betty ↳ conrad fisher

forty-one.

Betty Graham had her head leaned against the window of Conrad's car, her eyes tightly closed as she tried to keep herself from vomiting. Although she had been hooked to fluids all night, the doctor had told her she would still be nauseous, and that her blood alcohol was still well over the legal limit. After Jack had left Conrad and Betty hadn't spoken, other than when Conrad insisted on putting her into the car himself, even though she was fully able to walk.

The radio was playing music lowly and she could hear Conrad's fingers tapping on the steering wheel, the girl wondering if he was enjoying this. She knew he was worried, but somewhere deep down she supposed he was jumping for joy at what had happened at the hospital with Jack...she knew Conrad—and she knew he was too proud at times to not dwell on that. And the fact that she had taken his side.

"I'm so stupid." Betty muttered to herself, but the near silence in the vehicle made it audible to the driver. Conrad looked over at her for just a second,  her whole body was faced away from him. He wanted to reach over and give her a pet on the head, try and comfort her but he refrained from doing so, knowing she wouldn't appreciate it the way he wanted her to.

"You're not stupid." He wasn't sure why she was calling herself stupid but he didn't like to hear it, Betty was many things but stupid wasn't one of them.

"I am. I am stupid because I actually—I actually believed that he was a good guy. I always...I actually believed him. I should've known." She sounded hurt and disappointed, and he felt relieved that it wasn't at him. It usually was.

"Well you don't know what he was doing—he could've been he—" Conrad tried to cut Jack some slack, knowing that neither of them knew the whole story anyways.  But Betty cut him off, her hand running over her face as she  turned towards the front of the car.

"It's doesn't matter what he was doing. It really doesn't. What matters is that he promised he wouldn't leave me before we went in, and by the time I left he wasn't there. I don't care what he was doing.  He left me alone and one of the worst case scenarios happened." Her eyes glazed over as she recounted her time in the hospital, and then she shook her head, pressing her palm to her forehead and fighting the urge to smack herself. "I'm so stupid. I should've never—oh my god."

"Are you going to break up with him?" Conrad asked, and Betty disregarded the fact that he was her ex. She just started talking, not caring who it was to.

"I don't know. I mean I don't want to—I really, really like him. And—fuck—and I slept with him and I just feel like I can't break up with him now. But I'm not going to get myself into something I can't handle. I can't do it. I just...I thought college was going to be different from this." Conrad felt a painful dread in his chest when he heard what she had said, his body flushing as he tried to hide his reaction to that. She was speaking so candidly and he thought she was just speaking out loud, his soul aching at the bad news. Betty seemed to remember who she was talking to, her hand lifting from her lap and pressing to his bicep, his hand tightening around the wheel as she spoke. "I'm sorry Connie...I know this is too much information or whatever but I just—I don't really know anyone here. And I don't trust anyone here. I have no friends—Lori is connected to Jack and  she's about the  closest thing I have. But you...you're mine. You're my only real friend here."

Being friend zoned by the love of your life was just as painful as he could imagine it would be. He felt goosebumps actually rise on his skin as she said it, and he felt the breath leave his lungs when he received the blow. Her hand remained on his arm and he wanted to melt into her, he wanted to pull the car over and show her how they were not friends, but he knew that a friend was what she needed at the moment, and he cared more about  making her feel better than how bruised his ego was at the moment.