folklore; conrad fisher

32: reflections

We spent that entire night scanning through textbooks, writing flashcards, making bullets and highlighting useful information from his class notes. We quizzed Conrad on different biological terms and structures throughout the night, and he answered nearly every question correctly. Belly and Steven brought McDonalds for all of us, only allowing us to eat after certain studying checkpoints. Steven, Belly, Jeremiah and I were supposed to sleep in shifts, but I stayed up with Conrad the entire night. I sat on an inflatable chair that we brought inside from the party, watching him as he whisked through his notes, headphones on with a pretzel in his mouth. It was nearing the morning when the two of us finally passed out.

I woke up the next morning to Belly and Jeremiah attacking me with pool noodles. I rubbed my eyes and weakly tried to snatch one from them, but half-asleep I was no match for them. They kept hitting me until I finally got up, flipping them off as I rose to my feet.

We got dressed and decided to take a photo in front of the backyard, the way we always used to do when we were kids. I stood in between Conrad and Belly, wrapping my arms around each of them, as Conrad swung his over my shoulder. When we finished, I looked to Steven to talk to him, but he quickly engaged into a conversation with Conrad, purposefully staying behind the rest of us. I decided to head over anyway, because there were a few things I knew I needed to say to him before we left today.

When I reached them, they went silent. I eyed Steven, weirdly.

"What're you two talking about?"

"Football." Conrad said.

"Boobs!" Steven shouted at the same time, Conrad giving him a stunned look.

I squirmed, "Ew, whatever. I don't actually care. I just needed to steal Steven for a sec, is that okay Con?"

"'Course." He said, giving me a small nod. I took Steven by the arm, heading towards the small gazebo on the dock. We sat down on the couches, and I sighed.

"Steven, you've deserved an apology from me for a long time now."

"For what?" He raised an eyebrow, "Stealing my Charizard EX card when we were nine?"

"No!" I said, "How do you even remember that?"

"It was ultra rare! Sourced from Japan, with a glimmering exterior. I had it in a case!"

I laughed, "Well, you're never seeing it again, sorry. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I wanted to say that I'm so upset about the shit I pulled at Susannah's funeral, and even moreso for lying to you about the Princeton application in the first place. You're my best friend in the entire world and you didn't deserve that."

He bit his lip, "It's... Fine. I don't blame you for the Susannah stuff, it was a hard day for everybody, all of our emotions were everywhere. And I shouldn't have pressured you into applying to Princeton like that. It was just––After you left Pennsylvania, I always hoped that one day I'd get you back when we were in college. It would be the two of us again, y'know. Our classic duo. I guess I just missed you so much, I forgot to even consider the fact that maybe you had other dreams. But I know I'll never lose you, and you're definitely never getting rid of me."

He pulled me into a hug, and I squished my face into his chest. Even though we'd made up, it felt great to finally get to talk about the whole Princeton situation. Steven was right, after all this time, we'd managed to stay best friends. College wasn't going to change that.

When we got to the driveway, Laurel was there, having returned from the motel to drive Steven and Belly home. She gave us coffees to keep us up for the drive to Brown. I was supposed to go alone with Jeremiah and Conrad, and then take the bus back to Wesleyan. Belly, however, was given permission to join us––much to our delight. Steven was adamant about getting home to 'catch up on Summer reading', but we all knew his ulterior motive was to spend more time with Taylor. I hugged him and Laurel goodbye, but we promised to continue getting together that Summer.