i know // jeremiah fisher

LIX - Night Stroll

"Well what do we do? We cannot walk home naked!" Belly exclaims.

"It could be worse," Taylor adds.

"Wh- what could be worse than this?" Belly says.

Taylor stutters.

"What about that?" I point to a fabric bunch on the dock.

"No." Taylor whines.

"Um," Belly stares.

"Here, both of you like, I dunno, close your eyes. I'll go grab it." I offer.

"Ugh," Taylor sounds and closes her eyes tight, Belly follows the action.

I awkwardly climb onto the dock and grab the fabric.

"Okay, who next?" I ask after wrapping it around me and closing my eyes.

"You can go Belly." Taylor says.

I hear some splashing and feet patters on the dock before the fabric rustles a bit.

"You're a go, T." I say.

The splash and pattering repeats before she wraps herself in as well. We stratigically wrapped ourselves so that the fabric was in between our skin so there was no contact.

I swear there is such a difference between this and skinny dipping. I feel like a wet embarrassed rat.

"Can we please call someone?" Taylor whines.

"No, I don't want to start drama." I say.

"I can't walk two more miles." Belly whines.

"Well, you're gonna have to." I shoot back.

"Oh, my God." Taylor draws out.

We hear dogs or cayotes or something howling and Taylor mimics it in a whine. We all laugh at it.

"Why does Conrad have to text in codes? Like we get it, you're hot and mysterious, chill out." Taylor says.

"Conbad," Belly corrects with a laugh.

"What'd he do to you?" I ask, jokingly.

"He screwed stuff up with Cam, I don't really wanna get into it right now," She glances down at our current situation, "But yeah, I'm not exactly happy with him."

Taylor and I groan.

"Everything he touches turns to shit." Taylor says. "Everything any Fisher boy touches turns to shit." She adds for my sake.

"I turned to shit," I say quietly. 

Their attention goes to me but I'm in my own little world out here.

"You know, I used to dream about Conrad. I'd imagine what it would be like, and I felt safe. Because, you know, there was no real hope that it was ever gonna come true. He would never feel for me what I feel for him. But I gave into the hope. I had some stupid plan with Jeremiah, and even when it was fake in the beginning, it was still real. With Jeremiah- When we kissed, it was real." I say slowly. "It was always real."

"And real is, is, like.. scary." My eyes are watering and my voice has a shakiness to it.

"But isn't love supposed to be a little scary?" Taylor asks.

We stand in silence.

"I said real, not love." I whisper.

"Look me in the eyes and tell me you aren't in love with Jeremiah Fisher." Belly says.

My lip quivers.

"Tell me you haven't been in love with Jeremiah Fisher since you were eight years old and he gave you half of his muffin because Steven ate yours." She adds.

I laugh a little through my tears.

"I still think he did it to kill me. We had food poisoning for three days." I joke.

"Food poisoning, together." Taylor smiles.

I shake my head with a small smile, before it just about immediately fades.

"But, I screwed it up. He's not.. mine, anymore." I say.

"So you get him back." Taylor nudges me.

I shake my head.

"I'm not letting the Y/s/n love story go down like this." Taylor says, taking my phone.

"Hey! What?" I say.

"I'm texting him to come get us." She says.

"Taylor-"

"Done." She wears a proud smile.