Chapter 14: I do want you
He looked at her, his profile sharp in the moonlight. “Belly, I’m sorry for being so shitty all summer.”
She turned to look at him fully, the sea breeze lifting strands of her hair. The anger she’d held onto for months felt small now, a pebble next to the boulder of his secret. “You were going through all this alone. I mean, I wish you told me sooner so you didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.” His voice was rough sand. “I almost did a couple of times.”
She remembered the moments—the almost-conversation on the porch, the aborted sentence in the car, the way he’d look at her and then shut down. They weren’t rejections; they were aborted lifelines. The knowledge was a sweet, piercing ache. She hugged her knees to her chest. The air was turning cold. “We should go in.”
“There’s so many things I want to say to you.”
“Don’t.” The word came out firmer than she intended. She stood up, brushing sand from her jeans. “Not now.”
He stood up with her, a sudden, fluid motion that brought him close. The faint, clean scent of his soap mixed with the salt air. “Why?”
She forced herself to meet his eyes, that familiar, tumultuous blue. “Because you really need somebody right now, and I don’t wanna be the kind of person who takes advantage of that.”
He shook his head, a quick, frustrated jerk. “I don’t just need somebody.” He took a half-step closer. The space between them crackled, charged by the night and the grief and a decade of unsaid things. “I need you.”
It was everything she’d ever dreamed of hearing, and it tasted all wrong. It was born of a crisis, wrapped in desperation. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a trapped bird. She made herself say it, the truth that had crystallized inside her. “I don’t need you to need me, Conrad. I want you to want me.”
The wind stilled for a second, as if the night itself was holding its breath.
“I do want you.”
The words were simple. Clear. Not pleading, just a quiet statement that landed in the center of her chest and detonated.
God, I’ve waited to hear that my whole life. The thought was a silent scream in her head, a dizzying wave of validation. It’s Conrad. It’s the truth.
She looked at him, then at his lips, chapped from the sea air. He was looking at hers.
It was like a current pulling them under. There was no decision, no conscious thought. One moment they were standing apart, and the next, the distance was gone.
One moment they were standing apart, and the next, the distance was gone.
He brushed a strand of hair from her face behind her ear, his fingers surprisingly steady. Then his hand cupped her cheek, his palm warm against her skin. They looked at each other and leaned in.
He kissed her for a long moment, then pulled back. Her eyes were still closed, and she was smiling. She opened them. He smiled at her.
They both leaned in again, his other hand coming up to cup her cheek. This kiss was slower, deeper, an exploration that made her knees feel unsteady. They pulled apart, their foreheads resting against each other, and then they kissed each other again, softly, a final, sealing press of lips.
In this moment, she thought, if this can happen maybe anything can happen.
The thought was a wild, humming wire inside her chest. The ocean roared in her ears, or maybe it was her own blood. She could feel the faint tremor in his hands where they held her face, she could taste salt and something uniquely him.
Conrad didn’t speak. He just rested his forehead against hers again, his eyes closed, his breaths coming in slow, deep pulls like a man surfacing. When he finally opened them, the blue was dark and endless. He looked wrecked and gorgeous.
“I’ve wanted to do that,” he said, his voice low, “for a really long time.”
“Me too.” She laughed, a shaky, disbelieving sound. “Like, a ridiculously long time.”
He smiled then, a real one that crinkled the corners of his eyes. It was the smile from the boardwalk, from before everything got heavy. He kissed her once more, a quick, grateful press, before letting his hands drop to her shoulders.
The world, for a heartbeat, was just the two of them and the vast, dark Atlantic. Then he laced his fingers through hers, his grip firm and definite.
They walked back from the beach holding hands. The sand shifted under their feet, a soft, slow percussion to their silent walk.
She laughed, a breathy, disbelieving sound. “This almost doesn’t feel real.”
He put his hand on her back, spinning her to face him right there on the damp, cool sand. “How about now?” he said, kissing her again, deeper this time, a claiming and a question.
She laughed against his lips, the sensation bubbling up from a place of pure, uncut joy. They continued walking, their shoulders bumping gently. Her heart felt too big for her chest.
“I can’t stop smiling,” she said, glancing up at his profile.
Conrad smiled, a quiet, private thing she felt more than saw in the dark. “You know you have the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen.” He looked down at their joined hands. “Your whole face just lights up.”
The pure pleasure of his words curdled, nudged aside by a cold, creeping truth. The weight of it pressed down, sudden and suffocating. The smile faded from her lips.
“I, uh, there’s something that I need to tell you,” she said, her voice tightening. “I don’t even know how.”
He gave her hand a slight squeeze. “Okay. What is it? We can figure it out.”
She took a breath that shuddered on the way in. “A few days ago, uh, Jere told me he had feelings for me.”
Conrad stopped walking. His hand went slack in hers. He looked at her, the moonlight carving his expression into something sharp and unreadable. “Wow. Okay.” He started walking again, faster, pulling his hand free. “So what did you say?”
She hurried to keep pace with his long strides. “I kissed him. A few times.”
“So when we both came to pick you and Taylor up from the side of the road, and you went with Jere,” he said, his voice flat and analytical, a tone she knew meant he was fracturing inside, “were you two already—”
She didn’t let him finish. “No.” The word was too loud. She gentled it. “But there were moments this summer I thought there could be something with you and me, and then, you know, you shut down.”
“No, I know. I’m sorry.” He stopped and turned around so suddenly she almost collided with him.
She grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket, the fine fabric crumpling in her fists. “And I get it,” she said, holding on, anchoring them both.
“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault, I know.”
“I mean, it’s mine too.”
They stood there in the dark, holding onto each other’s clothes, a thousand summer ghosts and one brutal, fresh betrayal hovering between them.
The ocean’s rhythmic crash filled the space where words should have been. Conrad’s hands, still fisted in the fabric of her sweater, slowly unclenched. He let go, stepping back as if the touch itself had become dangerous.
“Do you wanna be with him?” he asked. His voice was stripped raw.
“Being with you is all I ever wanted.” The truth fell out of her, simple and absolute.
A breath left him, a visible plume in the cool air. “Okay.” He nodded once, a shaky smile breaking through. “That’s great. Be with me then.”
He took her hand, his fingers threading through hers with a new certainty. She laughed, the sound thin and startled in the vast dark.
“What?” he said, smiling wider now, a real, confused brightness in his eyes. “What, is that funny?”
“No, I’m sorry.” She shook her head, squeezing his hand. “It’s just weird. I mean, everyone in our house knows that I’ve had a crush on you ever since, like—”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He stopped walking, his eyes widening. He grabbed her shoulders, turning her to face him fully. “You have a crush on me?”
“Shut up.” She hit his chest softly, her face burning. “You know I do.”
“Say it.”
“You’re impossible.” But she was smiling, dizzy with it. “Fine. A monumental, embarrassing, lifelong crush. Happy?”
He wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked at her, his gaze tracing her face as if memorizing it. The moonlight caught the earnest intensity in his blue eyes, the fading bruise on his jaw a shadowed testament to the night’s chaos. “You’re it for me, Belly.”
The weight of it settled between them, beautiful and terrifying. Her smile faded. “I don’t wanna hurt Jere.”
“Me neither.” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing the blond strands. “Look, I’ll talk to him. He might not even be that upset. It’s Jere. He never takes anything too seriously. It’s not like how it is with us.”
The comparison hung there, true and damning. Jeremiah flirted; Conrad buried. Jeremiah played; Conrad felt everything like a physical wound. She thought of Jeremiah’s tears on the country club steps, the shattered look on his face. “I’ll talk to him first. I owe him that.”
Conrad studied her face, then nodded. “Okay.”
They walked back to the house, hands clasped tight, as if letting go might break the spell. The summer house was a dark silhouette against the star-specked sky, one kitchen window glowing like a solitary beacon. They crept up the deck stairs, their footsteps impossibly loud on the wooden planks.
The sliding door hissed open. They stepped into the dim, warm kitchen, releasing each other’s hands just as Susannah looked up from her teacup at the table.
She was still in her dress from the deb ball, a cashmere wrap draped over her shoulders. She looked exhausted, her eyes soft and knowing. “Early morning walk on the beach?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“Uh, yeah,” Belly said, her voice too high. She felt a ridiculous grin spread across her face.
Conrad mirrored it, a slow, sheepish smile that Belly had never seen before. It was pure, unguarded happiness.
Belly laughed quietly, a burst of nervous delight she couldn’t contain.
“I knew it.” Susannah said, nodding into her tea. A smile touched her own lips, weary but genuine. Her eyes held a deep, sad understanding.
“I’m gonna go,” Belly said, her gaze jumping to Conrad.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice low.
His fingers brushed hers, a fleeting, secret touch, before she turned and slipped out of the kitchen. Her heart hammered all the way up the stairs, past the closed door to Jeremiah’s room.
In the kitchen, the silence pooled again. Conrad stood awkwardly by the door, the giddy energy bleeding away, replaced by the heavy reality of his mother’s presence.
“Sit down,” Susannah said, gesturing to the chair opposite her.
“Let me change first,” he said, gesturing to his ruined dress shirt.
He padded up the stairs, the house creaking with old memories. In his room, he peeled off the stiff dress shirt, balling it up. He glanced at the faint bloodstain on the collar from Jeremiah’s punch, a relic from a war that already felt ancient. He pulled on a worn Stanford sweatshirt, the gray cotton soft against his skin.
Downstairs, the kettle was whistling. Susannah poured hot water into a second mug. She pushed it toward him as he sat. Chamomile. The smell was unbearably nostalgic.
“You were right to push me,” she said, not looking at him. “About the trial.” Her fingers traced the rim of her cup. “I was just so tired.”
“I know.” His throat felt tight. “I shouldn’t have let Jere find out like that.”
“He was always going to find out.” She sighed, a world-weary sound. “We can’t hide this. Not anymore.”
They sat in the quiet. The refrigerator hummed. He studied her face, the new delicate tracing of lines at her eyes, the pallor beneath her summer tan. He thought of the email on her phone, the clinical words Jeremiah had seen. A fresh wave of guilt, cold and slick, washed over him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell him with you.”
“You carried it alone so I didn’t have to.” Her eyes were bright. “My serious boy.”
He looked down at his hands, “I hate that you’re going through it again.”
“It’s not for long.” She said it with a strange, resolute calm. “Whatever happens, it’s not for long. And I get this summer. I get to see you happy.” A small, knowing smile touched her lips. “I saw your face when you came in. Really happy.”
Heat crept up his neck. He took a sip of the too-hot tea, letting it scald his tongue. “It’s new. It’s… complicated.”
“With Belly?” She said it as if confirming a long-held theory.
He just nodded, unable to form the words that could make it real outside his own head.
“Oh, Connie.” Her voice was thick. She reached across the table, her cool, thin hand covering his. “Just be gentle with each other. All three of you.”
He squeezed her hand, the fragility of her bones beneath his grip sending a spike of fear straight through his heart.
Upstairs, Belly lay in her childhood bed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars peeling from the ceiling. She could still feel the crush of Conrad’s mouth on hers, the sand under her feet, the dizzying declaration: You’re it for me. The joy was a bright, frantic bird fluttering against a cage of guilt.
Jeremiah’s face, smiling at her from his car that day, playful and sure, flashed behind her eyelids. His laugh as they’d swam at the community pool. The hurt in his eyes on the country club steps.
She had to tell him. Now. Before the secret fermented and poisoned everything.
She waited until she heard the faint murmur of voices from the kitchen subside, until she heard Conrad’s heavy tread go back up the stairs and a door click shut. The house settled into a fragile morning quiet.
She got up, her body moving on a determined autopilot. She walked to Jeremiah’s door, her knuckles pausing an inch from the wood. She knocked.
“Come in,” he said, his voice muffled.
She pushed the door open. He was at his desk, his laptop glowing. The room smelled like his citrus cologne and stale sleep.
“Morning, Belly,” he said, swiveling in his chair. His eyes were puffy, but he offered a small, tired smile. It felt like a physical blow.
“Hey.” She closed the door softly and sat on the edge of his rumpled bed.
“I was up doing research on Mum’s trial,” he said, gesturing to the screen. His voice gained a thread of animation, a familiar, hopeful energy. “And Belly, I’m really hopeful. There’s this new protocol from MD Anderson. The survival rates look… better.”
“That’s great, Jere.” Her voice sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else.
“I think we should tell Conrad about us.” He said it brightly, as if planning a surprise party. “Get it all out in the open, you know? Clean slate.”
She felt the oxygen leave the room. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Okay.” He turned fully toward her, his expression open, trusting.
She stared at a fraying thread on his bedsheet. “See, um, the thing is, last night I really couldn’t sleep. So I went to watch the sunrise on the beach. And Conrad was there. And we just started talking. One thing led to another… and we kissed.”
The silence in the room became a solid, suffocating thing. The cheerful chirp of a bird outside the window was obscenely loud.
“You kissed my brother?” he said. The words were flat, devoid of their usual musical lilt.
“I’m sorry. We wanted to tell you right away, so—” she rushed, the apology tasting like ash.
He cut her off. “You’re already a ‘we’?” he asked. His face had closed down, the charm evaporating like mist.
“No. I just didn’t want it to be weird.” She hated how weak it sounded.
A harsh, humorless laugh escaped him. He looked back at his laptop, at the hopeful graphs about survival rates. “It’s cool. I get it. I was a distraction to keep you busy while you waited for Conrad.”
“Jere, I didn’t wanna hurt you. You’re one of my best friends.”
He didn’t look at her. His profile was rigid, a statue of blonde hair and sharp angles. “Just so you know,” he said, his voice low and final, “he’s gonna hurt you.”
She stood up, the mattress spring groaning. She wanted to say more, to explain the decade of history, to make him understand that it wasn’t a choice between them, but a gravity she had no defense against. The words wouldn’t come.
Belly walked out. The door clicked shut behind her with a terrible, quiet finality.
The click of the door latch echoed in the hall’s stillness. Belly stood frozen, her forehead leaning against the cool wood. Inside, she heard the abrupt, angry scrape of Jeremiah’s desk chair, then the muffled thump of a fist hitting something soft, maybe his mattress.
She fled downstairs, her socks silent on the steps. The kitchen was empty, Susannah’s teacup washed and upside down on the rack. Morning light, harsh and clear, streamed through the windows, exposing every crumb on the counter. It felt like a violation.
She needed air that didn’t smell like lemon cleaner and regret.
The beach was windswept and empty, the tide far out. She sat on the damp, cold sand, folding her arms around her knees. The gulls cried overhead, a lonely sound. She didn’t hear his approach, only saw his shadow fall across her lap.
Conrad sat beside her, his shoulder not quite touching hers. He didn’t speak for a long minute. The wind whipped his blonde hair across his forehead.
“I told him,” she said finally. The words were carried off by the breeze.
“I know. He passed me in the hall. Didn’t look at me.” Conrad picked up a flat, gray stone, turning it over in his fingers. “He looked… wrecked.”
“I feel awful. He was hurt, and he has every right to be.”
“It’s gonna be okay, Belly, I promise.” He said it to the stone, not to her.
She looked at him, at the tense line of his jaw. “How?” She pulled her knees tighter to her chest. “I think maybe we should hit pause.”
His head snapped toward her. “What? No.”
“Conrad, listen. I don’t want to make things harder for you guys than they already are.” Her voice was pleading now. “Your mom needs you both. You and Jere need to be there for each other. And us being together would make that impossible,” she said.
“Belly, come on,” he said, the words scraping out of him.
“I can’t do that to him,” she said, finally looking at him. Her brown eyes were wide, pleading for him to understand.
He looked away, out at the relentless, blue water. “I hate this.”
“Yeah,” she whispered, pulling her sweater sleeves over her hands. “Me too.”
He rummaged through his pocket for a second, his movements intent. When his hand emerged, it was closed around something small.
He opened his palm. Lying across his life line was a delicate silver necklace, the pendant a sideways figure-eight glinting dully in the diffuse morning light.
The infinity necklace.
Her breath caught. She remembered it instantly.
“This was always yours,” he said, his voice rough. He finally met her eyes. “No matter what happens, we’ll still be infinite.”
A slow, tremulous smile spread across her face, breaking through the confusion and guilt like sunlight through cloud cover. It was a promise, and an apology, and a piece of their history given back to her.
He unclasped the slender chain with careful fingers. “Turn around.”
She shifted, gathering her hair and lifting it off her neck. The chill of the silver against her skin made her shiver. His knuckles brushed the nape of her neck as he fastened the clasp, a touch so brief it might have been the wind.
He looked at her. She let her hair fall and lifted a hand, her fingertips finding the cool, smooth metal resting just above her collarbone. She touched it, grounding herself in its solid, real presence.