.

Their mother comes downstairs and spends the better part of ten minutes clamoring over him and his hair as well, so Jeremiah doesn’t get to notice anything else. Conrad likes it better like that. He doesn’t want Jere to look him in the eyes again and deliver hard truths like had the last time. He’s not ready to hear about another part of him that Jere finds terrifying. He wants to lie in oblivion longer. Please. Just a little longer.

“What’s the story with Belly?”

Conrad looks anywhere but Alicia and tries to pretend like he hadn’t heard her. It’s Thursday and they’re studying for Criminal Law together in the library like they usually do. Nate had left a while ago. Vanessa doesn’t come anymore now that she knows Conrad isn’t interested in her. It’s just him and Alicia—and his phone, buzzing with messages from Belly, messages he doesn’t want to answer.

“There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Doesn’t mean there’s not a story. It’s eating you up, I can see it.”

Alicia pauses and watches him. He stares at his notes, heart pounding uncomfortably.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she finally concedes. “We haven’t known each other long. I don’t have a right to pry. But I’m worried. You’ve been in a piss poor mood the whole week—twitchy, like you’re halfway stuck inside your own head and halfway ready to bolt. It gets worse when Belly sends messages. I can put two and two together. I know she’s got something to do with it.”

His phone buzzes again. How many messages can Belly send him before she realizes he’s not going to respond? Or maybe she’s psychic and she knows that with every message, she chips away at his resolve. Maybe she’s talked to Jeremiah and knows that Conrad hasn’t forgotten about her. Maybe her friends are egging her on, telling her to be assertive with how she feels, screw gender norms and all that. Whatever it is, he’s mature enough to know that Alicia’s right. He should talk about it. He just doesn’t want to.

He makes the mistake of glancing over at Alicia, and meets her eyes from behind her glasses. She’s looking at him knowingly. In her glasses, he can see a bit of his reflection: hesitant, closed off, unsure. Dark, dark, dark, just like Belly said to Jeremiah. He knows that he can’t brush her off.

“Belly and I have known each other forever,” he begins, awkward and unable to look Alicia in the eyes anymore. “Our moms have been friends since college. My family has a beach house that our families meet up in every summer; it’s this two month extravaganza of fun and sun and charity work and swimming. Massachusetts elite stuff.”

“Massachusetts? I thought you lived around here?”

“Cousins Beach is in Massachusetts, we live here. We mingle with them for the summers because of family connections.”

“Ah. Rich bitch activity.”

“Yeah. Anyway. We go every summer, my brother and I always run around with Belly’s older brother Steven, who’s the same age as my brother, and she was always just the little sister who we begrudgingly dragged around, but this summer it was different. I mean—” He pauses to catch his thoughts, fists clenching and unclenching as he does so. “I was always friends with her. We all were. But you know how it is—the only girl amongst a bunch of boys, she was kind of… other. She still was this summer. But things stopped being silly around her and started getting serious.”

“Things such as…?”

“I always knew she had a crush on me. I was the oldest, I was the one who usually tried to get her involved when Jeremiah and Steven would rather leave her behind, I taught her to dance, all that stuff. I knew she liked me. But this summer she felt more confident in herself, she started dressing differently, she got pretty—I mean she was always beautiful, but there’s a difference between that and pretty. She stopped wearing her glasses. She went out with guys. She started to realize she was allowed to want things… I guess that made it feel more okay to want her. All that coupled with my mother’s cancer—which she was hiding from everyone and didn’t know I knew about—my parents impending divorce, my panic attacks which I didn’t know were panic attacks, it just turned into a perfect storm of sorts. My mom has always said that one of us—me or Jeremiah—would end up with Belly. I think it got to my head.”

“Is this where your icky feelings about romance come in?” Alicia asks. Her eyebrows are creased. She’s listening to him, truly listening, thinking about what he’s saying and trying to understand. It makes the lump in his throat grow heavier.

“Well…” He looks at her, meets her eyes, balls his fists up tight, and it all comes out.

He doesn’t know how long he talks for. Maybe half an hour, maybe two hours, maybe a whole day. His mouth gets dry and eyes get tired. He keeps going. He talks about the deb ball, about Jeremiah’s feelings for Belly, about the fight they had, the tough conversations they’ve been having, the portraits their mother did of them, how Jeremiah is Hermes and he is Atlas. He tells Alicia about the parties, Steven’s fascination with the rich and inability to conceive Conrad’s unhappiness. Describes his mother’s passive parenting, the way she casually expects him to always be there, even when he doesn’t know if he can. The way he’d nearly beaten up Maks in the CVS parking lot, the fight he got into at the bonfire, the argument he and Nicole had, the way he ended things with Aubrey, the panic attack on the boat, and everything that Cleveland had told him. 

He talks until there’s nothing left to say. And when he’s done, Alicia says that she’s sorry, that it might be hard to believe but she knows how he feels, that she’s always hear for him, and—

“I really think you should talk to a therapist about those panic attacks.”

He feels himself nod, reaching for his water bottle. Not looking at her.

“I know I should,” he says hoarsely. “I just don’t know what help it would be.”

Alicia hums. “Yeah, I know the feeling. But think about it. Conrad, I’m serious. I think it would really help.”

It’s his mother’s first appointment. She had said she could drive herself but at the last minute Criminal Law gets canceled and she finds him in the living room with his keys already in his hand, sheepishly asking if he can drive.

It feels like old family road trips, except he’s not eight years old anymore, and his mother isn’t the Sun in the sky. She resembles more of a dying star: black hole, sucking away at the energy of everyone else around her as she goes. It’s a horrible fucking thought—horrible, horrible, horrible, but Conrad can’t help it. He had another panic attack last night in the shower, a place where he was usually safe from anxiety. He’d nearly fallen over with the force of it, sank to his knees and choked on air as the water beat down on his back. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight . But the breathing hadn’t worked, and that one felt like the worst. He’s still reeling from it. But knew that facing his anxiety and driving his mom will do him more good than ignoring it. 

Alicia’s words ring in his head. You should talk to a therapist about those panic attacks. He knows he should. He thought about it a lot last night, actually. But as soon as he began to seriously consider it, white hot fear had pulsed through his entire body and he’d succumbed to another one. He doesn’t know what the solution to that is.

“I’ll be out in an hour, Connie,” Mom tells him, kissing his cheek and following the doctor inside. Conrad watches her go and feels his heart beating too fast in his chest. Takes out homework he needs to work on for Psychology 201 and gets busy. 

When his mother walks out of the treatment center she looks like a shadow of herself. She can walk alright, that’s not the problem—it’s her eyes. The reality of her situation has kicked in, it seems. She’s finally realized she’s committed to this: to trying to get better, even if it makes her final days even more uncomfortable.

“Let’s go out for lunch, how does that sound?” she says faintly, even though it’s ten in the morning and they had both eaten a late breakfast. Conrad doesn’t argue, though. He drives them to the nearest pastry shop and gets them both chocolate filled croissants, sits eating them quietly with her out in the sun.

“I think it’s hit me,” she says, and laughs a little. “Yes, it’s hit me. I’m doing this. I’m going to go through this again, this awful process—I’m getting everything burned out of me in hopes it’ll take the cancer with it. Like a purge, right? Connie, I’ve got to say, it feels weird. Can I say that? It feels so weird. When I know it’s going to…”

She trails off. Conrad’s fingers twitch. 

“When you know it’s the end?” 

His mother looks at him. Taken aback. But then her expression melts and she laughs again.

“Yes. God yes. You see it more than Jeremiah. How hard this is for me. Because it does feel like the end. My end. I mean, I was saying to Laurel on the beach—she’s gonna get old and get saggy boobs and I’m gonna die young! Barely make it to fifty, you know? Holding out hope for this new treatment… It feels insane. I should just let this have its way with me. God, it’s morbid, but I should.”

He barely believes the words that just came out of her mouth. He stares at her, utterly dumbstruck by what she had just said, and feels his hands form fists.

“You don’t mean that,” he says, when really he wants to say that she can’t mean that . She’s his mother. She isn’t allowed to want a future free from saggy boobs and a painful aging process over the possibility of watching him and Jeremiah grow.

“I’m sorry, Connie,” she apologizes, with a laugh in her voice, still, even after clouds shift to cover the sun and Conrad’s nails start to sink into his skin with how hard he’s clenching his fists. “It feels good to say out loud, but I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.”

“I am, I am. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. My big, strong, boy—”

She takes his hand and holds it in hers, smiling tearfully. 

“I didn’t tell you because I was scared of having to balance your emotions with my own. Terrified of you talking me into getting a treatment I knew was logical when all I really wanted was to die with my dignity. I knew in my heart of hearts that you and Jeremiah were going to be okay, that you’d take care of him, but I’m glad you boys talked me into trying it. I love you two with all my heart. I want to watch you grow old, get married, have children, become the good men I know you are.”

He wrenches his hand away. Feels the ground beneath his feet shaking, his heart rate kicking up. Another small earthquake. Another shattering of his world.

“Jeremiah talked you into getting the treatment,” he says hotly. “I had given up. There wasn’t a single way I could ever imagine you getting over yourself to stick around for us. I’m grateful you listened to him. But you never gave off the impression that you would. I’d given up, Mom. You made me give up on you. I had a shit fucking summer because of you. I pushed my friends away because of you.”

“Hey,” she says sharply, bringing her shoulders back and pulling away from him with her expression made of stone. “Don’t take that tone with me. Parents don’t have to be perfect, Connie; I have my own struggles, and while I’m sorry you feel this way, I’m not responsible for your reactions. I didn’t know you knew. I was operating as if you didn’t. Cancer is… It’s devastating.”

“I know. I’m the one losing my mom to it. You just decided to tap out as soon as you got that diagnosis, job done, life lived, time to go get drunk the beach and stoned at noon while Jeremiah and I were having the hardest summer of our lives—”

“Where is this coming from?”

Me, he nearly screams. I’m an anxious mess, I have panic attacks nearly every day, I’m losing both my parents and watching my brother spiral and my relationships are mudded and I’m just putting together all the pieces of why I feel this way and all I’m learning is that in order to feel better about my life I have to take responsibility for problems that you gave me.

But he can’t say it and ends up staring at the table with hot tears burning behind his eyes. His mother repeats the question. 

“Where is this coming from? Where did your attitude come from this whole summer?”

“Mom, let’s go home. I’m tired.”

“You started this conversation, I’m trying to finish it—where did this come from?”

“I’m tired.” He gets up and throws his croissant away. “I want to go home. I’m done talking about this. I’ve got a class to get to in an hour.”

She keeps pushing the issue all the way home, but he holds himself together until he begins driving to campus for his Psych 201 class, rivers of tears falling from his face as he navigates traffic and wonders when he’ll ever be able to breathe again without his center of gravity spinning wildly out of control.

He’s tired. So achingly tired. He wants to be done, to simply not anymore, in a way that scares him deep to his core. Chills pulse through his body every few minutes. He focuses too long on a thought and feels himself tear up again. His fingers shake, he can’t type, the Professor’s words float around his head like chlorine gas, and he doesn’t recognize the body he’s in.

He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know who he was. He doesn’t know what he’s going to become.

He wishes, desperately, to not have to deal with it any more. And he knows how dangerous a thought like that is.

At the end of the class, as he somehow manages to stumble up from his seat in a daze, his phone buzzes. A message from Jeremiah lights up his screen. How’d mom’s appointment go? It doesn’t help his panic, but it does remind him—he can ask for help. His phone’s right there. And there are a lot of people who he can text through his phone. People who could talk him down from where he’s stuck. People who could bring context and logic back to his fear. 

He finds one of the private study rooms in the library and locks himself in it, pulling his headphones out of his bag and putting his phone on Do Not Disturb. He has a crazy idea but not a bad one—not the worst idea he could be having right now, he assures himself. He lies down on the floor, pulls the shades down, and rests his head against his bag.

Finds Nicole’s contact and presses call. Waits and is relieved when she picks up.

“Conrad?”

He breathes in shakily. “Hi, Nicole.”

“Uh… Hi, dude. Why’re you calling?”

Silence. He knows he has to explain things, so he has to get over himself at some point and spit it out, but the words are so hard right now. He opens and closes his mouth about ten times searching for what to say, feeling his eyes grow hotter and hotter with unshed tears as he does. Fucking hell, this is bad. This is so, so bad. 

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” Conrad says, clears his throat, presses the heel of his palms into his eyes and tries to breathe. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. You’re probably in class right now.”

“No, I have a 101 degree fever. My ass is in bed, resting, until you called. What do you need?”

More silence. He takes another deep breath. Tries to get his words out and fails.

“Conrad? Are you trolling right now? Didn’t you hear me—I’m sick , dumbass. I can’t handle the bullshit.”

“I need help,” he blurts, tears trickling down his cheeks. “I’ve been having panic attacks since October and they’ve been getting worse, and I just had a really bad one now and I can’t breathe and I need help. Please. Just talk to me or something. Just for a little while.”

“Oh. Shit.”

More tears eke out of his eyes. He hears her adjust herself on the other end of the phone.

“Conrad, not to be an asshole, but I don’t think you should be calling me about this. I mean, I’m here for you, but we broke up. Call Belly about this, or talk to your brother, or your mom. You messed with me for a whole summer; I’m really sorry you’re having a tough time, but I can’t let go of that so quickly.”

“I didn’t mean to mess with you,” he whispers. Words barely audible. “I know you said our relationship was a big waste of time, but you taught me so much. I didn’t mean to mess with you. I’m so sorry I did. I’m scared to call Belly. I don’t know what to say to her. And I’ve put too much on Jere, my friends here shouldn’t have to deal with my bullshit, and I don’t know where that puts you, but if I didn’t talk to someone I was going to…”

He trails off. The tears fall a bit harder but no noise escapes him. It’s very quiet on Nicole’s end of the phone.

“Want me to just talk to you for a bit?” she says finally. “Tell you about my day, how shitty I’m feeling, that sort of stuff?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. Relieved. “Please.”

“Okay. Well, my roommate got me sick. She went to this party, came back vomiting the entire contents of her stomach and was like, don’t worry, it’s just a hangover. Bullshit it was just a hangover—we’ve both been suffering the result of her hangover for the past week. But her immune system is stronger than mine so she got off easy. No such luck for me. You know I didn’t eat anything yesterday? That made me feel crazy. I don’t like that. That’s not who I am—I’m not the sort of person who gets so sick she can’t eat. And there’s this guy that I was going to go out with who I had to cancel on because of it. He’s, like, the complete opposite of you, by the way. Emotionally mature. Knows what he wants. He’s a bit too good at that part; I cancelled on him and he knew his needs well enough to fuck off and go date this other girl, but I suppose I can’t be mad. Chelsea—my roommate, that is—was threatening to slash his tires. I think she’s a bit crazy but her heart’s in the right place, so whatever. That’s a problem for later. Hey, are you doing better?”

“Yeah,” he says, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. “Keep going, please.”

“Alright. So the girl this guy’s with now is from Nebraska…”

She talks for a long time. Entertaining him until he slips away into an anxiety ridden sleep. He never truly passes out, just flutters between consciousness and unconsciousness for what feels like forever. His phone battery lowers and lowers but somehow never dies. 

“Still with me?” Nicole asks.

Conrad blinks, looking at the time. They’ve been on the phone for three hours. It’s four in the afternoon. 

“Yeah,” he says blearily. Coughs a bit, rubbing his swollen eyes. “Thanks. I’m feeling better now.”

“Mmm. Alright. Hey. Open my Instagram real quick.”

“Why?”

“Dumbass. Just do it.”

He finds the app and does as she says, looking at her page. It’s filled with photos of her and her friends, the pinned post being a photo of her at her Gold Award ceremony from March. He remembered calling her to congratulate, joking about driving the five hours to Wayland, Massachusetts in order to attend. They flirted so well in the early days. He knows exactly where he went wrong, but it doesn’t take away the sting of thinking about it.

“Okay, you there?”

“Yeah, I’m there.”

“Right. Look at my posts. Just the four most recent ones.”

He does. They’re all collections of photos. The opening frame is always either a plant or flower, a building, or the sky—the photos of her only happen around the last frames. And they’re always not of her whole face. Half her profile when she’s evidently been crying. Just her forehead and eyes making a funny face. A lipstick smudge on the mirror hiding her eyes as she smiles. And the captions are all quotes or lyrics; he sees there’s one from In The Heights. It says little details that tell the world we are not invisible, and he feels his heart swell.

“So what I’ve been trying to do is leave back records for myself,” Nicole explains. “I’ve been trying to limit my posts, limit social media in general, you know? So I just post once a week, and try to make them like time capsules. It’s good for me. I’ve been feeling shit today, thinking about that stupid guy and his stupid new girl, and now you—but I can open up Insta and there’s something that will actually make me feel good. Like, look, I felt feelings before and the world isn’t over. I don’t know. Just thought you should try.”

“Use social media to fix my anxiety problems?”

Nicole laughs. “God, Conrad, you can’t be funny right now, you’re supposed to be in a crisis.”

“Sorry,” he says, but gets a little bit of his smile back. “This is your fault, by the way. If I regret this—”

“Oh, there’s a delete button, if you don’t like it you can just take it down. C’mon. Do your worst. Find, like, some dumb photos and just go for it.”

Dumb photos? Alright.

He opens his camera roll and starts to search. Yesterday when he and Alicia were studying they found a sharpie drawing of a dinosaur saying rawr on the side of one of the bookshelves and he took a photo of that. A few days ago he’d been taking notes for Psych and Jeremiah had come over and drawn a demented looking cat in his notebook while he got up for water. Does he have anything else? Not really. Just a photo of him with bleach in his hair that Donna had taken on Monday evening. Nicole had always put a selfie as the last photo in her compilation, so he turns his camera to the side and takes one of his eyes and forehead, knowing he looks ridiculous, not really caring.

“Okay, got the photos?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice. Now let’s get a caption. Got something in mind?”

Thinks for a moment. Remembers his conversation with Jeremiah on Saturday. Smiles a little bit and begins to type.

“Yeah, just let me look up the exact wording.”

It takes him a while but he finds it, and feels proud when he does. He clicks post, swishes the app away, and waits for Nicole to see it.

“Aww,” she coos, then— “Oh my god, you dyed your hair! Goddamn Conrad why does pink look so good on you but it always makes me look like a middle schooler? It looks really good, man, really.”

“Thanks for the pity compliments.”

“Shut up, they’re not out of pity—I wouldn’t have stayed on the phone with you for three hours if I pitied you, I know my worth.” She pauses. “I like the caption, too. Toni Morrison… which book is it from?”

“ Song of Solomon,” he replies, and recites it in his head quietly. 

It sounded old. Deserve. Old and tired and beaten to death… Apparently he thought he deserved only to be loved—from a distance, though—and given what he wanted. And in return he would be… what? Pleasant? Generous? Maybe all he was really saying was: I am not responsible for your pain; share your happiness with me but not your unhappiness.

“I’ve gotta go, Conrad,” Nicole says. He hears her get up from her bed on the other end. Thinks he should probably get up as well. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah. Thank you so much, Nicole.”

“No problem. And hey—the next time you think about killing yourself, take a few deep breaths before you start to spiral again. You’ll be okay. I believe in you.”

She hangs up. He begins the long process of hauling himself back to reality again.

He gets home at around five. His mom is waiting for him in the living room but he pretends to be on the phone with Alicia and waves her away, mouthing that he’ll be down for dinner and not to worry. Locks himself in his room and takes out his computer, ready to research. Puts on the soundtrack of In The Heights and tells himself that it’s okay to be scared as long as he’s trying.

His college has a counseling center that all freshmen had been told would help them if they needed it. With shaky fingers he types out an email, tells the head counselor that he had a really bad panic attack today and needs help. The first step of genuinely getting help feels terrifying and daunting, but there’s a weight off his shoulders as soon as he sends the email. He’s ready to start facing this. 

He starts googling next, knowing that it’s probably a bad idea but needing something to do. What’s the difference between a panic attack and an anxiety attack? What are panic attacks symptoms of? How likely is it that he has an anxiety disorder? What can be done to make them get better? How does he talk to his mother about how she makes him feel? Google doesn’t have much in the way of answers but it’s good to give his thoughts roots in logic and not just hysteria. He spends hours up in his room like this, researching and listening to music and helping himself calm down.

Eventually Jeremiah comes to find him, knocking on the door and telling him there’s chicken parm left over for him if he wants some. Conrad doesn’t respond, just unlocks the door and lets him come inside.

“I saw you posted on Instagram for the first time in forever,” Jere points out, sitting down at his desk and spinning around in his chair. “You were pretty freaking philosophical. It was kind of weird.”

“Nicole told me to do it.”

“Are you two back together?”

“No.” He takes a deep breath. “I just had a really bad panic attack after Mom’s appointment and I called Nicole to try to calm down. She stopped me from doing something stupid.” 

Jeremiah’s mouth hangs open in shock, eyes wide and worried. “Since when do you have panic attacks?”

“It’s the reason I quit football, so… nearly a year now?”

“You never said anything.”

“They only started getting really bad this summer. Cleveland told me what they were; I just thought there was something wrong with me. Still do, kind of. But I’m getting help. I emailed a counselor at college and asked if I could get an appointment with her. I’m trying, Jere.”

“Did… I don’t know anything about panic attacks; do they have a cause? Was there something that triggered it?”

“Mom kind of triggered it,” Conrad admits. “She triggers a lot of them. After she went through the treatment she was saying all these things… I can’t really remember what they were now, all I can remember is that they hurt.”

“Yeah. She was saying things like that over dinner as well. I think she’s scared.”

Jeremiah hesitates, clearly wanting to say something more but not looking sure how to say it. Conrad waits for him, knowing that the only way to be a better brother is to let Jeremiah figure out what he needs to talk about with him without brushing it away.

“I don’t wanna make things worse,” Jere says carefully, “but you know Belly’s gonna see that Instagram post and read too much into it, right?”

“I know.”

“And when she does… What’s your plan?”

“I don’t have one,” he admits, laughing nervously. “I’m just gonna deal with it as it happens. I can only have so many plans going at once; Jere, for a solid five hours today I couldn’t think two seconds into the future and thought I was going to die, so I’m just taking baby steps here. Let me keep some of my reckless behavior.”

“Alright,” Jere replies, getting up so he can wrap his arms around Conrad and hold him tight. “But don’t expect me to help you out. If Belly texts me any questions, I’m just gonna tell her to talk to you. I’ve taken enough of the fall for your relationship issues lately. Got it?”

“Got it.” Conrad hugs Jeremiah back and pulls him down so he’s sitting next to him, liking that he can still tuck his brother under his chin. “You’re the best brother, Jere,” he says, kissing his forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Connie. Come down and eat some chicken parm; I think it’s impossible to be suicidal if you’re eating good food.”

Conrad cracks a smile and lets Jeremiah go, making his way downstairs and putting on the baseball game in order to quiet his mind long enough to fall asleep on the couch, his brother tucked up against his side, the two of them like puppies in spring.

Sep 17, Saturday, 10:31am

Belly: I saw your Instagram post. I guess you’ve seen my comment already so no need to say it again but your hair looks good. Different, but good.
Belly: I guess I’m just confused about what the caption means. 
Belly: You haven’t been responding to my texts. Please can we talk about it.

Sep 17, Saturday, 12:06pm

You: the caption was because of something i have on my mind. not aimed at you. 
You: how about FaceTime tomorrow afternoon? 4ish?
You: i’ve got some stuff to do today

His mom spends all of Saturday afternoon finalizing things with the divorce lawyers and his father. She’s out from two in the afternoon and onwards, with no sign of coming home soon. Conrad isn’t surprised. Divorce is messy and long and complicated, and his father isn’t exactly happy that Mom wants to keep complete custody of Jeremiah until he’s an adult in about ten months. They’ve been fighting about it. Conrad’s been trying to ignore it. 

“Hey, Jere?” he calls up the stairs at around four. 

“Yeah?” Jeremiah hollers back from somewhere in his room.

“I’m gonna invite a friend over to watch a movie, is that cool with you?”

“Sure. Does that mean I can have Maks over?”

Conrad bites his tongue. Tells himself it’s none of his business.

“Yeah, alright,” he replies. “But don’t do anything that’ll put strain on your ribs.”

“Ayo, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

He has to drive to pick Alicia up once she replies saying she’d be happy to come over. They spend the twenty minute ride back to his house talking about small things, listening to the Harry Styles song that’s on the radio because the bluetooth system in his car is on the fritz, marveling at the weather.

“What do you wanna watch?” Alicia asks as she toes her shoes off. “They did a reboot of Pretty Little Liars, we could check that out if you have HBO Max.”

“I had the biggest panic attack of my life yesterday after my mom went through her first trial treatment,” Conrad blurts, avoiding her eyes, getting snacks out of the fridge. “I sent an email to the counseling center asking to talk to someone and they said I could come in tomorrow morning. Belly and I are going to FaceTime afterwards.”

When he closes the fridge he finds Alicia staring back at him, eyebrows raised, blinking rapidly.

“Damn, Conrad,” she says, taking the baby carrots out of his hands. “You really know how to trauma dump. I suppose we’re not watching Pretty Little Liars then?”

“No,” he laughs, sitting down in the corner of the couch and resting himself against it, knees tucked up to his chest. “We could put on something lighter, though; I’m not really sure if I wanted to talk about it. Just wanted to let you know.”

“Confronting difficult emotions, are we?”

“Trying to be prepared to talk to the counselor tomorrow.” He purses his lips. Feels discomfort and panic spike up in him again. Forces himself not to squash them immediately. “I don’t know what I’m going to say to her.”

Alicia hums, taking the remote off the coffee table and opening up Netflix. “Well, what do you need from her?”

“I don’t know. I just know I can’t keep suffering in silence. The only advice I have on how to deal with this came from a middle aged man on a boat.”

Flicking through shows until she finds what she wants, Alicia grins. “Not to discredit middle aged men on boats, but…”

“Yeah, I reckoned I needed a second opinion. Or an objective listener. Or something.”

“Or something works.” Alicia finds what she was looking for. “How do you feel about Jane The Virgin ?”

“Never seen it.”

“Perfect, I get to witness you get to experience all the plot twists in 4K then.”

The first half hour is just focusing on the TV, listening to Jeremiah and Maks laughing upstairs, smiling wide at the jokes the narrator would crack. The sun shines steadily through the window, throwing a slight glare over the TV screen. His phone lies on the coffee table, showing no new messages from his mother. It’s a lazy Saturday. He lets himself drift for a little bit until Alicia’s hand comes to rest on his knee and he finds himself staring at her in shared stillness. 

She doesn’t look away from him even after he drops his gaze. She waits for him while he struggles for the right words to appear, and it’s harrowing how emotional that makes him feel. Maybe he’s too used to feelings being handed to him, words put in his mouth before he can decide what he wants to say. He hopes that after the clouds part and his head is less foggy that he can return the favor.

“What happens if I get on the phone with Belly and nothing’s changed?” he asks, quiet enough that he knows only she hears. 

“What do you mean? Is there anything you want to change?”

“I don’t know, but… What if I get on the phone and I still want her? I shouldn’t. I don’t, really. I just want her to save me, because she looks at me like I’m worth it.”

“Worth what?”

“Time. Affection. Care.”

“And no one else does that?”

Conrad adopts a shameful look. Alicia squeezes his knee.

“It’s not wrong to want her,” she says decidedly. “It might be a bit wrong to want what she can give you and not what you can share with each other, but I’ve never been in a relationship so I can’t pretend to have all the answers. This is gonna sound dumb, Conrad, but have you considered just telling her what you told me? She might mean well, and genuinely adore you, but she’s sixteen. At that age, romance is all fantasy, and she won’t see the ugly side of it unless you show it to her.”

“I don’t want to be the person who makes romance ugly in her eyes.”

“Conrad, I say this with love, but I think that damage is already done. Her parents are also divorced, right? And she went through the same exact stuff you did this summer, just from a different perspective. You can’t save her. And the onus isn’t on you to keep her world perfect.”

“She told me she doesn’t want me to need her,” Conrad recalls, staring at where Alicia’s hand is resting on his knee. “She wants me to want her.”

“It sounds like you do want her, so there’s no issue there.”

“Yeah, but what does that mean? Want her? I’ve been in two relationships before, and from what I know it takes a lot more than just wanting someone to make it work. And there’s so much on the line with her. We’ve known each other for so long, our families have known each for so long, if it doesn’t work out then what?”

“Have you considered telling her all this?”

He laughs. “Yeah. That’s what I’m gonna say, I think. I might have to write out a script so that I don’t lose my train of thought.”

“Fabulous idea. I’ve employed that strategy many times.”

“And did it work?”

Alicia hesitates, focusing on the TV for a moment as she collects her thoughts. As she does, Conrad stares at her hand on his knee, looks at her legs, criss-crossed on the couch, and slowly edges his toes to tuck under them, finding more warmth, more contact, even in the heat. Alicia doesn’t say anything, just shifts towards him, solidifying the connection. 

“What I’ve found,” she begins, slowly, measuring her words, “is that people can never be what you want them to be. Certain people will fill certain roles in your life, and trying to force them to fill others is a losing battle. Like you. Imagine I went up to you asking for a ride a week into classes and you said no. And then I kept pushing, thinking that if I just keep going with it, showing you that I want to be your friend, you’d eventually become what I want to be. So I’m putting in all this effort, all this emotional strain on myself to be as open and friendly as possible for just the sheer chance that you give me the slightest bit of care in return. It’d be insane. Something like that is never sustainable. 

“I tried the script idea with my friend, the one I told you about, who never opened up. Senior year, I did everything I could to try and deepen our relationship, get her to talk to me the way I wanted her to, fill the role I wanted her to. It didn’t work. I exhausted myself to the point of week-long meltdowns and inconsolable crying. It didn’t matter how much I explained my feelings to her, wrote stuff down so that I could remember it in order to share with her later, she just didn’t get it. And it was no fault of hers; it didn’t make her a bad person. It just didn’t make her the person I wanted her to be.

“But the script worked. It got me to examine how she made me feel, what thoughts I had circulating about her in the back of my mind, how codependent I was…”

Alicia smiled wryly, tipping her head back to rest against the back of the couch, eyes closed behind her glasses. Conrad watches in reverent silence, thinking that Nicole would love her.

“You just gotta figure out what you want from Belly,” she says. “And make sure you convey that. It’s okay to want to some saving. Just don’t convince her or yourself that wanting to be saved is the same thing as wanting to be in a relationship. Because they’re not. Okay?”

“Okay,” he echoes. 

Alicia meets his gaze and nudges his shin with her knee. Comradery. The two of them turn their gaze back to the TV, watching as Jane proposes to Michael in the middle of his work room, the Spanish music playing in the background as he brushes the flower out of her hair and kisses her: yes, of course I’ll marry you. Netflix begins to play the next episode automatically. Conrad lets it happen.

“Is it bad that I want to be you?” he asks, turning back to Alicia, a laugh catching the end of his question. She rolls her eyes.

“You don’t want to be me. It took me eight years of gaslighting myself into believing my emotions weren’t real in order to shake that mental trap I put myself in. Any progress or wisdom I’ve gained has been because I’m too fucking stubborn to let my emotions destroy me. It’ll take you a while, but you’ll get there. You don’t need to be me to be emotionally intelligent. You’re doing a great job.”

“I’m trying.”

“And you’re doing great.”

Offering her a grateful smile, he rests his chin on his knees like Jeremiah does sometimes and follows where his thoughts are going. Memories of the summer coming back like winds off changing waters.

“Cleveland—the middle aged man on the boat—told me that at some point I needed to get the hell out of dodge if things kept getting worse,” he says. “I think that’s been playing around in my head a lot.”

“Get the hell out of dodge?” Alicia chuckles. “Sure, that sounds fun. After we finish the first semester, do you want to see if we can go study abroad or something? I’ve got family in Spain I’ve been meaning to go visit. It might do you some good to get out of the States for a while.”

“Once I talk to the counselor, maybe. And iron things out with Belly. And make sure my mom’s okay. And patch up my relationship with my brother. And—”

“Okay, okay,” Alicia laughs, smacking his shoulder. “Alright. Once you do all of that, we’ll think about it. Get the hell out of dodge. That’s some advice.”

“I think he meant…” Conrad gestures to his head. “Get out of here. Y’know?”

“Maybe. It’s also good to remove yourself from stressful situations sometimes. If your mother gives you so much stress, maybe living at home isn’t the best idea. That sort of thing. I think the man on the boat had the right idea. But you get to do whatever you want with his advice.”

“That’s too much power in my hands, Alicia.”

“I know. It’s daunting. But you’re doing great. And don’t expect it to be perfect the first time around. You can take your time to figure stuff out.”

She runs a hand through his hair: sisterly. He bats her away with a smile. Feeling like it might be okay, actually. Feeling like his feelings might not be the end of the world.

On the TV, Petra is giving an emotional speech, nothing out of the ordinary, until the camera pans over and it’s revealed she’s talking to Zaz instead of Rafael and Conrad full-body gasps in shock. 

“Oh my God she’s cheating!” he exclaims, and Alicia laughs so hard she nearly knocks over the baby carrots. 

“Who’s cheating?” comes Jeremiah’s disembodied voice from upstairs.

“Someone in the show!” Alicia hollers back, still laughing. “Come watch!”

“If you say so!”

Jeremiah and Maks end up piled together on the right side of their spacious couch, scrolling through TikTok and occasionally lifting their heads when something big happens (like Zaz getting impaled by an ice sculpture, holy shit ). He and Alicia stay together on the left side. They order pizza, break out some of his weed, and even when his mom comes home and his chest becomes tight with anxiety, he tells himself it’s going to be okay. He’s talking to a counselor tomorrow. He’s evening things out with Belly straight after. 

Things will be okay. This anxiety not something wrong with him, then, but something he can learn how to live with. These little earthquakes not world-ending, just symptoms of problems he can learn to manage. With friends. With his brother. With Belly. With a counselor. With himself.