Chapter Text
I know she wants to hear from you.
Laurel had told me.
I’m not ready for that.
I had said at that.
Because it was true. And I hadn’t been able to go inside the house.
Not then.
And now? A month later. Was I ready?
It’s a cold Saturday afternoon in February. Today is my first day off at the restaurant in forever and everything I found to do was to drive all the way from Boston to Cousins. Why? I have no idea. It was inside me somehow. I just came like this. Mechanically. Or maybe was it some kind of ache that drew me here. I don’t know.
And now I’m here, sitting in my Jeep, in the driveway of the beach house. Alone. It’s empty. Nobody is here. My dad is working. My brother is in sunny California. Denise and Steven are busy with their start up. Both just left my dad’s company. Taylor is busy with college.
And Belly. She is still in Paris, doing whatever. Searching for herself. Finding herself. I hope she does.
Taylor went to see her on New Year’s Eve. She told me Belly was actually doing good. The same thing Belly confirmed to me on the phone when I had called her that day and told her I was good and that I hoped she was too.
I wasn’t really though. And I’m still not today. But I really want to be good. I think we need to move on. Somehow. I mean, we should, right?! And for us to really do that—move on and find ourselves individually—I needed to set her free. So that’s what I did.
But now I’m wondering if I really did though. Because she is still on my mind. I can’t stop thinking about her. Not now.
Not ever. I fear.
Taylor had told me there is this guy in Belly’s life now. Apparently only a friend, but maybe something more …
Fuck.
And then there is still and always …
My brother.
He had been writing her letters. Or ‘regular nothing notes’ as Belly had called them according to Taylor.
They are still letters though.
Her and I had started texting since New Year’s
It’s only texts though.
She told me she loves macarons. I told her I knew. That was basically the context of our texts.
Like not much better actually. Only basic, standard nothings.
It does something to me though. I started making macarons. Well, I attempted making them. Over and over again. Failing every time. But I keep going. Maybe I will be able to make a decent batch next time. Maybe if I try hard enough. If I try again.
Hope.
Maybe I will get somewhere.
With the macarons.
With Belly.
Bells.
I miss her.
My Bells.
I finally drag myself out of my car and into the house. It’s cold. I don’t bother to switch the heating on though. I won’t be staying anyways.
There is just one place I want to go and that’s not inside this house.
Just a quick detour to my bedroom, because there is something in there I need to get.
Our wedding bands.
First we weren’t supposed to have any, because we didn’t exactly have the budget for that, and also, we had agreed that we didn’t want my dad to sponsor this. The wedding at the country club was one thing. But our wedding bands, that was a complete other subject. They were us and just us. Nobody else involved. We were simply going to get them later on.
So when I caught the false numbers at Breaker when that one client wanted to fool us, I had gotten quite a big bonus. And it wasn’t my dad who had initiated this. It was just a normal thing they did when someone achieved something outstanding for the company, which apparently had been my case. And I was so grateful because it allowed me to do something special.
I had enough money which I had worked for myself. And I bought us the rings as a surprise for her. She would have loved them. We had talked about them a million times. She knew what I liked and I knew exactly what she wanted them to look like and we had found the perfect ones for us. And so I got them. Just like the apartment we had loved.
The thought that she doesn’t know any of this makes me sick.
I want to take a deep breath, but I can’t.
I need air. Oxygen.
I bury the small box with our wedding bands in the pocket of my jeans and then I run down the stairs, out of the house.
To the beach.
When I finally reach the place my heart was longing to be, I slow down. Even though it’s cold as fuck, I take off my shoes and walk barefoot in the sand. I need to feel it.
Feel everything.
The sky is gray and it’s cloudy. There’s almost no wind. The ocean is calm. No wild waves today.
I walk further down, where the sand is soaked and hard.
I just stay there looking over the ocean.
She is there. All the way across this ocean.
Now I can finally breathe.
I look down and pick up a seashell, thinking back to when we would collect these. And keep each and every single one in a big jar. It’s still in my bedroom. Full of memories. Full of moments.
The moments we collected on this beach. During all those summers. Our happy times. They are like tattoos on my mind. Forever there. I can’t erase them. I don’t even think of letting go. Even though I had told her exactly that:
Yeah, I should probably let you go too.
Suddenly a small wave of icy water crashes against my ankles. I hadn’t realized that I had walked this far out into the sea. The cold cuts into my skin like shears.
I don’t want to let go of you just yet.
I slowly step backwards out of the water, my gaze still fixed on the horizon. I let it linger. Deliberately.
And then it happens. A feeling of warm softness starts enveloping me. Like someone is wrapping their arms around me from behind.
It’s her.
My woman.
My Bells.
Thank you for coming to get me.
Belly, I’ll always come and get you.
Of course I would. Always.
When we were little, we would collect sand crabs, but then we would set them free. We watched them wriggle back into the sand. They all seemed to know exactly where they were going. Some clear destination in mind:
Home.
Maybe if I reminded her of that, she would do the same. Just like all those years ago, when we always chose each other. When we knew what home meant:
To be together.
Okay, I have to go back there and get it. I just have to.
I run up the path to the beach house as quickly as I can.
Inside the house. Upstairs.
My mom’s old bedroom.
I really hope it’s still there. Where I had stored it—secure because only I knew—the last time I was here. Last summer.
The summer when everything went to shit.
A second time.
Belly I couldn’t take it if you changed your mind like last time.
I wouldn’t do that. It’s different now. We are not the same people we were. We grew up.
I don’t know how to not love you. Even now. And that’s the worst part.
I mean, I don’t even know who I am anymore.
I know who you are and I will remind you every single day. You just need to come back home.
I don’t want to hurt you, Jere. I’m not the same person that I was before summer. And I think I need to find the person that I can be without you.
What does that mean?
I think I’m going to stay.
Maybe that was the problem. She wasn’t going to come back home. Would she ever? How are we supposed to move on when we never even had real closure? We never really talked everything through. After our almost wedding. And then at New Years, on the phone, that wasn’t the same. I couldn’t take another one of her apologies. And I wanted to talk in person. Not over the phone. But I couldn’t ask her to come back home. I had already done that. And she had said no.
Stop thinking back to that, I tell myself. It happened. Like shit happens. And you couldn’t do anything about it at the time.
But time has passed and maybe now I could. I could at least try.
I get into my mom’s old bedroom, I walk straight to her closet. I reach up to the top shelf … and—exactly where I had put it months ago—there it was. I can feel it with my hand.
I take it down and look at it. And fuck, it hurts. My heart. I can feel a sting deep inside me. And it comes up into my throat. It burns. I swallow it down.
Then I get the hell out of there, my treasures in my hand and in my pocket.
And in my heart. Always.
When I get into the Jeep, I place what I brought with me on the passenger seat. At that same moment my phone, which I had left on the center console, lights up.
It’s a text.
From Belly.
Just one picture:
