by Jenny Han
“So you like Jeremiah now?” He meant to sound sarcastic, cruel, and he did, but he also sounded pained. Like he cared about the answer.
Which made me feel glad. And sad.
I said, “I don’t know. Does it matter to you if I do?”
He stared at me, and then he leaned forward and touched the necklace around my neck. The one I’d been hiding under my shirt all day.
“If you like Jeremiah, why are you wearing my necklace?”
I wet my lips. “I found it when we were packing up your dorm room. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You know what it means.”
I shook my head. “I don’t.” But of course I did. I remembered when he’d explained the concept of infinity to me. Immeasurable, one moment stretching out to the next. He bought me that necklace. He knew what it meant.
“Then give it back.” He held his hand out, and I saw that it was shaking.
“No,” I said.
“It’s not yours. I never gave it to you. You just took it.”
That’s when I finally got it. I finally understood. It wasn’t the thought that counted. It was the actual execution that mattered, the showing up for somebody. The intent behind it wasn’t enough. Not for me. Not anymore. It wasn’t enough to know that deep down, he loved me. You had to actually say it to somebody, show them that you cared. And he just didn’t. Not enough.
I could feel him waiting for me to argue, to protest, to plead. But I didn’t do any of those things. I struggled for what felt like eternity, trying to undo the clasp on the necklace around my neck. Which was no surprise, considering the fact that my hands were shaking too. I finally got the chain free and I handed it back to him.
Surprise registered upon his face for the tiniest of moments, and then, like always, he was closed off again. Maybe I’d imagined it. That he’d cared.
He stuffed the necklace into his pocket. “Then leave,” he said.
When I didn’t move, he said, sharply, “Go!”
I was a tree, rooted to the spot. My feet were frozen.
“Go to Jeremiah. He’s the one who wants you,” Conrad said. “I don’t. I never did.”
And then I was stumbling, running away.
chapter forty-two
I didn’t go back to the car right away. All I had in front of me were impossible choices. How could I face Jeremiah after what just happened? After we kissed, after I went running after Conrad? My mind was spinning in a million different directions. I kept touching my lips. Then I’d touch my collarbone, where the necklace used to be. I wandered around campus, but after a while, I headed back to the car. What choice did I have? I couldn’t just leave without telling anybody. And it wasn’t like I had another way home.
I guessed Conrad was thinking the same thing, because when I got back to the car, he was already there, sitting in the backseat with the window open. Jeremiah was sitting on the hood of the car. “Hi,” he said.
“Hey.” I hesitated, unsure of what was next. For once, our ESP connection failed me, because I had no idea what he was thinking. His face was unreadable.
He slid off the car. “Ready to go home?”
I nodded, and he threw me the keys. “You drive,” he said.
In the car, Conrad ignored me completely. I didn’t exist to him anymore, and despite everything I’d said, that made me want to die. I never should have come. None of us were speaking to one another. I’d lost them both.
What would Susannah say if she saw the mess we were in now? She would have been so disappointed in me. I hadn’t been a help at all. I’d only made things worse.
Just when we thought everything was going to be okay, we all fell apart.
I’d been driving for what felt like forever when it started to rain. It started out with fat little plops and then it came down heavy, in hard sheets.
“Can you see?” Jeremiah asked me.
“Yeah,” I lied. I could barely see two feet in front of me. The windshield wipers were swishing back and forth furiously.
Traffic had been crawling along, and then it slowed almost to a stop. There were police lights way up ahead.
“There must have been an accident,” Jeremiah said.
We’d been sitting in traffic for over an hour when it started to hail.
I looked at Conrad in the rearview, but his face was impassive. He might as well have been somewhere else. “Should we pull over?”
“Yeah. Get off at the next exit and see if we can find a gas station,” Jeremiah said, glancing at the clock. It was ten thirty.
The rain didn’t let up. We sat in the gas station parking lot for what felt like forever. The rain was loud, but we were so quiet that when my stomach growled, I was pretty sure they both heard. I coughed to cover up the noise.
Jeremiah jumped out of the car and ran inside the gas station. When he ran back, his hair was dripping wet and matted. He tossed me a packet of peanut butter and cheese crackers without looking at me. “There’s a motel a few miles down,” he said, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm.
“Let’s just wait it out,” Conrad said. It was the first time he’d spoken since we’d left.
“Dude, the highway’s pretty much shut down. There’s no point. I say we just crash for a few hours and leave in the morning.”
Conrad didn’t say anything.
I didn’t say anything because I was too busy eating the crackers. They were bright orange and salty and gritty, and I stuffed them into my mouth, one after the other. I didn’t even offer one to either of them.
“Belly, what do you want to do?” Jeremiah said it very politely, like I was his cousin from out of town. Like his mouth hadn’t been on mine just hours before.
I swallowed my last cracker. “I don’t care. Do whatever you want.”
By the time we got to the motel, it was midnight.
I went to the bathroom to call my mother. I told her what had happened and right away she said, “I’m coming to get you.”
Every part of me wanted to say Yes, please, come right this second , but she sounded so tired, and she’d already done so much. So instead I said, “No, it’s fine, Mom.”
“It’s all right, Belly. It’s not that far.”
“It’s okay, really. We’ll leave early tomorrow morning.”
She yawned. “Is the motel in a safe area?”
“Yes.” Even though I didn’t know exactly where we were or if it constituted a safe area. But it seemed safe enough.
“Just go to sleep and get up first thing. Call me when you’re on the road.”
After we got off the phone I leaned against the wall for a minute. How did I end up here?
I changed into Taylor’s pajamas and put my new hoodie on over them.
I took my time brushing my teeth and taking out my contact lenses. I didn’t care that the boys might be waiting to use the bathroom. I just wanted time alone, away from them. When I came back out, Jeremiah and Conrad were on the floor, on opposite sides of the bed. They each had a pillow and a blanket. “You guys should take the bed,” I said, even though I only partly meant it. “There’s two of you. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Conrad was busy ignoring me, but Jeremiah said, “Nah, you take it. You’re the girl.”
Under ordinary circumstances, I would have argued with him just for the principle of it—what did my being a girl have to do with whether or not I slept on the floor? I was a girl, not an invalid. But I didn’t argue. I was too tired. And I did want the bed.
I crawled onto the bed and got under the covers. Jeremiah set the alarm on his phone and shut off the lights. Nobody said good night or suggested we see if there was anything good on TV.
I tried to fall asleep but I couldn’t. I tried to remember the last time the three of us had slept in the same room. I couldn’t at first, but then I did.
We’d pitched a tent on the beach and I’d begged and begged to be included and finally my mother made them let me come. Me and Steven and Jeremiah and Conrad.
We played Uno for hours and Steven high-fived me when I won twice in a row. Suddenly I missed my big brother so much I wanted to cry. Part of me thought that if Steven had been there, things wouldn’t have gotten this awful. Maybe none of this would have happened, because I would still be chasing after the boys instead of being in the middle.
But now everything had changed and we could never go back to the way things used to be.
I was lying in bed thinking about all of this when I heard Jeremiah snoring, which really annoyed me. He’d always been able to fall asleep at will, as soon as his head hit the pillow. I guessed he wasn’t losing any sleep over what had happened. I guessed I shouldn’t either. I flipped over on my other side, facing away from Jeremiah.
And then I heard Conrad say, quietly, “Earlier, when I said I never wanted you. I didn’t mean it.”
My breath caught. I didn’t know what to say or if I was even supposed to say anything. All I knew was, this was what I’d been waiting for. This exact moment. Exactly this.
I opened my mouth to speak, and then he said it again. “I didn’t mean it.”
I held my breath, waiting to hear what he’d say next.
All he said was, “Good night, Belly.”
After that, of course I couldn’t sleep. My head was too full of things to think about. What did he mean? That he wanted to be, like, together? Me and him, for real? It was what I’d wanted my whole life, but then there was Jeremiah’s face in the car, open and wanting and needing me. In that moment, I’d wanted and needed him, too, more than I had ever known. Had it always been there? But after tonight, I didn’t even know if he wanted me anymore. Maybe it was too late.
Then there was Conrad. I didn’t mean it . I closed my eyes and heard him say those words again and again. His voice, traveling across the dark, it haunted me and it thrilled me.
So I lay there barely breathing, going over every word. The boys were asleep and every part of me was fully awake and alive. It was like a really amazing dream, and I was afraid to fall asleep because when I woke up, it would be gone.
chapter forty-three
july 7
I woke up before Jeremiah’s alarm went off. I took a shower, brushed my teeth, put on the same clothes as the day before.
When I came out, Jeremiah was on the phone and Conrad was folding up his blanket. I waited for him to look at me. If he would just look at me, smile, say something, I would know what to do.
But Conrad didn’t look up. He put the blankets back in the closet and then he put on his sneakers. He undid the laces and pulled them tighter. I kept waiting, but he wouldn’t look at me.
“Hey,” I said.
He finally raised his head. “Hey,” he said. “A friend of mine is coming to get me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s easier this way. He’ll take me back to Cousins so I can get my car, and J can take you home.”
“Oh,” I said. I was so surprised, it took a moment for the disappointment, the utter disbelief, to register.
We stood there, looking at each other, saying nothing. But it was the kind of nothing that meant everything. In his eyes, there was no trace of what had happened between us earlier, and I could feel something inside me break.
So that was that. We were finally, finally over.
I looked at him, and I felt so sad, because this thought occurred to me: I will never look at you in the same way ever again. I’ll never be that girl again. The girl who comes running back every time you push her away, the girl who loves you anyway.
I couldn’t even be mad at him, because this was who he was. This was who he’d always been. He’d never lied about that. He gave and then he took away. I felt it in the pit of my stomach, the familiar ache, that lost, regretful feeling only he could give me. I never wanted to feel it again. Never, ever.
Maybe this was why I came, so I could really know. So I could say good-bye.
I looked at him, and I thought, If I was very brave or very honest, I would tell him . I would say it, so he would know it and I would know it, and I could never take it back. But I wasn’t that brave or honest, so all I did was look at him. And I think he knew anyway.
I release you. I evict you from my heart. Because if I don’t do it now, I never will.
I was the one to look away first.
Jeremiah hung up the phone and asked Conrad, “Is Dan on his way to come get you?”
“Yeah. I’m just gonna hang out here and wait for him.”
Jeremiah looked at me then. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to go with you,” I said. I picked up my bag and Taylor’s shoes.
He stood up and took my bag off my shoulder. “Then let’s go.” To Conrad, he said, “See you at home.”
I wondered which home he meant, the summer house or their house-house. But I guessed it didn’t really matter.
“Bye, Conrad,” I said. I walked out the door with Taylor’s shoes in my hand and I didn’t bother to put them on either. I didn’t look back. And right there, I felt it, the glow, the satisfaction of being the one who left first.
As we walked through the parking lot, Jeremiah said, “Maybe you should put your shoes on. You might cut your feet on something.”
I shrugged. “They’re Taylor’s shoes,” I said, as if that made sense. I added, “They’re too small.”
He asked, “Do you want to drive?”
I thought it over and then I said, “No, that’s okay. You drive.”
“But you love to drive my car,” he said, coming around to the passenger side and opening my door first.
“I know. But today I just feel like riding shotgun.”
“Do you want to get breakfast first?”
“No,” I said. “I just want to go home.”
Soon we were on the road. I opened my window all the way down. I stuck my head out and let my hair fly everywhere, just because. Steven once told me that bugs and things get caught up in girls’ hair when they ride with it hanging out the window. But I didn’t care. I liked the way it felt. It felt free.
Jeremiah looked over at me and said, “You remind me of our old dog, Boogie. He used to love riding around with his head out the window.”
He was still using his polite voice. Distant.
I said, “You haven’t said anything. About before.” I glanced over at him. I could hear my heart thudding in my ears.
“What’s left to say?”
“I don’t know. A lot,” I said.
“Belly—,” he started. Then he stopped and let out a breath, shaking his head.
“What? What were you going to say?”
“Nothing,” he said.
Then I reached across, and I took his hand and laced my fingers around his. It felt like the most right thing I’d done in a long time.
I worried he’d let go, but he didn’t. We held hands like that the whole rest of the way home.
a couple of years later
When I used to picture forever, it was always with the same boy. In my dreams, my future was set. A sure thing.
This wasn’t the way I pictured it. Me, in a white dress in the pouring rain, running for the car. Him, running ahead of me and opening the passenger door.
“Are you sure?” he asks me.
“No,” I say, getting in.
The future is unclear. But it’s still mine.
JENNY HAN has her master’s degree in creative writing for children from the New School. Her previous books include Shug and The Summer I Turned Pretty . She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit Jenny at dearjennyhan.com.
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