𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚑𝚒𝚖 • jeremiah fisher x reader

alcohol.

I've only ever had alcohol exactly three times in my life.

At my 12th birthday party, that mainly consisted of my parent's friends, and my dad let me have a sip of his beer. It tasted a lot worse than I ever imagined it could.

When I was 13, Belly snuck down a bottle of Susannah's wine from the cabinet above the fridge, where we were all forbidden from going into. She brought it over to my house, back when it was normal for my house to be a hangout spot. The bottle had been stuffed in a drawstring bag filled with clothes, so it wouldn't make any sound or move around as she walked. We waited until my parents fell asleep, since I wasn't allowed to have any boys in my room past 9 pm, and snuck Steven, Jeremiah, and Conrad in through the back door. We all sat in a circle, taking turns drinking from the wine bottle that was so large I could barely lift it up when it was my turn to take a sip. None of us drank enough of it for us to feel it, but the thrill of sneaking alcohol into my room, along with the Fisher boys, was enough to make me brag about it for the next week to Taylor when she and Belly would facetime.

The last time I drank was last summer, at Conrad and Jeremiah's party. This time, I drank enough that I felt it, but not enough to a point where I was stumbling around and ready to lose my lunch. Belly ended up getting pretty wasted, along with Conrad and Steven, but Jere stayed with me the whole time. We play beer pong the whole night and he spent the following days making fun of me for sipping my shots.

Every year, on Belly's birthday, the boys do whatever they can to make it memorable. This year is her 16th, and we've already been planning it for months. We're hosting a party on the stretch of the beach right behind our houses, and it's supposed to be a pretty big turn out, considering Conrad and Jeremiah invited every person who attended last year's party. Conrad and some of his older friends are supplying the alcohol, Jeremiah is in charge of setting up the lighting and music, and I'm taking over the cake and decorations.

"Mom," I say, piping the last details of frosting across the bottom trim of the cake, "do you really think she'll like it?"

My mom presses her mug of tea to her mouth, takes a sip, and then smiles at me.

"If my friend made me a cake like that, I'd be over the moon. Tell her I said happy birthday today when you get a chance. I know I don't know her mother very well, but Belly was always a sweet girl when she'd come over here."

I look up from the cake to sigh dramatically at my mother.

"You know, Mom, you'd probably really like her if you gave her a chance. Susannah and Laurel have a lot of fun together. I think it'd be good if became friends with them."

Whenever my mom has interacted with Susannah or Laurel over the years, it's been extremely brief. They'd wave to each other if they saw each other on the beach, or when I was younger, one of the moms would walk me to the front door of my house to make sure I got inside safely, and they'd say hello to each other then. When Susannah caught drift of the fact that my dad was moving out, and that my parents had split up, she brought over a basket of homemade cookies for my mom and invited her over to have a movie night with just us girls. My mom thanked her, but declined the offer to join them, and I've never been able to know why.

"Honey, I don't need friends. I have friends at my job. And honestly, I don't have time to do what they do. I don't have a husband to support me anymore. It's been a struggle to keep us in this place even with your father's financial help."

She's right. Not only has it been taking her mind off of things, to be working so much, but it's been necessary to keep us living in Cousins. I decide to shut up and focus on Belly's cake again.

When I'm done, and I mean finally done, I place the cake down neatly onto an empty pastry box I found while rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. It's a chocolate cake, Belly's favorite. I covered the entire cake with vanilla buttercream frosting, and drew flowers and butterflies all over it using edible paint. On top, the number 16 is spelled out using glittery silver stars cut out of fondant.