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.
