Waves • Conrad Fisher

one

"WHAT? You and Jeremiah?" Liam questioned, looking sickened. "What happened with you and Jeremiah?"

"Nothing." Sarah told them both. She could feel the flush rising up from her chest. "Mum, just because two people are good friends, it doesn't mean there's anything going on. Please never bring that up."

Jackie leaned back into the backseat. "Done."

"What happened with you and Jeremiah? You can't say something like that and not explain." Liam spoke, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of him.

"Get over it." Sarah told him. Telling Liam anything would only give him ammunition to make fun of her.

And anyway, there was nothing to tell...

Conrad and Jeremiah were Beck's boys. Beck was Susannah Fisher, formerly Susannah Beck. Jackie and Laurel were the only ones who called her Beck. They'd known each other since they were nine- blood sisters, they called each other. And they had scars to prove it- identical marks on their wrists that looked like hearts.

Susannah told both Sarah and Belly that when they were born, she knew they were destined for her boys. She said it was fate. Jackie, who didn't normally go in for that kind of thing, said it would be perfect, as long as Sarah had at least a few loves before she settled down.

Actually, Jackie said 'lovers', but that word made Sarah cringed.

Susannah put her hands on Sarah and Belly's cheeks and said. "Girls, you have my unequivocal blessing. I'd hate to lose my boys to anyone else."

They had been going to Susannah's beach house in Cousins Beach every summer since Sarah was a baby, since before she was born. For her, Cousins was less about the town and more about the house. The house was her world. They had their own stretch of beach, all to themselves.

The Summer House was made up of lots of things. The wraparound porch they used to run around on, jugs of sun tea, the swimming pool at night- but the boys, the boys most of all.

Sarah always wondered what the boys looked like in December. She tried to picture them in cranberry-colored scarves and turtleneck sweaters, rosy-cheeked and standing beside a Christmas tree, but the image always seemed false. She did not know the winter Jeremiah or the winter Conrad, and she was jealous of everyone who did.

She got flip-flops and sunburned noses and swim trunks and sand. But what about those New England girls who had snowball fights with them in the woods? The ones who snuggled up to them while they waited for the car to heat up, the ones they gave their coats to when it was chilly outside. Well, Jeremiah, maybe. Not Conrad. Conrad would never; it wasn't his style.

Either way, it didn't seem fair.

Sarah would sit next to the radiator in astrophysics class and wonder what they were doing, if they were warming their feet along the bottom of a radiator somewhere too. Counting the days until summer again. For her, it was almost like winter didn't count. Summer was what mattered. Her whole life was measured in summers. Like she didn't really begin living until June, until she was at the beach, in that house.

Conrad was the older one, by a year and a half. He was dark, dark, dark. Completely unattainable, unavailable. He had a smirky kind of mouth, and Sarah always found herself staring at it. Smirky mouths make you want to kiss them, to smooth them out and kiss the smirkiness away. Or maybe not away... but you want to control it somehow. Make it yours.

Jeremiah, though- he was Sarah's friend. He was nice to her. He was the kind of boy who still hugged his mother, still wanted to hold her hand even when he was technically too old for it. He wasn't embarrassed either. Jeremiah Fisher was too busy having fun to ever be embarrassed.