• June 9th •
The next morning I'd checked my phone and saw a text from Conrad 15 minutes ago.
Connie boo 🩵: meet me at the beach when u wake up
Me: I'll get dressed rn
I grabbed my pink swimsuit and put an oversized tee on and grabbed a towel for me to dry off on. I headed to the restroom to wash my face and brush my teeth and then all but ran downstairs.
I walked to the kitchen and smelled coffee from the hallway. When I entered, Jeremiah was fixing himself a cup. He looked at me and put the coffee pot down.
I avoided eye contact with him and turned to leave.
"Meeting with your little boyfriend?" He antagonized before I could reach the doorway.
I turned on my heels and placed a hand on my hip. "Don't you have your little girlfriend to worry about?"
"And who would my girlfriend be?" He asked.
Of course I was referring to Belly, but Conrad had told me to keep it to myself and I didn't want to make things worse between them. So I deflected.
"Who would my boyfriend be?"
This felt wrong. Jeremiah and I were back to throwing shots at each other and it wasn't what I was used to anymore. I wanted the us that had spent the night in his bed listening to nostalgic music that reminded us of each other. Now it was just like in Highland and I didn't want that anymore.
He didn't answer. He just shook his head looking visibly irritated. He's the one who started it, why is he fucking irritated?
I took his silence as a green light to leave.
It felt hard to breathe as I walked out on the beach. Jeremiah and I's relationship would never be good and a part of me wanted to cry at the thought of it. The other part knew that I truly hadn't done anything wrong and that whatever was going through his mind was his fault.
But that didn't stop it from hurting.
Conrad took me out of my thoughts when I saw him sitting down smoking a blunt. I sat next to him and extended my hand for him to pass it to me.
"This is the last of my shit," he warned before passing it. "Savor it."
This man was acting like it was impossible to buy weed. As if he's not friends who Dani who knows every plug in every town she visits. How the fuck do you get weed on a mountain? I don't know, but she makes it work.
We sat in silence, letting ourselves get high together. It was comfortable. There were a lot of things on my mind and there seemed to be even more on his. And it was clear that neither of us wanted to talk about it.
Even though we weren't expressing our feelings, his presence was comforting. Knowing that even if we're not going through the same thing, we'll always be on the same wavelength just made me feel closer to him.
"Let's go somewhere," he suggested when we'd been smoking for a bit and the blunt was already halfway gone. "We haven't hung out just us in a while. I miss you, Lina."
I smiled as we both kept our gazes on the beautiful ocean waves in front of us.
"I miss you too, Con. Let's do it."
Conrad took his last hit and let me get mine before putting it out and walking back to the house. I put my bikini back in the dresser since I hadn't even gotten in the water and changed into a simple outfit of a white halter top, green shorts, and some tan slides. I wet, moussed, and brushed my curls out to leave them hanging around my shoulders.
Conrad and I drove in a comfortable silence, the music from the radio playing instead. To an outsider, Conrad and I's friendship seems boring but he's one of the few people I feel completely comfortable with. I don't have to force conversation or be fake interested in topics I don't give a fuck about. We talked when we truly wanted to and I liked that.
When we got out the car, I realized he'd taken me to a cafe bookstore, which was refreshing because I hadn't bought a book in a while. I hadn't even been reading the entire time I'd been in Cousins.
I've only been here a week and so much has happened already. I didn't know if I was prepared for the entire summer. I can't believe I'd only gotten a week of old Jeremiah and now the rest of the summer I have to pretend to hate him again.
Conrad and I decided to choose books for each other. We chose a random genre and we were to pick good books for each other based off the description. We chose Sci-fi and I'd landed on Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, my favorite book ever, and Conrad had chosen Red Rising by Pierce Brown for me.
"You always know exactly how to please me." I smiled at Conrad as we took a seat next to the window with our coffee and freshly picked books.
My favorite thing about Cousins is that every restaurant or store has a perfect view of the beach. It's like anywhere you go you get a beautiful view along with whatever you came for.
We sat drinking coffee and digging into our books. Conrad always brought me a kind of peace I just didn't experience with other people. Just sitting here and reading with him was the most fun I'd had in the entire time I'd been here.
I'd already read a good portion of the book before Conrad claimed we had to leave so that he could get to his meeting with Cleveland Castillo.
It was perfect timing because Sadie texted me asking me to join her at the movies in a few. I instructed Conrad to drop me there before he departed.
The Cousins movie theater was a small one, but it still had the town's charm that most places had here. I walked in and immediately spotted my red headed friend sitting on a bench to the side.
"Lina!" She called and stood. "I'm very upset right now."
"Why?" I asked in confusion.
She huffed and folded her arms. "Dani's here with Lilian."
I recalled that Lilian was Dani's escort to the deb and that they'd had some sort of history before this summer. She'd talked about it briefly in Highland before we got off topic quickly.
"What's the problem with that?" I asked, but then she grabbed my arm and we hid behind a cardboard cut out of a character from one of the movies that'd been released.
"Put your head down!" She whisper yelled and pulled me down.
"What is it with you guys spying on dates? Is that a Cousins thing?" I asked before realizing that Sadie didn't even originally live or vacation in Cousins. "You don't even live in Cousins!"
First Conrad, Steven, and Jeremiah with Belly's date and now Sadie with Dani's?
She ignored me and shook her head, spying on them from the floor. "I just can't believe she's here with her. That girl ripped out her heart last year and now she's just on a date with her?"
That's when it dawned on me. Sadie wasn't just a concerned friend that didn't want to see her best friend getting hurt. She wanted to be the person on the date with her.
These fools have feelings for each other and won't even admit it? How hard is it to just talk to the person you like and resolve things?
"Why do you care so much?" I goaded with a knowing smirk.
I knew the answer, but I wanted her to admit it. Mainly to herself.
"I don't know," she mumbled. "I hate seeing her hurt, it fucking kills me. She cried about her for weeks."
"Maybe this Lilian chick apologized." I shrugged.
She rolled her eyes. "Apologize my ass! You shouldn't willingly go back to someone who hurt you."
She was right. I thought about Jeremiah and how stupid I was to let him in again. I didn't regret hooking up with him, but I regretted thinking that us hooking up would change things.
How stupid could I be?
"Fuck!" She cursed under her breath and stood. "She saw us. Act natural."
We both stood and pretended to talk about whatever until Dani came up to us, a blonde masculine presenting girl accompanying her.
"Hey guys, what are you doing here?" Dani asked us.
"Lina wanted to come see a movie." Sadie lied quickly.
Dani narrowed her eyes for a second before a smile spread across her face. I felt as though she'd realized what I'd realized a few moments ago.
"This is Lilian," Dani introduced me to her date. "Lilian, this is my friend Angelina. And you already know Sadie."
I shook hands with the girl and gave her a polite smile. Sadie gave her a tight lipped one. Way to be obvious, Sadie girl.
"Nice to meet you." I told her and she said the same.
"We have a movie to catch, so I'll text you guys later." Dani announced before departing with her date.
I watched Sadie watch them leave, her eyes saddening by the second.
"You should tell her." I said.
She shook her head but then realized that I wasn't supposed to know about her crush and acted clueless. "Tell her what?"
"That you have feelings for her." I finished.
She took a deep breath and still looked off in their direction even though they weren't there anymore.
"It wouldn't matter," she admitted. "She's already here with her, she's taking this girl to the deb too. I don't stand a chance."
As much as I wanted to tell Sadie about what Dani had told me, I couldn't interfere.
It's a canon event.
But all jokes aside, they needed to work this out together. Me telling her Dani's confession would only stir the pot and Sadie needed to gain the confidence to talk to the woman she wants. I knew Dani would want her words to come from her and not me.
"You never know what could happen, Sadie," I grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at me. "Just trust your feelings."
"Yeah, you should do the same with Jeremiah."
How the fuck did we get on Jeremiah?
"This is not about Jeremiah." I said.
"Isn't it?" She questioned. "Everything that you're telling me can be applied to you and him."
"I don't even know what I feel for him and it doesn't matter because he hates me as I keep telling you over and over." I dropped my hands from her shoulders.
"How are you gonna tell me to trust my feelings when you won't even trust yours?" She pointed to my chest. "You know exactly how you feel about him, you just won't admit it to yourself or to him."
I did know how I felt about him. As much as I kept denying it and pushing it to the back of my head, I knew.
But I couldn't.
I couldn't let myself feel those things for him. I couldn't handle the rejection if I ever told him.
"Speak of the devil," she said and grabbed onto my arms. "Go talk to him now."
She pushed me in the opposite direction and I landed onto a hard chest. A familiar scent wafted past my nose as I came in contact with it. I was steadied by the person and I knew it was him before I even saw him.
I didn't even have time to confront my feelings before being pushed in front of him. Everything still felt messy and I wasn't sure about it, so I backed away from him. I backed away until my feet began carrying me out of the movie theater.
I heard Sadie call my name from the door, but I didn't stop. I didn't stop until I was sat outside of a store that had a bench on its sidewalk.
I sat and I thought about everything. I hated myself for what I found.
"I like him." I said aloud to no one in particular. "I fucking like him."