Without You, Conrad ☀︎︎

Love Game

"Conrad, what's happening man?!" Steven shouted as he made his way behind me on the shore. "What happened?"

I turned around for a split second to try to shoo him away with my hand before walking into the water. The waves crashed over my feet as I told him, "Panic attack. I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"Um, I'm gonna go get Jere," he told me. That was not a good idea. I tried to steady my breath but failed when I told him, "No. No. Don't get Jere. It's... I just need a second."

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Steven. I was still struggling to breathe steadily when I told him, "I dunno, man. Just talk. Okay? Just talk about anything."

"Um, talk, right. Um.. Um.. The beach. The first time you guys brought me here to sure, man, I was so freaked out. You and Jere had just come back from some fancy surfing camp and you knew all these cool tricks. I felt like such a little kid. But you stayed and paddled with me till we caught a wave together. I thought you were the coolest person in the world," Steven told me.

"I guess you were wrong about that one," I told him as I turned around. "No," said Steven. "You're still the coolest. You have these a lot?" He asked as I inhaled a deep breath. I nodded. "Yeah. More since my mom died." 

I finally turned around to face him and told him, "I'm glad you're here."

"So, you wanna tell me what got you all worked up? Or just be bros and pretend like this never happened?" asked Steven.

I almost smiled when I told him, "Found out I got into Standford."  He seemed really happy to hear that. "Whoa, man. Are you serious?"

"Yeah, man," I said. "My mom had this fantasy about me finding myself on the West Coast."

"Wait-- Wait-- Wait-- Connie, man, this is a good thing. No, you've been dreaming about Stanford since you were ten years old," said Steven. I knew he was excited, but he just didn't understand.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know... but things are just starting to get better with Jere, and he's going to FInch in the fall, which is close to Brown, so it just doesn't make sense to transfer anymore," I told him as fast as the words would come out of my mouth.

"Hey, dude, dude, dude, you don't have to decide this second or anything, okay?" said Steven. "Just talk to Jere."

That would be impossible. "He doesn't even know I applied, man. So... please don't tell him."

"I... I mean Stanford's not even an ivy, right? So fuck 'em, right?" said Steven.

I reached out and said, "Let's go."

That morning, Conrad went surfing with Jere to try and think his way through things. He was prepared to give it his all if it meant saving the house. He was going to fuck up that open house.

"Conrad," Skye said, acknowledging their cousin. Conrad looked at Jere and said, "You didn't tell me she was here, too." Skye looked at the ground and said. "It's 'they'. Not 'she.' God, I guess it's been like a decade since I saw you guys. Um, how are you doing, since your mom?"

"It's been rough," said Jeremiah. Conrad stared his cousin down and told them, "Rougher now that our aunt's stealing our house."

Julia turned around and said, "I'm not stealing anything. Conrad, like it or not, I get to choose what happens to this house and I choose to put it on the market. You boys should get on the road. Beat the traffic back to Boston." Conrad wasn't going to deal with the woman's bullshit. "There's no chance. We're staying for the open house."