Post- We'll Always Have Summer, but before the wedding. Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer- I own nothing.

there's a place i used to go

there's a world i used to know

there was a light and it was you

every word i say is true

ooo

Conrad Fished loved the beach during the winter. Maybe it was the sleepiness of it all, a stark contrast to all of the chaos of the summer. Maybe it was the lack of color- the grey sky, the grey sand, the grey sea. It matched his mood perfectly.

It had been four months since the almost wedding of Belly and his brother. Four months since he had last touched her, held her, talked to her. Seen her beautiful face and smile.

It was like death. Worse than death, even. Almost worse than the two years away from her, when he was in California and running away from everything- at least, then, he had known that she was happy and, more than that, taken. But now... she was free.

And she wasn't his.

He sunk his hands deeper into his pockets, his toes deeper into the freezing-cold sand. They were starting to feel numb. He didn't really care- numbness was welcome.

He hated how cliche it all was, but it was true- he would rather feel nothing at all than all of this pain...

Conrad looked back out to the sea, his chest feeling heavier and heavier by the second. He could almost see, like a reel that played over and over in his head, the summers flashing before his eyes- long summer days making sandcastles as a kid, guiding the younger three on great adventures that seemed so much bigger than they were, simply because the entire world was so much bigger, back then. Long swims out to the ocean itself, imaging that he could never stop swimming and just keep going forever... swimming to save Belly when she almost drowned, his mother's warm smile and hug when he had swam back to the shore, shivering and shaking Belly under his arm.

Cousins was probably the wrong place to go, he realized (belatedly). There were too many memories, so many that they could drown him, swallow him whole like the ocean itself.

Still, he thought, shaking the sand off of his feet and slipping his shoes back on, it was good to be home.

He walked back to his car, turning on the heater but sitting there, looking at the ocean for a little while longer.

Belly was on the other side of that ocean, thousands of miles away, in Spain, of all places. He could almost see her there, if he closed his eyes and thought hard enough. It was a good thought, her in Spain- he just wished he was there to see it all.

He sighed, putting the car into drive and steering the car away from the ocean, driving on the stretch of highway that hugged the ocean. One thought pumped through his head and heart, making him feel dizzy and drunk, excited and terrified at the same time.

He was going to see her soon, he just knew. She would be his again.

ooo

every day, i will wait till you're mine again

i will die every day 'till you're mine again

there's no words to explain, no beginning and no end

i will dream, i will wait

'till you're mine again