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Belly has never felt more untethered than she does in line at the gate that will take her to Paris.
Behind her, a four year long relationship-turned-engagement-turned failed wedding to the boy that she thought she could love for the rest of her life. Next to it, weighing heavier on her soul, a lifetime of loving Conrad Fisher that had taken her to the highest highs and lowest lows of her twenty-one years. The past few may have been spent pushing it down and praying that Jere won’t see it, that lingering ache in her chest whenever Conrad’s name is brought up or, more recently, having to be in the same house as him. The same room. All of that pain to still end up here, alone but surrounded by people, trying to figure out what she’ll do once she lands. She tries not to fidget, knowing that the tears she’s spilled have taken their toll.
As she waits her turn to board, she tries valiantly not to let her thoughts stray to Conrad. It’s not fair, the way her world has always revolved around him, to her or Jeremiah or even to Conrad himself. Belly knows deep down that she has always held him to a higher standard than anyone else in her life. In every golden memory of Cousins, Conrad is always in the frame. Helping her, teasing her, loving her both from the sidelines and at her side, there has never been anyone who could be so deeply ingrained into heart as Conrad Beck Fisher. One day, she’ll be able to look back at this summer with clarity and know that she made the right choice, even after breaking Jeremiah’s heart and leaving Conrad’s on the beach. But right now, she can’t draw on any of the defenses she had before to block out the consequences of her actions. Her excuses have run dry. Soon she’ll have to make amends. With Taylor, for lashing out at her and then at Steven who only ever wanted her to be happy, for doing the same with her naivety and embarrassment on her mother. Maybe, some day, she will even have the opportunity to fix things with Conrad, but after the tear-filled apology and promise to not see him for a long time at the club, it feels like a pipe dream to even let herself contemplate the possibility.
Pulling herself out of her racing thoughts, she decides to find something, anything that could possibly distract her from the mess she’s made in her wake.
Belly looks up, and wonders for a second if this is her punishment for everything that has happened since Christmas.
When I was little, I used to think Conrad would appear out of thin air if I was thinking about him.
Looking pensively out the window from the gate right next to hers, is Conrad.
Before she can even begin to process, a voice crackles over the loudspeaker, redirecting her vision to the departure board.
“Due to an heavy storm rolling in rapidly, all departures that have not completed boarding at this time will be delayed by an hour. Thank you for your understanding.”
There’s no way this is happening right now, she thinks despondently. She looks down, trying to catch another glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye without drawing attention to herself.
It’s much too late for that now. Conrad is staring at her openly. Part of her expects him to be upset. He had told her he always loved her. Over and over again, in both words and actions, years too late and a moment much too soon, pleading with her to believe him and choose him and be honest with herself. And she had pushed him away to assuage her own guilty conscience. Not because he’d ever left her mind, but because Jere needed her in ways Conrad would never be able to explain.
But Conrad has managed to surprise her again. As she lifts her head up to meet his gaze, his face softens into the look he’s always reserved for her. A sob nearly rips its way out of her, but she chokes it down. He hates seeing her cry, especially knowing he’s the reason for it. Belly digs deep to find the spine she never had for Jeremiah, the one that she’d built and then suppressed to sustain the love she had deluded herself into believing only belonged to him.
But Conrad had sewn himself into the fabric of her being a decade prior. And still…..
She refuses to ever hurt him like that again.
He moves his bag off of the seat next to him, tilting his head in gentle invitation to sit down, and she is struck by the knowledge that both of their flights are now delayed and she now has no reason to stay in line, and no excuse for walking away from this. The invisible string of fate has intervened once again.
In the span of a heartbeat she makes a decision that course-corrects the rest of her life.
She nods.
One day, Susannah Laurel Fisher will ask her parents how they knew. How they got together, and how they ended up marrying their perfect match. The answer might change as they age, but they will know that it was that moment in the godforsaken airport that decided it for the both of them.
No matter the distance between Stanford and Paris, the interfamilial strife, the pain and love and invisible string between them; it was always going to be Isabel and Conrad. The Fishers.