Chapter Text
i.
Belly heaved her heavy floral suitcase into the trunk of the white Sudan. She stared at it briefly in the Arizona heat, wondering if this was what her life had amounted to. One large suitcase and a couple of boxes locked away in storage. She tried using the Marie Kondo method as she packed. Does it bring me joy? She thought as she flapped open an old shirt. Eventually, it started feeling like bullshit and she resorted to stuffing what she could and throwing out the rest. Belly hadn’t seen very much joy in the last year and there was no way in hell she was gonna find it cleaning out her closet. The truth was, with every item she put in her suitcase, she felt like throwing up. Throwing up everything they’d been through that year. Everything she’d had to face.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you?” He said from the doorstep behind her.
She looked at him over her shoulder and forced a smile while shaking her head. He nodded in understanding. There wasn’t much left to say and a silent car ride to the airport seemed more painful than a brief goodbye. Uber was putting them both out of their misery.
Belly opened the backseat while the driver impatiently tapped his fingers on the outside of his door. She turned and looked at him one last time.
Conrad. Her Conrad.
He looked so far away from the end of their short driveway. Something about his expression reminded her of the summer when everything changed for them. When she hopped out of her mom’s SUV and saw him stalking toward her from the house. His eyes locked in, his brows scrunched toward the center, and his lips slightly parted like he was deciding what to say.
I liked you better with glasses, he said. Of all things. She couldn’t read him then and she couldn’t read him now. An “I love you.” rested behind her lips but she held it back with her tongue. She wasn’t even sure what that meant for them anymore.
“I’ll see you later?” She opted for instead, forcing a grin. He nodded his head and forced one back, lifting his hand in a wave goodbye. She took a mental snapshot of the moment. Conrad, standing in front of their blue front door, the one they painted together because Belly hated the brown one that came with the bungalow. The bangs of his hair gently scraping the tops of his brows as the gentle breeze picked up. He stood barefoot on the pavement with his arms folded over his gray shirt, his body language now guarded and foreign. She would remember this clearly. The end of infinity.
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Belly squirmed in her seat by the window. Window seats made her feel claustrophobic. She didn’t like being blocked from a quick exit but it was either that or a middle seat when she booked the flight. That’s what she got for flying American. She vowed never to fly with them again at least 10 times in her life but lacked the will to pass up a cheap ticket when she needed one. 5 hours to Boston wouldn’t be too bad. She squirmed some more to try and get comfortable pressed between her seatmate and the wall before accidentally nudging their elbow.
“I’m sorry.” Belly squeaked.
“Oh don’t worry about it, sugar. These planes get smaller and smaller every time I fly it seems. No room to breathe let alone stretch your limbs. We ain’t meant to stay folded like pretzels for too long. It just ain’t right. That’s why I got these compression socks on…keeps the blood flowing.” the woman replied, hiking up her pant leg to reveal a gray knee-high sock. Her accent had a slight twang. Southern for sure. Louisiana maybe. Belly had a teacher from New Orleans in high school and he sounded the same.
Belly smiled in passive agreement and buckled her seat belt. She prayed the woman next to her wasn’t a chatter and searched around her small purse for her earbuds just in case. When she found them, she pressed them into her ears and turned on some Joni Mitchell. Joni would keep her company. Joni understood.
No less than three minutes later Belly felt a tap on her shoulder.
Fuck.
Belly turned to face the wide-mouthed elderly woman beside her and tried not to look annoyed as she pulled her earbuds out. She thought it was common courtesy not to bug someone once they put their earbuds in but apparently, that rule might have been locational. Belly was from the northeast for God’s sake! A proper place where people knew how to keep to themselves.
“What are you headed to Boston for?” she asked with bright eyes.
Belly mulled over what to say. What was she headed to Boston for? Maybe for comfort. Maybe to feel tethered to something before being lost forever.
“Um…just taking some time for myself. Gonna head to Cousins and stay at an old family home,” she replied.
“Oh, Cousins huh? That’s one of them beach towns, right? My daughter is a professor at Northwestern and sometimes she takes the kiddies up there I think. Poor thing can’t swim so I don’t know why she likes the beach so much…”
“I’m headed there for a visit. Gonna watch the grandbabies while she takes an anniversary trip. My poor husband is always beside himself when I’m away. Acts like a damn child, that one. Like the food I leave in the freezer don’t taste the same unless I warm it for him…” she yapped on.
Belly tightly pressed her lips together while bouncing her knee. It was all she could do to not ask the woman to shut up. Normally, it wouldn’t bother her so much but right now her head felt like it was going to explode. The image of Conrad waving goodbye through the rearview window of her Uber played on a loop and only every other word the woman said was getting through.
“...Anyway, what can you do? Us women are the backbone of society I tell ya. Leave these men to fend for themselves and it’s just war and orgies left and right.”
Belly nodded her head and forced another smile. There was a brief moment of silence before she followed the woman's gaze down to her hands resting in her lap. Suddenly, they were both staring at Belly's wedding ring. She hadn’t even thought about her ring and what to do with it in all of this. Over the years it became a part of her hand, merging with her skin and going unnoticed.
Please don't. Pleaaaase don’t.
“Oh! You’re married too! So you know exactly what I mean. How long have y’all been together? Pretty girl like you, I’m sure he’s a looker. Oh to be young and in love! What’s y’all’s story?”
“You know the old story…boy meets girl, boy and girl get married, boy and girl move across the country, boy and girl fight, boy and girl get divorced.” Belly quipped before she could stop herself.
The woman jerked her head back in surprise and hung her mouth open, trying to find the words.
“Oh…” is all she could muster before folding her hands in her lap and facing forward.
“Yeah,” Belly whispered to herself before plugging her ears again. The “D” word was like a landmine whenever it was said. Everyone moved carefully around it, afraid of the explosion waiting to happen if they got too close.
The first time Conrad suggested it she didn’t know what to say. It sounded strange coming from his mouth and when Belly tried to say it from then on, her throat would tighten. Now she used it as a shield to retreat further into herself. To hide from the questions.
She cranked up the volume on her phone as she stared out the window. The plane rattled down the runway and took off into the air. The Phoenix grid grew smaller and smaller as they ascended and Belly watched until the clouds washed it over. A lump formed in her throat. She rested her head against the glass and closed her eyes to press the tears back in. Eventually, Joni serenaded her to sleep crooning the lyrics of Blue into the background as everything faded to black.
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The night was creeping in by the time Belly reached the old summer house. The sky was dusking from burnt orange into deep blues as the sun made its descent. Belly pulled her bag from the trunk of her rental and exhaled as she dragged it toward the house. She was comforted by its uninterrupted appearance. Aside from what looked like freshly re-painted shutters, the house was the same. It was a time capsule. An anchor in a sea of moving things.
She rolled her way up to the front door and used her spare key. The inside hit her with a familiar smell that reminded her of Susannah and the boys and every summer they all spent together. She never figured out what that scent was but somehow it seemed to seep from the walls and hold everything in place. Belly took it in and instantly felt at home. Everything was still and quiet and for the first time in a long time she felt like she could breathe.
Belly hauled her suitcase up the steps and took her usual room. Not much had changed. Whenever she and Conrad came to visit she convinced him to stay there, snuggled together tightly on her small bed. They clung to the past there. Clung to the ways they had been when the future was so uncertain. Now Belly flung herself onto the old sheets and clung to herself. Her body lying on the bed was the only thing she felt control over. Everything else had wiggled free from her hands.
She decided on a hot shower before unwinding for the night. She held her head beneath the shower head and let the water fall over her hair and face. It wasn’t long before she realized she was crying. The tears she’d held back earlier finally broke their way through. The shower was her favorite place to cry. Something about the water washing away the salt from her eyes felt cleansing. At least there she could pretend the water was all the same. She closed her eyes and inhaled the steam. Suddenly she felt Conrad’s hands on her waist, working around her stomach and up her chest. Her eyes shot open and searched around to find herself alone. Moments like that happened often. Fragmented images of the way they were. It was all so confusing because she knew they were over. They’d exhausted themselves trying to gather and hoard the scraps that were left of their relationship in the last year but somehow her body still chose to remember.
Belly kept all of this close to her chest. She hadn’t told anyone the extent of their relationship trouble. Taylor knew some details but not the full story and now and then she’d call Laurel and ask for vague advice but she couldn’t bring herself to fully divulge their circumstances. Something about facing her mom made her feel small, like every self-judgment she had would come alive in Laurel’s eyes. She asked Conrad not to say anything if Laurel called and asked on one of their bi-weekly check-ins. This was her news to break. When she was ready.
With her hair damp and falling over her shoulders, Belly perused the kitchen for dinner hoping by some miracle there was something left in the pantry to eat. Lost in thought on the drive over to Cousins it felt like she hadn’t even been driving. Like her body had gone on autopilot while her mind drifted and before she knew it, she was at the house and hadn’t eaten in over five hours. She opened the fridge to find it pretty much empty, not that she’d expected much but somehow had hoped to find something salvageable. She went for the freezer drawer next and got lucky. Frozen chicken tikka masala. Belly pulled it out in victory and didn’t bother to check the expiration date. Blissful ignorance. She punctured the film covering the tray and popped it in the microwave.
There was a vibration in her pocket and she reached for her phone. It was a text from Conrad.
Conrad: Make it in safely?
Belly: Yeah, just got to the house. Sorry, I forgot to text when I landed.
She watched three dots pop up on the screen and linger for a bit before they disappeared. He liked the message instead of replying. Belly sighed and shoved her phone back in her pocket. She leaned over the kitchen island and dropped her gaze to the ring on her finger. The gold band stared back at her, mocking her and calling her a failure. Belly pulled it off. Twisting it with annoyance until it released her finger. She toggled it between her index and thumb and sighed wondering what Conrad would do with his. No one wrote a manual on this kind of stuff. She dropped it on the island and reached for the clasp of the gold chain around her neck. An old necklace she got for a birthday way back when. She took the chain and looped it through the ring before putting it back on. The ring rested over her sternum, a holding place until she could fully let it go.
The microwave beeped and pulled her from thought. She pulled the tray from the turntable without oven mitts and sucked air between her teeth as the heat nearly burned her fingers. She grabbed a fork and some wine from the cabinet and made herself comfortable before stuffing her face. There was an emptiness in her that she was eager to fill with whatever she could and for now, that was chicken tikka masala and pinot noir.
Suddenly Belly jumped when she heard the front door burst open and what sounded like someone falling over the threshold. Her heart jumped when the stumbling continued. There was giggling and shuffling of feet and the switch of the living room lamp she could see glowing from the kitchen. Confused, she anxiously crept up and peered around the corner. There was somebody on the couch.
Belly braced her core and crept forward, closer and closer to the giggling and the tangled shadows cast on the wall where the television hung.
When she reached the back of the couch she saw a thick mass of black curly hair hovering, shirtless, over a lean body. Strong hands roamed her back in search of the clasp on her bra, eager and hungry as the curly-haired girl trailed her kisses from his mouth down to his neck. From there she saw the familiar golden curls framing his face. His eyes were closed and he smiled in ecstasy as he let out a quiet moan.
“Jere?” Belly said, letting his name roll out before she could catch it. His eyes snapped open and he sat up, startled, and pulled his guest up with him. She groaned with annoyance and followed Jere’s focused eyes.
“Belly, what are you doing here?”