Everything Changes-The Summer I Turned Pretty

Twenty Seven

My eyes are dry and crusty, I can't imagine how I could cry any more tears than I already have the past hour and a half.

Laurel drove my mother and Belly home from the debutante hall immediately after my brothers' fight, but Conrad, Jeremiah, and I stayed a little longer, sitting on a bench in the middle of the beach silently looking at the water.

We were silent, if you ignored the sound of our muffled cries.

"What a f*cking good way to end our summer, huh?" Conrad said.

I pulled my legs tight to my chest and laid my face on my knees.

"Shut the f*ck up, Con," Jeremiah hiccuped. "Just f*cking be quiet for once."

"Guys," I said quietly, my voice rough and dry. I lifted my head from my knees. "Can you just, not?"

Conrad grabbed his ears and lowered his face into the palms of his hands, his body shaking. He was between Jeremiah and I, and both of us instinctively wrapped our arms around him at the same time.

"I'm sorry, if I hadn't known I'd have been better but I couldn't let you guys know too, it was just too much, I...I'm so sorry," he cried, his head laid against Jeremiah's shoulder.

"It's okay, man, it's alright. We'll be alright. Mom will be alright," Jeremiah told him. He wanted us to believe him. I think he wanted to believe it himself.

When Conrad lifted his head, there was a wet spot on Jere's shirt from his tears. He sniffed. "We should probably go home. Check on Mom and them."

The whole ride home all I could think about was Belly, probably in our bed buried underneath all our blankets, sobbing. About someone who's not even her mother. This time instead of it making me mad like it usually would, it made me feel like a terrible person.

But because I was sitting in the back seat all by myself, there was no one to hug me like back on the bench when I started to cry again.

Mom is stroking my head which is laid in her lap, running her fingers through my hair. Jeremiah's head is on her shoulder and she's rubbing his knee with her other free hand. Conrad is sitting in the recliner across the room. His focus is on his hands, folded in his lap, thumbs running over his fists.

"So what's the plan," he asks suddenly.

"The plan," Mom repeats like a statement, not a question.

"Yeah. Like, what kind of treatments do you have lined up?"

Jeremiah sits up. "You were waiting to start your treatments until after we went back home, right Mom?"

Mom sighs and her hand slips off my head and into her lap. "I wasn't going to receive treatment."

"What?" Jere's voice cracks.

"Why not?" Conrad asks with the same urgency.

"It's just," Mom starts, pausing to clear her throat. "Chemo takes so much out of a person. I don't want to live the rest of my life tired and in pain, with constant mood swings and no hair. I want to live it how I want to live it. I want you guys to remember me as myself. Who I am now."

"Who you are now was full of secrets," Conrad states. He turns away to look out the window on the other wall of the room.

"Mom." Jeremiah's voice is a higher pitch than usual and his eyes are welling with tears again. "You can't just give up."

I pull myself off Mom's lap. "You did it once and it worked. Why won't you just do it again?"

"Oh, Kristy," Mom cups my face in her hands. I'm crying again. I can't help it. As much as I hate myself for it, I can't stop myself.

"Momma please," is all I can say before my throat tightens and I pull away from her touch.

"She's right," Jere says. "Do it again. Why the hell not? We don't want you to die, Mom." He's crying just as bad as I am, but instead of distancing himself, he falls right into Mom's arms and cries into the front of her blouse.

"Connie?" I call quietly at my brother's still figure. He turns toward me and his eyes are red. But they're dry.

"It's your choice, Mom," he tells her. "But, please, remember us when you make your choice."

The room is silent. Even mine and Jeremiah's muffled cries have quieted. I hear Mom swallow, rub her hands together slowly, and adjust her hair. "Okay."

My breath catches.

"Alright. Maybe I'll try another program, maybe something different than I did before. But I won't give up."

I grab Mom's hand. "Thank you," I say, over and over.

Conrad's face crumples and he stumbles from his chair and falls in front of us on his knees. Mom stands up and gives him a hug, their height difference now reminding me of a little boy hugging his mother before his first day of school.

Jeremiah bends over and hugs the two of them as well. He looks up at me and waves me over. "C'mon, Kris."

It was our first group hug all summer. Tight and and wet with tears.