Chapter Text
Never trust a stranger-friend; No one knows how it will end.
As you're pretty, so be wise; Wolves may lurk in every guise.
-Charles Perrault, Little Red Riding Hood, 1969
___
From the moment Belly first met Conrad Fisher, she felt like she was being hunted. For so long he was just a lingering spirit, a name mentioned in passing. He was some kind of ghost, a shameful secret that was kept in a crypt that was locked away with a rusted skeleton key.
The first time she laid eyes on him, she felt a welling in her chest, something she was so terrified of. It should have made her feel sick, the feelings she had when she would look at him, but all it did was make her feel warm inside. There’s a part of her that even considers him her first love, the very first person that made her feel weak in the knees, the first man she ever saw that way. He was her first kiss, after all, how could she ever forget that?
He had sauntered into her life when she was too young to know better, and he buried himself deep within her skin when she was old enough to know what was good for her. He somehow managed to get inside of her head, make her believe she was falling in love with him, just to betray any semblance of trust that she may have had in him once upon a time.
It feels so long ago now, being so innocent, being so desperate for his attention, so hungry for his touch. It makes her nauseous to think of now, but it wasn’t necessarily at the girl she once was, it was that it had never truly left her. She doesn’t think it ever will, even after all he has done to her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to let Conrad go, no matter how hard she tries.
She tries to reckon with it, she talks to it with her therapist until she bores herself to tears. She tries to believe that she was too young, that he took advantage of her admiration, that how deep the stab wound in her back was means nothing about her at all. That the heartbreak was fabricated, a manipulation done by an evil man who sought after a girl nearly nine years younger than him. She wasn’t the one who should have known better, it was him. He should have never used her to feed his own selfish desires, she should have never been caught up in his tyranny in her family.
She knew she was where she wanted to be, though. She knew that he could do anything and she would still think of him. He could move across the country and she would still yearn for him in a way that would send her to an early grave if she let it. It didn’t matter what they had done, it didn’t matter the impact he had left on her whole family, and it certainly didn’t matter the time and space. She thinks that he transcends it with how he lives inside of her, how he never seems to leave no matter how hard she tries.
Even when she grows up, even when she is with his brother, even when her life moves in a direction so far from the version of herself that existed in the arms of Conrad Fisher, she still feels like there’s an artery in her heart that is pumping his blood into her system. Like the moment they shared the same air, he would forever be inside of her.
She could try everything; she could perform exorcisms. She could consult a priest, she could beg for every hail mary, she could drown herself in holy water, but she knew that it would never be enough. He was more than a demon, and he was far more than a ghost. He was an entity that would loom over her, larger than life and too fickle to hold in her hands.
After that Christmas he spent with the whole family, he was gone. It was only two weeks, two measly weeks to destroy her family, destroy their lives, to destroy her. He may as well have lived in her house for years with the impact she had on her, but she thinks that would have killed her. Truthfully, just a few moments longer could have.
She would pretend that she forgot what it felt like to be touched by him, and she would lie to Jeremiah and say she hated him. She would feign a shutter each time his name comes up in conversation, which is so rare these days. She would vow to keep the secret of his mouth on hers until the day she died, and she would never utter a word to anyone, especially not Jeremiah and certainly not her mother. That would be too much, it would make it too real.
She would even lie to herself and say it was because she couldn’t fathom causing anymore pain. That telling anyone other than within the confined walls of her therapist’s office would be too crass, that it would open doors that were better left shut. It would make it easier for her to move on, it would keep her and her family safe, just the way it needed to be. Everyone wanted a life without Conrad Fisher in it, and she could even act as if she was one of those people, no one had to know what he had whispered into her ear that night.
She knew that wasn’t true, though. She knew she didn’t tell anyone because she wanted to keep it for herself, keep him for herself in any way she could. He had taken so much from her, she needed something to hold onto. He seemed to be so chivalrous with giving away bits of himself, he could stand to allow her the smallest of slivers.
She could tuck away the thought of watching his car peel away into the night all of those years ago and wishing he would take her with him. She can hold onto the fact that he could ask her to go to him anytime and she would. She could even hate herself for it, but she’d always know it wouldn’t change anything.
He would be her own parasite for as long as she lived. She would swallow it again and again.
___
2013
Running away was Belly’s speciality it seemed, something that she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing no matter how hard she tried. It didn’t matter that she had moved on with her life, that she had forced herself to fall in some kind of sleepy trance she labeled as love with Jeremiah Fisher, she still had the real version of herself clawing at the back of her throat.
Every once in a while, she needed to let it escape. She needed to allow it to consume her, and she needed to morph into the girl she had buried so deep into the ground. It was harder to get away at times, everyone in her life clinging to her like a life preserver, but if she didn’t find a way out she ran the risk of drowning, of losing who she knew herself to be.
So she ran away. She would lie, she would make up an excuse, she would find an out, any out at all in order to find herself again. Sometimes it was difficult, sometimes it seemed like she was imprisoned, but other times it was handed to her on what presented as a silver platter.
This was one of those times. Jeremiah would be going on a ski trip with his father for a week. Her mother would be on yet another book tour, her brother would be spending Christmas with his roommate, and her father would be with his girlfriend. Even Taylor and her mother had opted for a New York City trip for the Holidays. It was all falling into place. Sure, she could’ve found a way to weasel her way into someone else’s plans, but she would much rather make her own. She would make up a story about how her own roommate, Annika, had invited her to their family Christmas, and she would steal away to Cousins.
She would borrow Jeremiah’s car, he didn’t need to know, it wasn’t like he paid any attention to the mileage anyways. She would bury herself in blankets and old movies, and she would fantasize about the life she had wanted when she was seventeen. She could make hot lemon water and try to conjure up what Conrad had smelled like. She could dedicate her time to finding him in the men on her screen and committing his face to memory. She didn’t even know if she could do that anymore.
She was settled in, she was in her Christmas pajamas, she was elbow deep in a container of chocolate covered pretzels, and she was ready to live in a world she had created in her mind. She was going to fall in love all over again with a man who was as tangible as a phantom.
That is, until he’s suddenly real. Until she hears his voice along with a banging on a door, pleading Jeremiah, come on man, I see your car. It’s fucking cold out man, just let me in. She picks up a poker, even though she knows exactly who materialized on the stoop like she somehow summoned him. She may have some kind of morbid infatuation with the man, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t scared of what he could do, of what he had already done.
She creeps into the foyer, staying low enough that he can’t see her, because she thinks if he does he may run away before she can get a good look at him. She at the very least deserves one last look at him, something she can hold onto, another chance to memorize what he looks like. She doesn’t know when she’ll get the chance again.
She swings the door open in a frenzy, trying to catch him off guard, and it seems like she does. He spins around and he looks like a deer in headlights, or more so like he himself was staring at a ghost. Then again, it was probably all in her head. He had been expecting his brother after all.
“Belly?” Conrad whispers, the candy cane held between his lips falls to the ground and it feels like the whole world shakes. “What are you doing here?” he asks, his eyes narrowing. He looks so good. It had been four years, and he still looked so handsome that it made her want to fall to her knees. He didn’t look much different, he barely even looked older, but he was still too old for her. That was part of his appeal, though, was it not? Was she not still sick in the head just a bit?
“I… I um…” she stammers, but he doesn’t seem to care too much about whatever she has to say. He just pushes past her, not even taking account of the fire poker held between her hands. “I feel like I should ask you the same thing,” she shoots back. She shuts the door quickly, because even in her state of shock she was freezing.
“My flight got delayed,” he grumbled, turning to face her. He looked so bored, just like he had when she was seventeen. Like every word she said was waste that he couldn’t be bothered to take care of. Like she was merely inconsequential to him. It was all the same, he was the same and she isn’t sure if she’s disappointed.
“Couldn’t you find a hotel?” she argues, trying to do anything within her power to get a rise out of him the same way she did when she was seventeen. She wonders if the effect she had on him then was nothing more than her imagination. Even if it’s true, she doesn’t think she’d want to admit it.
“It’s Christmas,” he says plainly, like she is an idiot, and considering the connotation of her question she may just be. It was kind of a dumb question. “You have to make due sometimes, even if it’s… Inconvenient.” He looks her up and down as he says the last word, and she thinks if she had less self control she would hit him. There was something about him that made her lose all self control, that made it nearly impossible to act her age. He brings out the worst in her, really. She knows that girl who was so madly in love with him is the most unfavorable version of her.
She was a grown woman now, and for some reason, she couldn’t even act like it with him in her presence. Any semblance of self control she had, out the window, any shadow of shame completely null and void. She tries to remind herself of what her therapist says, and she wills herself to let it be true.
It doesn’t work, though. It never does, not when it comes to him. She was shackled by him, the sweet nothings he whispered to her like gospel. He was some kind of religion she couldn’t shake, a God that would always be watching over her regardless of if she wanted him to or not, even if she prayed a million times and asked him to let her go.
He never would. So she gives in. She doesn’t even have it within her to hate herself.
“Is being here with me really the worst thing you can imagine?” she asks even though it wasn’t what he said, but Belly had always been so good at reading between the lines, even when it came to Conrad. Even though he was far more confusing than he had any right to be.
“It might be,” he shrugs. “Do you not think so?” He doesn’t even give her the chance to reply before he’s turning on his heels and into the living room.
She does think so, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t make her feel more alive than she has been for years.
___
2009
This year, because it very well could be Susannah’s last, they spend Christmas at the beach house. The entire family wasn’t quite ready to believe it, but she knew it was the case. They were still in the stages of pretending, where they all acted like the cancer wasn’t terminal and everything would be fine, that the clinical trial Jeremiah had convinced her to go to would all work out fine.
They were just doing Christmas in Cousins because they wanted to, because they had never spent Christmas all together, and with Jeremiah and Steven going off to college the following year, they just wanted the holiday together. Belly knew it was a lie. Hell, they all knew it was a lie, but it was one they had collectively decided to live in, and who was she to go against what they wanted?
It’s just a few days before Christmas, and they’d been there for a couple of days, spending time in one another’s presence, playing games and talking until they could barely stay awake. It was nice, albeit a bit melancholy, but she could fool herself into believing it was nothing at all. Normalcy is something you can fake, she’s learned.
It’s early in the evening, and Susannah is tired, and Adam needs to take a work call that doesn’t seem to be real, and the boys want to play video games, and no one seems to want to be around one another when the woman they are putting on a show for isn’t around to watch it. Belly has decided to watch a Christmas movie in the unusually empty living room, White Christmas, which was her favorite. She was quite honestly taking solace in the time alone. She wasn’t usually one to enjoy it, but she thinks she could train herself to.
That is, until Jeremiah comes barreling in like a tornado and she feels a welling in her chest of relief. She was nearing her threshold of being capable of handling her own thoughts alone.
“Conrad’s here,” Jeremiah grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest after he plops down on the couch next to Belly. She flinches a little, because Jeremiah has never been very good at taking account of others.
“Is that a bad thing?” Belly frowns. “It is Christmas, isn’t it?” she cocks her head, but it feels so foolish. She didn’t mean to be so argumentative, but Jeremiah seemed to unfairly hate his older brother. Or his half brother as he so often corrected her.
There was nothing inherently wrong with Conrad, as far as she could tell. She had only met him a handful of times, actually. He was Adam’s son, his bastard son as Jeremiah and Steven would call it, but Belly always thought that was so mean. It wasn’t his fault how he came into the world, and it made her feel so guilty to see everyone else be so judgemental over something he couldn’t control.
Adam was almost nine years older than Susannah, and he had had a child when he was in high school. It was a drunken mistake, or that is what he told Jeremiah when he was far too young to understand, and with that mistake came a son. She despised the way everyone called him that, a mistake because he wasn’t really all that bad. If she recalled, he wasn’t bad at all.
Conrad didn’t spend very much time with his father, because he lived on the West Coast and his mother didn’t seem to care too much about the joint custody agreement. Then again, neither did Adam. Conrad had always been a sort of burden that he liked to pretend that he carried. Having a son on the other side of the country who you rarely saw didn’t exactly make anyone feel bad for him, but he sure liked to milk it when he could.
Every once in a while, though, Adam would be overcome with whatever his version of guilt was and insist that he come visit. Never did he go to California to see his son, but he would fly him out to Massachusetts for a weekend in the summer or over the holiday, and Jeremiah always insisted he was so weird. He was so much older that they had nothing in common, that he was so serious and incapable of having fun. He was never mean, but to Jeremiah being what he described so childishly as a bad hang was the most heinous of sins.
The couple of times Conrad had spent a few days at the beach house over the summer, she had found him to be pleasant. He was very smart, and he was very serious but it wasn’t as if he was some kind of freak. He was quiet and reserved and seemed to be far more interested in school than anything else. He was on the rugby team, and she didn’t even know that they really had those in America, but he had said it was only for his college applications.
When she was too young to care, he wasn’t all that interesting. He was some high schooler who was forced to watch them a couple of times, an uninterested teenager that wanted nothing to do with the children who were barely even sentient squirming around his feet. She didn’t understand the disdain that Jeremiah held even as a child, but she didn’t care about him that much. He was just around every once in a while.
That is, until he comes for a whole week when she’s ten. He was nearly nineteen, but not quite, and it was the first time she had realized that Conrad was handsome. He had a crooked smile and a mole above his lip, and he almost looked like a movie star to her. She was lovestruck and dumbfounded, but she believed she did a great job at hiding it. The mothers would give one another looks when she would hang on his every word or offer to go with him when he needed to go into town, which he always declined because he couldn’t care less about ten year old Belly.
It didn’t matter, though, because she was fucking ten. It was her first crush, the first boy she had seen in the flesh that she thought was cute. It was so normal and nothing of note at all. She was sure of it, she hadn’t even seen him since that summer, and he probably wasn’t even that cute anymore. He probably never was, and there was no reason for her to feel weak in her knees when she thought about the fact that they were under the same roof again.
“Uh, yeah it’s bad,” Jeremiah scoffs as he knocks his shoulder against Belly’s a bit harder than she would have liked. He’s rather rough with her, but she doesn’t say anything. Jeremiah was never a very good listener. “He is like, bad vibe central, don’t you remember?” he insists, and Belly crinkles her nose as she feels her whole body cringe. He always managed to say the stupidest shit.
“Bad vibe central? Really, Jere?” Belly grimaces, and Jeremiah lets out yet another groan that’s so loud it shakes the picture frames on the wall.
“Oh fucking come on, Belly. Now you sound like him,” Jeremiah whines, and the sound is like nails dragging across a chalk board. He may be her best friend, but God he can be so insufferable sometimes. She desperately hopes more than anything he’d grow out of it. Or if he doesn’t she hopes she grows out of caring what he thinks of her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, because she can’t say what she wants to. She couldn’t possibly tell Jeremiah what she was thinking, because he would never understand.
He couldn’t possibly comprehend that she doesn’t think it would be such a bad thing to be compared to Conrad Fisher.
___
2013
Belly doesn’t respond, and she tells herself it’s because he doesn’t deserve one, but really it’s because she can’t stomach the answer they both know she would supply. She just lets him walk into the living room, like the house is his, like he belongs here even though his presence feels like a weeping angel statue. She stands there like a prop, letting walk all over everything that matters to her once again while she musters up the courage to talk back.
“I don’t think anyone would be happy to know you’re here,” Belly hollers after him, scurrying a bit to try and catch up. She knows it’s stupid, picking a fight with him after not so much as seeing a photo of him for all these years, but it’s like she can’t help herself when he’s around.
“Well, I don’t really think anyone would be happy you’re here, either,” Conrad calls out over his shoulder, but he jumps a little when he looks behind him and sees she’s much closer than he expected. She’s gotten quicker, and he didn’t seem to know it yet.
“No one would care,” she scoffs at him, crossing her arms for a moment, but then deciding against it. She wouldn’t want him to still think she was childish, wouldn’t want to come across as that baby he had seen her as so long ago. She doesn’t even want to begin to unpack all of that, how grown up she forced herself to be because of him. She was still so young, but she wanted nothing more than for him to see her as anything but. She didn’t want to be a girl to him, but he would always see her as such. “I didn’t ruin people’s fucking lives the way you did, Conrad. I’m still a part of the family, nothing that happened was my fault.” She didn’t want to speak it out loud, not right now. She still hadn’t computed that he was here, and she couldn’t even be sure if he was real, she couldn’t utter the words right now. And she certainly couldn’t add on her last thought.
Nothing that they know about, anyways.
“I’m still family,” Conrad narrows his eyes, setting his bag down on the living room floor. She wasn’t sure why it startled her, probably because any sudden movement from him has the capacity to knock her out cold, but also because she didn’t think he would stay in her presence this long. Considering the baggage he carries with her family, she was certain he would run in the other direction.
“Not here you aren’t.” Her voice is shaking, like she’s scared, and she thinks she may be. Even with how hard she fought for and with him, she was still just a shaking child when it came down to the wire. She had fantasized about this for so long; what she would say if she were in front of him again, and the options varied. This was never one of them though.
“Oh right, and you are because you’re what? Fucking my brother?” he laughs to himself, throwing his head back a little to where she can see the veins on his neck protrude. She resists the urge to lick them, to lick him.
“No, because Jeremiah is my boyfriend,” she corrects, and he rolls his eyes so far back she thinks they may get stuck that way. “And he’s your half brother,” she tacks on, because she feels like she needs to. She wasn’t exactly being a good girlfriend, entertaining whatever the fuck this was with a man she believes she will always love a little bit, so she may as well remind him in solidarity.
“Jesus, you haven’t changed one bit have you?” He looks at her like she is as small as a caterpillar he is about to run over with his bike. “You’re talking to me like you’re a real fucking adult? Like you know anything at all? You’re what, like twenty?” he hisses, and she swears she can almost see venom dripping down from his canines, like a snake about to bite at her ankles.
“I’m twenty one,” she answers, and he laughs so hard she thinks it may be coming from his stomach. It’s too much for him, apparently, and he’s getting too hot so he shrugs his corduroy jacket off and onto the floor like he owns the entire house, like his name is on the fucking deed.
“Right, like that makes a difference,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest, using it like a coat of arms. “Age is just a number, Belly, you know that,” he insists, and it makes her blood run cold. The words make her entire body run cold, because they sound the exact way on his tongue as they did four years ago.
“What does that mean?” she asks lamely, because she can’t even manage to think of a decent response. It’s like he’s gone down her throat and stolen all the words being held in her chest.
“It means that the age you act is far more important than the age you are,” he shoots back and it feels like a true bullet wound. He may as well kill her, honestly, she would welcome it with how fucking horrible this feels and how much worse it will feel when she has to go back to living in a world where he isn’t within arms reach.
“And how old do I act?” She doesn’t want to know the answer, but on the same side she wants to know more than anything in the world. She so desperately needs to know, even though the answer wouldn’t change a thing.
“About seventeen,” he says, and it makes her want to throw up. It was a low blow, and he knew just how much it would hit her right in the jugular. He didn’t care, he never had. He would swear up and down that he was nothing like his brother, that Jeremiah was so reckless and so flippant, that he didn’t care about how his actions affected anyone else. Conrad would insist he was nothing like that, that he could never be like that.
Belly thinks he’s worse. Jeremiah may be careless, but Conrad was calculated. He was a kind of cruel that could only exist when you know exactly what you are doing. The only thing that separated Conrad from his brother was ignorance. His self awareness is what made him a predator, what made him look like a wolf in disguise.
“That seemed to be old enough for you,” she breathes, and it’s like her lips are moving independently from her mind and from her body. The air runs cold and Conrad freezes like the icicles hanging from the shutters. She knows what she’s done and she knows the weight the words carry, but she doesn’t care.
She doesn’t regret it at all.
___
2009
Belly isn’t sure why, but she can’t sleep. She feels like there are shadows pouring over the corners of her room and nipping at her toes. She can’t really remember the last time she felt like that. It had been so long since she had been scared of monsters underneath her bed. She thinks in the back of her head that it’s him, that it’s Conrad somehow, but that would be insane. She was far too old for such ridiculous childish fantasies.
She creeps down the stairs into the night, careful not to wake anyone. The mothers were always such light sleepers, and she didn’t want to deal with either of them being cranky in the morning. She would only be in the kitchen for a few moments, just enough to make her milk the way she liked it.
She hadn’t expected anyone else to be there, but she is startled when she sees Conrad standing there, a halo of light around him like a ghostline shining from the lamps on the counter tops.
“Oh,” Belly jumps a little when she sees him in the kitchen. Conrad is leaning his back against the kitchen counter, seemingly waiting on the kettle to warm up, a fresh lemon sliced next to him. He had gotten in about five hours earlier, and as Jeremiah had said, went straight to his room, claiming to be exhausted. He sure looked at it, but she couldn’t be sure with how dim it was. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think anyone would be down here,” she laughs a little, nervously, because she’s trying not to stare.
He was so handsome, but not in the way she had remembered him to be. It was different from her babyish crush on him she had when she was nine. He wasn’t boyishly charming, he was a real man now. He was gruff and lean, having fully formed himself, his gangly limbs more toned and even. His face was shadowy, and he was so mature. He looked like a real man, not the older brother of her best friend. This was a whole new fantasy, one that she didn’t even know existed.
“It’s alright,” he sighs, and for a second it snaps her back into reality. He seemed a bit bothered, and it off puts her. He must think that she thinks of him the same way Jeremiah has made it clear he does. He must see her as some extension of his brother. She wants to make it known she couldn’t be further from it, that she would never be so judgmental and cruel.
“I um… I was just coming downstairs for some… for some tea,” she lies. She was coming downstairs for warm milk, because it was always what helped her when she couldn’t sleep. She just thought the answer would seem too puerile.
“Alright,” he says, like it means nothing at all. It makes her skin crawl a little, and she does everything in her power not to let her hands dig into the palms of her hands.
“You know, it’s great you’re spending Christmas here,” she tries, hoping that something more overt will make it clear she doesn’t have any ill will towards him. “I think it’s nice we all get to know you better.” She smiles, and he finally looks her in the eyes and she feels like he is slicing her open with a scalpel.
“That would make one of us.” She isn’t sure how, but his words make her feel like the frog she had dissected in school the previous year. Her insides out on display for all to see, helpless and dead at the hands of an uncaring man.
“What?” She laughs a little, but not because it’s funny, because she’s genuinely shocked. She had always thought that Jeremiah was being so dramatic, that Conrad couldn’t possibly be that much of a dick. She was clearly seeing him with rose colored glasses from her crush, because he truly was just as bad as Jeremiah had recalled. He may even be worse.
“Well, I mean, I only have these couple of weeks off before I start my residency,” he begins, still maintaining that maddening tone that he is wasting his precious time speaking to her, as if he is on the way to an important meeting instead of heating up some fucking water. “Which is going to be pretty time consuming, if you didn’t know,” he says in a condescending way that makes her want to jump over the kitchen island and claw his eyes out. “This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend that time, with a family I don’t like and some random people I hardly know,” he laughs to himself a little, but is cut off by the hissing of the kettle.
“If you’re some hot shit doctor, then why are you here?” Belly scoffs, turning up her nose at him. He shakes his head a bit, pouring the hot water from the kettle into the mug. “You’re a grown ass man, you don’t need to fucking be here if you don’t want to be. Aren’t you too fucking old to be listening to what your daddy says?” She was laying it on thick and she knows it. It was enough to make her skin crawl, but she didn’t care. He was grinding on her gears, making her mad when she knew that was his intention.
He considers her for a second, but seemingly gets bored with it, like she is hardly worthy of it. He sighs to himself, pulling a mug out of the cabinet above him, and she does her absolute best not to look at that glorious sliver of skin that peeks under his t-shirt as he raises his arms.
“Why do you talk like that?” Conrad asks her, absentmindedly, not even looking up from his steaming mug. His eyes only wander to the counter as he picks up the lemon he had so carefully sliced earlier to squeeze into the water, because of course he drinks hot lemon water before bed.
“Like what?” Belly snaps back, and she wishes she could tone it down, but there was something about him that brought out the uglier parts of her.
“So argumentative, using curse words when it isn’t necessary to seem grown up, so intense. It’s quite childish, actually,” he sighs, bringing the mug up to his lips, finally gracing her with the most slicing eye contact she has ever experienced.
“You’re a dick,” she hisses, balling her hands into fists. She’s glad there’s a whole kitchen island between them, because if he saw it would most certainly pad his case. She wasn’t a child, and she knew it. She had been told by many adults in her life that she was very mature. She never fed into the latest fads, she never partied so hard that she could barely remember the night before, she made good grades, she never gave into peer pressure, and she was very professional when it mattered. Sure, she made some teenage mistakes, but who didn’t? And who was this random fucking guy to say so? Who cares if he’s about to start his residency?
“And you’re a brat. What now, Belly?” The way he says her name is enough to make her sick to her stomach. She isn’t sure if it tastes like poison or juice on his tongue, but she wants to find out. She would lick inside of her mouth if he let her. He won’t though, of course he won’t.
So instead she fights the urge to throw her hands in the air and stomp off like she would have when she was twelve. She can’t let him win, and she can’t let him prove his point. So instead, she rolls her eyes a little, because he had done the same, and turns around towards the stairs.
“Goodnight, Conrad,” she says before he’s too far too hear. She likes being the bigger person, she thinks. He may enjoy egging her on, baiting her into being immature, but she won’t bite. She knows who she is, and he has no idea. She knows he won’t respond, that he’s fuming standing there in his pajama pants and his white t-shirt that fits him almost too perfectly. She would be able to take solace in the fact that he was the one who was acting like a child at the age of twenty six, not her.
But then he surprises her. He calls out quietly, still careful not to wake anyone up, because he still has a shred of humanity. “Goodnight, Belly.”
She doesn’t even care that she didn’t get her milk. She is wide awake the whole night.
___
2013
The silence is palpable for a little too long. They’re staring at one another, daring the other to say something first, to make another dig. It was what they had done so long ago, it was the way they pushed at one another. It had only been once so many years ago, sure, but it had meant everything to her. She didn’t want to believe that it didn’t matter as much to him, but considering what he had done it was hard to believe it did.
She had probably taken it too far, but he was the one who had done the damage in the first place, was he not? All she was doing was reminding him of his own transgressions, which he was certainly old enough to handle. He acted as though he was wise beyond his years, like he could carry a hurt that was all consuming, he may as well own up to it. She expects him to, and if he doesn’t maybe he isn’t the man she believed him to be.
And he does, because of course he does. He is everything Belly dreamed of, and he would never be anything but that. He could hurt her time and time again, but she could always count on him to be the bigger person.
“Look, why don’t I build a fire.” Conrad gives in, rolling his eyes like she had been begging him. “Just… just sit on the couch, it’s fucking freezing,” He shakes his head again, and she thinks to make a comment about how many brain cells he’s losing with how much he’s shaking his damn head, but she decides to allow the olive branch.
“Okay,” she agrees, and she pads over to the couch, pulling the blankets up to her neck again. He bends down, the sleeves of his brown sweater pulled up to his elbows, the wet spots from the snow melted onto his sleeves showing already. The fire was barely flickering and she could feel her body heating up. It didn’t hold a candle to what he made her feel though. He made her feel like she was on fire. She used to think it was something like fireworks, but it was more like an open flame in a dry forest.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Conrad grumbles, poking at the fire mindlessly. She knows he had been an Eagle Scout once upon a time, but he was thirty now. He didn’t know what he was doing, and he looked quite stupid. She would point it out, but there was a sort of pride in keeping it close to her chest. It wouldn’t feel as good to see him embarrassed.
“Like what?” she presses, and not because she wants to egg him on. This time she really doesn’t know. He was never one to talk in riddles, and he never seemed to have the patience to leave anything up for the imagination, but he almost seemed like he was nervous. Like the feeling of her eyes on him were just as tortuous as what it felt like when his were on her.
Maybe he does know what it feels like to feel this kind of loss. To feel the weight of all that could have been and everything that once was between them. It couldn’t
“Like you want to eat me,” he says finally, a slight tremor as he speaks. She isn’t sure she’s ever seen him like this. She doesn’t recall a time that he had been frightened. She barely knew him, but she could have never imagined he could be anyone that could feel any kind of discomfort. She had been so sure that he was an immovable object or an unshakeable force. It was jarring to know it wasn’t the way she had thought, but it was even more so satisfying.
“I’m sorry,” she replies, and it seems to put him at ease even though she doesn’t mean it. She isn’t sorry at all. In fact, she loved seeing him like this. She loved scaring him the way that he scared her, reveled in the fact that she could possibly affect him even a marginal amount compared to what he did to her. She feels herself in his entrails and settles in his guts. He knows she’s there, too, and he doesn’t want her gone even with the fear coursing through his veins.
She couldn’t, though. Eat him, that is. At least not in one bite.