Without You, Conrad ☀︎︎

This Love

This love was once something.
This love was once everything.

Conrad Fisher was once in love with a girl named Isabel Conklin.

Even when it all ended, it never truly did.

She wasn't flawless, heartless, misunderstanding, or cold like the others.
She was everything to Conrad.

He believed, even if it was only for the shortest amount of time, that they would last.

But of course, everyone has to wake up to reality eventually.
Except, Conrad didn't want to live in reality. His reality was heart-wrenching.

His mother was dead.

He had been dumped by who he truly believed had been the love of his life.

His relationship with his brother was still rocky.

His father was a total jack-ass.

He had lost almost everything,
Almost everything that had ever meant something.

When he got a call from his friend from Cousins, he didn't understand.
The beach house, his house, and most importantly his mother's house, couldn't be for sale.
There had to be a misunderstanding.

In response, directly after the call, he packed up some of his things and drove directly to the beach house. As he passed the Cousins sign right after passing Rosie's, his memories betrayed him. Nothing would be the same. Because his mother wasn't there. Because no one was.

Even though he knew it was going to be hard without his mom there, there was something else bothering him in the back of his mind. The last time he had been at the summer house had not been in the summer.

The last time he had been at the summer house was in December... with Belly. Before they broke up. Nothing would ever be the same. Not only with her not being there but also with their relationship.

He hated himself for how he left things with her at the funeral. It's true, he hadn't been lying when he told her that he wished they'd never started something, but not for the reason he knew Belly had thought when he told her. Last summer, he told his employer, Cleveland Castello, that if he started something with her that it could get fucked up.

After he had hooked up with her at the end of the summer, he was soaring. Sure, it was hard at first, knowing they couldn't be together because of Jeremiah. But he knew he wasn't going to let Belly slip through his fingers. He called three weeks after the last time he'd seen her, and from there, they got closer. They didn't get together for a few months, but when they did, the whole world seemed to make sense to Conrad.

Their love was beautiful. A great love, one for the ages.

But like everything else in the world, it just had to die.

Conrad deeply resented taking Belly to prom in the first place. He wanted her to have the most magnificent night, but he knew he wouldn't be able to give it to her. She deserved so much more than what he could give her.

Belly hadn't understood. When he told her he wanted to go talk, he didn't mean to break up with her. He wanted to try to explain himself... and why he was acting the way he was.

It wasn't really a secret that Conrad was struggling. He was putting all of the weight of his mom's death on himself. He had been the one to make it a reality.

Maybe if he had told Jere sooner, the treatment would've worked better.
Maybe if his dad hadn't cheated on his mom the first, he wouldn't have felt so much pressure to tell her that he knew.

And maybe if he had gotten home just a few minutes later, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have heard his parents arguing and found out that his father had cheated on her and that she was sick again.

Sure, Conrad had been struggling before prom, and no one could doubt it.
But what came after was so, so much worse.

He wasn't just going to lose his mother anymore.
He was losing his soulmate too.

Every night, he looked at photos of her on his phone.
Photos of them, together.

He kept the infinity necklace on his desk as a reminder.
A reminder to make the smart decisions.
Not to act only on emotion,
but to be realistic at the same time.

He wasn't there when his mother passed.
He wanted to go drive up and comfort Jere,
but he wasn't sure it was the right thing to do.
They had been in a rocky place for a while.
But Jere was his little brother...
and so he had no choice but to go.
He was doing it for his mom and his brother and no one else.

Two weeks later, they had the funeral.

As he watched tears flow from Belly's eyes onto her cheeks as he sang his mother's favorite song, he choked up.

He left with Aubrey to go back to his house. He knew, somehow, that Belly would want to be there for him. He knew it. But it would be too hard, for both of them.

He needed someone who hadn't known his mother as well to be there for him. To tell him it was all going to be okay. Someone who wasn't feeling completely as numb on the inside as he was. Belly couldn't comfort him in the way he needed. She probably would've cried with him, and he couldn't handle that. Seeing her heartbroken just made everything so much worse.

Conrad knew Belly wasn't going to react well when he told her it was Aubrey. He should've known it was going to be a childish response. Belly had never been so wrong in her entire life.

Conrad loved her. He still did. He always would. But she thought it was to spite her. She thought it was some kind of competition.

When she stumbled on her way out, Conrad didn't hesitate to try to help her. But Belly was stubborn. He was sorry for her. He was sorry about everything. It broke his heart to watch her run from him in such a hostile state. He knew she didn't really hate him. But it broke his heart knowing she wanted him to think she did.

As soon as Conrad made it to the beach house, he violently yanked the for sale sign out of the grass and threw it into the recycling bin.

He heaved out a heavy sigh and stared up at the front door.

Would it really be summer without Belly, Jere, Laure, his mom, and Steven?