Archive of Our Own ^beta

Conrad left. 

Because of course he did. That was what he was best at. Giving a little, then taking it away. Running away right when things got hard. 

Even as she thought that, Belly knew it wasn’t fair. Conrad had shown up at the hospital, when nobody had asked him to, because a small part of him had clearly sensed that she had needed him. Either that, or it had just been an enormous coincidence, and she was making it seem like more than it was. Maybe he’d just rocked up because he wanted to show them all how much he was thriving, with his summer clinic job and his boujee medical contacts. Maybe he’d done it for himself, just to make sure that he was still the best out of them all, and always would be. 

Truthfully, he’d probably just come because Steven was in a critical condition and, even though he’d acted recently like he couldn’t give a flying fuck about any of them anymore, he still cared about Steven deep-down. It most likely hadn’t even been about Belly, because Conrad had long since stopped showing up when she needed him, and he’d stopped being the person that she needed in vulnerable times. 

Except, she had needed him. Craved him, even. And, just as she’d been thinking about how things would probably be better if Conrad was there, he’d shown up. 

Like how, when she was younger, she’d wish for him, and he would show up. Again and again. 

That had all stopped since she’d started dating Jere, but it hadn't mattered because she’d had her Jeremiah, and everything had been the way that she was convinced it had always meant to be. Conrad may have been her dream as a little girl, but Jeremiah was her reality, and he was her future when Conrad had made it very clear that he wanted to remain in her past. 

But that had all gone to shit recently, hadn’t it? Jeremiah may have sworn that he wanted to be with her for the rest of their lives but, the second that they’d had a sliver of something that didn’t even remotely resemble a break (in Belly’s opinion anyhow) he’d slept with someone else. Despite knowing how much of a betrayal that would be towards her. Despite knowing that such an action would destroy whatever they had, and burn it into ashes that could never rekindle. 

And yet, in a moment of weakness, she’d still wished that he was here. She’d longed for her parents, too, and they still hadn’t picked up. Then she’d thought of Conrad, and he’d shown up, and Belly had suddenly felt so much less alone. But that wasn’t because of Conrad himself. It couldn’t be. It was simply because she’d needed someone—anyone—and he had just happened to be the one that was there to hold her as she cried. 

Wasn’t he the perfect person to be there, though? The hopelessly romantic part of her brain, the part of her that would always love a little bit of Conrad, crooned. Hasn’t he secretly always been everything you’ve ever wanted?

Belly diminished that thought from her brain as quickly as it came, because she couldn’t afford to think like that, especially not now when Conrad was even more unattainable than he had been when they were younger. Being with him had always been everything she’d ever wanted, and she’d told him so when they’d first got together, that day on the beach. 

But where had that left her? Sobbing in the rain as he drove away. Crying on a beach as she begged answers to the doubtful questions that had riddled and plagued their relationship. Staring after him at Christmas as a fire crackled memories of them that they could never get back. Clinging to him in a moment of weakness because, even though she didn’t want to admit it, Conrad still had the ability to soothe her every sense. 

And it had hurt. 

Knowing that the Conrad she’d loved was still there, deep down. That he could still hold onto her and shield her from the world, as if he hadn’t stripped her raw and taken the love she’d given him, and ran away from it. He wasn’t in the picture anymore, when he used to be in them all, but that moment between them had felt like he had never left them all behind for Stanford. Like he still cared; like he was still the Conrad she’d pictured marrying for years. 

Because Belly had got so used to him not being around, that she’d forgotten what it was like to love him, and how it consumed her whole like flames engulfing her, fireworks prickling over her skin at every touch. 

She loved Jere now, and loving Jeremiah was a steady anchor in the face of a thrashing storm, and they’d both been determined to not let themselves drown because they’d already made it through the deepest waters together. She didn’t know where he ended and she began, and nothing had ever made her feel more secure than being with Jeremiah. She always knew where she was at with him, and there was never any risk of losing her footing. 

Of course, that had meant the ground had fallen from underneath her feet when she’d found out he had slept with Lacie Barone. It had been a betrayal like no other, a sheer mockery of everything they’d stood for whilst together; a dagger to the abdomen that had profusely bled all of the love she’d felt for him. But abdomen wounds weren’t fatal, and a small part of Belly had known that she and Jere would eventually find their way back to one another. 

Because, like Taylor had said, if Jere was what she wanted, then she shouldn’t let something like that get in between them, when they’d already worked through the worst together. They would be able to sort this out. Belly had known it. She had missed Jeremiah’s presence at the hospital because he could put her back together again, and fix the pieces of her that had shattered upon receiving Taylor’s phone call about Steven. 

But Conrad had been there, instead. 

And he’d held her, and let her break. He hadn’t attempted to fix her, or try to stop her tears. He’d wiped them with gentle fingers, and cradled her not like she was something broken that needed repairing, but like she was someone who was allowed to be broken. 

Jere may have been who she’d wanted, but Conrad had ended up being the person that she’d needed. 

She didn’t know what she was supposed to think about that. Because Conrad had left her; had left them all for the West Coast. He had got everything he’d wanted, and he wasn’t stuck here like Belly was because, to him, their breakup had clearly only been a small thing that had happened, whereas the world had ended when it had happened to her. 

“I was just trying to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“From me. From what grief was making me into.”

“We could’ve done it together. I would’ve been there for you, if only you’d let me.”

“I know.”

Remnants of their conversation a few hours ago crept into Belly’s mind like slithers of smoke that would never truly go away, permanently inflicting their damage into her lungs until it was hard to breathe whenever she thought about everything they had built up together, and how it had crashed down into rubble. Conrad closing himself off in their relationship hadn’t been malicious. He’d been trying to protect her. That new knowledge hurt. 

Because she’d spent years hating him for how he’d acted when they’d dated, only to now hate herself for not understanding and seeing that he had been struggling to express his emotions. The weight of the world had been pressing so harshly on his chest that he hadn’t had room in his heart to love her the way she’d dreamed of. And, if she’d known that was how he was feeling, then she would’ve been there for him. She would’ve fought for him at prom, at the funeral, at the motel. 

On the beach during the Cousins house party, he’d said that he thought she knew how much she cared, but she hadn’t. Her insecurities had got in the way, and she hadn’t been able to see past her self-deprecation; hadn’t been able to believe that Conrad pulling away from her wasn’t because of what she was doing wrong. She hadn’t voiced those self-doubts to him, either, so they were both responsible for breathing too heavily and knocking down the tentative house of cards that their relationship had been built upon. 

Miscommunication had been the barrier sitting between them, and neither of them had been strong enough to break it. They’d been weak, and they’d broken their relationship into a million little pieces instead. 

A part of them had healed tonight, though. When Conrad had held her in his arms as if she was his again, and she had closed her eyes, and let herself break down for everything that they had lost and would never regain. She had closed her eyes, and pretended that she was still his, too, for a brief moment. 

Because there was a roaring firestorm of inner peace that came with being Conrad’s; an inner peace that she’d only felt in weak, dying embers with Jeremiah, as if their love was incapable of setting aflame in the way that Belly had felt with Conrad. 

And she couldn’t help but wonder whether Conrad had felt like that, too. Whether the same yearning for who they’d been had churned at his gut, or whether the emotion Belly had been feeling had just been guilt transformed. Was she just a foolish sentiment clinging onto a past that had no business invading her present, or was she valid to mourn? 

Grieving someone who was still alive was a different type of torture. At least when Belly had lost Susannah, there had been a sense of acceptance that had eventually settled after years of tumultuous denial and anger. When she’d lost Conrad, she was only constantly reminded of him, either through snatched glimpses of him like earlier, or even through simple yet cruel memories that choked her out of nowhere when she saw Venus was an evening star, or saw the infinity necklace’s chain peeping out from her jewellery box. 

“You should take it. It’s still yours.”

“No.”

“I don’t want to keep it anymore.”

“We’ve done this before.”

“Doesn’t feel like last time.”

The pain of losing him was a bruise on Belly’s heart that, when pressed, it ached with possibilities. What if she hadn’t acted like him being miserable at her prom was the end of the world? What if he’d talked to her a little more about how he was feeling? What if she hadn’t thrown a fit at Susannah’s funeral when Aubrey had been helping him come down from a panic attack? 

What if he hadn’t taken back every time he said he wanted her, to the point that she found it hard to believe he had ever wanted her? What if she hadn’t dated Jeremiah? What if he hadn’t gone to Stanford? Would they have found their way back to each other, or were they destined to travel endlessly around the curves of infinity, yet doomed to constantly miss each other? 

Conrad may have been everything that she’d ever wanted, but he wasn’t who she wanted anymore. She’d needed him, yes, in a moment of weakness, but she couldn’t afford to think this way, when he’d only shown up for a brief time and then left. She was grateful that he’d, in effect, saved Steven’s life, and she was glad that he’d been there to hold her. But she couldn’t waste her time, stuck in the past, thinking of what might’ve been. 

Conrad had always had the talent to unravel her at the very seams, and collapse any critical thinking or logic she may have been inhabiting. He’d done it again, but he’d left. Like he always did. He came, he gave, then he took away. Belly was used to this by now, and she still found the cracks of her heart screaming out whenever she saw him. First Christmas, now tonight. She couldn’t think like that anymore. He wasn’t hers to think of like that, and she wasn’t his. 

That was how it was. And that was how it would have to remain, because she refused to let herself get hurt by him again. She’d chosen Jeremiah, and he didn’t take his love away when things got hard. He stayed. He’d stayed at the hospital all night, and he’d stayed away because she’d asked him to; because he respected her, and he was willing to do what was right to earn back her trust and build their relationship back up. 

Life was too short not to spend it with the one that you loved. 

So, Belly couldn’t waste any more time thinking about Conrad. She’d only let herself be affected by him because of everything that had been going on with Jere, and because she’d been feeling vulnerable. It didn’t mean anything. Jeremiah meant everything. 

She had to find him, and let him know that she was willing to forgive him. Because, by doing that, she would be able to banish Conrad from her mind, and stop feeling like this; like the sixteen year old girl she’d been when she was foolish enough to fall for his empty promises. 

She refused to be that girl again. She was a woman now. And she may have needed Conrad for a brief moment, but that had been it. That had to be it. 

Because it was Jeremiah that she wanted. Not Conrad. Never again. 

⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ 

“I was…I am so mad at you.”

She’d shaken Jeremiah awake from where she’d found him in a waiting room, and told him that Steven was going to be okay before asking if he wanted to get some air. They needed to talk, if there was any hope of crawling their way back to what they once were. 

“And you have every right to be,” Jeremiah said softly. He always understood. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’m sorry you found out in the worst way possible. I know it’s–it’s going to take a lot of work for you to even begin to trust me again, but I am willing to do whatever it takes if you let me.”

Belly nodded, taking in his words. She knew Jere inside and out, and she could tell that he truly was sorry. That was one thing that she loved about him. He was always willing to fight for them and work things out, even when the going got tough. Conrad had always backed out of confrontation, and hadn’t fought for them. He’d just let them go, as if nothing they’d had between them had been important. 

Stop thinking about Conrad. This is Jere that you’re talking to. Focus. 

“I’m sorry, too.” The guilt hit her full-force. How was she still thinking about Conrad when she was supposed to be fixing things with Jeremiah? He may have cheated on her, but she still had no right to think about her ex when talking to him. If he knew, he’d never forgive her. 

“Sorry for what?” Jeremiah followed her from where she’d started to walk down the stairs. 

“I’m sorry for…everything leading up to that fight,” she said. “And to Cabo. I can see how you thought we were broken up.”

She should’ve noticed that he was feeling insecure about his dad and his grades, and she should’ve done something about it. Maybe then, he wouldn’t have felt the need to lash out at her in the hopes that she’d see what she’d been doing wrong. Maybe then, he wouldn’t have sought comfort in someone more willing to provide it than her. 

“You can?”

The way Jeremiah looked at her was like he finally felt understood, and the remorse swirled in Belly’s stomach. She never should’ve put him in the position where he’d felt like he had to pick a fight just to get her to notice his feelings. She had sworn, the year that everything happened with Susannah, that she would be there for him no matter what, and she’d broken her promise. 

Since Christmas, Belly had been in a weird state of mind around Jeremiah, probably because she felt guilty for not telling him that Conrad had also been at Cousins. She hadn’t told him because she hadn’t wanted him to flip out, or for his insecurities to bubble over, but she could see now that it would’ve been better to communicate why she was feeling out of sorts, because it had probably made him more insecure. Jeremiah may have cheated, but she had caused it. 

“Don’t put your inferiority complex on me.”

“I wonder where that came from.”

“Didn’t start with me so maybe look at your Dad.”

She’d been a nervous, anxious wreck the entire week that Jere was in Cabo, checking the pictures on Instagram desperately for any sign of how her boyfriend was feeling, because he hadn’t been texting her. She hadn’t wanted to text him, because she’d been worried of poking his temper, but the lack of communication from him all week had almost made her wish that they could text, even if it was to argue, because at least they’d be talking instead of the radio silence she’d got instead. 

“Yeah, but I-I just don’t understand how you could just move onto somebody else so easily.” She turned to him, the rage from the frat party surging back through her body. “I-I mean, I could barely function. How were you okay enough to have sex with someone?”

She’d never felt smaller than she had when she’d stood in front of Jere and asked exactly what he’d done with Lacie. He was the person that was supposed to make her shine; the person that was supposed to never hurt her, and he’d slept with Lacie twice when all she’d been doing was frantically thinking about him. Had he thought of her, when he’d had sex with Lacie? At the mental image, she felt nauseous again. 

Maybe this was the one thing they weren’t able to come back from. The thought terrified her. 

“No, Belly, I was completely numb that whole week,” Jeremiah said, desperation gleaming in his eyes. She used to drown in his gaze. Now, he only made her feel like the girl she’d been in high school, when boys had only looked at Taylor, and never spared her a glimpse. “I-I didn’t even feel like I was there when Lacie and I…when we had sex.”

But you were there. And you did it twice. Belly looked down at the ground, stomach turning. 

“After, I-I just sat in the shower and cried for, I don’t, I don’t even know how long. Just thinking, how could I deserve you after that?” 

“He should be here. Why aren’t you more angry about this?”

“Because I don’t want him here!”

She hadn’t wanted Jere there. She’d said that to Conrad. But, then, after he’d left, she’d been confused. Jeremiah had been all she’d wanted for the past four years. She just hadn’t wanted him there because of what had happened, but she’d still wished he could be there; that all of this hadn’t happened so he could be there for her. But, as it had gone, Conrad had been there. It always came back to Conrad. It was only when he’d left that she’d gone to find Jere. Why?

“Maybe we…shouldn’t let one mistake erase all these years,” she said, but she didn’t even feel like she was in her own body. 

All she was imagining was what Conrad would say if he found out that she took Jeremiah back after he’d broken her trust into smithereens. Conrad knew how much sex meant to her because he’d been the one to take her virginity and, despite some of the regrets she’d had about Conrad since they broke up, she’d never once regretted being with him like that. Maybe Jeremiah had never understood the value that Belly held for her body, and how him being intimate with someone else the second that they were broken up tarnished every time she’d slept with him. 

“I mean…if we both believe that what we have is bigger than our mistakes, then maybe we can just start over,” she told him. 

But did she believe that they had something bigger than their mistakes; than Jere’s mistake? Sleeping with Lacie once might’ve been an accident, but twice? Twice was intentional. It was a choice. Not a mistake. Did they really have the power to surpass such a betrayal?

“I want that, Bells. I want that so much.”

But do you want that, Isabel? A voice whispered in her mind; a voice that sounded suspiciously like Conrad’s. 

She’d thought she did. But now, looking at Jeremiah’s desperate gaze, she wasn’t sure. 

“You can’t ever hurt me like that again.” She whacked him on the arm playfully, but her heart wasn’t in it.

Her heart wasn’t even fluttering in the way it used to around Jere. Her heart was yearning for more, and she wasn’t sure that he could give her that anymore. She'd outgrown him, like you would a jacket. She couldn't shrug into him as easily as she used to, and that was something she didn't want to believe. 

“I promise,” Jeremiah swore solemnly, expression sombre. He was taking this seriously. He’d always taken everything with her seriously, unlike Conrad. He’d never broken his promises to her, unlike Conrad. “I promise.” 

He leant in for a kiss, and she automatically did, too. It was instinct, part of her DNA, at this point. He kissed her, and she kissed him back, weaving her arms around his neck as his hands found her waist, clinging on like she was his lifeline and he was drowning. But maybe they’d been drowning all along, and that was why they'd never been able to set alight in the same way as she had with Conrad. The realisation slammed into her as Jeremiah kissed her. 

He’d never given her fireworks. Unlike Conrad. 

Even now, when she should be happy that their relationship was on the mend, she couldn’t dismiss the betrayal from her mind. She couldn’t stop wondering how Jeremiah had kissed Lacie, and she couldn’t stop thinking about how Conrad had held her earlier, not like she was fragile and broken, but like she was beautiful when she was broken because she was opening herself up to him. He’d held her, and she’d felt safe for the first time in a long while. 

This kiss, right now, with Jeremiah didn’t make her feel safe like kissing him used to. It didn’t make her feel steady and sure-footed, like he could hold her through the raging storms and she wouldn’t topple into the deep waters. She actually felt like she was drowning in guilt, regret, and upset at the way she’d allowed herself to go back to him, after he’d hit the rawest parts of her with his betrayal. Did she have no self-respect? Was what they had bigger than their mistakes?

Jeremiah pulled away, staring into her eyes, and the look on his face terrified her. “I don’t want to mess this up again. I can’t imagine my life without you. Belly, it’s always been our story. Yours and mine. Nobody else’s.”

But it has, Conrad’s voice—there was no doubt about it now—dominated her thoughts. Being with me was all you ever wanted, Belly. Loving me was your story. Not loving Jere. 

“What are you thinking?” She tried to fight the noise in her brain. 

This had to be what she wanted, because wanting Conrad only ended up with her in agony. She had to want Jeremiah, just so she could banish the feelings for Conrad from her, for once and for all. It had worked before, and it would work again. As long as he stopped showing up and reminding her that he existed, she and Jeremiah would be fine. 

“Just–just the future is crazy…” A small smile was creeping onto Jeremiah’s face, and he was lost in her. They were lost in each other. She didn’t know who she was without him, and maybe that wasn’t as much of a good thing as she’d thought. 

The second she’d been back with him, she’d felt herself moulding herself back into Belly, Jeremiah’s girlfriend. Not Just Belly. 

She had only ever been Just Belly twice in the past year. At Christmas. And earlier, in the waiting room. Both of those times had something—someone—in common, and it wasn’t Jeremiah. 

“Isabel Conklin…will you marry me?”

Every little girl had a dream wedding, fantasising about what song would play as they walk down the aisle to marry their Prince Charming, and what colour the bridesmaids’ dresses would be. Every little girl had a dream wedding dress, and dream groom that they pictured. Not Belly. She’d never had a dream wedding that she’d pictured. 

She’d only ever pictured Conrad. 

And she was picturing him now, standing there in place of Jeremiah, asking her to marry him and be with him for infinity. She’d say yes instantly, happy tears flowing down her cheeks, and he’d wipe her tears and hug her like he just had back in the hospital, holding her to him as if she was the dearest treasure on Earth, and he was the luckiest man in the world. Then he’d kiss her, and kiss the infinity necklace draped across her collarbone, and they’d run into the sea because Conrad would propose on the beach, of course, because the beach had always been their place. 

“I don’t just need somebody. I need you.”

“I don’t want you to need me. I want you to want me.”

“I do want you.”

Conrad would never propose like this, as an apology for cheating on her. 

Conrad never looked at another girl the entire time they were together. 

Conrad wouldn’t propose when her brother was in a coma, and she was in a vulnerable position. 

But Jeremiah would. Jere would do it like this, and he was doing it like this. And Belly didn’t know how she’d ever thought that this was enough, that they would be enough for each other because they had been enough for each other at a time where they had really needed someone. Maybe she would always need Jeremiah, and she was sure that she would think of him fondly in the future, like you would a pet or a childhood toy.

But she didn't want him. She didn't want this. Maybe, in another life, she would've said yes. But she couldn't. Not today. 

She loved him. He’d been everything to her over the past four years, but maybe that had just been co-dependency built from the grief of losing Susannah. Maybe they had only loved each other because they desperately needed someone at that time, and they’d happened to fall into a relationship. Jeremiah had always said that he couldn’t imagine his life without Belly, and that she had been the centre of his universe since he’d lost his mom. 

But, Conrad had been the centre of her universe since the beginning of time. Belly couldn’t recall a period in her childhood where she hadn’t been infatuated by him. And, though it might not mean anything because she and Conrad might have never got together if Susannah hadn’t been sick, that didn’t take away her love for him. 

“I just couldn’t imagine marrying someone who didn’t give me fireworks. You know, like, electric jolts every time I saw them.”

“Belly?”

“Yes, Conrad?”

“I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t make me feel electric either.”

She’d realised at Christmas that a part of her would always love him. He had given her fireworks; tiny little electric jolts whenever she saw him. The moon and stars. Infinity. And they might never get that back, but that didn’t mean that Belly should marry Jeremiah just to make herself forget about Conrad; just to squash down her reluctant love for him. If he hadn’t shown up last night, she might’ve said yes to Jere because she would’ve thought that his love was all she was worthy of; that their relationship was worthy enough to rebuild. 

But, then, she’d seen Conrad again, and all of her plans had gone to shit. 

And, the worst part was that he probably didn’t feel the same way. But that didn’t mean that Belly should marry Jeremiah. She couldn’t marry him to erase Conrad from her thoughts. 

“Belly?” Jeremiah’s face had dropped. 

“No. I-I can’t…” the words stammered out of her, scared and devastated. 

Sometimes you just don’t know the answer until someone asks you. 

“What?” Jeremiah’s brow furrowed. “But you just said that, if we believe that what we have is bigger than our mistakes then—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “But I…Jere, I’m sorry. I don’t think what we have is bigger than what you did.”

Jere flinched as if she’d slapped him again. “You said what I did shouldn’t erase all the years we’ve had!”

Belly felt like the world was closing in on her. “Please don’t throw what I said back in my face. I can’t marry you, Jere. I-I just can’t.”

“But I love you, Belly. I can’t imagine my life without you—” he began to plead. He was one breath away from getting down on his knees, which was something he hadn’t even done to propose in the first place. 

“Well, maybe you need to.” Belly threw her arms wide. “We’ve been joined at the hip since we got together. I don’t know where I end, and you begin—”

“Exactly! So we’re meant to be together, Belly.” Jeremiah clutched at her hands, and it took everything in her not to throw him off her. Even his touch right now was repulsive. All she could think about was him and Lacie in bed together. 

“Don’t you think that’s a problem, Jere?” she begged him. “I think I need to find out who I am without you.”

“I’ll remind you who you are everyday, Bells. That’s what being married is all about.”

“That’s not how it works, Jere. You can’t tell me who I am. I have to find that one out for myself, and I can’t do that if we stay together. I need to be free. You have to let me go.”

“We don’t have to break up just because you’ve said no to me, Bells. Okay, you don’t want to marry me. Fine. That’s...fine. But we don’t have to give up on each other.”

“You already gave up on us when you slept with someone else when we hadn’t really broken up,” she retorted coldly. “You know how much sex means to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over that kind of betrayal, Jere.”

Something dark took over Jeremiah’s face. “So that’s what it’s about. It's about the sex. Well, you didn’t see me having any issues about the fact that you’d slept with my brother before being with me.”

“Yes you did! You constantly had jealousy issues over Conrad,” she snapped. “Your inferiority complex plagued our relationship, Jere.”

“And can you blame me?” He was shouting now, face turning red with rage. “It always comes back to Conrad. Everything that goes wrong in our relationship is because of Conrad.”

“No, it’s not, Jere!” She didn’t completely believe herself, but she wasn’t going to let him pin the blame on Conrad, when he had never interfered in their relationship. “It’s about us! We don’t work. Maybe we never truly worked. We got together at the worst time possible in the worst way possible—”

“Oh, gee, thanks, Belly. Nice one. Was it the worst time ever because you wanted it to be Conrad all along? Is that why it was the worst way?”

“No, because Susannah had just died, you prick!” Tears spiked at her eyelashes, fast and furious. “Neither of us were in a good state to be in a relationship, so we clung onto each other. We became co-dependent. How can’t you see that, Jere? Do you not want to see who you are without me?”

“All I am is because of you, Belly—” his voice broke. 

“No, it’s not,” she said. “And the sooner you work that out, the sooner you’ll be happier, Jere.”

He glowered at her. “What, like how the sooner you go back to Conrad, the sooner you’ll be happier?”

“What?” She felt faint. 

“I know about Christmas, Belly.”

Christmas. Jeremiah knew about Christmas. Suddenly, everything made sense. Why he’d picked that fight, and ‘broken up’ with her. Why he’d jumped to blaming Conrad for the fact that Belly didn’t want to marry him. 

“Nothing happened at Christmas,” she replied. 

Jeremiah’s eyes flashed. “Didn’t it?”

“No, it didn’t. We watched movies and did crosswords, for God’s sake.”

“But you didn’t tell me! You’re such a hypocrite, Belly. You say that I broke your trust by not telling you about Cabo, but you didn’t tell me about seeing your ex at the Cousins house. You let me think that you were all alone there, when you were cosying up to Conrad.” He pulled a disgusted face. 

“It’s nothing like what you did with Lacie, so don’t you dare try and act like it’s the same kind of betrayal,” she hissed. “I didn’t tell you because I knew it would make your inferiority complex even worse, because you can’t compute the fact that two people can be around each other without taking their clothes off.”

Jeremiah’s hand moved through the air, and Belly instantly ducked, but he thought better of the action and screwed his hand into a fist. She stared at him in shock. He’d nearly hit her. This was not the Jeremiah she’d thought she loved. This was not the Jeremiah she knew. Jealousy made him into a monster. 

“How was I supposed to know, Belly? The neighbours told my dad and I that Conrad was there, and I was meant to know that you hadn’t been all over each other? It’s always been like that with you two. There will always be something between you and Conrad.”

“You could’ve trusted me,” she said quietly. “Like how I trusted you.”

“You don’t trust me anymore?” Jeremiah stared at her. 

“How can I, Jere?” Her voice was thick, and she could feel hot tears seeping down her cheeks. “How can we ever go back to what we were?”

“We can try. Belly, please, we have to try.”

She shook her head, taking a step back from him. She needed to get away from him. She needed to be alone. 

“I don’t want to. We don’t need to try. We don’t have to be together, Jeremiah, just because we put each other back together after your mom died. I don’t think I want to be with you. I…don’t think I ever did. I think I was just lost, and I needed someone.” The truth slipped from her lips without thinking, and she wanted to regret the way that they hit Jeremiah, and broke his heart, but she didn’t. 

Because she was slowly realising that the only reason she’d got with Jeremiah was because he had been the safer option; the option that wouldn’t make her feel like she was on fire every time she was in his presence. He’d been exactly what her mom had described her dad as. A warm campfire that would keep her safe. Not a roaring blaze that could set her alight at every touch, with the risk of burning out. 

But maybe love was all about a little risk, and who made you fight to keep the fire burning. 

Love certainly wasn’t what was between her and Jeremiah. At least, it didn’t feel like it right now. And that hurt. Because how could something that had felt so right be so wrong? If she hadn’t been right about Jere, how could she ever be right about anything ever again? 

“Belly…”

“Jeremiah, you need to let me go.” 

She wiped her tears herself, mourning the gentle brush of Conrad’s fingers last night. He’d been here so briefly that she was convinced he’d been a mirage; a dream. But there was no doubt that this conversation with Jeremiah was real; a nightmare that had been lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce. 

“I hope we can still be friends,” she said numbly. 

Jeremiah glared at her. “Fuck that,” he spat, eyes dark, and he stormed away. 

That was the moment where she should’ve cried even more for all that she’d lost; for all of the years she’d wasted stuck here; stuck on him. But Belly couldn’t let herself feel a thing, and no more tears continued to fall. She would be a fool not to notice the difference between this breakup, and prom night with Conrad. She hadn’t eaten or slept properly for weeks. The heartbreak had consumed her whole. Her world had ended. 

But, for a relationship that had lasted four years, she didn’t feel much at all. It didn’t feel like her world had ended. Just that a small thing had happened. 

And a part of her couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Conrad had felt, all those years ago. 

Or if his world had ended, too.