Belly

My mom cried at both graduations. I think she cried more that Susannah wasn't there than she did about them actually graduating.

Somehow I managed to be stuck between her and Conrad at both. It was like they were plotting something, they kept sneaking glances at each other. It made me uncomfortable, so I bailed quickly after both ceremonies, blaming the time difference and needing a nap. It didn't help that at Jeremiahs, Agnes was sitting on the other side of Conrad. I'm guessing she will be spending the summer at Cousins again this year. Unfortunately, my mother told me I wouldn't be able to be home in Philly this summer as she was apparently having it fumigated. Secretly, I think she just wants alone time with her boyfriend, because she herself wasn't going to be at the beach house for most of the summer. She would be with him.

So after driving back from Jeremiah's graduation at Finch, I dragged all my bags up to my room at the beach house. But there were already sheets on the bed. Sheets with tight corners, folded at 45 degrees. And clothes in the dresser. I felt sick. Had Agnes been staying in my room? Would Conrad really do that to me? Had he really replaced me, not just in his heart, but here? In our home? Is that why he was shipping me Junior Mint and Mildred? So that my things wouldn't be in her way?

I couldn't breathe. My vision was blurry. It felt like there was an icy hand squeezing my chest. Am I having a heart attack? I sank down to the floor next to the bed and tried to focus on breathing. Is this a panic attack? Is this what Conrad goes through? And thinking of Conrad made it even harder to breathe.

That's how Conrad found me. Sitting on the floor hyperventilating, crying.

He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around me. "Belly… Focus on breathing. It's okay. You're okay. I'm here. I got you. I got you, Isabel. Breathe in. Breathe out, slow. Can you do that for me, Belly?"

"You… You replaced me…" I sobbed, once I had my breathing under control. I tried pushing him away, but he just held me tighter. "You replaced me and you didn't even tell me. And now she has my room." I fought harder against him, but he just held me anyway.

"Noone could replace you, ever. It's still your room Belly." I shook my head, getting angry now. "It is. It was me sleeping in here. It was me. No one could ever replace you. I wouldn't do that to you."

"You. But… Why?" I had stopped fighting, but he was still holding on to me. He looked away now. And then I remembered the box in the closet. "What happened to all my things?"

"Your things are all still here. I just put a few of my clothes in the drawer too."

"Not the closet?" My heart was pounding.

"Nah, that's all still hanging in my room. Agnes just needed a drawer or two for her stuff when she stays."

Agnes stays in his room? In his bed? I stood quickly, grabbed my bags and started putting my clothes away. "I guess now you two can just share a room." I started tossing his things onto the bed and replacing them with mine. "Don't know why you just didn't do that in the first place."

Conrad grabbed my wrist, and pulled me to face him. "She's just a friend. And with Skye and Aunt Julia here there weren't any free rooms. I knew you wouldn't like having someone else in here, so I let her have mine and I stayed in here. She's not even coming back here after the graduation, she was only here for a few weeks."

"And what, you just kept staying in here?" I pulled my arm away and continued putting my clothes away.

"Yeah, I did." He said. Something about the way he sounded made me stop.

I whirled around to face him. "Why?" I demanded.

"Because I missed you. The first night I stayed in here, I was the only one in the house. It was after you went home with your mom. And then when I would come home on breaks I would just sleep in here."

And there it was. I've been wanting to hear him say something like that for so long. But then reality settled back in. "That's great Con. How long before you take it back?"

"I- what?"

"How long before you tell me you didn't mean any of it? How long before you tell me to grow up or to stop being a brat? How long before you pull the rug out from underneath me again?" I was yelling now, pushing him backward.

"I'm not, Belly. I won't. I'm sorry, okay? I'm so fucking sorry." I started grabbing his clothes and throwing them at him now. I didn't want to hear this. I couldn't handle hearing this.

"Just get out, Conrad. Just leave me alone." I slammed the door in his face before leaning against it and sliding down to the floor. I kept waiting to hear his footsteps as he walked away, but they never came. Hours later when I finally calmed down, I finished putting my things away. I grabbed my toiletries bag to take a shower. When I opened the door however, Conrad was on the floor, leaning against the wall in front of my door. Asleep. He didn't walk away…

The angry part of me wanted to kick him, but instead I snuck past him into the bathroom. When I finished in the shower, he was gone and all his clothes had been picked up as well. All except a Stanford sweatshirt that was folded neatly on top of the bed. Sighing, I slid out of my towel and into the shirt. It smelled like him, and so did the sheets. And I hated how I slept better that night than I had since Susannah passed.

Conrad

Belly left Jeremiah's graduation with some lame excuse about being jet lagged, but I could tell she was upset. After basically begging Steven to make sure Agnes made it back to the airport for her flight home, I was on the road to Cousins. I was done letting Belly walk away from me. Not without her knowing the truth.

What I didn't expect was to find her having a panic attack on her bedroom floor. I dropped to the floor next to her and talked her through it.

"You… you replaced me.." She was sobbing now and it broke my heart that she felt that way.

It didn't matter now what I said, she just kept getting angrier the more I tried to calm her down. But I would take angry Belly over sad Belly any day. She threw me out of her room, but I wasn't running from her anymore. I leaned against her door, listening to her trying to control herself, making sure she wasn't going to have another panic attack. I woke up a few hours later to the sound of the shower starting, so I cleaned up my clothes and laid the sweater I had got for her on her bed. I hesitated, thinking back to how weird she acted about her closet. What kind of secret is she keeping in there? But then I heard the water shut off, so I hurried back to my own room to keep from starting another fight. The last thing I wanted now was her to find me snooping.

Everyone else would be here in the morning or late tonight. But for now we were alone. I laid on my bed staring at the ceiling, thinking. This summer will be different. I know now how she feels, even if she refuses to admit it. And I am done denying how I feel. I just have to figure out how to prove it to her. This isn't the same Belly from before. She's no longer the little girl mooning over me. She's grown into this strong, independent, angry young woman. And I can't wait to fall in love with this version of her as well. And with every version of her, for the rest of our lives. I just have to make her see we're infinite.