I was so lost in staring at the figure I drew that I didn't hear him coming until he was right beside me.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked me.

I looked up at him. His face was one I had memorized long ago, both by sight and touch. It was the face of my best friend, my ally, but only now did I realize that it wasn't the face of the man I loved.

"Hey Jere." I took a deep breath. "We need to talk." He groaned.

"Belly, don't. Don't do this."

"You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"Belly, the only instances where anyone says the words 'we need to talk' together in a sentence is when someone is dumping someone else." I cringed. He did know what I was going to say.

"Jere, I'm not the one for you." I told him softly. He jumped to his feet, which made me jump slightly.

"No! Don't say that! You don't get to say that! You are the one for me, Belly. You're the only one for me! I made a mistake! People make mistakes!" He cried.

"It's not about that. The cheating." I looked up at him. To my horror, his face went from completely and utterly broken to emotionless with my words.

"Oh. Right. I should've known. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked even though I knew what it meant. Even though he was right.

"You're still in love with him, Conrad. You never stopped loving him." When I didn't say anything, he sat down beside me and looked out onto the ocean.

"Please don't hate me." I whispered. I hadn't even meant for him to hear, but he did. And he laughed, of all things.

"Belly, I could never hate you. I love you. And yeah, I wished you loved me back but I could never hate you. Especially not for this." I squinted my eyes and looked at him, long and hard.

"Why not?" I demanded. "Why aren't you mad?"

"Because I knew it all along. I knew it when I first started liking you, when we started dating, I for sure knew it when I cheated on you. I knew it when I was kneeling outside my brother's door, proposing, not letting myself dwell on the fact that it was him you ran to."

Well didn't I feel stupid. Apparently even Jeremiah had known how hung up I still was on Conrad. I blew out a big breath of air I hadn't even known I was holding.

"So what are you going to do?" He asked me after a while.

"What do you mean, what am I going to do?"

"When are you going to tell Conrad you still love him?" He told me, rather exasperated.

"Um, never sounds good."

"What?"

"I'm serious, Jere. I don't plan on telling him, ever."

"Why?"

I sighed loudly. "Because, he doesn't love me back! I can't put myself through that kind of hurt again! I won't put myself through that again." I turned to look at Jeremiah again when he didn't say anything. I was surprised to see him angry again.

"Belly, do you honestly still believe he doesn't love you too?" I gave him a curt nodd. "Well, you're wrong. He does. And even if he didn't, you can't not tell him! That's a whole other kind of hurt to put yourself through. And that one lasts forever."

"I just can't, Jere."

"Belly, you have to! If you aren't going to do it for yourself," He paused, and sighed. "do it for me. Because I'm sure as hell not letting you go if the reason for our breakup isn't that important to you."

"It is important, Jere. I wouldn't have broken up with you if I didn't think it was important." Jeremiah threw his hands up in the air.

"Well there you go! Now, go!" I looked at him like he was crazy, but he just shooed me away. So, I left the boy who loved me, the boy I knew I could be happy with, the boy I knew I could have, to go tell the other boy I loved him.

Because I was so busy overthinking things, I didn't notice Jeremiah noticing my little drawing in the sand.

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