Chapter Text
Friday, June 20, 7:00AM. Conrad.
Conrad sighs as he rereads the last section of the medical journal article again, shifting his upper body a bit more upright against the hotel headboard and pillows. He scribbles notes in the margins and on a steno pad to absorb every detail. He wants to commit it to memory so that when he returns to work after his first vacation in two years, he won’t be so rusty. And plus, he thinks this article will be applicable in a treatment plan for patients with arrhythmia. Conrad scans the results again - while in most cases, the commonly effective dose of adenosine can treat the asymmetry of the chamber contractions, in cases where the ventricular contractions have severely accelerated, varying degrees of shock may be more effective in resynchronization.
A warm, soft arm draped over the torso twitches, signaling Amelia stirring from her jet-lagged slumber. Conrad takes a deep steadying breath and finds himself smiling down at her as he helps brush some of her blonde wisps off her cheeks. She contently snuggles in a bit closer to him. He’s allowed to have fun outside of the hospital, he reminds himself.
His therapist had suggested that this vacation with Amelia would be good for him. It’s not a promise of forever, or even a promise of making the relationship bigger than it is, Dr. Lyons had assured. It was the chance to step out of his comfort zone and to stop compartmentalizing his life.
**January, 6 months ago**
Amelia had come breezing into his life six months ago. Sometimes, it felt like it was more a tornado than a gentle breeze. He had attended a product launch that Taylor was promoting for a start up in San Francisco. Conrad had been reluctant to attend in the first place, but at Steven’s insistence that the glasses had a camera with state of the art zoom technology that could revolutionize the surgical field, he found himself mildly intrigued. He arrived that night after a particularly grueling twelve-hour shift at the hospital, hoping to learn about the glasses in a quiet one-on-one chat with the Chief Technology Officer, to tip a few beers back with Steven, and then to drive back to Palo Alto to get ready for a morning rotation.
He was quietly nodding along to something Taylor was saying, when a tall, svelte blonde glided into their circle. Amelia worked at the same marketing firm as Taylor in event planning, and she had just graduated college and was eager to make new connections and friends in her new city. She effortlessly inserted herself into their conversation, occasionally adding levity to an otherwise nerdy event and brushing Conrad’s arm as she tipped her head back in laughter. Throughout the rest of the evening, Amelia made a beeline for Conrad any moment she had downtime from checking in with the hosts, redirecting the caterers, signaling ambiance change to the lighting engineers and resetting the playlist with the DJ.
“Careful with that one,” warned Stephen, leaning close into Conrad. “She’s unstoppable.”
A soft chuckle escaped Conrad’s lips in acknowledgement. Amelia was great at conversation, asking questions and filling silent spaces with her charm. In spite of what Steven had observed, it had been a long time since Conrad let himself see the beauty in a woman.
Easy laughter and a bottle of wine downed later, they were frantically back in her Noe Valley walk up apartment tearing clothes off of each other as soon as her door closed. He immediately bent Amelia over the bed as she repeatedly moaned “Dr. Fisher” which kept him impossibly hard. Amidst the frenzy, Conrad started to think he may quite enjoy her company.
The months that followed were light. Conrad didn’t mind the occasional distraction when he visited from Palo Alto on the weekends he had free. Amelia never pushed for more. She also never wanted to be stifled by the domesticity of going to a suburb, preferring to stay in the cultural hub of San Francisco.
And the sex was good and frequent. She was as insatiable, albeit sometimes impatient, in bed as her thirst for conversation and the scene.
Conrad didn’t join her for the parties and the clubbing, of course, frequently feigning extra residency shifts whenever she went out. And Amelia didn’t ask. For the first time in almost a decade, Conrad was enjoying the simplicity of dating someone.
She was pretty. She was fun. And most importantly, she wasn’t tied to anything heavy. Amelia also never pried too deep. She has passed greetings from the background during Conrad’s FaceTimes with Jeremiah. She stepped out whenever Adam called. She didn’t ask about Boston, Cousins or Susannah. She was usually happy to bob along with the surface of what Conrad is willing to tell her.
You’re allowed to relish in the reprieve from guilt and grief, Conrad reminded himself of the words from one of his sessions with Dr. Lyons soon after he met Amelia. That’s what this is, he tried to convince himself. Reprieve.
**
Amelia has gone from snuggling in tighter to moving to straddle Conrad on the hotel bed. Before he can fully set aside his reading, notebook and pen, she is already mouthing at his chest and moving lower.
“How was the nap? Did you have a sweet dream?” Conrad asks, a beat to let his brain and body catch up to what Amelia is doing.
“Good,” she mumbles between nibbles over the waistband of his pajama pants, arching an eyebrow up at him. “Not as sweet as your precum will taste, though.”
“Fuck, baby”, he chokes out as she springs his halfway hard cock free and sinks her lips around him. She expertly takes the length of him all the way to the back of her throat, no teasing, no kissing, no licking. Amelia just hollows her mouth and sucks with fervor.
Amelia is one for immediacy. She doesn’t particularly care for too much foreplay, seeming to merely tolerate it if Conrad insists on it. He isn’t always physically or mentally ready when Amelia springs sex on him, but he doesn’t particularly mind the quick scramble to get himself there, either. He sees it as a challenge and maybe his speed of arousal is a confirmation that he finds Amelia very attractive. And the ease with which she takes him fully without much prep is her way of reciprocating her attraction to him.
She makes quick work of getting him fully hard, and as soon as Conrad starts thrusting into her mouth with any intention, she slurps him one last time and pops off of him. He blinks as she hikes up her sleep dress, and shifts the gusset of her thong aside to slide him in.
“Wait,” he gasps. Conrad reaches to grab a foil packet from his wallet on the nightstand.
Amelia huffs impatiently and rolls her eyes. She’s got an IUD, Conrad knows, but he spends his hours studying statistics and seeing all the things that can possibly go wrong during his shifts at the hospital. He doesn’t want to take the chance.
He makes quick work of rolling the condom on, and Amelia sinks down on him in one swift motion. She rides him like her life depended on it. She sets an unrelenting pace from the first moment he is inside her. Conrad is gripping her hips as if he was a bull rider hanging on for dear life.
She yelps a “oui, docteur” when he thrust up into her. Conrad typically likes the recognition, but at six months in and on their first international trip, he finds it a bit on the nose but rolls with it anyway. He tries to quiet her talking by snaking a hand to her clit - it usually elicits gasps and heavy breathing from her. But Amelia shakes her head, grabs his wrist and moves his hand to cup the flesh of her ass.
“Touch me back here, like I’m a dirty French whore,” she demands as she slams down on him.
Conrad’s excitement to try something new with his hot girlfriend swallows his momentary shock of the unusually filthy language falling from Amelia’s mouth. Their escapades are far from boring, but they are clinically fast-paced which doesn’t allow for anything adventurous. He obliges by slowly toying with her tight muscle, trying to imagine how her ass would grip the girth of his cock. Amelia’s hips jerk as he runs his finger around the hole, teasing the entrance, and she takes her hand to push his middle finger into her, searching for more.
“Baby, I want to make you feel so full. Everywhere,” Conrad growls. “In your pussy. In your ass.”
She grinds down harder and urges him to stick his finger in deeper.
“Your ass would be so gorgeous sliding up and down my cock, just like you are doing to my finger.”
She pants in agreement but her body doesn’t react to his words. Conrad files it away, realizing she likes it only when she is vocal during sex but doesn’t want to take it all the same.
He closes his eyes and keeps the obscene ideas he is conjuring up to himself. The images of Amelia are now blurring and morphing into another figure inside his head, and the vivid thoughts of a doe-eyed brunette gasping as he fucked her in various positions are so tantalizing that Conrad soon is twitching inside the latex.
After a few moments to catch her breath and before Conrad’s fully softened, Amelia rolls off of him out of bed to shower. She calls back as she crosses the bathroom threshold to order some room service before they embark on a loaded morning of seeing the Louvre, Notre Dame and Musée d'Orsay.
Their first morning in Paris is supposed to be a cultural immersion before she gets swarmed by all the preparations for the relaunch. Conrad feels more like he is a sardine packed in various tin cans, being bumped into by unsuspecting tourists trying to get the best photo with their selfie sticks. And he is relegated to being an Instagram boyfriend, trying to capture stylistic candids that are actually meticulously planned while Amelia searches for the best lighting spots near the Mona Lisa and the I.M. Pei pyramid. But he reasons with himself that that smile on Amelia’s face is worth it.
She comes from a small town in Montana – Instagram-worthy for a day and a half, as she coined it - and has never been abroad. She has big dreams of sparkly cities with endless museums and being inspired by conversations with artists flanking the galleries.
Amelia had jumped at the opportunity to join her team in planning the reopening party for the Printemps department store. She’s only a year out of school and her job would be managing the execution of the logistics, and ensuring that the architect and retailer get their wishlist fulfilled. She has been on endless video calls with the team in Paris, ordering supplies, managing the entertainment vendors and iterating the invitations with the graphic designers.
While her nerves of planning her first trip to Paris teetered into excitement, she still told Conrad she would feel more at ease with the help of a handsome tour guide. And who better to do that than the boy who had spent many holidays in France on ski trips? Conrad hadn’t taken most of his allotted vacation in the two years of his residency, and so, after spending two hours ruminating the possible consequences of taking a trip with his somewhat casual girlfriend with Dr. Lyons, he relented. Besides, Paris is beautiful in June.
Conrad knows of a better tour guide. Someone who has been living in Paris for the better part of five years, according to scant stories from Laurel, Taylor or Steven. Someone whose birthday is in just a few mere days. But it is someone better left in the past, along with all his memories of Cousins, tucked away in a vault he’s buried behind a brick wall. And in a city of over two million residents and seemingly endless tourists, the odds of him having to dredge up his past are slim.
By three-thirty in the afternoon, Conrad feels his jetlag catching up to him. Amelia takes some pity on him, or maybe the convenience of the timing just works out, and suggests they meet Matthieu for a drink.
She pulls out her phone and enters “La Boutique des Vins” into Google Maps and mumbles to herself, “Cross over the Pont Royal and through the garden.”
“Come on, you must meet this architectural genius,” she encourages after stashing her phone away after snapping another Instagram-worthy photo of the bridge crossing the Seine. “He is absolutely legendary at honoring history while bringing in modern and organic elements into his vision. I cannot wait to be introduced to him and his team! It’s so exciting to do this in the hub of design and art.”
“Ah, Amelia!” Matthieu greets as he stands up from the reserved table and performs the customary cheek kisses in greeting. “So good to finally see you in person. Tu as fait bon voyage?”
“Uh, yeah,” she blushes in reply, flustered by the French. “We got in last night. I am so thrilled to finally meet you over the many months of planning over Zoom video calls.”
After quick introductions for Conrad, Amelia explains to him that Matthieu had been in charge of the Printemps renovation, with his renderings beating out hundreds of other firms competing for the opportunity. Given the illustrious history of the department store, the reopening was a highly anticipated event all around Paris. There was no shortage of effusive language as she slathers compliments upon compliments about Matthieu. Conrad gives a tight smile into the red wine glass at his lips, internally acknowledging how well suited she is in marketing and event planning.
They are seated at one of the tables lining the back of the bar, and behind Matthieu is a wall of old wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy, some older than he is. Matthieu is dressed in all black, as if any other color would offend his creative process, and he had some grays peppering his chocolate brown beard. Conrad wonders if there were any wines in the racks that were older than Matthieu.
He and Amelia’s team will be working together over the next few days to ensure the reopening party highlights all of the key architectural and design components he brought into the refreshed store. Amelia is listening intently to make sure she picks up on all the elements that are important to Matthieu.
Conrad notices a fourth wine glass sitting empty on the table, and when Matthieu catches him eyeing the glass, his mouth tips into a soft smile.
“My partner will be joining us shortly. She must be running a bit late from her last meeting. You will love meeting her. I am sure she will happily give you an insider’s tour of Paris while I steal your Amelia away for work the next few days. My partner, she is…uh, how do you say it in English? Mon rayon de soleil.”
“Your ray of sunshine?” Conrad blinks and tries to translate.
“Oui!” Matthieu claps with the widest grin. “Since I met her, she has brightened my days. She really helped me through my divorce.”
Amelia nods but quickly intercepts and changes the topic. She lauds Matthieu as a visionary. He waves off the compliments, claiming he is merely following the footsteps of fellow Frenchman Erté, but Conrad can tell that he was eating it all up.
Another twenty minutes or so passes, and a refill of a wine later, the three of them have let the conversation meander. Conrad reveals that he’s a second year internal medicine resident at Stanford. Matthieu nods, mumbling something about the honesty of wanting to help people, in a tone that Conrad cannot quite catch. Before he gets too far into talking about his aspirations for his fellowship, Amelia redirects the topic once again back to art, Paris and Matthieu’s architectural inspirations. Conrad sighs and leans back in his chair, not minding the break from chatter, as his fatigue is setting into his muscles.
But as soon as he settles back, he feels the air shift in the bar and his breath catches deep inside his lungs.
In a flash, Matthieu stands beaming at someone behind Conrad, “Isabel! Mon ciel etoile!” kissing a woman approaching dressed in a smart mini dress.
The brunette, who has yet to turn to acknowledge Amelia or Conrad, flutters her eyelashes at Matthieu, lifts her thumb to wipe her red lipstick now transferred to his lips, and replies sweetly, “J’ai été retenue. My advisor gave me a lot to think about to add to my thesis.”
“I am sure your defense will be fantastic, my love,” gesturing to the guests behind her. “Please, meet my colleague who is here from San Francisco. Amelia will be helping with executing the launch party. Amelia, this is my love, Isabel.”
The woman turns with a quick smile before leaning in to press her cheeks against Amelia’s. “Nice to meet you, Amelia. Matthieu’s been looking forward to this week for months. I am so happy you are here to help share his creations with the world.”
“That’s so nice of you to say, Isabel,” Amelia returns.
“And this,” adds Matthieu, “is –”
Conrad feels his chest tighten. Every nerve ending is sending simultaneous jolts across his skin. His brain is screaming at him to run, with alarm bells ringing inside his ears, but his feet are rooted.
“Belly,” Conrad stammers, almost barely above a whisper.
“Hi Conrad,” she nods faintly in recognition but not with familiarity. “It’s been a long time.”
Belly leans forward and greets him with the customary la bise out of habit. A shock travels down both of Conrad’s cheeks and lodges somewhere in his left ventricle.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Friday, June 20 11:45AM. Belly.
Belly sits at the cafe, laptop open, typing away furiously. The diagnostic analysis was completed on a sample set of fifty pre- and post-adolescent males and females. Isolating for ecological factors, the study focused on various coping mechanisms commonly used in complex and long-term grief. While many therapies have been effective in subduing the outright symptoms of grief, avoidance is often an overlooked patient strategy in handling trauma, which leads to under-treatment.
She looks up as Celine approaches, who is wearing a scandalized expression that Belly would be working while at lunch. Belly laughs as she tucks her laptop away. She cherishes this time with her friend between her last lecture of the day and her meeting with her advisor. She takes a deep breath in and closes her eyes, filling her lungs with the late spring air and the scent of irises from the bouquet Celine had just picked up from the flower stand a block away. Five years in, she still cannot believe that this is her life, that she has found her footing in Paris.
Belly and Celine catch up on their busy weeks over the meal. Belly hasn’t had time for much socialization lately while she is trying to complete her thesis for dissertation in a few months. She sees Gemma and Max only because she lives with Gemma, and they all camp out in the living room together eating pastries from the boulangerie every weekend morning. Celine tries to join in on occasion, but she really covets her mornings to sleep in after a shift at the bar. Whenever Belly isn’t in classes or lab, she has been with her small volleyball group she found at Sorbonne. They don’t even have enough people to make a real team, but they play 3-on-3 every other week. And half her evenings are spent with Matthieu, whenever he wasn’t traveling for work or knees deep in drafting floor plans.
Celine lives in the 10th arrondissement and works two jobs between the bar and the library. Friday lunch is the only time her schedule and Belly’s calendar align for a get together. It isn’t as fun as the wine and joint nights they used to have during Belly’s early years in Paris. But, they all have to become real adults at some point, Belly supposes.
Celine slurps the last spoonful of her gazpacho and clears her throat.
“Isabel, can you make sure Matthieu responds to our email about your birthday dinner, s'il vous plaît?”
“Sure,” Belly chuckles. “He’s been quite nervously plotting the reopening and party. The critics and reviews could be what defines his entire career. So, I am sure he isn’t ignoring you on purpose. He’s just really focused right now.”
“If he is so busy then can he just relinquish some of the planning to Gemma or to me, then? He is really insistent on the right venue. It’s almost like he is…”
Their eyes widen simultaneously and Celine’s mouth snaps shut.
“No!” Belly rationalizes after a moment to compose herself and her shoulders rising like she was shrugging off an itchy coat. “It is too soon, and the ink on his divorce papers are barely even dry.”
“Maybe. But maybe he is certain he can do it right this time. I’m not saying he can, or that you should say yes if he asks. But he is not getting any younger, you know. He may not want to be in his late forties chasing around little bébés.”
Belly rolls her eyes and smiles demurely to end this particular topic. She loves Matthieu, surely. But marriage is something else entirely. Matthieu has also mentioned in passing that children would hamper his career.
She carefully tucks away the visual of a little girl, holding the hand of her baby brother who is taking his first steps on warm sand, toddling towards the open arms of their father. He has a soft laugh as he scoops up the two little children and carries them towards the water’s edge, and tosses back his honey brown hair that turns golden in the summer sun as something they say makes him laugh. That is the dream of teenage Belly, not grown up Isabel.
**July, 2 years ago**
Matthieu approached Belly one summer day when she had taken herself out on a solo museum date. She hadn’t dated seriously at Finch, but she had a few boyfriends, all with sweet boys with poetically simple family dynamics. But they never lasted longer than a month or two, at which point, her heart often wandered to an elusive shadow that had settled three-thousand miles away. She did go on a handful of first dates in Paris that didn’t amount to much, and those guys were noncommittal with an American who was merely there for a study abroad program. After a while, Belly preferred the certainty of her circle of friends and rather than trying to look for love.
Matthieu was attentive, sometimes overly so, to make up for having stepped out of his marriage to Yvette, his high school sweetheart. After sixteen years together, he found that the praise he earned from admirers of his designs was more scintillating than the stability of Yvette by his side. They had parted ways amicably, no children or assets to really split, and he was determined that whatever relationship he found himself in next would keep his attention.
The very next day, he found himself in a creative rut while coming up with an avant garde concept for his firm’s latest client. He was determined to mix the original art deco style of Printemps with something drawn from nature, but his drafts kept coming out flat. He so desperately wanted to breathe new life into a Parisian icon that he decided to take himself on a walk to absorb the other details of the city. A stroll along the Seine didn’t amount to much. A drag of his cigarette while drinking a coffee only frustrated him further. After plodding along for a few hours, he turned towards the Musée Marmottan Monet in a last ditch effort to find beauty in the world. He rounded the exhibits three times, about to give up, when he saw Belly. She was staring at the painting of the water lilies, which normally Matthieu would bemoan as pedestrian and over-sensationalized. But there was something mesmerizing in the way her eyes flitted over the details of the willows and in the painting. When his eyes followed hers, he finally had an inspiration for his design.
Belly felt quite certain of his adoration, because he made it known to her in every which way possible. Matthieu brought the flair to Belly’s quieter lifestyle, and she grounded him when he got over his skis in his ideas. Each month they’ve spent together, Matthieu would bring Belly daisies on their anniversary. He took her to restaurants that somehow seemed more club than restaurant. He took her dancing with his friends, who all patted him on the back for finding a catch that was as youthful as he acted. He would even come hang out with her friends too, on occasion, although they were initially quite suspicious of a man nearly ten years older than Belly.
Celine reluctantly accepted him first, Gemma is tactful but still reserving her final judgment, but Max remains the hold out, even after two years. She suspects that Matthieu has some unresolved issues that he had not yet addressed from his marriage and it would come to roost soon enough.
Belly, for her part, enjoys the security. She knows how much Matthieu loves her; in fact, she could probably publish an epic book of poetry to rival Shakespeare’s sonnets from all the things he tells her.
He whispers sweet nothings to her when she snuggles against him at night. He tells her how she is his starry sky, his sunshine. He even praises her beauty when he spends hours with his face between her thighs, sighing between wet sloppy licks about how much he adored every inch of her.
**
After her lunch with Celine, Belly trudges her way to her advisor’s office. She has been feeling stuck the last few weeks, unable to find the angle in her research that really would impress him. Professor Legére is infamously tough, but he has the best track record for guiding the PhD candidates to present bullet-proof dissertations. And Belly is really determined to wrap up her thesis in record time so that she can start on clinical internships. She has been looking at programs with openings all around Paris, because it will keep her close to her friends and Matthieu. At Laurel’s insistence, she also is considering a few postings in Philadelphia.
Professor Legére spends an hour poring over her data, her calculations and her findings. He corrects some of the assumptions Belly has made, suggesting that perhaps the markers for coping mechanisms she set out needed further refinement. He even begins proofreading her write up, which is still in a very rough draft, while Belly tries to reslice her testing data with an added perspective to control for PTSD. By the end of the hour, Professor Legére gives her a curt, approving nod and suggests they meet again twice a week until her thesis is completed. Belly agrees gratefully, and inputs the next meetings into her calendar as a recurring reminder on her phone.
She walks off campus around half past three, re-energized and feeling like she is making significant strides towards her dream job. She hops into a coffee shop near Sorbonne and treats herself to a lavender matcha latte with extra syrup before heading to meet Matthieu and the event planner his firm had hired for the party. He does not approve of the sugary bastardization of caffeine; if he were here to see her cheat meal, he would likely cluck “typiquement américaine” and roll his eyes. Belly takes advantage of the few free minutes she had to savor her floral and herbal tea, taking care to wipe off any purple remnants of foam before she hopped back out onto the street.
The bar is only a fifteen-minute walk from school, but carrying her laptop and printed binder of data in her heels feels a bit too laborious in the afternoon sun. Belly hails a taxi from the corner and directed the driver to where Matthieu had dropped the pin to signal his location. She rolls the windows down and lets her hand fly like a bird in the breeze. As the taxi rolls to a stop a few doors from La Boutique des Vins, Belly sputters in broken sentences to the driver, directing him to keep driving. Perplexed, he does as instructed while she gives him her apartment as the new destination.
Belly’s chest feels tight and full-blown panic sets into her bones while she grips the backseat. She begins biting on her manicured nails to calm her nerves. She clamps her eyes shut so tightly, like a child hiding from a monster or a ghost. Perhaps she is seeing things, and the tremor deep in her gut is a figment of her imagination.
Because why else would Conrad Fisher be walking into that very bar before 4pm on a Friday when he should be nine time zones away slaving away under the fluorescent lights of a hospital? And why would there be a gorgeous blonde with her arm looped into his? Was she Agnes, the girl Steven inadvertently let slip into a conversation a few years after Conrad had moved to Stanford? All the confidence that she built up while workshopping her research with Professor Legére has now come crumbling down around her, and she needs to brace for impact.
Once back at her apartment, Belly FaceTimes Gemma, who is out on a date with Max, sunning themselves on the benches near the Trocadero Gardens. They don’t allow Belly to spiral, coaxing calming breaths out of her. Gemma offers that when facing the man who shattered your heart, the best form of revenge is showing him that you have healed yourself without him and that someone else will cherish the mended pieces. And Max suggests that despite their nine-year age gap and his affinity for wine nights of biblical proportions, Matthieu practically worships the ground Belly walks on.
With their guidance, she changes into a completely new outfit, one that is professional (she is supposedly coming straight from school, after all) but chic. It’s a boxy cut blazer dress in a powder blue with an almost dangerously low v-neck, and the hem falls mid-thigh, making her legs look like they go on for miles. She dabs some perfume behind her ears and reapplies her eyeliner and lipstick.
Belly checks herself out in the mirror and takes one last bracing breath as Gemma bids her bon chance. She walks out the door still a bit shaky, but Max’s steadying words echo within her head, supplying her with courage. And this time, when her taxi pulls up to the bar again, she almost stumbles when she sees that the blonde and Conrad are seated at their reserved table.
Her nerves are quickly steeled by the way Matthieu’s eyes immediately find hers as she enters. His face lights up and he immediately brings her in for a loving kiss. A kiss that says I’ve missed you. She kisses him back in a silent response: I adore you. Belly loses herself in the sweetness of their lips lingering for a moment that was longer than socially acceptable given the circumstances. But it was just long enough that she forgets what was causing her panic half an hour ago.
She turns to greet Amelia, and she purposely avoids making eye contact with the tall green-eyed man of her childhood dreams as she exchanges pleasantries with Matthieu’s colleague for the next week. She tests out this stranger’s name in her mouth, and at first taste, it’s pretty sour. Belly swallows the sensation and bravely turns toward Conrad. Leave the past in the past; it’s been five years, she reminds herself with a deep inhale.
Belly wonders if he feels the very same confusion, panic and shock as she had felt when he blurts out her name. She searches more intently and, for the briefest of moments, sees another expression cross over his face, too, a more softer one, but it is extinguished as soon as she acknowledges him. She must have been too hopeful that he would be happy to see her. He doesn’t know you anymore, Belly, and he gave up the right to really know you when he broke your heart.
Belly slots herself next to Matthieu, grounding herself with his proximity. She merely recounts to the table that she grew up spending summers with Conrad and Jeremiah because their mothers were best friends. Belly also glosses over the fact that they all have drifted apart since college as they’ve ended up in different cities. And at the last second, she slips in that she is now so proud of the stellar chef Jeremiah has become, just to watch Conrad shift uncomfortably in his seat. The explanation she offers is enough for Matthieu and Amelia to quench their curiosity in the matter, but not too much to pick at the scars deep inside her heart.
The afternoon sun has dimmed to a soft orange outside as another bottle of wine gets shared amongst the table, this time a white Chablis. Belly quickly decides that answering all of Amelia’s questions about Paris was innocuous enough, if not mildly annoying. Amelia’s pretense to be knowledgeable about French artists and architecture also is a tad grating, as she casually throws out terms and phrases that are probably parroted off a tourist’s brochure. But still, Matthieu seems to enjoy the conversation, particularly when she would reiterate his artistic talent. Belly appreciates that Amelia’s incessant talking is a much needed distraction from the fact that she could feel Conrad’s eyes burning into her from across the table. So, Belly plasters the most polite demeanor she could conjure up on her face, and lets the chatter quiet the urge to turn to face Conrad.
The first boy she ever loved is sitting in front of her, looking at her like he is pleading for her to just glance back at him for a second.
If Belly has a shred less self-restraint, these drinks would go differently. She wishes she could soften the sting of heartache that still drums deep inside her, to reach across the table and hug him like they were teenagers again. She wants to ask him about California, about Stanford, about his residency. Belly wants to hear all about his brutal hours, what cases he has been working on, and his plans after residency. She even wants to know if he’s changed his cologne from the one he used to wear at sixteen. She wants to ask him why he stopped responding to her texts five years ago. She wants to ask…
No, she tells herself. He didn’t reach out to you because he never truly loved you.
Your friendship was one of convenience, because your mom and Susannah insisted upon it. “Amelia, you should really try to get a reservation at L’Ami Jean for lunch. They have the best pommes purée in all of Paris. Perhaps Matthieu will grant you a break one of these days while you are here.”
Your six month relationship was just an immaterial blip in Conrad’s life. He’s clearly over it, and you should be too. “Yes, I totally agree that the art scene here surpasses that of any other city, even New York. But part of me wonders if that isn’t because of the deeply rooted history at every turn of Paris, whereas New York has a younger and more vibrant energy. Wouldn’t you say so, cheri?”
Jeremiah has been in contact with you since Susannah’s death. Conrad has a phone too but chose to not call you. “Of course Matthieu’s work should be recognized. He’s poured a lot of his heart into this project, and the world deserves to see it. It was pure luck that I met him the moment his inspiration struck.”
Amidst the numbingly superficial chatter, Belly absentmindedly reaches for the baguette on the cheese board, and she feels an electric current running up her fingers and arm. She darts her eyes up and finally takes him in.
Conrad has aged out of his youthful lankiness, and his posture showcases a still confidence. The green pools of his tired eyes are less stormy than when she last saw him. His shoulders are now broader and more muscular. He sported a perpetual tan and sun-lightened strands. In the lighting of the bar, facing away from the sun setting outside the window behind him, he still carried the same golden glow she remembered of their teenage years.
”Sorry,” Conrad retracts his hand and smiles meekly, speaking for what seems like merely the third time since she’s arrived. “You can take that last slice. I should focus on eating more of the cheeses, anyway.”
”Don’t be so afraid of the processed meats and carbs, Conrad,” she replies gently. “Living on the edge every once in a while won’t hurt you.”
And for the first time since Belly arrived, Conrad turns up the corner of his lips into a grin that reaches his eyes.
After she chews and swallows her bite of bread she adds, “If you feel scandalized by the thought of cured meats, I would be happy to write a letter to the American Medical Association attesting that despite your Parisian transgression, you would never eat a Pop Tart.”
His laugh that follows is one that reverberates in the deepest chambers of Belly’s memories, drawing out images long buried. It is the same sound of eleven year-old Conrad holding nine year-old Belly’s hand as she tries to jump the incoming waves, and the two of them collapsing onto the sand shelf together in a fit of giggles. And Belly’s heart betrays her for a second by skipping a few beats.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Friday, June 20, 5:30PM. Conrad.
Conrad can’t seem to quite get enough oxygen in his lungs. The world is spinning in front of him, and his heart wants to escape his ribcage. He cannot have a breakdown here. Not in front of Matthieu, who had just met him an hour ago. Not in front of Amelia, who doesn’t know the ghosts of his past that still frequent his dreams. And certainly not in front of Belly, who has always looked to him to be her anchor when they were kids.
He closes his eyes and grounds himself in the last factual thing he read. The voltage of electrotherapy requires careful calibration. The small sample set tested responded positively to varying degrees of strength and length of treatment. While inconclusive, the results suggest there may be correlation between voltage and chamber desynchronization. In other words, the faster the ventricular contractions are, the higher the dosage of electrotherapy may be required.
When his breathing slows, Conrad finally refocuses his eyes. But his mind is still racing. Where did his calculation of the probability he would run into Belly while in Paris go so awry?
His brain runs through all his known facts. Laurel had informed him that she was living in the 16th arrondissement with someone named Gemma. Belly is completing a PhD in the clinical psychology program at Sorbonne and is in her third year. Despite trying to keep Belly’s name out of their friendship, Steven had recently revealed that Belly was dating some older, art snob in his mid-30s, all while turning his nose up at the thought. Taylor had mentioned in passing that Belly’s style had become more sophisticated but she still prefers white wines to red. He does not know her French phone number, and she never reached out again after their curt holiday text exchange five Christmases ago. She told him about getting accepted into the study abroad program and he could only muster, “Congrats, Belly. Merry Christmas.”
It was after that Christmas that made him realize (okay, at Agnes’ insistence) that he needed to go to therapy to address his grief and his anxiety.
Does Conrad wish that they would share more details about Belly and her life? Always. Is he grateful that they knew better than to speak about her frequently in his presence? Definitely. He knows he doesn’t deserve more information than that, even if he memorizes every detail they afforded him. He just needs to know that she is happy.
Does he know that she was dating an architect? Does he know she had a sleek shoulder-length bob instead of the long mess he once ran his fingers through while in the backseat of a jeep at the beach bonfire? Does he know that her boyfriend is a divorcee who is ten or fifteen years older than her? Did he know Belly still captivates every room she graces?
Paris has almost triple the population of San Francisco. He has to make an effort to actually even see his med school friends or Steven when he takes the Caltrain in from Palo Alto for the weekend. How is it possible that the one person he had to hold at a distance for the better part of a decade is the exact one sitting in front of him during his one week trip to such a large city?
A gentle squeeze to his bicep from Amelia in response to something charming Matthieu just said brings him back down to earth.
”Your initial renderings that you had emailed us navigates the liminal space between critical nostalgia and the collective subconscious,” she says.
Conrad replays her words again in his head. He understood each word individually, but strung together, the whole sentence was just a garbled collection of sounds to him.
He finds the courage to peer across the table at Belly and tries to reengage with the talk around him.
He can’t help but feel the corners of his mouth start to tilt upwards as he watches her speak about acclimating to Parisian culture. She is so poised and eloquent now. The years have granted her a maturity and confidence he doesn’t recognize but instantly admires. But when she touches upon something she cares about, she still speaks with the same passion and spark as the Belly who chose him to be her partner at the beach volleyball tournament a decade ago in her determination to win. Teenage Belly was alluring, but the beauty of adult Belly is completely enchanting.
As Conrad wonders how much Belly had changed but how much stayed constant, he suddenly snaps out of his daydream by some movement in his periphery. Matthieu drapes his right arm around her, tucking her into his side and pressing a kiss to her temple. Belly continues speaking with Amelia as she leans into Matthieu so naturally, and her eyes respond to his kiss with a twinkle. She crosses her right arm over her body and rests her hand against his chest in comfort. They do this with so much familiarity, like they have done this a thousand times.
Conrad’s stomach lurches. Knots. Then sinks.
She is supposed to be his Belly. The girl whose smile lights up her entire face is sitting across from him still so familiar to him and yet so maddeningly distant. Then Matthieu’s words came roaring back into his brain like waves crashing against the shore: his ray of sunshine, his love, his partner.
Conrad tries to blink it away, and is failing like he is drowning. You have a girlfriend, he reminds himself. She is hot, and the relationship is uncomplicated. You wanted ease. Amelia is the very definition of ease.
Perhaps Belly’s lack of reaction to this reunion, if you can even call it a reunion at this point given they have only spoken two dozen words to each other in the past hour, is how he should be reacting too. She is graciously answering all of Amelia’s questions about the latest Parisian hot spots, barely acknowledging Conrad more than the conversation warrants.
Conrad shifts in his seat, readjusting his legs and ends up brushing his knee against Belly’s under the table. A second jolt. It travels up his thigh and settles in his abdomen. He quickly mutters an apology, and Belly merely waves it off like it was nothing. She then glances up to get the attention of the server to order some cheese and charcuterie for the table in fluent French. All the while, Conrad wishes that a sinkhole will open up beneath his chair and the gravity will soon pull him in.
Despite the reprieve Dr. Lyons had promised this vacation would grant him, Conrad cannot not escape the truth of the matter: this twisted reality in front of him was all his fault.
**August, 8 years ago**
There was a point in his life that Conrad categorizes as before. As in, before his mom died. There was so much hope and innocence for most of that time, and Belly was a big part of before.
But then, the anxiety and panic attacks kicked into overdrive in the after. It had gotten to a point where he sometimes hid for hours from Belly at the beach house so that she wouldn’t see him crying over missing his mom. He had been also so angry at his dad then; for the affair, sure, but also for emotionally abandoning his sick wife. Belly was too young and too pure to be burdened with such problems. She generally knew most of Conrad’s usual hiding spots at the beach and around the house though, and she would often find him after a while, offering to talk or just sit with him. His guilt compounded when he saw her face twist in sympathy, so he started spending hours at the memorial garden in the women’s shelter. But, he didn’t get peace there either. The nurses and volunteers all came to offer condolences when they saw him sitting on the benches; while he knew they came from a good place, their words still felt like peroxide on a still bleeding wound all the same.
Conrad resolved that the further he could get away from the noise the better, and he had to do it expeditiously or else he would be sucked into the vortex of the looming black hole and take all the people he loved along with him.
One early August morning, Conrad sat on the beach watching the sun break over the horizon. The sound of footsteps approached, and without turning, he knew who it was. Her soft shuffle was so distinct, like she was turning the grains of sand into musical chimes playing a melody. She always wanted to offer him some comfort, and he knew that the comfort couldn’t come from her.
”Hey,” Belly said softly, as she plops onto the sand a few feet to his left. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you. I’ve been trying to catch you for more than a few moments all summer.”
Conrad hung his head and avoided her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Belly. I’m sorry for what I said to you at the funeral. That was the most awful day of my life, only second to…” he couldn’t finish that thought, but Belly nodded signaling that she knew what the end of sentence would be. “And I shouldn’t have lashed out the way I did.”
”Don’t apologize for that,” she responded with an earnestness that let Conrad know she had already forgiven him. “We both said things in the heat and hurt of the day that we didn’t mean.”
They both stared out at the waves, a few seagulls are starting to circle in the sky searching for breakfast. It was a silence that didn’t ache but felt solemn and full.
After a few minutes, Belly inhaled sharply. “I want to try again, Conrad. I care so much about you, and you don’t have to shoulder this all alone. I’ve missed you this summer.”
”Belly,” he replied glumly, eyes now cast upon the sand between his legs. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I am transferring to Stanford for pre-med. I leave tonight.”
She was too stunned to speak. She searched his face to see if he was trying to pull the world’s meanest prank. But Conrad only sighed and stood up when she started trying to blink back her tears.
He couldn’t bear the thought that he was making her cry again. The vision of her handing back the infinity necklace to him at prom was still fresh. Knowing that Belly’s cheeks were streaking with tears made him want to rip up his plane ticket and stay there to comfort her, his dreams be damned. He stuttered for a second before turning to go, resolving to do what is best for them, for her.
”I really am sorry, Belly. Take good care of yourself, okay?”
**
Conrad’s thoughts swirl him back into the bar. The first love of his life is three feet in front of him, leaning into her boyfriend’s kisses, which have become nauseatingly more frequent as more wine has been poured. She has marginalized what they meant to each other in her recap to Matthieu and Amelia, as if he were an acquaintance she barely remembers.
Not that he wants Amelia to know he once drove 10 hours in a day to spend a Christmas with Belly in Cousins. He also doesn’t want Matthieu to know about the afternoons they spent on the boardwalk and how he spent so much money trying to win her Junior Mint. But they are important mementos of before to him. Do those moments shared not loom as large for her?
He tries to stop the gnawing feeling inside his stomach, and maybe a bit of bread is the only cure. He surveys the spread in front of him, and suddenly he feels jolt number three of the day.
Before he can fully retract his hand, Belly has assured him that the accidental graze of their fingers is fine. And she addresses him fully for the first time since she sat down, and in the same comforting manner that he remembers of their teenage years. His heart can barely contain the swell of relief as she gently teases him about his dietary strictness.
Then, in her last breath, she gives him an opening to step back into their past together with the mention of her favorite packaged breakfast. It is as slight as any one opening could be, easily missed by those unacquainted with the Cousins traditions, but it is an enormous olive branch to Conrad, nonetheless.
She still remembers him, innately. She might have made a joke at his expense, but is light and full of recognition.
He catches the slightest quiver of her lip as she said it, and he instantly spots the glint in her eyes. For the first time in eight years, he immerses himself in a hopeful feeling, the one he’s buried away with the other memories from before. He remembers Belly, surrounded by the morning light streaking through the dining room windows. She is chasing Steven and Jeremiah around the table to get the last dirt bomb. When they throw it to Conrad and he extends his hand to give her the muffin, she thanks him with the most heartfelt smile.
A new desperation begins to creep up within him. Conrad wants to chase the sparkle in her eyes and the quirk in her lips until she would reward him with that same smile again.