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“Tell me she’s not here,” says Jeremiah.
His eyes are bloodshot, rimmed red with tears. Conrad has one hand on the edge of the frame, the other working his jaw loose from a cracking yawn. It’s four in the morning, and he woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing endlessly then the desperate thumps on his door.
“What?” Conrad asks. “Who?”
But even as the questions leave him, he knows.
Furious tears spill from Jere’s eyes. He lets out a sob, and Conrad pulls him into a hug that should be awkward but somehow isn’t.
“Jere, what’s going on?” He rubs his brother’s back. The cries Jeremiah lets out are heartbreaking. Suddenly, Conrad’s seven again, Jere six, and Jere just found out magic doesn’t exist and is leaking out his frustration at the world for not living up to his expectations.
Jeremiah clenches the back of his shirt, and Conrad feels the sharp pull of it at his collar. “How did you fucking do this, Con? How—”
Conrad swallows. “Do what? You’ve gotta give me something here.”
Jere continues like he didn’t say a thing. “How did you survive this? I can’t function, Con—I need her. She’s everything to me, and she just left. She left.”
Panic threatens to rise, but he tamps it down. She’s fine. She’s probably with Taylor, or Steven, or Laurel. Maybe all of them. Hell, she might even be with John. Even if she’s not, she can handle anything. Conrad bites his cheek and tastes iron. It goes down bitter.
“Jere,” he says, rough.
Conrad cups the back of his brother’s head as he shakes. He didn’t go to Adam but him. Conrad’s a poor substitute for his mother, but at least when his life was in shambles, she was there, terminal but there. Jere only has him.
Take care of your brother, Susannah told him. A dying woman’s last command. So Conrad fled to the other side of the country because he’s a shit brother, because he can’t handle his own fucking problems, because he makes everything worse. So he left. And the crazy fucking thing about it was that it worked. Sometimes the best thing you can do to avoid hurting the people you love is to leave them.
Oh, Conrad thinks as it suddenly clicks. He gets it now.
“Belly broke up with me,” Jere sobs into his shoulder. “She left. She won’t text me back, she won’t answer my calls. Nobody’s telling me anything. I—I thought she might’ve come here—”
“She’s not here,” Conrad says as if it might soothe his brother.
“I don’t know where she is.” Jeremiah picks himself up. His face is bloated, his skin wan.
It’s been almost a full year since he’s seen Jere in person, and Conrad catalogues his brother in this pre-dawn light with the same attention he gives everything else. Rumpled clothes, jumpy, curled hair frizzy. Everyone used to say they looked nothing alike. Besides their height they inherited from Adam, Jeremiah’s hair bronzed gold in the sun and he tanned easily. Conrad burned red first, and his hair was never brighter than a light brown. Where Jeremiah was Susannah’s sunshine boy, Conrad was the responsible, eldest brother—darker, broodier. He didn’t use to care about their differences until that summer, until the motel, until Conrad measured himself against what Belly wanted and found himself lacking.
Right now, with a heart ripped open by their childhood love, Jeremiah’s dead-eyed, hopeless expression is too familiar. He’s seen it in the mirror thousands of times before.
Conrad thinks, We’ve never looked more like brothers. And he hates himself for it.
It’s both too early and too late for a drink, but Conrad pops the tops of two Mich Ultras and hands one to Jeremiah once he’s finally calmed down enough to get his hastily packed duffel bag in the doorway. Jere’s Adidas slides flop next to the neat row of shoes.
Jeremiah downs a good chunk of the bottle and leans down to place his head in his hands.
“She’s really not here,” he says, dry and cracked, relieved and resigned. “Fuck.” He tips his bottle up and waves it in Conrad’s direction. “Guess she doesn’t want either of us.”
Conrad tips his drink to his mouth but only to wet his lips. He tries to lighten the mood, but his heart’s not in it. “That’s zero for two for the Fisher men.”
Jeremiah barks out a laugh. “Could be worse. She could go for our dad next. I doubt he’d succeed in getting her to stay.”
“Shit,” Conrad chokes out. “Dude, never say that again.” He shivers, mouth set in a grimace. “That’s fucking disgusting, Jere, Jesus Christ. I can’t unsee that.”
“Yeah, well,” Jere mutters and slinks down in his seat. “Maybe us Fisher men should avoid Conklin girls.”
Conrad doesn’t respond. He doesn’t want to have to lie right now. If Belly showed up at his doorstep instead of Jeremiah, he’d take her in and Conrad thinks Jere knows that.
Jeremiah downs the rest of his beer and angles his head toward Conrad’s still full bottle. “You gonna finish that?”
“Nah,” he says and hands his brother his drink. Jere takes it. Gulps a good quarter of it.
“I really thought…” Jeremiah rubs at his eyes. “I know you guys spent Christmas together.”
“Jere,” Conrad says immediately. “Nothing happened. We just were in the same place at the same time.” He doesn’t know why he’s explaining himself because nothing happened. Unless you count crossword puzzles and Casablanca and spending time doing fuck all together something.
Jeremiah scoffs. “Yeah, I know. Belly would’ve said something if you two…but she didn’t. Fuck, you would’ve said something to me if something happened.”
Again, Conrad doesn’t speak.
“But she’s been more distant with me, and I know it’s partially my fault with Cabo and everything—”
Something about Jeremiah’s tone makes Conrad pause. “What about Cabo?”
Jere’s silent for a long moment. “We had a fight before spring break. I was so fucking pissed that she never even mentioned you guys spent Christmas together, and it was eating me fucking alive, Con. We kind of broke up and I went to Cabo and—” Jeremiah sighs. “I slept with someone else.”
Without thinking, Conrad stands. He grabs his brother and hauls him up. The beer inside his bottle sloshes but doesn’t spill. “What the fuck, Jere.”
“I know, I know,” Jere says, hands holding Conrad’s wrists, hands moist from the condensation, his grip weak from holding his beer. “I fucked up! I know, Con!”
“You were supposed to be the better boyfriend.” He releases his brother harshly, and Jere flops back down onto the sofa, defeated. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You were supposed to make her happy, Jere. You were supposed to love her and cherish her.”
“It’s not like we’re married.” Jere drinks and drinks and drinks. The bottle clinks as he sets it on the coffee table. “And you fucked up with her, too.”
Conrad’s fists curl. His nostrils flare. “I love her, Jere. Sometimes I think she’s the only girl I could ever love, and I know I screwed things up with her, but I tried to fix it by letting her go.”
“She let me go instead,” Jeremiah says bitterly.
Conrad’s jaw clenches.
“We’re even now,” he continues. “She doesn’t want either of us, so I guess we both lost.”
“This isn’t some game, Jere.” He sighs and looks up at the ceiling to find his thoughts. “She’s not some prize to be won. She’s her own person.”
“And if she comes knocking on your door, you wouldn’t take her back?” Jere snaps. “You wouldn’t lord it over me, like, yeah, there goes fucking loser Jeremiah who couldn’t keep the girl so she went back to the better brother.”
Conrad sits in the recliner and rubs a hand over his face. “Do you think I’m that cruel?”
“Don’t try to sneak your way out of answering my question, Connie.” His lips twist into something mocking, mean. “Wouldn’t you take her—”
“Yeah, Jere,” he confesses. “I would because I love her. But you’d take her back. Of course you would.”
His mouth closes. His exhale is jittery. “And if I said you’d lose me if you did?”
“Jere,” Conrad breathes out, all ragged. “You’re my brother, and I love you, and I fucking miss you, man.”
Jeremiah’s eyes water. “That’s not an answer.”
Conrad rolls his words in his mouth before he says, “When you had the chance to be with Belly a month after we broke up, you took it. I left the east coast. We don’t talk anymore, not like we used to, and you know that.”
Jeremiah wipes the back of his hand over his cheeks.
“You made your choice then,” Conrad says simply, truthfully. “And you lost me. I left.” He shakes his head. “We’re more alike than you think, Jere.”
“Yeah,” Jeremiah says, subdued. “I know.”
#
Jeremiah stays for the whole week. He meets Conrad’s friends and everybody comments about how different they look. They catch each other’s eyes then, and they both laugh. Jeremiah leaves, and they both know it’ll be a long, long time until they see each other again. Their hug is short, but tight. They don’t speak her name. They know whatever happens will happen.
One day after Jeremiah goes back to Finch, Conrad’s phone rings. It’s early in the morning, but he’s getting used to this. His eyes are blurry without his contacts in and with sleep, so he doesn’t exactly see the caller ID when he swipes to answer the call.
“Hello?”
“Conrad?” Belly asks.
In a second, Conrad shoves his glasses on his face and turns on the lamp. He removes his phone from his ear to see Belly’s photo on his screen. An old one from when they were together: Belly smiling so widely her eyes were closed, her infinity necklace hanging on her throat, these cute star clips in her hair.
He exhales, voice rough, “Belly.”
“Conrad,” she says again, more sure of herself now. “Sorry, it’s really early. I didn’t mean to wake you. Actually, that’s a lie. I didn’t know if you were awake or not, timezones and everything, but I just needed to ask you something.”
“I don’t mind. Go ahead, shoot.”
A beat. “Can I go home?”
Conrad knows in an instant she’s talking about the summerhouse. “Belly, you don’t need to ask me for my permission. It’s your house as much as it is mine.”
“I know, but…” There’s a pause, like she’s biting her lip. “Can you come home, too?”
A thousand things flash in his mind: finding the excuse to get out of class, maybe he could use a family medical emergency, he could get Agnes’ notes and bring his study material with him, he can rescind his application for the Namazy’s job, he’ll need to get a plane ticket and pack but he doesn’t know for how long and—and he needs to calm the fuck down. Don’t overstep. Put it all in her hands. He needs to put all of himself in her hands. So he does.
“Tell me when,” he says. “And I’ll be there.”
“You probably have plans,” she hesitates. “Mom told me you were gonna stay there for the summer, and—”
“Belly.”
She stops rambling.
His voice softens. “If you want me to drop everything right now to fly to you, I will. Don’t worry about me.”
“But I do,” she says. “Worry. About you.”
Conrad settles against his headboard and huffs out a near-silent laugh.
“I know you know about me and Jere,” Belly says. “He visited you. Taylor showed me his stories.”
“He did visit, yeah.”
Belly pauses. “I don’t want to be the reason you two fight. I don’t want to be that girl—the fucking idiot who dates brothers.”
“Hey, don’t put yourself down,” he reprimands her. “Whatever problems Jere and I have are between us. That’s not on you, okay? We’ve had our issues way before either of us dated you.”
She lets out a choked laugh. “All right, sure.”
Silence fills the space between them for a few seconds.
“Belly, if you want me at the summerhouse, I’ll be there. If you don’t, I’ll stay here. If you want to come here, you can crash at my place.” Conrad sighs. “If you want to just talk on the phone we can do that.” He admits, “I miss you.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” she says through tears. “But it hurts missing you.”
Conrad closes his eyes. Jere’s You’d lose me floats amongst his thoughts. He can’t spare Jeremiah this grief. He’s not that selfless. They’ll always be brothers, and they’ll probably never speak again.
“Belly,” is all he says. It’s a guide, a reminder, a plea, an admission of love. It’s him saying: the ball is in your court.
“Come home for the summer,” Belly says finally.
Conrad’s mouth curves. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she repeats. And across the world, she’s smiling. He knows it like the back of his hand. “Okay. Okay. I’ll let you go now, Conrad.”
Don’t let me go, he wants to say, but that seems like he might be coming on strong. So he says, “See you later, Belly.”
She hangs up mid-giggle.
When Conrad stares up at his ceiling, he sees the ghosts of the glow-in-the-dark stars that used to dot the space. He thinks of being a child again, with his brother, his best friend, his summer girl around him, on their backs as they ooh-d and ahh-d at the green glow that always reminds him of childhood. Conrad spent the whole day under Laurel’s supervision, sticking them to look like real life constellations. When they all were awed, Conrad swelled with pride. He did that. He made them all happy once.
Now, in another home, Conrad looks at the remnants of someone else’s childhood. Somebody had been happy once, here. He thinks of the star clips in Belly’s hair. He thinks of Venus disappearing from view, reappearing: a coin toss between being a morning or evening star depending on the time.
Maybe he’ll never make them all happy like that again. Happiest is hard-won the older he gets. But he’ll chase the memory.
He’ll make new ones, too.