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".......Ridiculous!......."
They were cracking up like there was nothing wrong in their lives eventhough I know they had to have their own struggles, that they did have their own struggles; they had the whole family mad and unsupportive and a whole wedding to plan but still they sounded so carefree with each other, I could almost hear highschool Jeremiah and Belly in their shared laughter echoing all the way from the pool. They sounded so untamed and free, maybe they brought that side out in each other.
I know how genuinely happy they made each other and how they needed each other in such a desperate, passionate way. Was this what true love looked like? And was like? Not caring about anything and being able to take risks? Did it feel this easy even when it was so hard?
I saw the way she looked at him, she had never looked at me like that. She used to look at me like I was a character who had come straight out of her favourite manhwa but the way she looked at Jere was different. It was like how an artist stares at their finished painting, with so much admiration, happiness, relief and pride. Because it is something they were proud of for having, for owning, and I knew that's what their relationship was, they had built it brick by brick. It was real.
Belly didn't care about anyone's approval to be with my brother or even marry him. I know Belly would still love and want for the family to get on board and she needed her mom but I also knew she'd go ahead even without them because it felt like nothing else in the world mattered to her more than this or maybe even besides this. That, she'd go ahead and marry him even if no one came around. Jere had required nobody's blessing. Jere had been chosen even in the face of a refusal to a blessing. While when we dated, she had been so bothered about Jere's feelings, by if he was okay with us, she brought him up constantly. I can't help but make the comparison, I can't help but be jealous by the contrast.
I know they were young and still had so much to figure out but was it really completely out of left field for them? Was it really so shocking? No. Belly was already talking about the topic of marriage when she was 16. So, no, it hadn't been completely ridiculous or unexpected, and I knew it.
Four years ago they had gone from not speaking to each other to becoming an official couple by the end of the week. All in a week! I had thought that was so wild, so absurd, it was so nonsensical and irrational and a part of me had even thought, no, hoped that they'll be over soon, that it was just too rushed for them, too soon, they were too young, maybe they would last like 2 months? Just two months before......I don't know, I won't say before Belly came back running into my arms but that's what that wishful part of my brain daydreamed would happen. But they had proven me wrong, hadn't they? They had lasted for 4 years. So even if I try to lie to others, I couldn't lie to myself.
Laurel had called me hadn't she, panicked that they had both rushed into a relationship.
"Honey, you know I can't stop Belly if this is what she wants, but don't you think it's too soon? Belly had lost her volleyball captaincy, you know, I don't think she's ready for a serious relationship. And are you really okay with this, about all of this, you know her dating your—?"
"Laur, Jere cares about her deeply, I can see that, he's serious about her and you don't need to worry about him with her. And you know, actually, Jere convinced Belly to apply for a volleyball scholarship and was there when she convinced her coach to get her back on the team. He had taken her on a tour to Finch and showed her the gymnasium and everything."
I could hear a soft "Oh" by Laurel on the other end of the phone and a part of me slightly hated it, the protective of my brother part. Only I was allowed to get at my brother or be a little dick to him, no one else got that privilege, okay! I didn't like how surprised Laurel had sounded. Jere had been a moral support to Belly, more recently at places like the Tower of Terror but also I could see what the absence of it did to her while we were dating. She missed him so much, so terribly.
"Laura", I had said my childhood nickname for her, "you know how much Jere cares about her, he'd never hurt her, he can't. You remember how Jere was the one crying harder than Belly when she had tripped and hurt her foot while skating that one summer? He was inconsolable. He couldn't see her in pain or hurting. He'd be good to her, and he's very patient, you don't need to worry about my baby brother."
My mind wandered to that awful day three weeks ago. As I looked at Belly fighting so hard, going feral mode for my brother at that dinner table in the middle of a restaurant in broad daylight, I realised I was looking at what I had passed up on and all I could do was watch.
Her declarations and promises had never been an overexaggeration in the slightest, she was a fighter, she meant it when she told me she would've fought for us.
And I knew my brother was the exact same as her. He'd fight for her too. They were like that, they didn't back away, they tried to face things head on, and maybe because they were conditioned to be the sunshine kids they tried to find the silver lining in every thing and every situation and fix things.
Because that's who they were, they showed up. Even when all you wanted was to be left alone. Ugh extroverts! (except maybe Belly was an ambivert if I'm being accurate). They function differently and don't really understand that introverts need space to sort out their own mental state and recharge. It sometimes feels like they refused to see or understand but I knew that wasn't the case. They just had a different system built in and I knew they meant well and cared and after therapy I was able to see how it was frustrating for them too when I did things they couldn't comprehend.
They wouldn't rest until they had pulled you out of the dark cave you were in or poured all their energy into trying to do that.
So Belly fighting so hard proved how much in love she was with Jeremiah.
And Jeremiah.........I had been in denial about his feelings for her for the longest time too but really I had been confused as well. They had always been bestfriends and it was hard to tell when the lines blurred for my brother.
I remember once we were playing a card game— me, him and Steven. Well, we had just sat down to play one. Jere had demanded us to include Belly in the game too or else he wouldn't play. But he had told me to go get her. Because he knew she was more likely to come play if I asked her, because he knew.
When I went to ask Belly, she had beamed and I could see my mother had looked at me with a proud and a knowing smile but I had felt so guilty, I was just a messenger delivering Jere's message and here they were both getting the wrong idea. It hadn't been my suggestion to include her. When we went back to play, Jere never mentioned anything but he was happier, he looked happier. I doubt Belly noticed it though, she was too busy taking quick glances at me with a shy smile. She didn't know it was Jere who had wanted her there, though me and Steven didn't mind, it was so much more fun after she too joined the game; the more the merrier. He loved her so silently, I know it's something you would expect from me because that is one of my things but Jere was my brother afterall, and things like these reminded me of it, that we weren't too different afterall.
And then I remembered that summer, the last summer with mom. I had felt a pang of guilt in my chest as mom had referenced to this memory when she asked me to take Belly to the deb ball. I wasn't her Prince Charming, it had been Jere, it had been Jere who wanted her included in our boys hangout, but I bit my lip, I didn't want to complicate things unnecessarily by correcting her. And back then I genuninely didn't think that there was a love triangle.
Usually, during our stays at the summer house, it depended on who was up first but if all of us were up before breakfast then the first egg Jere cooked got served to Belly.
And none of us had tried to see it in a romantic light. It was part of a routine for all of us, nothing sus about it. The sky was blue, the grass was green and the first egg went to Belly's plate. It was almost like a fact or way things were supposed to be in life.
When we were little, mom had once given us brothers crayons and papers to draw and colour on. She had taken Jere's "masterpiece" and inquired what it was about. It had been a house by the beach and what I could some stick figures inside the drawing but they had been five stick figures. Mom asked him who they were supposed to be, and Jere excitedly mentioned, "Me, connie, you, dad and Bells". He had always thought of and included her as family. My mom smiled but then she teased him about Laur and Steven who were missing from his portrait and Jere's eyebrows raised, I could see he had forgotten, "Oohh, Mr Conklin has taken Steven to the boardwalk to get ice cream and rides coz Steven twisted his ankle trying to kick a soccer ball and was crying! But Laur is a little scary sometimes, mom so.......she's away at Philly finishing her book and has those glasses that make her look extra scary on" Jere came up with the explanation for the missing family members. We all laughed, what a creative save!
My mom had ruffled his curls affectionately and told him, "Ok, I'll tell Laur to be a little less scary, alright, darling?"
Jere had nodded gratefully and I could see he looked relieved. That had made me smile and laugh back then because I thought it was ridiculous to be so scared of her. Laur was amazing, and Jere thought so too but I hadn't been conscious of how real her double standards might've always been. I have always been her special boy, had been even back then.
Looking back, this all seems so inevitable and not as much of a surprise.
I hadn't been my brother's keeper.
But my brother had found a girl who was a keeper and it was the girl I had thought and felt was the love of my life.
I had to just suck it up and try to not ruin whatever beautiful thing they've built and were fighting for. No matter what label they went by or were trying to put on the bond they had, the bond they always seemed to have, I just had to be supportive, or at least appear supportive of it. Yes, that was the right thing to do, I had to try doing that.