His eyes flickered over me appraisingly, like he was trying to decide whether or not he wanted to buy a coat. I could feel my cheeks heat up as he looked at me. “As much as I like the sound of a reward system, I’m gonna pass,” he said at last.
“What are you talking about?” Jeremiah asked.
Conrad shrugged. “I study better on my own. I’ve got it covered. You guys can go.”
Jeremiah shook his head in disgust. “Just like always. You can’t handle asking for help. Well, sucks to be you, ’cause we’re staying.”
“What do you guys know about freshman psych?” Conrad said, crossing his arms.
Jeremiah sprang up. “We’ll figure it out.” He winked at me. “Bells, can we eat first? I need grease.”
I felt like I had won a prize. Like I was invincible. Reaching into the bag, I said, “One each. That’s it.”
When Conrad’s back was turned, as he was rummaging around the cupboard for Tabasco sauce, Jeremiah held his hand out for another high five. I slapped it silently and we grinned at each other. Jeremiah and I were a good team, always had been.
We ate our cheeseburgers in silence. As soon as we were done, I said, “How do you want to do this, Conrad?”
“Seeing as how I don’t want to do this at all, I’ll let you decide,” he said. He had mustard on his lower lip.
“Okay, then.” I was prepared for this. “You’ll read. I’ll work on note cards for psych. Jeremiah will highlight.”
“Jere doesn’t know how to highlight,” Conrad scoffed.
“Hey!” Jeremiah said. Then, turning to me, he said, “He’s right. I suck at highlighting. I just end up highlighting the whole page. I’ll do note cards and you highlight, Bells.”
I ripped open a pack of index cards and handed them to Jeremiah. Incredibly enough, Conrad listened. He picked his psych textbook out of the stack of books and he started to read.
Sitting at the table, studying with his forehead creased, he looked like the old Conrad. The one who cared about things like exams and ironed shirts and being on time. The irony of all this was that Jeremiah had never been much of a student. He hated to study; he hated grades. Learning was, had always been, Conrad’s thing. From the very start, he was the one with the chemistry set, thinking up experiments for us to do as his scientist’s assistants. I remembered when he’d discovered the word “absurd,” and he went around saying it all the time. “That’s absurd ,” he’d say. Or “numbskull,” his favorite insult—he said that a lot too. The summer he was ten, he tried to work his way through the Encyclopedia Britannica . When we came back the next summer, he was at Q.
I realized it suddenly. I missed him. All this time. When you got to the underneath of it, there it was. There it had always been. And even though he was sitting there only feet away, I missed him more than ever.
Underneath my lashes I watched him, and I thought, Come back. Be the you I love and remember.
Chapter thirty-nine
We were done with psychology and Conrad was working on his English paper with his headphones on when my phone buzzed. It was Taylor. I wasn’t sure if she was calling to apologize or to demand I bring her stuff back home immediately. Maybe a mixture of both. I turned off my phone.
With all the house drama, I hadn’t thought about our fight once. I’d only been back at the summer house for a couple of days, and just like always, I’d already forgotten about Taylor and everything back home. What mattered to me was here. It had always been that way.
But those things she’d said, they hurt. Maybe they were true. But I didn’t know if I could forgive her for saying them.
It was getting dark out when Jeremiah leaned over and said in a low voice, “You know, if you wanted to, you could leave tonight. You could just take my car. I could pick it up tomorrow, after Conrad’s done with his exams. We could hang out or something.”
“Oh, I’m not leaving yet. I want to go with you guys tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure. Don’t you want me to come with you?” It was starting to hurt my feelings, the way he was acting like they were imposing on me, as if we weren’t family.
“Yeah, course I do.” He paused like he was going to say something else.
I poked him with my highlighter. “Are you scared that you’ll get in trouble with Mara ?” I was only halfway teasing. I still couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me he had a sort of girlfriend. I wasn’t entirely sure why it mattered, but it did. We were supposed to be close. Or at least we used to be. I should have known if he had a girlfriend or not. And how long had they been “broken up” anyway? She hadn’t been at the funeral, or at least I didn’t think so. It wasn’t like Jeremiah had gone around introducing her to people. What kind of girlfriend didn’t go to her boyfriend’s mom’s funeral? Even Conrad’s ex had come.
Jeremiah glanced over at Conrad and lowered his voice. “I told you, Mara and I are done.”
When I didn’t say anything, he said, “Come on, Belly. Don’t be mad.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about her,” I said, highlighting an entire paragraph. I didn’t look at him. “I can’t believe you kept it a secret.”
“There wasn’t anything to tell, I swear.”
“Ha!” I said. But I felt better. I snuck a peek at Jeremiah, and he looked back at me with anxious eyes.
“Okay?”
“Fine. It doesn’t affect me one way or the other. I just thought you would have told me a thing like that.”
He relaxed back into his seat. “We weren’t that serious, trust me. She was just a girl. It wasn’t like how it was with Conrad and—”
I started, and he broke off guiltily.
It wasn’t like how it was with Conrad and Aubrey. He’d loved her. Once upon a time, he’d been crazy about her. He had never been that way with me. Never. But I had loved him. I loved him longer and truer than I had anyone in my whole life and I would probably never love anyone that way again. Which, to be honest, was almost a relief.
Chapter forty
july 6
When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was go to my window. Who knew how many more times I would see this view? We were all growing up. I would be at college soon. But the good thing, the comforting thing, was the knowing that it would still be here. The house wasn’t going away.
