Chapter Text
All roads lead to you, even those I took to forget you.
-Mahmoud Darwish
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Belly smiles when she catches sight of the Entering Cousins Beach sign, faded but stark against the surrounding greenery. It passes in a blur, shrinking from view as the car she's traveling in speeds ahead. She rolls down the window in anticipation, letting the air all salt-tinged and heavy with the crisp scent of ocean, spill over her fingers. She laughs, reaching into the breeze as if it could pull her home.
Jeremiah takes her other hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, anchoring her to him. Their eyes meet for a moment, her smile bright, before his gaze returns to the road while hers falls to the side.
In the reflection of the red Jeep's passenger window, she notices her eyes are watery. She doesn't stop to wonder why.
It's late when they arrive, probably sometime past midnight by the way exhaustion presses against them. They don't even bother dragging their luggage upstairs, collapsing onto the living room's couch instead.
It doesn't matter to Belly anyway. She's just glad to be here with Jeremiah. In two days, he'll be back in Boston. Five business days will stretch between them until the weekend, when he returns to Cousins. Then the cycle will begin all over again the following Monday, until it ends in three months.
She understands. It's for his internship with his dad—perhaps unnecessary, yet undeniably important; equal parts solid experience to polish his resume with and punishment for prolonging his education longer than necessary. Still, she understands; Adam can be difficult, he's always been.
Just like how she understands her mother. Laurel has always been sharp-edged, carved from practicality and steadfastness, but lately she's been hesitant, colder, towards Belly for reasons her daughter can't seem to grasp. It aches deeply. This widening gulf between them, each day stretching it further, cracked open and heavy. Belly longs to bridge it, to mend what's fractured, but she doesn't even know where to begin.
(Even shared dinners, movie nights, wandering through bookstores together—all nostalgic threads of lighter times—cannot soften the barbed tension between them. The fire that lingers there, simmering under her mother's sharp angles, leaves Belly unsure. Did she ignite it, or was it always burning beneath the surface?
She doesn't know, but she is aware of one thing: her mother is hurting.)
She knows it hurts Jeremiah too, this unspoken conflict between her and her mom that refuses to relent. It's why she's recovering from her surgery in Cousins rather than her mom's house. To minimize interactions between the three of them and to stay out of Laurel's heavy gaze. Besides, she knows she'd just be another worry for her mother, whose attention is already strained by Steven's car accident.
Her surgery was nothing compared to his anyway. While her brother's was life-altering, a long road to recovery ahead of him, hers was just to fix a minor issue with her eyes—so small she can barely remember what it was for. Preventive care, probably, or something akin to that, she assumes.
Healing should be quick, she thinks. She doesn't even strain her eyes when Jeremiah flicks on the TV. Bilbo Baggins kills a spider in a burst of movement and courage, and Jere quickly switches the channel to something calmer, a documentary on the history of Italy.
He rests his head on her lap as she tucks her legs deeper into the couch. The low hum of the air conditioner fills the empty spaces the quiet narration leaves behind, the sounds swelling together like a tide crawling across the shoreline.
Sleep drags her under in less than twenty minutes.
That night, she dreams of a red dragon setting ablaze a town perched on a long stretch of glittering water. Dark brown wooden pillars and pointed arched rooftops flare into flames. Smoke stings her eyes, spills into her lungs, choking her; challenging her to look away but she can't. Helplessness and horror, red-hot like the wild fire raging below her, burn into the hollow of her chest.
She wants to help, to reach the fleeing crowd, but from her vantage on the hill, she knows time has already slipped away. Still, she runs with burning lungs, each step heavier than the last; every motion a desperate push against the impossibility ahead.
The fire rages on, burning everything into blackened ash. The town is in ruins.
If sleep pulled her under like a violent undercurrent, dragging her down until she was devoured by darkness, then waking is like a swell rolling across an endless sea, steady and deliberate, lifting her consciousness inch by inch until she surfaces.
It takes a few moments for her vision to clear. She can tell it's relatively early by the pale light that paints the walls. Jeremiah is still fast asleep, his head resting against her stomach. She takes this quiet moment to scan the room.
It looks the same as she last remembered and she smiles softly in silent relief. Even with Jere gone for most of the summer, she can find solace in the familiar corners of the house. Maybe she'll do some gardening, learn to bake, get her ass back into shape and take up running—
A soft creak of a floorboard pulls her from her thoughts, and she immediately turns toward the source of the sound.
It's a man—probably somewhere in his mid-twenties by the looks of his refined jawline and tidy workout clothes. He's too far for details, but close enough that she sees his eyes go wide immediately. She frowns, uncertain why anyone would be in Jere's house this early.
"Belly?" he calls out to her and her brow pinches tight in confusion. How does he know her name? Is he a friend of Jere's? An employee of Adam's sent to drag his son back to corporate hell?
She doesn't respond, but he heads toward her anyway, closing the gap between them quickly.
His hands are the first thing she notices—large, with long fingers shaped with a kind of deliberate artistry. There's a precision to them, she thinks, in the way they might move, in the way they might touch. Her stomach coils at the thought, but she's unable to look away until the warm weight beside her shifts.
Jeremiah sits upright on the couch. A jolt of something sharp, like a knife of panic, cuts across his features before he clears his throat, settling into a mask of calm that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"Conrad," he greets very quietly, voice taut, "this... this is Belly." He pauses, his jaw locking at a stiff angle. "My girlfriend."
Conrad, the tall man standing before her with careful hands she imagines are both soft and callused at the same time, immediately looks like he's been punched in the gut.
A small chime signals her arrival as Belly steps into the bakery. The sweet smell of pastries and bread greets her, twisting her stomach in an unexpected way. Which is a bit weird, she thinks, because she normally has a huge sweet tooth. Still the unease clings to her, and she knows it has nothing to do with the pastries in the window.
After meeting Conrad, Jeremiah's elusive older brother, Jere had asked her to grab some of her favorite muffins from a nearby store—a small treat to celebrate her and Conrad's first meeting and the Fisher brothers' unexpected reunion. She agrees quickly, offering an easy smile and a fleeting kiss on her boyfriend's cheek before heading out and away from the building tension.
As she browses the displayed baked goods, she wonders if Jere had even told Conrad about her long term stay at the summer house.
It is, after all, technically both their home, and not really hers at all—
(It doesn't matter that she has her own room in that beloved house. It doesn't matter that Jere's mother, Susannah—sweet, radiant Susannah; like gilded sunlight molded into flesh—insisted on saving the space just for her, like a promise of belonging. It doesn't matter that Conrad never spent any time there, always away at athletic programs or summer camps, preoccupied with his own life and studies.
Because, in the end, it's Conrad's name that's written on the deed of the house, maybe even eventually the mortgage, whenever Adam decides to change his permanent address on his taxes.)
—So of course, he has every right to be upset that she's occupying the house without his permission.
Her chest tightens at the thought of him asking her to leave. The possibility burrows deep, barbed and heavy. She knows Jere wouldn't allow it, of course he wouldn't. He'd fight for her, just as he had with Adam when his father refused to house her under the guise of limited space in his luxury Boston apartment, and just as he had quietly, but determinedly, tried to quell the anger that rattles on her mother's shoulders.
She knows she probably shouldn't assume the worst about Conrad either; she barely knows him beyond the snippets Jere shares.
(He's in med school, excels at every sport Jeremiah struggles in, and rarely keeps in touch. Which is strange, Belly thinks, given how devastating she heard Susannah's death was for both boys. She wishes she could've made that funeral—she had a terrible flu that day and cried for hours alone in her bed.)
Still, the thought of him demanding she leave lingers; aching, consuming.
"Miss, did you want anything else?" The cashier's voice cuts through Belly's thoughts. She looks up, startled. The woman behind the register smiles. "Perhaps the dirt bombs? I saw you eying them."
"Oh, no thank you, these should be enough," she replies with a polite grin.
The cashier rings up her order, and Belly collects the box of blueberry muffins and strawberry turnovers before heading back to the summer house.
Her bags, to her surprise, have been taken upstairs by the time she returns. Relief washes over her, believing this must be a good sign, solidifying her stay.
Conrad, to her even greater surprise, is still in the house as well.
Years ago, in passing Jere had mentioned his brother has a habit of complete avoidance when things get difficult. She figured her unannounced stay would fit somewhere within that category, assuming it would be proven, at the very least, uncomfortable sharing the house with someone he considers a stranger.
After setting the baked goods on the kitchen island, she grabs the room's trash bag and steps outside with the intent to discard it. She stops when she hears muffled, heated voices drift from the garage. Fragments of an argument slip through the slightly cracked door, and she strains to catch what she can.
"—didn't know you'd be here this week."
"I'm here all summer, Jere." Conrad sounds furious by the way he spits out his brother's name, sharp and acidic. "I told you I don't care if she's here too but what the fuck is wrong with—"
"—didn't let it fucking happen!" She hears Jeremiah snarl back. "I tried to—"
"—you know there's no long term—"
"—I swear, you can ask Taylor—"
"—yeah right—" Conrad huffs out a scoff, mean and jagged. Belly can tell it ignites something as equally dark and unbecoming in Jere.
"—know what? Fuck you. I don't even know why I'm—"
Anxiety coils in her chest, tightening with every muffled word. She doesn't know what they're fighting about but she knows, somehow, she's involved.
Part of her wants to storm in, throw open the door, and tell Conrad to fuck off. Fuck off for being cruel to Jeremiah, which means, by extension, cruel to her. To remind him he has no clue what they've weathered this past week—the constant friction with their parents, her brother Steven, and even Taylor, whose steady light has dimmed against her own, as if she sees something Belly doesn't. Their once-easy conversations now feel clipped, every pause a drumbeat of a truth Belly can't reach and only Taylor carries.
But instead, she backs away, clutching the trash bag like a lifeline, and waits in the kitchen until footsteps eventually echo down the hallway. Relief floods her when it's Jeremiah. His face is tight, lips pressed into a thin line, probably masking the anger still simmering in his chest, but his eyes soften when they meet hers and he immediately mirrors her shaky smile.
"Hey, Bells."
"I was just looking for you! Got us some treats," she says, nodding toward the boxed pastries before lightly shaking the bag in her hand. "I'm gonna take the trash out. Could you replace the bag?"
"Sorry, was just cleaning up the garage. Let me handle the trash. It's still a little messy in there," he offers, taking it from her.
She nods, keeping her small smile. When Jere rounds the corner and disappears, a jagged breath rips from her lungs, sharp and sudden. She doesn't let herself wonder why it rose at all.
(She doesn't see Conrad for the rest of the night. Which is fine, really. She and Jeremiah queue up a B-rated horror movie on the projector outside, tossing popcorn at each other as they snicker at the bad acting and blood that looks more like ketchup than gore. They eat dinner on the couch, feet tangled, the warmth between them easy and familiar. Neither bothers to clean up afterward, promising they'll deal with the mess in the morning before Jere leaves back to Boston.
When she wakes later that night and pads downstairs in search of a glass of water, she notices all their abandoned containers and utensils have already been cleared and thrown away.)
She finally sees—rather, nearly collides into—Conrad the next morning.
It's early when she wakes in a panic again, the remnants of her dream still clinging to her skin. The dragon and the fire have returned, still violent; always consuming, but this time the beast falls. A single arrow pierces its chest and its dying cry splinters through the dark, tearing her from her sleep.
She showers to chase her nightmare away, scrubbing until the steam turns the bathroom mirror opaque. When she steps out, hair dripping, still caught somewhere between dreaming and waking, she almost runs straight into Conrad in the narrow hallway.
He shifts at the last second, body angling away to keep from touching her.
"Morning," she greets him to which he simply nods, already retreating into the bathroom.
She notices his eyes look glassy, a little red at the rims, but she knows she has absolutely no business to even question her observation.
(Not that she has the time to dwell on it anyway. Her phone rings, loud and insistent, suddenly dragging her out of the moment. She fumbles to answer it, breath catching as she hears her mother's voice on the other end. She hadn't expected to speak with her for a while, not after how their last conversation went before she left for Cousins. Something in her chest loosens at the sound of her mother's greeting, a quiet warmth spreading through her.)
Conrad and Belly are a bit like ghosts inhabiting the same house, haunting its hallways in separate shifts. Or maybe, more accurately, they're like planets orbiting the same sun, always moving in opposite rotations.
When she's occupying the summer home doing laundry, fixing up the garden, taking a night swim, Conrad is always elsewhere, running errands in town or buried behind the spines of his medical textbooks. And when he decides to move his studying from his room to the kitchen island, or to check a loose sprinkler head outside, or trace the house's electrical conduits inside, Belly feels obligated to disappear to the beach or catches up on the list of book recommendations sitting mostly untouched in her Kindle library.
It shouldn't bother her, she knows. They're nearly strangers, after all, so of course he wouldn't want to spend time with her. They have nothing to talk about, have nothing in common, with the exception of Jeremiah and Adam.
Still, the quiet of the house settles uncomfortably into her bones. It used to be filled with noise—by her mother and Susannah's laughter echoing from the kitchen; the wild energy of herself, Jeremiah, and Steven racing through the halls, always planning the next beach day, swim, pier outing, party.
Now the silence almost feels like another living thing occupying the space with her and Conrad.
She sighs, counting down the days until the weekend. It's only Wednesday; only the first week of her stay. Maybe by early July, she tells herself, she and Jere will have signed a lease for an apartment near Finch. At least then she can occupy her mind with color palettes and floor plans instead of this house that feels too large, too empty.
For now, no such luck. Instead, she rereads her post-op care instructions for the thirtieth time, as if the words might shift when she isn't looking.
"Hey."
His voice reaches her before he does. She startles, glancing over her shoulder to see Conrad in the archway. It's almost jarring—his presence; his decision to occupy the same space as her.
"Oh. Hi." She forces casualness into her tone, even as her stomach drops at the sight of the heavy frown curving his mouth downward. Her eyes dart to the digital clock on the oven. The neon numbers read 1:32. She looks back. "Lunch break?"
"Something like that," he says quietly, crossing the room for a glass of water. Belly keeps herself still, resisting the urge to shrink or move, as if to tell him: I'm here too, you know. And I'm not leaving.
But Conrad doesn't seem to mind or really even notice. He leans closer instead, peering over her shoulder, the scowl on his face deepening. She becomes acutely aware of him within this close proximity, every movement of his body magnified. Her ears strain to catch the shallow pull of his breath, her skin prickling where his warmth accidentally brushes against.
His lips move faintly and she realizes he's reading the instructions beneath her. She swallows hard, her voice tight when it finally comes. "Easy after care."
She winces at the phrasing, heat rising to her cheeks, but keeps going. "I mean... not much to follow. No straining my eyes, drink lots of water, call my doctor if I have any, like, headaches or feel dizzy. Pretty standard."
"Mhm," he murmurs, still close, still studying the paperwork with sharp eyes. "What was it for? The surgery."
When she hesitates to answer, he shrugs lightly. "Just curious. Pre-med student, if you didn't know."
"Oh, I know," she says too easily, teasing; familiar—the wrong kind of familiarity for how little she knows him. Only four days, she reminds herself, you've only know him for four days. Technically less.
She clears her throat and he straightens, leaning back just enough, careful now. "Uh, I mean, Jere's told me. I'm impressed. Honestly."
"Thanks," he mutters and pauses, looking at her expectedly, creating space for her to answer his earlier inquiry about the nature of her surgery.
But she isn't interested in whatever quiet power play this is—like he's finally got time to be interested in her life when he's ignored her since her arrival, expecting her to jump at a chance of a conversation with him. She closes the folder, the medical instructions slipping out of sight like a secret. "Don't mention it. I'm going for a swim. Want to join?"
"Can't," he says, just as she knew he would. "But thanks."
"Sure," she says, forcing a smile, but he's already gone, disappearing down the hall, leaving her with the sudden echo of his absence.
Jeremiah visits her that following weekend, but can't come next Saturday and probably won't be able to make it out for the following one, either. Long hours, showing face to Adam's partners, and endless cycles of analyzing, re-analyzing, and then double-triple-checking documents, reports, and presentations over and over again, pull Jere's time and space elsewhere, away from Belly.
Her eyes sting when he tells her over the phone that he'll make it up to her. That her birthday's coming up in a few weeks, and of course Adam wouldn't be that much of a dick to keep his son from seeing his girlfriend. They'll celebrate with a nice dinner, a movie marathon of her choice, and the best cake from his favorite bakery in Cousins.
She thinks she should probably tell him she'd rather have cupcakes. But instead, she wipes her eyes and says she can't wait.
After their last run-in, Belly and Conrad continue to revolve around the house in quiet symmetry—always near, but never quite reachable. Their paths seem to move like spectral lines in the night, brushing only through absence and the faint trace of things left behind.
In the early daylight, long after Conrad's set off on his morning run, Belly always finds a half pot of brewed coffee waiting to ease her caffeine craving. She never asks why, never lingers on the thought that it might be a quiet apology for their last conversation.
(If it is, she accepts it in kind and responds with her own token of quiet appreciation.)
Some afternoons, when Conrad is buried beneath the weight of medical terms and anatomical diagrams, eyes devouring text like scripture, she makes him a plate of snacks—assorted nuts, a piece of fruit from the kitchen bowl, the occasional bag of baked chips—and leaves it outside his bedroom door. When she returns from whatever small distraction she's given herself, the plate is gone. By morning, it's washed, dried, and waiting in its place in the kitchen cabinet again.
Existing with him, she realizes, isn't hard at all. If anything, it feels almost effortless. They move around each other with a quiet intuition, a rhythm that doesn't need to be learned. There's rarely any overlap, just the faint hum of awareness as they pass through the same spaces, as if the house itself knows to keep them in orbit.
Maybe someday their paths will align. Maybe instead of him leaving extra coffee behind, they'll share a cup after his run, the steam curling between them in easy conversation. Maybe instead of her preparing separate snacks, they'll linger at the kitchen island together, working through the last of the chip stash as the late afternoon light spills gold across the room, before he drifts back to his studies.
(She knows she shouldn't be thinking about any of this—about him, her boyfriend's brother, remember?—but the thought lingers anyway, soft and stubborn as a healed scar that refuses to fade.)
By her third week in Cousins, she decides to try something different—tired of waiting for the cosmos to pull their paths onto the same line.
It's Tuesday and she's grown restless (and, admittedly, a little desperate) from the quiet of the house and lack of human interaction beyond FaceTime calls with her parents, Jere, and Taylor.
Conrad has just returned from his morning run. As he slips off his sneakers, preparing to head upstairs, she descends halfway down the staircase. He blinks a few times, like he's surprised by her presence despite weeks of them cohabitating the same house, but still manages a polite smile as she approaches him.
"Hey!" She tries for enthusiasm, internally cringing at the volume of her voice. "I was just looking for you."
The corner of his lips quirk briefly before retreating. He arches an eyebrow. "Really?" He glances at his watch. "At seven twenty-eight in the morning?"
She rolls her eyes before she can help herself. Oops. Now he probably knows she's annoyed by his remark. She still presses forth. "Uh, yeah. I was wondering if you were planning on heading into town today?"
He pauses, mulling over her question. It's a bit of a trap, if Belly's going to be honest with herself, and she can tell he somehow knows this too, by the way he takes his time to consider his answer. She keeps her face neutral, refusing to betray her intent.
Finally, he settles on: "maybe."
She smiles. She can work with maybe.
"Great! Could I hitch a ride with you?"
Something flickers across his face, there and gone before she can process it. She probably shouldn't want to, either.
"You, uh, don't want the car for yourself?" He replies and she tries not to deflate.
"Well, um, under normal circumstances, sure. But I left my driver's license back in Philly so..."
He actually smiles, a faint, amused curve, before he asks, "Laurel or Steven can't mail it to you?"
It disappears when she winces at his suggestion.
She tries not to think too much about it, but heat licks at her chest at the casual mention of her brother and mother's names—from Conrad, of all people. It's as if he's tossed them into the conversation without thought, with a familiarity she doesn't understand. (So he knows them somehow, but not her? When could he have had the time, with his childhood summers always spent elsewhere, to form any bridge to them? To even earn the right to mention them?)
Because, sure, while things seemed to have simmered down between her and her mom, Steven remains distant for reasons she can't pinpoint. Maybe it's his job at Adam's—she'd overheard him mention possibly jumping ship when the time was right, so perhaps he wanted to keep Jere and her at arm's length to ensure nothing leaked back to Jere's dad.
Regardless, she hadn't even considered asking her mom or Steven to mail her the driver's license she'd left behind somewhere on her messy desk. The thought felt impossible, weighed down by the tension that had settled between her and them over the past month.
She knows something ugly twists at her face now.
"Never mind," she says curtly. "Just forget it."
She continues down the stairs, eyes fixed determinedly elsewhere, maneuvering around him before heading straight for the kitchen.
She tears open the last strawberry Pop-Tart, chewing with sharp frustration as she silently chastises herself for asking him for anything in the first place.
It shouldn't sting this much, she knows. But a small, foolish part of her had hoped the leftover coffee and eaten snacks meant something more than courtesy. That maybe, slowly, they'd been building some kind of quiet friendship out of echoes and small, shared habits. But it's clear now that to him, it was nothing more than politeness—something ingrained within him, a simple habit he must've inherited from his mother. The thought only makes her feel worse.
To her surprise, Conrad rounds the corner a few minutes later, finding her still stewing over her Pop-Tart. She straightens instinctively, bracing herself for another blow to her ego. Instead, he hesitates at the archway, shifting slightly under her gaze, looking almost uncomfortable.
"Belly, I'm—uh, I'm sorry," he says with a frown. He pauses, running a hand through his hair, damp from his morning run. He's still a little sweaty too, she notices, and ignores the way her throat feels slightly dry at the realization.
"It's fine," she says through a mouthful of gooey strawberry filling. "I'll just go to the beach or something. Sorry I asked."
Conrad takes a moment to swallow slowly, hand flexing briefly. He leans forward, then back on the balls of his feet.
He's contemplating something, she thinks as she takes another bite out of her Pop-Tart, eyes still trained on his face (and not his wet bangs, pushed to the side, curling slightly near his ears.)
"Oh," he says a bit lamely, "I—sure, I bet the beach will be nice."
He hesitates; blinks once, twice, and then: "If... If you still want to, um, hitch a ride with me today or—uh, or even tomorrow, just... Just let me know."
They head into town the next day.
Belly's so astonished that Conrad's actually agreed to this, she almost texts Jere about it. Almost tells him she's somehow cracked the supposedly unbreakable code of Conrad Fisher. In the end though, she doesn't, knowing her explanation of the rather bizarre combination of ambushing him right after his morning run, a minor spat between them, and eating the last Pop-Tart as the secret key would be far too complicated.
At first, he agrees to drop her off at the pier while he runs errands (why he needs more paint and tools when she saw him bring home a few bags of each last week, she isn't sure). But somehow, between the house and the pier, their conversation shifting mostly between whose high score still reigns in the town's only arcade, he ends up parking his car and getting out with her.
He's smug as the letters CBF blink back at her on the retro Pac-Man machine, the screen flickering between gameplay and high scores. It takes her a few tries, but eventually she beats his score and types FCF when prompted to claim her victory on the digital leaderboard.
He eyes the letters for a moment, trying to decipher the initials until eventually meeting her gaze and laughs, actually laughs, when she mouths: "Fuck Conrad Fisher" all discreet because children are nearby.
—
(She hears herself echoing the same unrestrained, delighted laugh an hour later, as they crouch behind barriers in the laser tag arena, beams of light cutting through the darkness. During the chaos, she manages to trip him just enough to send him sprawling into the open space, leaving him vulnerable to a barrage of incoming shots from other players.)
—
"So, how'd you do it?" she asks him as they walk down the wooden pier, ice cream cups in hand.
He takes a small, careful bite. "Do what?"
"Get that high of a score," she says in between mouthfuls of her ice cream. "Took me, Jere, and Steven, like, four summers to even reach 10th place."
Something shifts in the air, subtle but sharp, and Belly's skin prickles. She's too startled to ask Conrad if he feels it too—which, of course, is ridiculous to even wonder. Of course he doesn't.
Instead, she tries a stab at levity: "Is this where you've been running off to when you say you're 'running errands'?"
Conrad clears his throat before tossing his cup, still half-full, into a nearby trash can. He can't quite look at her in the eyes when he answers. "Um, I'd drop by here during the holidays sometimes."
She nods, wants to tell him good strategy coming during a time where tourists and their children rarely crowd the machines, but the words stay stuck on her tongue. Heavy and strange tasting.
Steven overnights her license, and she has it in hand by Thursday. She texts him a quick thank-you; his reply is curt, almost indifferent: don't mention it.
She waits for him to ask her how she's doing—or, at the very least, to pass along a "hi" to Conrad, since Conrad seems to know him casually enough.
No such text ever comes.
As expected, Jeremiah can't make it up to Cousins this weekend, explaining it's so he can tie up all his projects' loose ends and give her his full, undivided attention next weekend for her birthday.
Belly uses the time to prepare. In the days leading up to the celebration, she cleans the pool and Jeremiah's room, makes a list of his favorite snacks, and browses Pinterest for chic outfit ideas for the promised day.
When she approaches Conrad mid-week with the inquiry to borrow his car, he quirks an eyebrow at her before she waves her license in front of him. He gazes at it for a brief moment before he gives her a small smile.
His lips curve slightly higher on the left side than the right, she notices, and she fumbles to catch his car keys when he tosses them over to her.
A few hours later, when she returns, he helps her unload her bags and as a thank-you for letting her use his car, she insists he try the fried chicken sandwiches she's cooked for dinner on the stove that night.
She laughs silently into her sandwich when she sees him trying to subtly google its nutrients and recommended portion size as they eat on opposite sides of the room—him at the kitchen island, and her at its grand oak table.
He finds her later that night submerged within the pool, floating beneath the moon's silver gaze. Light fractures across the water, streaking the pool in pale, liquid ribbons.
When she breaks to the surface for air, he's holding up a glass and rattles it within his grasp, ice cubes clinking together as the liquid sloshes between them. She tries not to flush under his stare.
"Shouldn't you wait 30 minutes before you swim?" he asks her before plopping down on the edge of the pool, dipping his legs in.
"That's eating," she tells him before swimming up to the side and holds out her hand, signaling for her drink.
He takes a short whiff of it and lightly coughs as the sharp aroma of tequila slices through his airways. He hands it over to her after his inspection, asking, "you trying to grow hair on your chest or something?"
"It has sprite in it," she rolls her eyes before taking a sip. She refrains herself from pursing her lips, refusing to indicate her accidental heavy pour.
But who cares, she tells herself. It's just a couple of days before Jere gets in; a couple of days before her birthday. In the meantime, she's allowed to drink here, in this borrowed sanctuary, where the air tastes of salt and something endlessly familiar.
"Sure," he smirks at her, his fingers absentmindedly tracing lazy ripples across the pool.
Her gaze is a bit hazy from the alcohol and chlorinated water as she watches his hand glide along the surface. She swallows thickly, forcing herself to focus elsewhere, casually setting her now-empty glass on the side of the pool.
"You, uh, want another?" He asks her unexpectedly and her gaze flickers to him. For a fleeting moment, they both appear surprised by his offer, but he quickly smooths over his features, flattening the tension in his face. "Almost your birthday, right?"
"Only if you get yourself a glass," she replies like she's on autopilot, like drinking with her boyfriend's brother she's just met this month is a totally casual, typical thing to do.
But maybe it does fall under the totally-normal-not-weird category because Conrad just says, "did you see any whisky in the cabinet?"
By some unspoken pull, they return to the same place the next night.
It's Friday, she blearily realizes as she floats on her back, eyes tracing the inky sprawl of the sky above where stars scatter through like salt across velvet.
Tomorrow, she reminds herself, Jeremiah will finally be here. He'll head out to Cousins once he wakes, and they'll celebrate her birthday and talk about which apartments they'll tour, the clients he hates most, the plans she and Taylor will make once her best friend's back from her internship in New York.
For now, she drifts in the pool's quiet blue, caught between the moonlight rippling across the surface and the warmth of alcohol spreading through her body. Tonight, the tequila doesn't feel heavy like a stone, but light, airy, like buoyancy.
"It's nice you're taking a break," she says, fully submerging for a moment before pushing herself up to sit on the pool's edge. She rubs the water from her eyes and finds Conrad watching her a few feet away.
He's on the deeper end, perched on the side like the night before, though this time his fingers loosely clutch a rocks glass almost empty of its liquid amber contents. He brings the rim to his lips and takes a sip. Belly looks away when the edge presses against his wet mouth.
"A break," he repeats quietly, eyes settling on the glass in his hand.
"Well, if studying eight hours a day counts as, like, a break," she corrects herself, her tone light; teasing. His gaze draws toward her again, brow creasing. "What? You think I don't notice when you're in one of your zombie studying zones? You know, rummaging through cabinets for snacks, mumbling medical terms, chewing with your mouth open while you groan about, like, anatomy or whatever."
He grins, just barely, and dips his hand into the water, tossing a small splash toward her. When she yelps, half laughing, half scolding him for almost hitting her drink, he exhales a laugh of his own. It escapes him hollowly, like something that's forgotten how to sound full.
"I'm not really... taking a break," he says after a moment, voice low. His fingers tighten around his glass before loosening again. "I had a job, but I—uh, I got fired."
"Conrad—" she starts, but he's already shaking his head.
"I was distracted." He lets out a sigh, a deep and suffering sound. "From—well, it doesn't matter. I fucked up. So my boss fired me. Rightfully so."
"Their loss," she tells him boldly and when his face moves to make a scowl, she presses: "Seriously. You'll be winning medical awards in a few years, shaking hands, kissing babies on TV, and they'll think, damn, he could've put us on his resume."
"Oh yeah," he says dryly, "just what a hospital needs, a non-pediatric doctor kissing babies."
"You know what I mean," she kicks her leg lightly, scattering water in his direction. "But I am sorry. Getting fired sucks."
He shrugs half-heartedly, taking another sip from his drink. "Yeah, I'm lucky I..." He hesitates again, mulling over something before pushing ahead, "I uh, have a therapist. He's helped a lot. I had these, um, bad panic attacks after..."
She nods, the water stilling around her. He doesn't need to clarify.
"...and yeah. It helps. With that; with her."
"I'm sorry," Belly says very softly, her voice almost lost to the surrounding harmonious, low hum of crickets chirping, "about Susannah. She was..."
She pauses, drawing in a slow, shaky breath before continuing. "She was radiant. She made every summer here feel... magical, you know?"
"Yeah," Conrad says after a beat, voice quiet as dusk. "I know."
Her lips curve faintly, shaped by memory and the sour ache of nostalgia. She glances toward him to find him still watching her. His gaze is steady, weighted, like he's seeing something she can't. It makes her feel braver than she should, braver than the tequila ever could, at least.
"I'm sorry," she says again, the words slipping out before she can stop them.
He blinks, tilting his head a bit to the side, leaving space for her to continue.
"I mean—about not going to the funeral," she clarifies, her voice thinning. "I, um, think about it sometimes. I wish I hadn't been so sick that day."
We would've met there, she wants to add, maybe we'd be friends by now. Maybe we'd have inside jokes that annoy Jere; maybe you'd mention my name casually just like you do with Steven's or my mom's.
And she almost does—but then, Conrad swallows thickly, the motion visible even in the dim light, before his gaze drops away. His expression shutters close, slow and final, and she feels her courage ebb, retreating as quietly as the tide.
"It's okay." He says, signaling the end to their conversation.
Belly’s chest tightens, feeling disappointed. She assumes this is his cue to retreat and sees the faint movement of his hand flexing, maybe bracing to stand.
Instead, there's a long stretch of silence, and then: "Hey Belly?"
She nods once, eyes fixed on him, waiting.
"Do you... would you mind telling me some of your favorite memories of her? Of my mom?"
A small, careful smile traces Belly’s lips. She lifts her drink for a slow sip, before setting it down deliberately, ready to unfold her stories of all the unparalleled summers spent with the ethereal Susannah Fisher.
Her dreams of mystical creatures and blazing fires return. This time, though, the dragon is vanquished, its massive form crushing the town beneath it. Smoke and ash darken the water below, swallowing fragments of its scorched body.
Belly knows she's too late the moment she reaches the town. Grief and loss hang heavy in the air, oppressive, suffocating.
She threads through the injured, trying to help, weaving between people twisted in panic and pain, until her eyes catch him—tall, impossibly still, his back turned. Without reason, without doubt, she knows he's the one who slayed the dragon.
She reaches out toward him but the crowd distorts, elongates, flesh and shadow pressing between them, swallowing her hands before they can touch him. The air buzzes with the memory of flame, and the town twists further into something unrecognizable, half-burned, half-liquid.
—And then she wakes, heart hammering, the ghost of her dream fading into sunlight.
Jeremiah arrives early Saturday afternoon, bursting through the door with a boisterous, off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday to you~" as Belly hurries down the stairs, laughter spilling from her.
He's armed with a few presents, mostly trinkets he's picked up here and there, that he showers her with. A few, to her surprise, are from her mom and Steven. A peace offering, she thinks, tucking the thought away to answer their FaceTime calls later.
After helping Jere settle into his room, she slips away for a shower with the intent to get ready for the day's celebratory activities. When she emerges an hour and a half later, hair dry and styled, dress pressed and perfectly in place, she descends downstairs to find Jere and Conrad in the kitchen speaking in low, quiet voices.
When she enters the room, their heads lift. Jeremiah's face brightens immediately and he scoops her up in his arms, spinning her around until her laughter fills the sunlit space.
"You look beautiful," he beams, setting her down gently, her shoe's heels clicking softly against the tile. She smooths her cerulean-blue dress over her knees, still catching her breath.
"You're not so bad yourself," she winks at him, appreciating the crisp lines of his shirt and jeans. Her eyes fall on Conrad next. He's dressed neatly too; not adorning his usual fitted white shirts, but a dark polo with khakis she hasn't seen him wear before.
A small, measured smile curves across his lips.
"Happy birthday, Belly." She mirrors his grin and thanks him, feeling the weight in his gaze before he looks to his brother. "What's the big plans for tonight?"
"Dinner at Lakewood's, gelato if we're not full already, then a movie marathon," Jeremiah lists, brightly.
"Feel free to join the marathon tonight," she offers. "I'm forcing Jere to watch all the classics."
Conrad's polite smile tightens fractionally, deliberate and polished, before he replies. "Thanks. I'll probably be out for a while, so I'll have to take a rain check."
Belly feels a pinch in her throat and hurries to swallow it down.
To the side of her, Jeremiah shoots Conrad a grin, "Oh? Got a hot date or something?"
Conrad chuckles quietly, almost under his breath, before he replies. "Nothing like that. Anyway, don't let me keep you two. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great night."
And they really do—have a great night, that is.
They arrive twenty minutes early to the restaurant and sit at the bar, where Jeremiah insists on snapping a photo of Belly with her first legally bought drink. The pink margarita swirls prettily in its glass, the sugared rim catching the light.
By the time they're seated by the large bay window, the margarita's been replaced with a bottle of wine Jeremiah orders for them. Outside, the ocean stretches out endlessly, soft waves gilded in gold.
She lets him choose the appetizer, only scanning the menu when the plate's nearly empty. The numbers beside each item twist in her stomach; she settles on a salad, claiming she's not too hungry.
Jeremiah frowns. "Belly, it's your birthday. You're supposed to celebrate."
She smiles at him, and tells him she's just happy he's here and it seems to ease his worries for the time being.
The food is, of course, incredible. She takes a bite of his steak when he insists she has to try the Bearnaise sauce, nodding along when he explains what makes it "next-level". When the bill comes, she pretends not to notice the familiar blue-and-silver card, the one Adam told him to use only in emergencies, slip into the check presenter.
They visit one more bar before heading to the gelato shop, taking their dessert to go. By the time they're back at the house, both are eager to kick off their uncomfortable dressy shoes and collapse onto the couch for their movie marathon.
By the end of the second film, Jeremiah is crouched by the shelf, sifting through the house's Blu-ray collection. "Well?" he calls over his shoulder with a grin. "What'll it be this time? Something older than our parents?"
Belly tosses a handful of popcorn at him, laughing. "Shut up. You know you love those movies!"
"Sure, babe," he teases, smirking.
She taps her chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. What about something newer? Haven't watched The Hobbit trilogy in a while. I've been dreaming about a dragon—maybe it'll get it out of my system."
Jeremiah laughs, shaking his head. "Bells, I know I said it's your birthday and all, but you know I, like, hated that book. Couldn't even sit through the first movie." He pulls a random DVD off the shelf and waves it in her direction. "How about this one?"
"Yeah, that's fine," she says with a smile, ignoring the way her chest tightens.
Smaug rots at the bottom of the lake.
Still, the crowd presses in, denser than before, smelling of burnt flesh and something sharper, metallic.
They tangle together, chaotic, frightened, as she tries to push through. The mass of bodies continue to surround her, drowning her, consuming her. (Is this why the dragon wanted to destroy the town in the first place?)
She begins to sink, the taste of ash thick and choking, when a hand suddenly pierces through the madness. It's much larger than hers, she notices immediately, his long fingers wrapped around her wrist as he pulls her free from the chaos.
She remembers this part of the book and film—remembers who vanquishes Smaug. It's Bard, a descendant of Girion, tall and grim. Except when she really looks at him, the chaos now blurred out at the edge of her vision, it's not Bard, or even Luke Evans, gazing back at her.
It's Conrad.