An hour later, the boys came back, drunk as skunks. I’d seen Jere drunk before, but not like this. He was so wasted, the boys practically had to carry him upstairs. He could barely open his eyes. “Belllllly,” he called out. “I’m gonna marry you, girl.”
From the bottom of the staircase, I yelled back, “Go to sleep!”
Conrad wasn’t with them. I asked Tom, “Where’s Conrad? I thought he was your designated driver.”
Tom was swaying upstairs. “I dunno. He was with us.”
I went out to the car, thinking maybe he’d passed out in the backseat. But he wasn’t there. I was starting to get worried, but just then I caught a glimpse of him way down the beach, sitting in the lifeguard stand. I took off my shoes and made my way over to him.
“Come down,” I called up. “Don’t fall asleep up there.”
“Come up,” he said. “Just for a minute.”
I thought about it for a second. He didn’t sound drunk; he sounded fine. I climbed up the side of the chair and sat next to him. “Did you guys have fun?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer me.
I watched the water lap along the shore. There was a crescent moon. I said, “I love it here at night.”
And then, suddenly, he said, “I have to tell you something.”
Something in his voice scared me. “What?”
Looking out at the ocean, he said, “Jere cheated on you when he was in Cabo.”
That wasn’t what I expected him to say. It was maybe the last thing I expected him to say. His jaw was clenched, and he looked angry. “Tonight at the club, one of his dumbass friends said something.” He finally looked at me. “I’m sorry you had to hear it from me. I thought you had a right to know.”
I didn’t know how to answer him. I finally said, “I already knew about it.”
His head jerked back. “You knew?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re still marrying him?”
My cheeks felt hot. “He made a mistake,” I said softly. “He hates himself for what he did. I forgave him. Everything’s fine now. Everything’s really great.”
Conrad’s mouth curled in disgust. “Are you kidding me? He spent the night in a hotel room with some girl and you’re defending him?”
“Who are you to judge us? It’s none of your business.”
“None of my business? That shithead is my brother, and you’re…” He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead he said, “I never thought you’d be the kind of girl who would put up with that from a guy.”
“I put up with a lot worse from you.” I said it automatically. I said it without thinking.
Eyes flashing, he said, “I never once cheated on you. I never even looked at another girl when we were together.”
I slid away from him and started to climb down. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” I didn’t know why he was bringing any of this up now. I just wanted it all to go away.
“I thought I knew you,” he said.
“I guess you thought wrong,” I said. Then I jumped the rest of the way down.
I heard him jump down behind me, and I started to walk away. I could feel tears coming, and I didn’t want him to see.
Conrad ran up behind me and grabbed my arm. I tried to turn my head away from him, but he saw, and his face changed. He felt sorry for me. That only made me feel worse. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. You’re right. It’s not my business.”
I spun away from him. I didn’t need his pity.
I started walking in the opposite direction of the house. I didn’t know where I was going, I just wanted to get away from him.
He called out, “I still love you.”
I froze. And then slowly, I turned around to look at him. “Don’t say that.”
He took a step closer. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get you out of my system, not completely. I have… this feeling. That you’ll always be there. Here.” Conrad clawed at his heart and then dropped his hand.
“It’s only because I’m marrying Jeremiah.” I hated the way my voice sounded—shaky and small. Weak. “That’s why you’re saying all this all of a sudden.”
“It’s not all of a sudden,” he said, his eyes locked on mine. “It’s always.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.” I turned away from him.
“Wait,” he said. He grabbed my arm again.
“Let go of me,” I said, and my voice was so cold, I wouldn’t have recognized it. It surprised him, too.
He flinched, and his hand dropped. “Just tell me one thing. Why get married now?” he said. “Why not just live together?”
I had asked myself the same question. I still hadn’t come up with a good answer.
I started to walk away, but he followed me. He wrapped his arms around me, over my shoulders.
“Let go.” I struggled, but he held on.
“Wait. Wait.”
My heart was racing. What if someone saw us? What if someone heard? “If you don’t let go of me, I’m going to scream.”
“Hear me out, just for a minute. Please. I’m begging you.” He sounded strangled and hoarse.
I let out a breath. In my head I started to count backward. Sixty seconds was all he would get from me. I would let him talk for sixty seconds, and then I would go and not look back. Two years ago, this was all I wanted to hear from him. But it was too late now.
Quietly, he said, “Two years ago, I fucked up. But not in the way you think. That night—do you remember that night? The night we were driving back from school and it was raining so hard, we had to stop at that motel. Do you remember?”
I remembered that night. Of course I did.
“That night, I didn’t sleep at all. I stayed up, thinking about what to do. What was the right thing to do? Because I knew I loved you. But I knew I shouldn’t. I didn’t have the right to love anybody then. After my mom died, I was so pissed off. I had this anger in me all the time. I felt like I was going to erupt any minute.”
He drew his breath in. “I didn’t have it in me to love you the way you deserved. But I knew who did. Jere. He loved you. If I kept you with me, I was going to hurt you somehow. I knew it. I couldn’t have it. So I let you go.”
I’d stopped counting by then. I just concentrated on breathing. In and out.
“But this summer… God, this summer. Being near you again, talking the way we used to talk. You looking at me the way you used to.”
I closed my eyes. It didn’t matter what he said now. That was what I told myself.
“I see you again, and everything I planned goes to shit. It’s impossible.… I love Jere more than anybody. He’s my brother, my family. I hate myself for doing this. But when I see you two together, I hate him too.” His voice broke. “Don’t marry him. Don’t be with him. Be with me.”
His shoulders shook. He was crying. Hearing him beg like this, seeing him exposed and vulnerable, it felt like my heart was breaking. There were so many things I wanted to say to him. But I couldn’t. With Conrad, once I started, I couldn’t stop.
I broke away from him roughly. “Conrad—”
He grabbed me. “Just tell me. Do you still feel anything for me?”
I pushed him away. “No! Don’t you get it? You will never be what Jere is to me. He’s my best friend. He loves me no matter what. He doesn’t take it away whenever he feels like it. Nobody has ever treated me the way he does. Nobody. Least of all you.
“You and I,” I said, and then I stopped. I had to get this right. I had to make it so that he let me go forever. “You and I were never anything.”
His face went slack. I saw the light die out in his eyes. I couldn’t look at him anymore.
I started walking again, and this time he didn’t follow me. I didn’t look back. Couldn’t look back. If I saw his face again, I might not be able to leave.
As I walked, I told myself, Hold it, hold it, just a little longer. Only when I was sure he couldn’t see me, only when the house was in sight again, that was when I let myself cry. I dropped down in the sand and cried for Conrad and then for me. I cried for what was never going to be.
It’s a known fact that in life, you can’t have everything. In my heart I knew I loved them both, as much as it is possible to love two people at the same time. Conrad and I were linked, we would always be linked. That wasn’t something I could do away with. I knew that now—that love wasn’t something you could erase, no matter how hard you tried.
I got up, I brushed the sand from my body, and I went inside the house. I climbed into Jeremiah’s bed, next to him. He was passed out, snoring loudly the way he did when he drank too much.
“I love you,” I said to his back.
