Chapter Text
The beach house had always been Isabel's safe space. When she was a kid, she used to count the days until it was summer again, until it was time to pack up a bag and drive to Cousins. When she was at the beach house, it felt like another world—a fairytale of sorts. It felt as though anything was possible, like she could be and have anything she wanted if only she put her mind to it. Part of that feeling was childish wishfulness, but the other part… that was all Cousins.
Susannah always said that Cousins was magical. When she was a kid, she believed it. Now? She wished for her godmother to be right more than anything else in the world. Isabel needed a little bit of magic in her life.
She was crying again. These days, it seemed as though that was all she did.
Her marriage was over. As hard a truth as that is to swallow, it was the truth. They had been happy once, but time had a way of eroding poorly built structures. If she were to be completely honest, Isabel couldn't remember the last time she felt genuinely happy in her marriage.
She sat down on the sand and pulled her knees against her chest. Her eyes stung from overuse of her tear ducts, her nose clogged. She had a fancy dress on and heels; she had gone to the salon to get ready for the night. The reason for all that? Her wedding anniversary.
Isabel had sat at a table in a fancy restaurant waiting for Jeremiah for one and a half hours. After her fifth phone call, he finally picked up, apologizing for not being able to make it to dinner.
"I'll make it up to you, yeah?" He said in the voice he used to sweet-talk her after doing something that he knew was going to make her mad at him. "Paris in the fall, how does that sound?"
She clutched her phone to her ear. "Like it's not going to happen if you don't get yourself on the way to this restaurant right now."
Jeremiah sighed, as if she were the one being difficult. "I can't, baby. This meeting is really important. You know how much I've been wanting to make a deal with these guys."
Isabel wiped a tear from her eye. She refused to cry at this restaurant and give people a show.
"I know where your priorities lie, yes."
She remembered the night before her wedding, when Conrad confessed he still loved her. The sky was the same black tar peppered with shiny dots. She'd been so angry at him for putting her in a position where she had to pick between the brothers. For being a coward and not telling her sooner. How could she throw away her four-year relationship on the word of a boy who had already broken her heart once? It was crazy that he thought, even for a second, that she'd say yes to him and they'd ride off into the sunset together.
But she'd be lying if she said she hadn't felt tempted by the idea.
Isabel tried not to think about Conrad, which was hard since he's her brother-in-law. He would always be in her orbit, whether she liked it or not. It was particularly hard to ignore his existence when she was mad at her husband. There was a little voice in her head that kept whispering what if you picked him instead?
She looked up at the sky, and that's when she saw it: a shooting star.
When she was ten, Susannah told her about shooting stars—more specifically, shooting stars in Cousins.
"I can't say for other beaches, but Cousins is magical," she said with a wink.
Isabel spent the rest of that summer looking for shooting stars in the night sky. If she had seen one, she knew what she would’ve wished for: Susannah’s cancer to go away for good, Conrad Fisher to love her back. It seemed a cruel joke that she was seeing a shooting star now, when everything she wanted was already lost to her.
She didn't believe in magic, but for Susannah's memory, and for her younger self, she wished for a happy life.
"Please," she whispered into the night, her words getting carried by the wind.
***
Isabel went to her room at the beach house, not the one she shared with Jeremiah when they visited, her room. The one Susannah had decorated with wallpaper from Paris. In the years after her marriage, they slept in the master bedroom whenever they came to Cousins. But she couldn't bring herself to sleep on that bed by herself.
She had slept alone on her bed back in Boston plenty of times, but it was different at Cousins. When she came here as a girl, she believed she'd marry the love of her life; she had believed so many things back then. It felt wrong for that girl to be here without her husband, with a failed marriage and a broken heart. When she lay on her bed, she tried to connect with the girl she'd been before. She'd been an optimist, a hopeless romantic. She had been happy, giddy, and in love with love.
Right about now, she thought she'd be in bed with her husband back home. Instead, she's alone in this grave of a house. The ghosts of everything she's lost haunt the shadows in her room. She doubted Jeremiah would come after her; he would know where she was. She always ran to Cousins when things were difficult.
It was not the first time she spent time at the beach house while her marriage was on a tight rope. When she found out about the affair, she had almost left him. It had been ugly, messy. She drove in tears to Cousins, spent an entire week away from Boston and him.
Then real life caught up; she had to choose between her marriage and failure. If she walked out, what did that mean for her life? Had she wasted all these years married to the wrong man? She had to stand by her decision, her choice all those years ago. Isabel picked Jeremiah Fisher; come hell or high water, she would not give up without a fight.
But she's tired. Tired of fighting for her marriage by herself. Tired of having her heart beaten and bruised, taking blow after blow with no reprieve.
She grabbed clean linens and went to make her bed. Usually, before coming to Cousins, Isabel would call a cleaning service, the way Susannah used to. But she chose to come on an impulse, so the house was closed and dusty, the air stale in the way it gets when windows haven't been opened in a while.
Isabel sank onto the bed wearing her dress and makeup. Too weary for anything but sleep.
***
The sun's warmth caressed her cheek, salt air tickling her nose. Isabel opened her eyes to see the curtains blowing in the sea breeze. She could've sworn that when she went to sleep, the windows had been closed.
Downstairs, the sound and smell of cooking carried over. Bacon crackled in a pan, the sound of a metal skillet clacking against the cooktop. What was happening? She brought a hand to her head, half-wondering if she had drunk the night before, but there was no accompanying headache, no dryness in her mouth.
The sun's warmth caressed her cheek, salt air tickling her nose. Isabel opened her eyes to see the curtains blowing in the sea breeze. She could've sworn that when she went to sleep, the windows were shut.
She sat up, alarmed.
Downstairs, the sound and smell of cooking carried over. Bacon crackled in a pan, a metal skillet clacking against the cooktop, the sink running. What was happening? She brought a hand to her head, wondering why she wasn't suffering from a headache. Did she drink a lot the night before? Was she currently experiencing a blackout? She hadn't had one of those since college.
Her memories came slowly, like honey dripping from a spoon. Jeremiah standing her up on their anniversary; her impulsive car trip to Cousins. She started to connect the pieces one by one. Still, nothing explained the presence of someone else at the house with her. Was it Jeremiah? Had he come to apologize? If so, it'd take more than breakfast in bed for her to forgive him.
She looked toward the closet. It stood half-opened, clothes hanging behind the white doors in an array of colors. Isabel frowned. She hadn't brought anything with her; she had come straight from the restaurant. Not even a pit stop by her apartment to grab an overnight bag.
Isabel inspected the clothes, it was all her size and taste, but nothing she recognized as owned by her. There were glasses and a watch on one of the bedside tables. Her heart skipped a beat. She would recognize that watch anywhere. Susannah gave him that watch, it had been her father's. Isabel hadn't seen him without that watch since.
At that moment, she heard footsteps climbing the stairs. The smell of greasy food reaching her before he pushed the door open.
Conrad Fisher stood at the threshold wearing nothing but his underwear. His hair was still messy from sleep, his chest marked by red lines that could only be a result of scratching.
Isabel felt like she was going to faint. She stumbled onto the bed, holding her weight with her arms as she braced against the mattress. She hadn't seen Conrad in years. Now he was here, standing before her in his underwear like that was the most natural thing in the world. Like his brother wouldn't have an aneurysm at the idea of this encounter.
"Belly?" His voice was uncertain.
She looked up, hands gripping the comforter. "What are you doing here, Conrad?"
He placed the tray on the bed, hands going up in a placating gesture. Her gaze dropped to his stomach, to the lean lines that made up his physique. It was so unfair that he still had the power to dismantle her defenses, that he still affected her this much.
"I'm confused," he said.
They stared at each other, the bed acting as a barrier between them. Conrad looked around the room as if in search of answers, as if he'd find them hiding behind the curtains.
"You should leave," she suggested, taking a few steps away from the bed. Her eyes fell on the messy bed sheets, then raised to meet his gaze again. "We didn't... did we?"
Conrad chuckled nervously. "Belly... what's happening? Why are you wearing that dress?"
"I slept in this. Why are you here? More importantly, why are you on your underwear?"
"Belly are you feeling OK?" He made as if to move toward her, but she raised a hand in a clear sign for him to stay back.
"Conrad, why are you here?" She insisted.
"We came here together. Remember?"
"I drove here yesterday," she countered. "You live in California."
He frowned. "We live in Providence, Belly."
"We?" She murmured.
"Belly, come on. This is not funny."
She plopped on the bed, feeling her head spin like a pinwheel.
"Conrad..." she started, voice catching on a knot in her throat. "I don't know what's happening."
Isabel looked up and saw the worry in his face. It stoked something inside of her, a part of her that had secretly wished for his attention. She hated herself for it.
"I left you naked on the bed, Belly."
He wasn't trying to be crass, she knew it. She understood what he was trying to say, what he was asking her. Where did the dress come from? If she didn't recognize any of the clothes in the closet, did it mean he didn't recognize this dress, too?
"I think I'm not your Belly," she said slowly.