"I'm so, so sorry. Please don't be mad at me. I couldn't take it if you were mad at me."

He sighed. "I'm not mad at you. I'm just--why does it always have to be Conrad?"

Then he got up, and left me sitting there.

chapter forty one

AGE 12

Mr. Fisher had taken the boys on one of their overnight deep-sea fishing trips. Jeremiah couldn't go; he'd been sick earlier that day so Susannah made him stay home. The two of us spent the night on the old plaid couch in the basement eating chips and dip and watching movies.

In between The Terminator and Terminator 2, Jeremiah said bitterly, "He likes Con better than me, you know."

I had gotten up to change the DVDs, and I turned around and said, "Huh?"

"It's true. I don't really care anyway. I think he's a dick," Jeremiah said, picking at a thread on the flannel blanket in his lap.

I thought he was kind of a dick too, but I didn't say so. You're not supposed to join in when someone is bashing his father. I just put the DVD in and sat back down. Taking a corner of the blanket, I said, "He's not so bad."

Jeremiah gave me a look. "He is, and you know it. Con thinks he's God or something. So does your brother."

"It's just that your dad is so different from our dad," I said defensively. "Your dad takes you guys fishing and, like, plays football with you. Our dad doesn't do that kind of stuff. He likes chess."

He shrugged. "I like chess."

I hadn't known that about him. I liked it too. My dad had taught me to play when I was seven. I wasn't bad either. I had never joined chess club, even though I'd kind of wanted to. Chess club was for the nose-pickers. That's what Taylor called them.

"And Conrad likes chess too," Jeremiah said. "He just tries to be what our dad wants. And the thing is, I don't even think he likes football, not like I do. He's just good at it like he is at everything."

There was nothing I could say to that. Conrad was good at everything. I grabbed a handful of chips and stuffed them into my mouth so I wouldn't have to say anything.

"One day I'm gonna be better than him," Jeremiah said.

I didn't see that happening. Conrad was too good. "I know you like Conrad," Jeremiah said suddenly.

I swallowed the chips. They tasted like rabbit feed all of a sudden. "No, I don't," I said. "I don't like Conrad."

"Yes, you do," he said, and his eyes looked so knowing and wise. "Tell the truth. No secrets, remember?" No secrets was something Jeremiah and I had been saying for pretty much forever. It was a tradition, the same way Jeremiah's drinking my sweet cereal milk was tradition-- just one of those things we said to each other when it was just the two of us.

"No, I really don't like him," I insisted. "I like him like a friend. I don't look at him like that."

"Yes, you do. You look at him like you love him."

I couldn't take those knowing eyes looking at me for one more second. Hotly I said, "You just think that because you're jealous of anything Conrad does."

"I'm not jealous. I just wish I could be as good as him," he said softly. Then he burped and turned the movie on.

The thing was, Jeremiah was right. I did love him. I knew the exact moment it became real too. Conrad got up early to make a special belated Father's Day breakfast, only Mr. Fisher hadn't been able to come down the night before. He wasn't there the next morning the way he was supposed to be. Conrad cooked anyway, and he was thirteen and a terrible cook, but we all ate it. Watching him serving rubbery eggs and pretending not to be sad, I thought to myself, I will love this boy forever.

chapter forty -two

He'd gone running on the beach, something he'd started doing recently--I knew because I'd watched him from my window two mornings in a row. He was wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt; sweat had formed in a circle in the middle of his back. He'd left about an hour before, I'd seen him take off, and he was running back to the house now.

I walked out there, to the porch, without a real plan in my mind. All I knew was that the summer was almost over. Soon it would be too late. We would drive away, and I would never have told him. Jeremiah had laid it all out on the line. Now it was my turn. I couldn't go another whole year not having told him. I'd been so afraid of change, of anything tipping our little summer sailboat--but Jeremiah had already done that, and look, we were still alive. We were still Belly and Jeremiah.

I had to, I had to do it, because to not do it would kill me. I couldn't keep yearning for something, for someone who might or might not like me back. I had to know for sure. Now or never.

He didn't hear me coming up behind him. He was bent down loosening the laces of his sneakers.

"Conrad," I said. He didn't hear me, so I said it again, louder. "Conrad."

He looked up, startled. Then he stood up straight.

Catching him off guard felt like a good sign. He had a million walls. Maybe if I just started talking, he wouldn't have time to build up a new one.

I sucked in my lips and began to speak. I said the first words I thought of, the ones that had been on my heart since the beginning. I said, "I've loved you since I was ten years old."

He blinked.

"You're the only boy I've ever thought about. My whole life, it's always been you. You taught me how to dance, you came out and got me the time I swam out too far. Do you remember that? You stayed with me and you pushed me back to shore, and the whole time, you kept saying, 'We're almost there,' and I believed it. I believed it because you were the one

Hey' who was saying it, and I believed everything you ever said. Compared to you, everyone else is saltines, even Cam. And I hate saltines. You know that. You know everything about me, even this, which is that I really love you."

I waited, standing in front of him. I was out of breath. I felt like my heart would explode, it was so full. I pulled my hair into a ponytail with my hand and held it like that, still waiting for him to say something, anything.

It felt like a thousand years before he spoke.

"Well you shouldn't. I'm not the one. Sorry."

And that was all he said. I let out a big breath of air and stared at him. "I don't believe you," I said. "You like me too; I know it." I'd seen the way he'd looked at me when I was with Cam, I'd seen it with my own two eyes.

"Not the way you want me to," he said. He sighed, and in this sad way, like he felt sorry for me, he said, "You're still such a kid, Belly."

"I'm not a kid anymore! You just wish I was, so that way you wouldn't have to deal with any of it. That's why you've been mad at me this whole summer," I said, my voice getting louder. "You do like me. Admit it."

"You're crazy," he said, laughing a little as he walked away from me.

But not this time. I wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily. I was sick and tired of his brooding James Dean routine. He had feelings for me. I knew it. I was going to make him say it.

I grabbed his shirt sleeve. "Admit it. You were mad when I started hanging out with Cam .You wanted me to still be your little admirer."