Atlas p.o.v
All summer long I tried to move on from Jeremiah. I thought Conrad calling me and FaceTiming me and telling me that him and Belly weren't together meant he wanted to be with me. Boy was I wrong.
"Hey so, you know how I told you Belly and I aren't together anymore?" Conrad's face went from a sad puppy dog to a happy boy. I couldn't tell where this was going, but judging by his face I knew he was about to break my heart.
Honestly, I didn't see it coming. He flirted with me through the phone like he wanted me. And yet, here I am listening to his plan on getting Isabel Conklin back.
After I heard those words come out of his mouth, I completely disengaged. My heart started to build up a new and thicker wall. I could feel it inside of me.
I just gave him fake comments like "mhm" "yeah go for it." I wanted him to be happy.
I couldn't tell if I was heartbreak, or relieved. Sad at the fact that I wasted my time talking to him thinking he could actually like me. Then relieved because it meant I didn't have to suppress my feelings for his brother anymore.
Everything Conrad and I talked about, I just thought of how Jeremiah and I already had these similar conversations.
In reality, I was happy for Conrad, and I was happy he wanted to talk to me. I mean, It's Conrad, this is just what he does. He leads people on unknowingly, he doesn't talk to a lot of people so it's easy for the other person to feel something for him. They think he picked them, just like I thought he picked me.
I hung up the call while he just went on talking about Belly. I texted him that my mom called me, both of us knew it was a lie.
That is what went down in the Fall semester. Conrad could always make me feel special and then used a few seconds later. It was an endless cycle with him.
I could never be mad at my friends for it.
-
After Steven blew out the power to the beach house, Julia kicked us all out so she could fix the open house. We all took this as a win, and left with the 7 of us, Steven and Taylor drove here since they felt left out and we are taking Skye with us too. Belly thinks they can help us convince their mom.
We all left to the board walk, since we haven't been there since we were little kids.
It was always a fun time over there. The countless times I would drop my ice cream and Jeremiah would buy me a new one. Where Conrad would win stuffed animals for Belly and I.
Steven would challenge me to dance dance revolution and Jeremiah would get jealous. It was times like that when I felt like Jeremiah could like me back.
"What should we do now?" Skye asks as we all crowd in a circle.
"We should do the battle games we used to do as kids! Remember?" Jeremiah says as he looks at all of us.
"You mean the battle games that our parents banned us from years ago because Conrad and I got over competitive with?" Belly asks and I nod my head laughing as I licked my ice cream cone.
"We totally should do this." I say to them and everyone smiles except Conrad and Skye.
"I should head back home. I don't belong here." Skye says as a they try to walk away. Belly and Taylor both grab them and shake their heads.
"Are you kidding Skye, you're with us. The boys are totally going down." Taylor says and Skye nods their head.
"So Conrad? What do you think?" I ask him shyly. He looks at all of us and then finally cracks a smile.
"Alright, but we're starting in the arcade because it is hot as balls out here." Steven says and we all run to the arcade.
I of course dropped my ice cream on the floor in the process. Jeremiah was the last person to run to the arcade, and he turned around just as my ice cream made a splat.
He walks over to me staring at my now melting floor ice cream.
"Same old Allie cat. Come on let's go get you a new one." Jeremiah says sweetly at me and puts his arm around me as he grabs my cone and throws it in the trash since it was useless now.
"I don't need a new one. It's okay. We're going to play. I can't wait to beat your ass in Dance dance revolution." I say to him and wink.
He looks down at me and I could still feel the same feelings I felt when I first started to fall for him.
Damn you Jeremiah Fisher, no matter how hard I try to move on. You can always make drag me right back to you.
He kept his arm around me and we walked to the arcade together.
"I'll get you a new ice cream another time." He whispers to me as he opened the door for me. I could feel my blush start to take over my body. I said nothing in return.
"Took you two long enough." Steven says as he grabs my hand and puts me next to him.
I was able to catch a glimpse of how Jeremiah reacted to that, but he stayed emotionless. Which made me realize that these feelings I had would never be matched by him.
-
The last arcade game we got to play is the dance game of course. The girls nominated me to play, and they of course put Jeremiah as their player.
I looked at him and winked at him. Remembering all the times we would tie, I would win, he would win. When we played this game. Most of our core memories with each other were of this game.
I remember the first time we played it.
I was 10, and he was 12. It was the first full summer that I had a crush on him. When I was 9 I fell for him in the beginning, but I count 10 as the full year I've had this crush on him.
We were at the board walk, Conrad and Belly went to play the carnival games and Steven was with Jeremiah and I. We were looking for fun games to play at the arcade.
We pretty much played all the games in the arcade, except for the Dancing game. It only caught my eye because I saw a song on there that I really loved. I always imagined a guy singing this song to me or playing it for me. Back when I was little I was a desperate romantic.
Intrigued to play the game and what the machine was, I stopped the boys and asked them about this game.
Jeremiah said he played this before on a field trip, he told me that it was easy. You just follow the arrows on the screen.
Steven tried really hard to get us away from the game, because he thought it was boring. He ended up catching up with Conrad and Belly and left us to the game.
The first song we did the dance to was the song I wanted. I ended up really liking the game. I was mostly impressed with how good Jeremiah was. Maybe it was the fact that Jeremiah and I were doing something alone for the first time.
Or maybe it was the fact that in my eyes, Jeremiah was the coolest, he opened something inside of me that made me feel so girly.
He told me that I did pretty good for my first time using dance dance revolution. That was the first compliment he gave me alone.
Later on as we got older, he would compliment me more, each compliment getting more and more personal as time went on.
After we were 5 dances in, we were running low on money. So we just played the advertisement.
"I can teach you how to get better if you want. Who knows maybe you'll be as good as me one day." Jeremiah says to me and I smile. This was the best day of my life.
I looked over at Jeremiah as we tried to find the perfect song to dance to.
He looked over at me, and he finally picked a song. My eyes go wide as he picks the first song we ever danced to.
Instead of the beginner difficulty we did years ago, he put on expert plus, which was the highest difficulty you could do.
I couldn't believe he remembered. "Just remember what I taught you." He says to me as he starts the game.
The whole round I was blushing, this song still held so much meaning to me, it gives me nostalgia whenever I hear it, but being here with him dancing to this song. Over loaded my nostalgia to max.
Jeremiah noticed how he was behind a few points and he tried lightly pushing me to get me to stop. But I was able to keep my focus on the game.
I won with ease. "The student has became the master." I say to Jeremiah excitedly and put my hands up to own him.
I stick my tongue out at him and he just laughs. "Good job Allie." He says to me and puts his hand on my face.
I immediately put my hands down and my face gets red. He rubs his thumb on my cheek and I move away from his grasp. He did all this while looking at me directly.
I didn't know how to feel in that moment, he always knew how to make me feel so small.
-
We ended up losing by one point, and so that meant Belly had to go on the tower of terror. Jeremiah offered to go up with her to help her not be scared.
Jeremiah was always so kind and caring. I still couldn't help but to feel jealous because of it. I wished I was the one up there with Jeremiah, but I was too scared to go on that ride.
So I was on the floor watching Jeremiah hold Belly's hand before they could drop down. It felt like they were up there for hours, but the ride lasts less than a minute.
I stood next to Steven and Conrad as we watched them go down 20 feet in 2 seconds.
Once Belly and Jeremiah got off the ride, I could hear Taylor. "Interesting." She says to her.
"What?" Belly asks.
"Just interesting. Feels like theirs a vibe between you two." Taylor replies back.
I was going to fasten my pace before I heard Belly say. "There is no vibe between Jeremiah and I, he's totally into Allie. Did you see the way he looked at her when she won."
"Oh please, Jeremy gets turned on with that type of stuff. He looked at you differently. I didn't feel anything for Jeremiah and Atlas." She says and my once smiling face turns into a frown.
I decided I heard enough and I walked fast to the boys.
"Hey guys what are you guys talking about?" I ask them trying to get Taylor's comments out of my head.
"Oh hey, Allie. Just talking about how much we destroyed you guys in everything." Steven says as he laughs and puts his arm around me and pulls me closer to him.
"Allie did beat me Steven. So they didn't get us on everything." Jeremiah says and laughs as he looks at me and smiles. I smile back completely putting Taylor's comment at the back of my mind.
The way he looks at me was able to make me forget about anything.