bad in the bones -conrad fisher

ch. 7

She sits on the end of my bed with her legs tucked under her butt and she shrugs. "Nothing but you were gone all morning and now you're sleeping like you've been up all night." I look at her under my lashes and don't reply. We just look at each other. Her: expectantly and patiently and me: stubborn to a fault. "What were you up to?"

"Nothing, just couldn't sleep so I went for a walk," I lie.

"Nothing, just couldn't sleep so I went for a walk," I lie.

"Nothing, just couldn't sleep so I went for a walk," I lie.

"That's weird because Conrad said the same thing."

"I don't know what Conrad is doing," I lie again. My palms aren't sweating and I don't think I'm breaking eye contact and maybe I'm a good liar.

"I think he was with Nicole," she tells me. I raise one eyebrow, something that I was taught in my two months of acting school when my mom went through a phase of wanting to make me famous. It's the one skill I've retained. "She was at the bonfire, remember?" I did remember. The Red Sox girl. The familiar girl.

"Why would he have been with her?" I ask. Even though I know Conrad wasn't with her, the fact that Belly thinks he was, hits nerve deep inside my bones.

"Nicole is my deb ball big sister," she tells me quietly like we're whispering secrets in the back of the classroom. "She won't stop talking about him. Asking me if I think he likes her because he's so hot and cold. It takes everything in me not to freak out on her."

Belly shakes her head and lets out a laugh like Conrad liking Nicole was the craziest thing she's ever heard and despite the fact that she's been running around town with Cam the whale watcher, she still likes Conrad. She will always like Conrad and Conrad will always have the familiar girl. The little sister. The girl who doesn't matter in the summer.

"I thought you were into Cam now?"

Belly blushes at his name and shrugs her shoulders. She plays with the hem of her jean shorts to keep her distracted. "I am but Conrad will always be," she pauses. Conrad. She shakes away the last word. "Anyway, why can't you sleep? Is it Josh? Steven told me he called."

I'm grateful for the subject change and dig further into the conversation, even though I really don't want to. Anything to not talk about Belly liking Conrad. Anything to not talk about Conrad, period. "He did, yeah. He told me he wasn't seeing anyone and Mallory lied. He told me he loved me, still."

Belly's eyes widen and she leans forward, putting all her weight on her hands. Her palms are pressed into the mattress creating a crater for all my sleep sweat to fall into. "What did you say? Do you still love him, too?"

"It's not that simple," I tell her.

"Of course it is," she says. Her childlike ignorance is sometimes admirable. There was a time when I would agree with her. That it was that simple but now, I'm not so sure. I shake my head and she shakes hers but we're shaking them for different reasons and then I feel like crying. "I watched you cry for weeks over him. Yn, I have never seen you so devastated and now, he's saying he loves you. How can you ignore that?"

I can't help being angry with her. I can't stop the tears from falling down my cheeks. I did cry over him for weeks. I wailed on the bathroom floor because he left me and I was alone and there was no one to hear me cry which is why ignoring it was the only option. "Because Belly, he left me."

"Sometimes people do bad things for good reasons. If you love someone, can't you forgive almost anything? I know if Conrad did that I-" She pauses because I sit up abruptly and get out of bed. She pauses because I wipe my face so aggressively I'm sure there were some tears that landed in her lap. She pauses because she didn't mean to say Conrad's name. I can see it in her doe eyes. I can see it in her reddened cheeks. "What's wrong? I thought this is what you wanted?"