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“The beginning of wisdom, as they say. When you're seventeen you know everything. When you're twenty-seven if you still know everything you're still seventeen.”
― Ray Bradbury
Belly realises on the way to Cousins, with a startling clarity, that Jeremiah is texting everyone else back but her.
Steven is driving, he insisted, and Taylor has commandeered the passenger seat. She’s messing with the radio, finding the most obscure stations to annoy them with and he’s lightly chastising her for ruining his precise settings. They have been flirting outrageously with each other since they left home. Belly hasn’t seen either of them laugh like the way they are now in quite a while, so deliriously ecstatic. It should make her happy, to see these two people she cares about so much in love, but instead it makes her feel shamefully bitter.
Because she had what they have right now. She saw glimpses of it with Conrad during their ill-fated relationship. It was a constant between her and Jeremiah throughout their friendship.
She yearns to have that again with Conrad. To transform it into something more solid, more pure and more carefree but it’s impossible because he’s been so careful, so cautious ever since…
But Cousins will fix what’s broken between them.
It has too.
It needs to.
She is sprawled in the back seat, failing miserably in trying to tune out the lovebirds and scrolling through The 4th Party group chat (the group chat where she is desperately trying to plan a party no-one else really cares about). She’s spent her weeks analysing every response from Jeremiah, scarce as they are. If there was a course on the Study of Jeremiah Communications (or lack thereof), she’d have a doctorate.
His last interaction in the chat was to Taylor, a simple lol to her suggestion a few days ago about everyone committing to wearing some sort of costume.
He hasn’t answered any of Belly's texts. Not in the group chat, nor privately. It burns her up inside.
He’d very rarely answer Steven back while Conrad never participated in the chat to receive a reaction of any kind.
But with Taylor he responded to her pretty much from the get go. He’d nearly always answer her back. Sporadically yes, but it was the only sign of life Belly had for him.
She demanded one afternoon, the two of them draped over her bed, that Taylor should ring him, and put him on loudspeaker, but she refused.
“He wouldn’t pick up Bells. Besides, that would be mean,” Taylor had said. “I’m not going to trick him like that.”
“I’m your best friend,” Belly had spat back,” You should do this for me! I need to know if he’s OK!”
Taylor's nose had scrunched up, a sign she was trying hard to suppress an eye roll. It made Belly want to throw her phone out the bedroom window.
“Come on Belly. I’m sure he’ll answer you back soon,” Taylor had soothed, like Belly was some sort of child having a tantrum.
And maybe she was, because all she could feel was panic growing and the urge to scream growing louder. She wanted to stomp her foot, fling herself onto the ground and pound the floor with her fists.
‘He’s my best friend, not yours,’ she wants to shriek.
‘Is this my fault?!’ She wants to cry.
But instead she buries it, swallows down the frustration lest it scares Conrad off again or gives him the wrong idea about her feelings towards Jeremiah.
She thought, at least, he was in the same boat as her. Conrad and Jeremiah may be brothers but if the house was burning down Conrad wouldn’t pick Jeremiah to save. He’d pick Steven, they were always so much closer, or, if she allows herself to indulge a little, he’d carry her out through the flames. She thinks Jeremiah would have picked Susannah, which in some ways he did this last year, but he couldn’t save her. No-one could.
So she didn’t think Jeremiah and Conrad were talking (and that’s not her fault, OK? It’s not, and it doesn’t keep her at night, the taste of Jeremiah’s minty breath lingering in her mouth or the betrayal flashing on Conrad’s face).
But she is wrong. Because with Conrad, it’s the two of them perched awkwardly on the sofa in her living room, attempting to fill the space with conversation, but failing miserably. His phone clutched tight in his hand, his gaze avoiding her desperate eyes.
“Have you heard from him?” She asked despite herself and even though his hesitant response was a yes, it still stunned her.
“Really?”
Her exclaim must have stabbed through him like a knife, because he turned away from her and lurched off the couch in one graceless motion.
“Am I that shit of a brother?” He had asked, choking on air and he left shortly after, leaving Belly wanting.
He always leaves her wanting.
And now, here, on the ride to Cousins and wondering out loud,” do you think Jeremiah will show up?” and catching the way Steven glances at Taylor, who resolutely keeps her eyes trained out the window.
“You can be quiet now,” she says spitefully, “only took you three hours.”
Steven sighs, “Don’t be like that Belly, come on.”
“Don’t be like that Belly, come on!” She mocks, “Has he told you he’s coming? Has he?”
Steven doesn’t answer. Just grips the stirring wheel tight, knuckles white, relaxing slightly when Taylor's hand darts out and rests on his upper thigh.
“Yes Belly. Jeremiah is coming. He texted Steven last week to say he was.”
“Was that so hard to say St-” Belly begins to scoff, but Taylor twists around in her seat, glaring at her.
“Belly, I know you are- There is no need to take it out on Steven alright?” Taylor softens slightly then, seeing the tears of frustration in Belly’s eyes, “I know it's crappy I do but it’s going to be a long few days if you don’t… if none of us…”
Belly rolls her eyes,” Stop talking to me like I’m a child.”
“Yeah, well stop acting like one!” Steven bites back, intertwining his hand with Taylor’s, and tugging her gently away from Belly.
The rest of the car ride to Cousins is silent.
Belly doesn’t give a shit. She’s sick of people telling her not to be like this or not be act like that or to grow up. (Why is she always being told to grow up?)
She’s sick of being moulded into being some semblance of a perfect girl or being scolded when she toes outside the lines.
Grow up he spat at her (and it echoes in a distorted kitchen like a bullet when she dreams) but then why is she coddled in the same breath? She’s sick of wanting Conrad and wanting him to want her back and she’s sick for what she’s done to Jeremiah in the midst of this wanting. Because she can pretend all she wants that she hasn’t hurt him, but she has. Two summers in a row now, and hey, maybe if he forgives her, she can destroy him next summer too.
She hates herself for what she has done, and what she is doing. She wishes she believed in a God because if she did she’d pray for time to be turned back to last summer. She wouldn’t kiss Jeremiah in the pool, and she wouldn’t follow Conrad around starry eyed like a fool. If she could go back to then, she would curl up beside Susannah on the couch. She would ask her all the questions she needed the answers to but that are now lost to the ground. She’d tell her to stop with her subtle suggestions about Conrad and her lightly teasing about Jeremiah. She’d tell her she’d end up destroying her sons, and herself, in the pursuit of something she doesn’t even know is love anymore.
When they pull up to the house in Cousins, Conrad is waiting at the door. He isn’t smiling, but who cares because neither are they.