Chapter Text
When Conrad finally gets back to California, it’s well after midnight. He checks his notifications to find a single missed call from his dad, an email from his medical school advisor, and a text from Agnes asking to go out for drinks when he’s home. Instead of responding to any of it, he turns his phone off completely. At his apartment he takes the hottest, longest shower of his life. He lets himself cry for a while, in the privacy of those three tiled walls.
And then Conrad doesn’t go outside for days.
He tries to distract himself—getting ahead on readings before classes start in a couple weeks, deep cleaning his oven, rewatching the Lord of the Rings movies in bed with a bottle of lukewarm beer… really anything he can do to stop himself from thinking about how everything went down.
Belly, at her rehearsal dinner, so beautiful it almost took his breath away.
Belly, looking at him the last morning—her wedding morning—like they were still teenagers. Like she loves him.
Belly, married to his brother. She’s legally his sister now, isn’t she? Conrad realizes that one late on his second night back, drunk and pathetically wondering if it would be insane to still think about her while he masturbates.
On the third morning, Conrad is laying on his couch staring at his ceiling, wondering if they’re on their honeymoon now. Were they going to go on a honeymoon? He can’t remember.
Agnes shows up at his apartment just after eight and barges in without knocking, per usual.
“You haven’t left your apartment in three days, man.”
He never should’ve started sharing his location with her.
“Phone’s been off.” He grumbles instead, reaching up to rub the sleep from his eyes with the heels of his palms. He can still feel her gaze on his cheek, shrewd and skeptical.
“Well, have you?”
No.
But he’s not going to give her the satisfaction of saying it out loud. It’s useless, anyway.
“Get up, Conrad.” Agnes mutters, and she’s already stalking down the hall into his bedroom, uninvited, to rustle through his belongings. Unbelievable. Thirty seconds later Conrad is hit in the face with a pair of his running shorts and socks, and Agnes is looming over him. “Dude, come on. You need to stop moping.”
They run a loop around campus together, and Agnes doesn’t ask him questions. She doesn’t even ramble about the clinic or Phil or their impending semester—completely out of character for her. They just run in silence. Conrad enjoys the fresh air and quiet company enough that, when she shows up again the next day, he gets up and dressed in his running clothes all on his own.
“Was there an open bar, at least?” Agnes jokes, halfway through their run, when the silence—save the sound of their matching feet on the pavement—is clearly starting to eat her alive. Conrad breathes a half-hearted laugh.
“Knowing my dad paid for it, I’m sure there was.” He feels Agnes’s eyes on him and shoots her a quick glance. His shoulder shrugs up, sheepish. “I didn’t stay for the wedding.”
“Wait, seriously? You bail on Garth to hang around there all summer, but you don’t have the balls to stay for the actual—”
“It wasn’t like that, Agnes, she… she asked me to leave.” Conrad grinds out, and when he glances back over at her, she’s wrinkling her nose.
“Kinda harsh, no?”
“No, I—” He shakes his head. Even now, his first instinct is to defend her. They hit an intersection and slow to a stop at the crosswalk, and Conrad really has no way to escape Agnes’s focused stare. He swallows and looks at the road in front of him. “I fucked up. I told her I still loved her, the—the weekend of the wedding.”
Agnes’s gasp is so loud it’s almost comical. “Jesus fuck, Conrad. When I said exposure therapy, I didn’t mean—”
“I know that! I knew that.” The crosswalk signal changes and they take off running again, their steps syncing up once more. It’s silent for a few paces, just the early morning sounds of Palo Alto—chirping birds, lawnmowers, the soft rumbles of car engines—and their heavy breathing. “He cheated on her. A few months ago. I found out, and I just—” Conrad shakes his head and tries to push back the raw anger he feels every time he remembers. “At first, I thought I could just tell her about it. But then… she already knew. And she didn’t even care. I was in so deep at that point and so frustrated I just figured, y’know, fuck it. Right?”
Conrad can’t help it when he lets out a bitter, breathless laugh. He’s not sure if talking about this is making him feel better or worse; he just knows that now that he’s started, he can’t stop.
“I spent all fucking summer playing house with her, taking her on wedding planning errands. We—she almost kissed me, did I tell you that? Barely two weeks before the wedding. And then everyone is outraged when I haven’t moved on. Agnes, I think I can’t move on.”
They’re rounding a corner into the home stretch now, just moments from their normal cool down spot. But Conrad’s adrenaline is suddenly pumping so hot he thinks he could run for another two hours.
“You wanna know what the most fucked up part is?” He laughs wryly. “She loves me too. I just… I know she does. I know that sounds crazy, but I—I learned how to read Belly a long time ago. I guess a part of me just thought…”
Agnes is slowing down now, her hands on her hips and her ponytail bobbing as she shakes her head.
“Conrad, that’s fucked up.” She breathes out, and Conrad even can’t open his mouth to defend himself before she keeps babbling. “Your brother gets with your ex—not just your first love but this girl you’re, like, obviously still helplessly in love with—and then they get engaged and what, expect you to be in the bridal party and plan the wedding? Fuck that, man. Fuck all of them.”
Conrad can’t help it when he starts laughing.
It’s not even remotely funny, Conrad’s entire predicament. He thinks he’s maybe lost every important person he had left in his life, save Agnes and maybe Laurel, if she isn’t too pissed about the mess he made of Belly’s wedding day. But laughing is at least better than crying.
* * *
The next afternoon, Conrad gets a call from Taylor Jewel, of all people.
He’s at the grocery store, mindlessly chucking Greek yogurts and hummus and apples into his cart. He’s been in medical school long enough to know he can’t continue to subsist on stale crackers, canned soup, and tequila. He doesn’t even check the caller ID before he answers on his airpods, feeling like the walking dead.
Honestly, he just figured it couldn’t be anyone but Agnes or Laurel.
“I thought you should know they called the wedding off.” Taylor tells him, her voice almost monotone. “You didn’t exactly leave things rosy over here, so I can’t imagine anyone’s given you a heads up yet.”
It knocks the wind out of him. Conrad’s in the middle of grabbing a carton of eggs and suddenly he has to lean his forehead against the glass door to catch his breath, too stunned to be embarrassed about being so publicly pathetic. The silence that follows is gaping. An entire lifetime passes in those three seconds. All he can think about is where she is and what she’s doing and how quickly he can get to her.
“How is she?” He finally breathes out, because he doesn’t know where else to start.
“She’ll be okay,” Taylor says, and her tone is decidedly softer. “She went to Paris.” He smiles at that. Of course she did. Fuck, he’s going to cry in the dairy aisle of this Whole Foods, isn’t he? A few seconds pass—just enough time for Conrad’s mind to start racing with possibilities—before Taylor speaks again. “But just… give her some time, Conrad. Last weekend was a lot for her, and I think she needs this.”
He swallows. He closes his eyes. He nods, and then he remembers Taylor can’t see him. “Yeah, of course. I will.” Before she can hang up, Conrad clears his throat. “Hey, Taylor? Thanks for calling.”
He can almost hear her roll her eyes over the phone.
“Yeah, whatever, Fisher.” Conrad thinks she might sound just a little bit tender—at least as much as Taylor Jewel can sound tender. “If you hurt her again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
* * *
A couple weeks later, Conrad calls Jeremiah.
He doesn’t expect him to answer, but he does. On the third ring, the dial tone clicks off and the line goes silent. Neither of them says anything for a second, and Conrad almost wonders if his brother answered on accident. But then Jere speaks.
“Call to rub it in, Con?”
Conrad flounders for a moment, unsure what to say to that or what he even called to say in the first place, before he sputters out, “Of course not.” He means it. But evidently his delayed response isn’t satisfactory to his little brother, who just scoffs.
“I thought I told you to never speak to me again.” Jeremiah says. His voice—the shakiness, the pitch, the underlying air of complete spite—makes him sound like Conrad remembers him at nine years old.
“Jere, I—”
“No, no, listen to me for a second.” Jeremiah cuts him off. “You’re my brother. You were supposed to—” Jeremiah slurs over his words, and Conrad realizes he must be drunk. No wonder he answered. “You were supposed to have my back. That’s what we promised each other, the summer after Mom died. We promised that we would always be there for each other, Con.”
He reminds himself to take deep breaths. It’s always like this, when Jeremiah gets angry and combative and Conrad has to be the responsible, level-headed older brother. It’s exhausting and enraging at the same time.
Conrad has never been the kind of person to say what’s on his mind—what’s really on his mind—if he thinks it might hurt someone. But that approach has brought him nothing but agony over the last ten years. He remembers how he felt the morning in his car, right after he told Belly he loved her. It was the same, out on that run with Agnes. He made the choice to sink into his feelings and idle there. He chose to be vulnerable. And it was exhilarating.
How many times had his therapist suggested that, and how many times had Conrad refused to listen?
But Jere is still talking.
“Belly was the one consistent thing in my life after Mom died. She was my whole fucking world, Con.” He says, and well, now Conrad is really fucking angry.
“Did you ever, for even one second, think about how I felt? Mom died, and then I found you making out with my ex-girlfriend on the hood of my car, barely a month after we broke up.” Conrad hisses. “I’ve always been in love with her, Jere. Since the moment I knew what that even meant. And you knew that. Fuck, you practically dragged it out of me.” He adds, and his short laugh is like bile in his throat. “You know, when Belly and I were together, I was always worried about hurting you. We both were. But you couldn’t even extend me the same courtesy.”
“It wasn’t… it wasn’t the same.” Jere says, and his voice is barely above a whisper.
“Wasn’t it, though?”
The line is quiet for a minute, and then he can hear the muffled sounds of his brother crying, and Conrad thinks making this phone call was perhaps one of the worst ideas he’s ever had.
He scrubs a hand down his face and sighs.
“Look, man, I just… I called to see if you were okay. To apologize. But I guess that was naïve, huh?”
Jeremiah is quiet on the other end of the line.
“I don’t know,” he finally whispers, sniffling, and Conrad isn’t sure what it’s a response to. But they both sit with it for a minute before they hang up. It’s almost—almost—bearable.
* * *
In September, Laurel tells Conrad on the phone that Belly moved into an apartment with three other girls in the Tenth Arrondissement. She bought an old film camera, apparently, and has been fiddling around with photography between the few classes she’s taking this fall. Conrad can see her there so perfectly—walking the Canal Saint-Martin, sunlit and smiling with her vintage camera hanging on a lanyard from her neck. He hopes she’s smiling. He hopes she’s travelling through Europe on the weekends and eating so many pastries her teeth rot. A tiny, selfish part of him hopes she’s thinking about him sometimes.
“How are you doing, Connie?” Laur asks, and it’s one of those times he almost feels his mom’s presence. “We miss you.” She adds, and Conrad doesn’t ask who she means.
“I’m alright,” he says instead, and their shared silence is so comfortable. “I feel like I need to apologize for the way everything happened this summer.” Conrad says suddenly. “To you, and to John.”
Laurel sighs. “You don’t need to apologize, kiddo.” A couple beats pass. Conrad is embarrassed when he feels tears welling in his eyes.
“I just feel like I’m always disappointing you guys. I guess I…” He wishes she was here to hug him, put her hand on his cheek. Laurel’s hugs are the one of his favorite things in the world. “I didn’t know what else to do, Laur.”
Conrad can hear Laurel take a deep breath on the other end of the line, and a slow sip of her latte. They’ve always loved talking like this—on Sunday mornings while they catch up over a cup of coffee. Maybe because it was how they both preferred to spend time with his mom.
“Ever since you and Belly were little, there’s been something so special between you.” Laurel murmurs. “You know, your mom was always pointing it out. The way Belly followed you around like a lost puppy and the way you looked after her. I gave her so much shit sometimes, but she was right about that. Beck knew you both so well.” She pauses again. “Conrad, please don’t ever apologize for how much you love my daughter.”
Conrad swallows around the lump in his throat.
“Did Jere or Belly ever tell you about… about his letter from Mom? She must have mixed up the envelopes or something. The one you gave me to bring to Jere that morning, the morning of the wedding… It was the letter she wrote for me.” He’s almost whispering, like it’s a secret. Like it’s sacred. Maybe, he thinks, it is. Laurel doesn’t say anything, so Conrad keeps talking. “I read it. It sounds pathetic, but I thought—well, Belly was marrying Jere, and what are the odds I get married to anyone after that, right?” Conrad wants to laugh, to brush his feelings off as a joke, but he stops himself. “In the letter she said how happy she was, that she got to see me in love. And being loved back.”
“Oh, Connie,” Laurel’s answering sigh is somewhere between doting and pitying. Neither of them seem to know what to say at that point, but when Conrad exhales like he’s thinking about changing the subject, Laurel speaks again. “You’re still young. You have so much time, kid.” Conrad makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. “And you know, I think if it’s right… if a love is really meant to be, two people can endure a lot. You just have to be patient, and you have to put the work in.”
“Are we still talking about me and Belly?” Conrad jokes, his eyes a little watery, and Laurel’s responding peal of laughter reminds him so much of her daughter it makes his chest hurt.
* * *
The second year of medical school is somehow better and worse than the first.
Conrad’s classes are more interesting—the kind that remind him why he wanted to be a doctor in the first place—and he’s finally found a daily routine that makes the constant grind reasonably manageable. There’s so much thrill in the notion that he can still do whatever he wants: oncology, surgery, emergency medicine. He spends a week shadowing in the ER, where he watches a resident deliver a baby, and it’s the craziest thing he’s ever seen. He almost calls Belly to tell her about it.
On the other hand, it’s Conrad’s eighteenth straight year of being in school, and the realization that he has so much further to go, well… he supposes that’s why they call it a marathon rather than a sprint. The Step 1 exam is constantly lurking in the distance, and he thinks he’s probably developing a caffeine addiction. On more than one occasion he doesn’t realize his shirt is on inside out until halfway through his morning lecture.
And honestly? Sometimes he just feels so fucking alone.
But he has Agnes, and their study group, and the guys he plays intramural football with. On better days Conrad thinks life is actually pretty decent.
Steven comes to visit in October. Conrad reached out with an invitation—a peace offering, really—and a promise to show him the best tacos and beaches he’s found in his four years out here.
It’s awkward, at first, remembering how to be close again. Childhood friends are funny, Conrad thinks; sometimes all that’s left to tie them together is a shared history. In Conrad and Steven’s case, that history is messy and painful and awkward. Mostly because of Conrad.
But they spend that entire first day on surfboards in Half Moon Bay, and Steven almost pees from laughing when Conrad wipes out on the first wave of the morning, and it’s like all the time that’s passed evaporates. Conrad shows Steven around Palo Alto, and introduces him to his football friends, and lets him tell Agnes the story about when Conrad got seasick on a deep-sea fishing trip fifteen years ago.
They don’t talk about Belly or Jere for the four days Steven is in town, and Conrad is glad.
In November, on Conrad’s birthday, he lets Agnes and Phil drag him to a rowdy bar on University Avenue, where they’ve managed to round up a dozen or so people to celebrate. There’s a mediocre DJ, and way too many undergrads, but Conrad drinks three too many beers and inexplicably ends up on the dance floor. He lets a random brunette girl kiss him against a grimy brick wall near the bathrooms, and when her hand skates over the front of his pants to find it hasn’t affected him at all, he swallows back the instinct to apologize. Eventually he stumbles away to throw up in the bathroom, and Agnes drags him home to put him to bed.
When he gets back to his apartment that night, a part of him is still waiting for a text from Belly.
But she doesn’t reach out, and he doesn’t blame her.
* * *
Conrad and his therapist are working on mindfulness.
Not just in the five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste sense.
No. Conrad is working on understanding what it feels like to go an entire day and not actively think about Isabel Conklin. He’s pretty conflicted about it, truthfully.
A part of him almost thinks its selfish; he destroyed her wedding, fucked up her life, begged him to be with her, and now… what, he’s going to stop thinking about her? He’s not going to live every day of his life like he’s a lonely planet and she’s the sun he’s longing to orbit? It’s what she deserves, after everything he’s put her through.
But another part of him thinks they both need this.
If he’s going to get another chance with Belly, he needs to do it right this time. It needs to be fresh, and healthy, and unburdened by everything they’ve been through before now. And he thinks—well, his therapist thinks, and Conrad agrees—that giving it a real try with Belly requires him to let her go. Just a little bit. Just enough to know he can live without her, if he needs to. Just so everything doesn’t feel quite so fucking existential.
It’s a big ask, he knows.
He understands, technically speaking, what he’s supposed to do: let his feelings run their natural course, sit with them, but don’t give in to the temptation to wallow or linger longer than necessary. Presence in his emotions, acceptance of those emotions without self-judgment, and permission to breathe through each moment and move forward. At least that’s what Ryan, his therapist, says.
“It’s just going to take time, Conrad,” Ryan tells him one morning.
“More or less than five years?” Conrad jokes dryly.
“It’s just like grief,” Ryan says. “You’re good at grieving.” Conrad snorts out a laugh in response, swallowing back the small voice that reminds himself: God, you’re fucked up.
“I’ll try,” he just mutters.
Truthfully, “mindfulness” for Conrad has sort of become a running list of all the times in a day he remembers something about Belly.
When he makes his mom’s chocolate pecan pie for Friendsgiving in November, he remembers the Thanksgiving they spent at his family’s old house in Boston. He remembers the silk of her hair between his fingertips and that soft white sweater.
When he walks past the beach volleyball nets during an unseasonably warm early-December day on Ocean Beach, he remembers the time he went to one of her high school volleyball games. He hadn’t told her he was going to show up; he just did, him and a bouquet of Gerber daisies and a bag of Sour Patch Kids.
When he’s sitting in a study group and someone plays Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, he remembers the time he went down on her in the backseat of his car, the one Valentine’s Day they spent together. If he closed his eyes he could probably still remember the feel of her hands in his hair and the taste of her on his tongue. He doesn’t. But he knows he could.
So, yeah. It’s safe to say the plan isn’t going perfectly.
* * *
Conrad goes back to Cousins for the first time in December.
It hurts about as much as he expected it to.
Jere is with their dad and Kayleigh in Whistler, Laurel and John are visiting Belly in Paris, and Conrad can’t bring himself to impose on Steven and Taylor’s Christmas with Lucinda. It’ll be fine, though. Not exactly a hardship, he thinks, to be stuck spending the holidays in one of the best places in the world.
It’s a white Christmas again, and yet another year where the house miraculously looks the same as he left it.
He hasn’t even taken his shoes all the way off when reality sets in: there’s no way for Conrad to be in this house at this time of year and not think endlessly about Isabel Conklin.
Mindfulness, though, right?
So Conrad lets his consciousness drift—to what he should make for dinner tonight, to the linen cabinet upstairs with the squeaky hinges he’s been meaning to fix, to the flashcards he promised Agnes he’d finish this weekend so they could keep adding to their Step 1 study stash, to Belly and him on the couch drinking cocoa. He builds a fire and lets himself remember what it felt like to be inside her for the first time, right here on the floor.
Conrad attempts to make his mom’s bouillabaisse for dinner on Christmas Eve—an unwinnable quest, really, but one he sets out on with an open mind and an open bottle of red wine. If there’s one thing Conrad’s learned in the last year, it’s that sometimes he can take a break from the dogged pursuit of perfection.
The bouillabaisse tastes nothing like Mom’s, but it’s delicious in its own right.
Then, on Christmas morning, Jeremiah calls. Conrad expects it to be both of them—Jere and their dad—when he answers, but it’s not. It’s just his little brother. And it’s the first time they’ve spoken since that late night phone call in August.
“Dad said you’re in Cousins.”
Conrad is drinking a cup of coffee in the sunroom, watching the snow flutter down outside, a half-completed crossword puzzle still sitting in his lap.
“I am.” Conrad wonders if they’re both thinking about it: the Christmas Conrad spent here last year that changed everything and nothing. “How’s Whistler? Powder good?”
Jeremiah tells him about the last two days of skiing, and they share an awkward chuckle when he tells a story about Kayleigh crashing on the bunny hill yesterday. And then Conrad tells him about his dinner last night, and suddenly they’re talking about the summer Mom accidentally made the bouillabaisse so spicy all four kids threw up. It almost feels normal.
“Hey, Steven said you’re taking some test in February?” Jere says, and Conrad almost groans at the reminder.
“Yeah, Step 1? It’s like, my first big medical board exam. I’ve always been good at tests but, I dunno, I’ve just never done one like this before. Agnes and I have been pretty intense about it all month.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll do great.” His brother says, and it sounds genuine.
“Thanks, man.” Conrad clears his throat. “I heard things are going well at Breaker. Dad said you’re the hot new commodity with all the partners.”
“He’s a fucking idiot,” Jeremiah immediately snorts, and they both laugh. It’s the first real, hearty laugh Conrad has shared with his brother in what feels like forever. Years, probably. “No, it’s… it’s fine. Steven and Denise have been talking about getting out of here for a while, though, and honestly, I’m tempted.”
“Good for you, dude.” Conrad smiles against the speaker, and he means it.
A second passes, and Conrad knows it’s coming. It’s the natural turning point in their conversation. And yet, when Jeremiah brings her up, Conrad’s still not ready.
“Hey, have you, uh, talked to Belly at all?”
Conrad’s heart is in his throat when he responds. “No, no, I’ve… I figured I’d give her some space. I did enough damage.” He laughs, weakly, and Jere is quiet at the other end of the phone.
“Conrad, we need to talk about it.” Conrad opens his mouth to respond, but not before Jere continues. “Not, like, now.” He laughs awkwardly, and Conrad’s lips quirk up, tight. “But I started going to therapy in September, and it’s made me realize that maybe we could… I don’t know, see someone together. And I don’t just mean about Belly. I mean everything, Con. After Mom died, I think something broke between us. And yeah, maybe Belly was part of it, but it’s so much more than that.” Conrad is silent, completely still. “I just want my big brother back.” Jere whispers.
“Yeah, I’d—” His voice comes out more hoarsely than he anticipated, and Conrad has to stop himself to clear his throat once. “I’d really like that.”
The snow is coming down hard now, outside the frosty windows of the summer house. For the first time in a long time, Conrad lets himself feel hopeful again.
“Hey, Con?” Jeremiah says after a second, and Conrad has to shake his head and blink back the glassiness in his eyes.
“Hmm?”
“Belly and I are good now.” Jere tells him, and for a second Conrad thinks he’s bragging or something. Like they’re still in this mysterious competition Jeremiah invented without telling him when they were in middle school, where the grand prize is Isabel Susannah Conklin. “I just mean—we’re talking. We’re trying to be friends again. Just friends. And I’ve told her this already, but I just need you to know too, okay? I don’t want to be the thing standing between you two for forever. It’s fucking heavy, man.”
Conrad’s not sure whether to attribute this moment to their mom, or to this house, or to Christmas magic, or to the fact that ultimately, his brother has a really good heart. But the why doesn’t matter. Conrad is just happy.
He spends the afternoon upstairs, trying to fix a blown radiator in Belly’s room so he doesn’t have to deal with ordering a new one, and then he has leftover bouillabaisse for dinner and watches Casablanca alone in front of the fire. He thinks he’s probably going to be eating leftover bouillabaisse all weekend, with how much he managed to make.
Conrad goes for a walk on the beach early the next morning, the snow crunching under his boots and icy water lapping at the sand. He thinks the scarf he’s wearing—the only one he could find, all skinny and misshapen and multicolored—is from Belly’s attempt at knitting some eight summers back. It’s stopped snowing now, but it’s still cold enough to see the breath in front of his face.
When he drives into town to pick up the good muffins, he lets himself wander down Main Street for a little while. It’s still so weird, being here in the winter; crowded enough, but with all the summer folks gone, it could be a whole different town. A part of him likes it. It’s nice, sometimes, to be anonymous here.
Conrad’s in a little vintage store across the street from the post office when he notices it: a small, empty picture frame made of blown glass. It’s that shade of blue that the ocean gets in the middle of a hot, sunny summer day, and it reminds him of Murano glass. He buys it without thinking, without looking at the price, and without wondering whether he should be buying her anything at all.
Back at the house, Conrad spends an hour wondering if he should’ve found something other than newspaper to wrap the glass frame in, and then another two wondering if it was a stupid impulse purchase.
But then he remembers how Belly looked at him last summer, when he’d finally told her how he felt, even when she didn’t know how to accept the words yet. And it’s suddenly so obvious to Conrad what she needs from him. What she’s always needed from him. He needs to keep showing up for her, to keep telling her he wants her, to keep proving he’s not the same teenager she knew five years ago.
Maybe there’s a kind of happy medium, Conrad reasons, between giving her up cold turkey and some relentless romantic pursuit.
He can start by sending her this frame and wishing her a Merry Christmas.
Ten minutes later, Conrad finds himself annoyed he didn’t keep that ugly stationary his great-aunt gave him for his birthday four years ago. As is, he’s left with the flimsy lined paper from his immunology notebook to write Belly a message.
On second thought, after he writes out six different versions—each slightly different in phrasing and tone, each completely wrong, and each unceremoniously crumpled and tossed into the fireplace in the living room—he thinks it’s probably good he’s not using expensive cardstock for this.
I found this and thought of you
From your Secret Santa
He almost starts having fun with it, writing horribly cheesy notes or stupid jokes he can’t believe he’s committing to paper, just to crinkle them up and toss them into the fireplace and watch them slowly shrivel up and disintegrate. At one point he even thinks about writing out everything he wants to say to her—all his deepest, most vulnerable, rawest desires, for her and for them—just so he can toss that into the fire, too.
But something about that idea feels pompous and even a little heartbreaking.
Eventually, Conrad settles on writing Belly a letter. A real one, that he can mail to her apartment in Paris along with her gift. Laurel gave him the address months ago, and it’s been sitting in his phone ever since.
Maybe, Conrad thinks, waiting for this moment.
Dear Belly,
I’m in Cousins for Christmas, and there’s so much snow here this year. The radiator in your bedroom burst, and I spent the better part of the afternoon listening to holiday music and fixing it. Do you remember that old radio we used to take down to the beach when we were kids? Yellow with a big white handle and that crazy long antenna? I found it when I was cleaning out some old boxes in the linen cabinet and miraculously, it still works. You always insisted on listening to Radio Disney while we built sandcastles, and I always let you because you could convince me to do just about anything. You still could.
Laurel said you’ve been to eleven countries since you left in August. She said you’ve been experimenting with film photography, and that you’re actually getting pretty good at it. I hope one of your favorite photos can find a home in this frame. I saw it at the vintage store on Main Street. It reminded me of the color of your bedroom walls in the summer house and that glass-blowing shop you were obsessed with as a kid. Have you been to Venice yet, in all your travels? It’s crowded, but the blown glass is amazing.
It's so strange to be here at this time of year without you. I hope it’s okay that I’m saying that. And Belly, I hope you still know that there’s always a place at this house for you. With or without any of us Fisher boys around.
Merry Christmas.
Love always,
Conrad
* * *
He stays in Cousins through New Year’s Eve. He watches the fireworks over the water alone, from the dock, wrapped up in a too-small coat he’s had since high school and drinking out of a thermos filled with hot cocoa. He thinks about how he wishes Belly were here with him, and then he thinks about how stupid it was to wait this long before reaching out to her. He thinks about all the mistakes he’s made with her, and then he thinks about how Ryan told him that lingering on his mistakes is how he winds up in his self-destructive bullshit spirals.
So when Conrad gets back to Palo Alto, he drives himself to a fancy paper store and buys stationary: a simple white set with a forest green border and an embossed letter C.
He decides to limit himself to one letter per month. It feels like the right amount: enough to remind her that he’s still waiting for her, if she’ll have him, but not so much she can’t ignore him if she wants to.
It’s hard, though—because much like last summer in Cousins, once Conrad has started acting on how he feels about Belly, he can’t find it in himself to stop. So sometimes, he lets himself write a second or third letter. He doesn’t send those ones. He just keeps them in a little acrylic tray atop his dresser, nonchalant and in plain sight like guts in an ice bucket beside the operating table.
Maybe one day he’ll give them to her, he thinks. Or maybe one day he’ll burn them. Up to her, really.