“I am,” Jeremiah said, reaching his arm out for me to help him up. I grudgingly gave him my hand and helped heft him up. “Come on,” I said.
They followed me into the kitchen.
“What the—,” Conrad said, looking around the room at all his things.
Jeremiah clapped his hands together and then he held one hand up for a high five, which I gave him. “You’re amazing,” he said. Then he sniffed and spotted the greasy white McDonald’s bag and lit up. “Yes! Mickey D’s cheeseburgers! I’d know that smell anywhere.”
I smacked his hand away. “Not yet. There is a reward system in place here. Conrad studies, and then he gets food.”
Jeremiah frowned. “What about me?”
“Conrad studies, and you get food.”
Conrad raised his eyebrows at me. “A reward system, huh? What else do I get?”
I flushed. “Just the cheeseburgers.”
His eyes flickered over me appraisingly, like he was trying to decide whether or not he wanted to buy a coat. I could feel my cheeks heat up as he looked at me. “As much as I like the sound of a reward system, I’m gonna pass,” he said at last.
“What are you talking about?” Jeremiah asked.
Conrad shrugged. “I study better on my own. I’ve got it covered. You guys can go.”
Jeremiah shook his head in disgust. “Just like always. You can’t handle asking for help. Well, sucks to be you, ’cause we’re staying.”
“What do you guys know about freshman psych?” Conrad said, crossing his arms.
Jeremiah sprang up. “We’ll figure it out.” He winked at me. “Bells, can we eat first? I need grease.”
I felt like I had won a prize. Like I was invincible. Reaching into the bag, I said, “One each. That’s it.”
When Conrad’s back was turned, as he was rummaging around the cupboard for Tabasco sauce, Jeremiah held his hand out for another high five. I slapped it silently and we grinned at each other. Jeremiah and I were a good team, always had been.
We ate our cheeseburgers in silence. As soon as we were done, I said, “How do you want to do this, Conrad?”
“Seeing as how I don’t want to do this at all, I’ll let you decide,” he said. He had mustard on his lower lip.
“Okay, then.” I was prepared for this. “You’ll read. I’ll work on note cards for psych. Jeremiah will highlight.”
“Jere doesn’t know how to highlight,” Conrad scoffed.
“Hey!” Jeremiah said. Then, turning to me, he said, “He’s right. I suck at highlighting. I just end up highlighting the whole page. I’ll do note cards and you highlight, Bells.”
I ripped open a pack of index cards and handed them to Jeremiah. Incredibly enough, Conrad listened. He picked his psych textbook out of the stack of books and he started to read.
Sitting at the table, studying with his forehead creased,he looked like the old Conrad. The one who cared about things like exams and ironed shirts and being on time. The irony of all this was that Jeremiah had never been much of a student. He hated to study; he hated grades. Learning was, had always been, Conrad’s thing. From the very start, he was the one with the chemistry set, thinking up experiments for us to do as his scientist’s assistants. I remembered when he’d discovered the word “absurd,” and he went around saying it all the time. “That’sabsurd,” he’d say. Or “numbskull,” his favorite insult—he said that a lot too. The summer he was ten, he tried to work his way through theEncyclopedia Britannica. When we came back the next summer, he was atQ.
I realized it suddenly. I missed him. All this time. When you got to the underneath of it, there it was. There it had always been. And even though he was sitting there only feet away, I missed him more than ever.
Underneath my lashes I watched him, and I thought,Come back. Be the you I love and remember.
chapterthirty-nine
We were done with psychology and Conrad was working on his English paper with his headphones on when my phone buzzed. It was Taylor. I wasn’t sure if she was calling to apologize or to demand I bring her stuff back home immediately. Maybe a mixture of both. I turned off my phone.
With all the house drama, I hadn’t thought about our fight once. I’d only been back at the summer house for a couple of days, and just like always, I’d already forgotten about Taylor and everything back home. What mattered to me was here. It had always been that way.
But those things she’d said, they hurt. Maybe they were true. But I didn’t know if I could forgive her for saying them.
