It was a summer I would never, ever forget. It was the summer everything began. It was the summer I turned pretty. Because for the first time, I felt it. Pretty, I mean. Every summer up to this one, I believed it’d be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was.
Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That’s the part of the risk. I don’t want to be scared anymore.
It’s all relative, I suppose. You think you know love, you think you know real pain, but you don’t. You don’t know anything.
My two great loves. I think I always knew I would be Belly Fisher one day. I just didn’t know it was going to happen like this.
I go wherever you go,? he says, launching us into the water. This is our start. This is the moment it becomes real. We are married. We are infinite. Me and Conrad. The first boy I ever slow danced with, ever cried over. Ever loved.
You Are The Milk To My Shake, forever and ever. Love, J.
I stared at him. Did he really say that? Did he remember? The way he looked back at me, one eyebrow raised, I knew he did. And this time, I was the one to look away. Because I remembered. I remembered everything.
I don’t just want a part of you. I want all of you Jeremiah Fisher.
Lying here and looking up at the stars like this, it makes me feel like I’m lying on a planet. It’s so wide. So infinite -Belly Conklin.
You only like guys you don’t have a chance with, because you’re scared.
When a person you love dies, it doesn’t feel real. It’s like it’s happening to someone else. It’s someone else’s life. I’ve never been good with the abstract. What does it mean when someone is really truly gone?
I would rather have had someone shoot me in the head with a nail gun, repeatedly, than have to watch the two of them cuddling on the couch together all night. – Conrad.
It’s not like in the movies. It’s better, because it’s real.
My dad always used to say that with everything in life, there’s a game-changing moment. The one moment everything else hinges upon, but you hardly ever know it at the time.
He pulled my foot, drawing me closer. Being this close to him was making me feel dizzy and nervous. I said it again, one last time, even though i didn’t mean it. “Conrad let go of me.” He did. And then he dunked me. It didn’t matter. I was already holding my breath.
It’s hard to throw away history. It was like you were throwing away a part of yourself.
Suddenly I had this feeling, this absolute certainty, that I was never going to be able to let him go. It was as simple and as hard as that. I had clung to him like a barnacle all these years, and now I couldn’t cut away. It was my own fault, really. I couldn’t let go of Conrad.
Nothing, nothing felt better than the way sand felt beneath my feet. It was both solid and shifting. Constant and ever-changing. It was summer.
And then there was Jeremiah. When I looked at Jeremiah, I saw past, present, and future. He didn’t just know the girl I used to be. He knew the right-now me, and he loved me anyway.
All night, I talked to other people. I didn’t look in his direction, but I always knew where he was. I was painfully aware of him. When he was nearby, my body hummed. When he was away, there was this dull ache. With him near, I felt everything.