invisible string

i. thunderstorms

▬▬▬▬▬▬ JEREMIAH ▬▬▬▬▬▬

Lightning cracks across the ceiling and the little boy tosses in his bed. He carefully leans over the side of the bunk bed and looks down to the bunk below him. A ten-year-old Steven snores quietly.
"Steven." Jeremiah whisper shouts, but the other boy remains unmoved.
Jeremiah huffs and looks to his older brother. Conrad faces the wall but he can tell by the steady rise and fall of the blanket as he breathes that his brothers asleep. Besides, he wouldn't want to wake him up anyway. Not either of them. They'd call him a baby for being scared, but he wasn't scared. He was bored. And he hated being alone. He turned on his side, and pulled his stuffed shark, Faangs to his chest, as he stared at the wall. Tentatively, he reached a hand out, curled it in a fist and rested his knuckles on the wall, hesitant. Thunder rolled across the sky, shaking the windows and before he could think to lose his nerve, he knocked. Two quick, soft taps.
And then he waited.
After a second, he heard the muffled sound of knocks back and he smiled. Jeremiah grinned and swung his legs over the side, lowering himself carefully onto the floor, grabbing Faangs as an afterthought.

As he entered the hallway he saw the soft glow of a bedside light emanating from under Belly's door and he shook his head, smiling. Belly hated thunderstorms at night. Jeremiah thought that she liked them during the day so much because it meant everybody had to stay in the house and Susannah normally made games and activities for them all to do, and the boys couldn't leave her out. But he kept that to himself. He hoped it would be storming in the morning. Maybe they would bake, like they had last time, and Belly and him could sneak batter from the bowls when the mothers weren't looking. He reached the door, and instead of knocking, he opened it a crack, and whispered, 

"Belly?"

"Jere?"

At that he opened it and stepped in, shutting the door with a gentle click behind him.

"Bored. Couldn't sleep." He shrugged, and smiled at the relief in her face. She was curled up in the bed, upright, and a book was cracked open beside her, forgotten. 

"Yeah," Belly whispered. "Me, neither." 

And then she shuffled up, and moved the book to the side to make space for him, opening the duvet up so he could crawl in. They tucked themselves down under the warmth of the comforter, and then Jere reached across her, to the light switch. His hands rested for a moment on the switch until Belly gave him a quick nod, a light flush of embarrassment creeping up her cheeks at having her fear caught. He pretended not to notice as he settle back next to her. 

"This is Faangs." He said wiggling the shark between them, stretching out the 'a' to make her giggle, and she did. 

"I remember Faangs. Susannah gave him to you when you watched Jaws even though she told you not to, so you'd stop being too scared to go to the beach." Even in the dark Jeremiah could catch the glint in her eyes, the smile tugging at her lips. He scowled playfully.

It was true. That summer he'd spent most mornings inside with Belly while Conrad and Stephen went to the beach, and watched cartoons with Belly instead. Mostly they'd watched Avatar: The Last Airbender together, which is why when he got the shark he called it Faangs and not Fangs. It had made Belly laugh. It was fun, the mornings they spent on the sofa arguing about which element was best and who of their cousins beach gang was which character, even when their brothers came back from the beach and teased Jeremiah for his crush on Katara. 

"I was not scared." He lied. He had been. And it hadn't been his idea to watch Jaws, it had been Steven's. Besides, if Conrad and her brother hadn't made her leave she would have been just as scared as he was. 

"Sure," Belly smiled, cuddling up to the shark. 

"Anyways, even if I was," he gave her a stern look as if to say, which I'm not, and then added, "Faangs is a fear eater. He's good protector. So I couldn't be." 

Belly nodded thoughtfully, and kissed the shark on the tip of his nose. They lay in the dark and comfortable silence, face to face, until the room flashed with lightning and Belly started, hand moving for the light switch. Jeremiah grabbed her hand, resting it back on Faangs' head, not letting go, and the panic in her eyes softened. 

"Do you want to watch cartoons tomorrow?" he asked, not meeting her eyes.

"Avatar?"

He looked up to catch her smile and nodded. 

"Yeah, okay."

It was quiet again for a moment, and then thunder fractured the silence, and Belly's grip tightened on Jeremiah's hand.

"Hey Belly?" He asked.

"Yeah?" Her eyes were squeezed tight shut even as she spoke, but when the silence went unbroken she opened her eyes.

"Remember that game we used to play?"

"Who's who?" she scrunched her nose up, and then smiled. "Yeah! You said I was Katara!"

"And then you wouldn't stop splashing everyone in the pool and trying to wave-smack Steven with your mind." Jere laughed as Belly grabbed the shark and hit the boy with it, which only made him laugh harder. 

She huffed and turned away from him, cuddling the shark to her chest. Jere frowned and tugged at her shoulder. And she turned back around. 

"What am I thinking?" He asked, and she giggled and tugged the corners of his mouth into a smile. 

"No pouting."

Jere nodded and smiled. 

"What am I thinking?"

Jere hummed dramatically, and pressed their foreheads together like their thoughts would melt into each other. But when he opened his eyes into hers for the first time in a long time, he couldn't read her. 

"I don't know." He said, a sudden seriousness creeping into his voice, and Belly pulled away, so they were settling a breath apart. 

"Let's go to sleep," she said, already shutting her eyes. 

"Yeah." He said, and then in a last ditch effort to take away the sudden gravity of the moment, he leaned over to Faangs and kissed his forehead. "Goodnight, sharky."

"Night, Jere." 

He could hear the smile in her voice.

"Night, Katara."

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*·~-.¸📰❣️,.-~*

i literally haven't even proof read this and i just wrote after waking up from like two consecutive five hour naps almost so it's probably gibberish and weird but idc anyways i hope u like it in all it's gibberish weirdness!! this is like a prologue thing i guess. ok i'm rambling now. bye love u 🫶🏻

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