jeremiah

I can pinpoint the exact moment everything changed. It was last summer. Con and I were sitting on the porch, and I was trying to talk to him about what a dick the new assistant football coach was.

“Just stick it out,” he said.

Easy for him to say. He’d quit. “You don’t get it, this guy’s crazy,” I started to tell him, but he wasn’t listening anymore. Their car had just pulled into the driveway. Steven got out first, then Laurel. She asked where my mom was and gave me a big hug. She hugged Conrad next and I started to say, “Hey, where’s the Belly Button?” And there she was.

Conrad saw her first. He was looking over Laurel’s shoulder. At her. She walked toward us. Her hair was swinging around all over the place and her legs looked miles long. She was wearing cutoffs and dirty sneakers. Her bra strap was sticking out of her tank top. I swear I never noticed her bra strap before. She had a funny look on her face, a look I didn’t recognize. Like shy and nervous, but proud at the same time.

I watched Conrad hug her, waiting my turn. I wanted to ask her what she’d been thinking about, why she had that look on her face. I didn’t do it though. I stepped around Conrad and grabbed her up and said something stupid. It made her laugh, and then she was just Belly again. And that was a relief, because I didn’t want her to be anything but just Belly.

I’d known her my whole life. I’d never thought of her as a girl. She was one of us. She was my friend. Seeing her in a different way, even just for a second, it shook me up.

My dad used to say that with everything in life, there’s the game-changing moment. The one moment everything else hinges upon, but you hardly ever know it at the time. The three-pointer early on in the second quarter that changes up the whole tempo of the game. Wakes people up, brings them back to life. It all goes back to that one moment.

I might have forgotten about it, that moment when their car drove up and this girl walked out, a girl I barely recognized. It could have just been one of those things. You know, where a person catches your eye, like a whiff of perfume when you walk down the street. You keep walking. You forget. I might have forgotten. Things might have gone back to the way they were before.

But then came the game-changing moment.

It was nighttime, maybe a week into the summer. Belly and I were hanging out by the pool, and she was cracking up over something I said, I don’t remember what. I loved that I could make her laugh. Even though she laughed a lot and it wasn’t some kind of feat, it felt great. She said, “Jere, you’re, like, the funniest person I know.”

It was one of the best compliments of my life. But that wasn’t the game-changing moment.

That happened next. I was really on a roll, doing an impersonation of Conrad when he wakes up in the mornings. A whole Frankenstein sort of thing. Then Conrad came out and sat next to her on the deck chair. He pulled on her ponytail and said, “What’s so funny?”

Belly looked up at him, and she was actually blushing. Her face was all flushed, and her eyes were shining. “I don’t remember,” she said.

My gut just twisted. I felt like somebody had drop-kicked me in the stomach. I was jealous, crazy jealous. Of Conrad. And when she got up a little while later to get a soda, I watched him watch her walk away and I felt sick inside.

That was when I knew things would never be the same.

I wanted to tell Conrad that he had no right. That he’d ignored her all these years, that he couldn’t just decide to take her just because he felt like it.

She was all of ours. My mom adored her. She called Belly her secret daughter. She looked forward to seeing her all year. Steven, even though he gave her a hard time, he was really protective of her. Everyone took care of Belly, she just didn’t know it. She was too busy looking at Conrad. For as long as any of us could remember, she had loved Conrad.

All I knew was, I wanted her to look at me like that. After that day, I was done for. I liked her, as more than a friend. I maybe even loved her.

There have been other girls. But they weren’t her.

I didn’t want to call Belly for help. I was pissed at her. It wasn’t just that she’d picked Conrad. That was old news. She was always going to pick Conrad. But we were friends too. How many times had she called me since my mom died? Twice? A few texts and emails?

But sitting in the car next to her, smelling her Belly Conklin smell (Ivory soap and coconuts and sugar), the way her nose wrinkled up as she thought, her nervous smile and chewed-up fingernails. The way she said my name.

When she leaned forward to mess with the AC vents, her hair brushed against my leg and it was really soft. It made me remember all over again. It made it hard to stay pissed and keep her at arm’s length the way I’d planned. It was pretty damn near impossible. When I was near her, I just wanted to grab her and hold her and kiss the shit out of her. Maybe then she’d finally forget about my ass**le of a brother.