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This summer was too hot even for a beach town. Shoutout to global warming. Summers were never the same since she turned an adult, well maybe long before it but at 25 she can't be nostalgic about or romanticise the changing weathers any more.
When she was a kid, she thought the summers were a constant. She hadn't expected a lot of things to change.......like her friendship with Jeremiah.
You can plan for a change in the weather and time, but I never planned on you changing your mind
She was busy on her laptop when she felt that something was arriving. Her heart stopped when she saw a familiar red Jeep stop in the driveway. She remembered stayjelly or core 4 as Taylor liked to call them would visit and put a basketball hoop out there and play for hours back while they were in college.
"Oh shit" the man coming out of the Jeep cursed when he saw her and rolled his eyes slightly.
"I didn't know you'd be here", he spoke again.
"I didn't know you still came down here, Taylor says you haven't been around in ages", she replied.
"Is Conrad here?"
No how are yous, just straight to the point, as always Jere maintaining boundaries which started to feel like barbed wire at this point meant to keep her away like she was dangerous to him.
"No...." she mumbled
"Okay yeah I'm leaving", he turned away.
"Wait.....please stay", she called to him.
And just like that he stopped.
"I'm not staying for you, dad messaged me to go check up on the beach house, telling me it needed some maintenance and that's the only reason I'm here right now", he provided the explanation. He had never needed an explanation before to stay at the house.....or to be near her.
"I thought Conrad was out of country and therefore dad asked me", he added further.
"What's this layer of salt?", he examined the doorway entrance that was generously sprinkled with salt.
"Well, I was alone so I decided I should take some precaution to keep the ghosts out. Ward them off."
"You watched a horror movie last night?"
"Well....yeah"
Jere scoffed, "we've always found them scary, why didn't you opt for a romcom?"
"Well romcoms these days are scarier", she blurted out.
Huh? He wondered but she was already gone inside
The salt layer didn't stop Jeremiah from entering the house. He saw her watching him enter and then let out a sigh of relief.
"You thought I was a ghost?"
"Well you see in the movie I watched last night the ghosts could shape-shift into people you know."
"Knew, you don't know me anymore Isabel."
"Ouch. Well neither do you so it makes us even."
"Odd to think we'd be here someday."
"Shut up."
Jere did a zipping his mouth motion with his hands.This man infuriated her, he always knew how to push her buttons despite his many claims that they were now practically estranged.
But still having him here made the house a little fuller, a little livelier and not in the spooky way but the way a garden gets more alive during spring.
She went away to swim. Even after years this was the only activity that calmed her down.
It was true, she didn't know this Jeremiah anymore.
He had grown more snarky and more muscular. He didn't text her on her birthdays. Yet he still drove his red Jeep and he still remembered she hated horror movies, they both did.
She still unreasonably held a grudge against him for never contacting her on her birthday anymore. She knew he had every right to not speak to her again but it stung, he had never missed it once in 22 years and suddenly before she knew it, 20th June was arriving without Jere in it. It brought new people and new gifts into her life but never brought him back.
Taxi cabs and busy streets that never bring you back to me
And so if Jere was going to start a cold war then she'd be sure to maintain it, she never backed away from a challenge and she hated losing.
She was doing so good. Jere was in his old room and she was in hers and she suppressed the urge to knock on their shared wall. She deserved a pat from herself for that she decided. But then an idea brewed in her mind. At 1 am she did 2 knocks on the wall.
Jere was at her door a few seconds later like a genie from the lamp getting summoned, he still looked cute rubbing his sleepy eyes, dressed in his pyjamas.
"You knocked, what happened?" He asked sincerely, maybe with a bit of concern, and she felt bad but kept her composure.
"It was an accident" she said calmly while turning the page of her book.
"You accidentally knocked? At 1 am?", he asked squinting his eyes.
"Yeah, sorry".
The next morning she came downstairs and went into the kitchen. Jeremiah had already been up it seemed and was drinking his coffee while reading a newspaper. Since when did he read newspapers?? She asked herself all puzzled.
She washed her hands and thought about what she wanted to eat. Usually she'd skip breakfast or only have coffee. She noticed a Swedish Fish wrapper on the kitchen counter and rolled her eyes. Maybe Jeremiah was the same in some ways. She sighed and picked it up and let out a shriek when she opened the garbage can to throw it. Inside laid the remnants of her precious and prized coffee mug and tears threatened to spill from her eyes.
"Jere what happened to my favourite coffee mug?"
"It was an accident", he replied calmly while sipping his stupid coffee or whatever he was having for that matter. Maybe asshole juice.
"No worries, happens all the time to ceramic items", she chuckled in a brushing it off manner.
"You're not having breakfast?", she noticed the lack of any signs that Jere had made something which was certainly odd and certainly new or maybe just new to her.
"Yeah, I'm fasting"
Wow, who was this guy and what had he done to her Jeremiah, she wondered.
"Okay", she uttered. But right then her stomach grumbled.
Jeremiah looked up for the first time during this entire conversation. Up till now his eyes had been glued to the newspaper column.
"Oh my God was that your stomach?"
A sudden wave of nostalgia hit her like a tonne of bricks.
"Well I had a light dinner yesterday", she defended herself.
"Well, lucky for you your ex bestfriend is a chef".
"No thanks, I can make my own breakfast!", she huffed declining his "magnanimous" offer.
"Okayy, well I'll be in the garage, need to do something there"
"Alright"
But when Jeremiah returned a few minutes later because he thought he heard some strange noises from inside the house and something like a "help!", a strange sight welcomed him. Belly's pan had managed to catch on fire and she was clearly panicking seeing the flames but pretending to be okay.
He grabbed the piece of cloth nearest to his reach and lurched forward like a firefighter.
The impromptu fire was soon contained.
"Thanks for the save, Jere, I owe you one", Belly said to him once her breathing returned to normal.
"Don't mention it, it's what a gentleman does in situations like these plus can't afford to have this place burnt down", he smiled crookedly.
She let out a nervous chuckle too.
"Wait, what did you use to stop the fire?"
He had taken the nearest thing he could grab but he had a feeling he had done something terribly wrong so he deflected, "Does that really matter? We aren't burnt to a crisp so that's all good. You know I'd like to be buried not cremated, that's like my one wish in life".
Belly remembered there there used to be a time his one wish in life was marrying her but chose not to dwell on it.
Yeah gone were those days.
Her eyes roamed the living room, scanning, and grew huge when they stopped at the couch; something was missing from there. Her favourite cardigan.
"JERE!!"
"Hey, hey I could make it up to you, I'll make you something to eat ok", he held his hands up in truce and attempted for a solution.
"Let's see what's in he—" He opened the fridge looking for an answer or his salvation who knows because he didn't wanna be murdered by his hangry ex, only to be shocked by the rows upon rows of Kitkats welcoming his sight. Was his ex bestfriend behind the famous heist? Had she turned to the world of crime? That was ridiculous, she had always loved Kitkats.
"What's this??", he interrogated.
"Dinner", she uttered.
"Are you serious?", he asked in shock. You'd think someone had told him he only had 24 hours to live by the reaction on his face.
"Yeah, no we're going grocery shopping Bells", he declared fishing for his keys.
He had said her nickname for the first time since he was here, for the first time in ages. And maybe it had come out of habit and he hadn't realised it but suddenly it was a little easier to breathe ironically despite the smoky smell present or left behind after the incident.
They drove on the familiar roads of Cousins till they reached the local grocery store
But before that, Jere had made a stop at the new muffin store on the way and gotten them some assorted muffins.
"What about your fast?", she asked him as he was mid stuffing his face with a strawberry muffin and almost relishing in its deliciousness.
"Urm...well today can be considered a cheat day", he replied gruntingly, not happy for the reminder.
"You used to hate blue cheese!", she exclaimed.
"Only because I didn't know how to work with it"
She squinted at another rather suspicious item in the shopping cart, "What's that?"
"Snails.....I thought we could make some escargot later", he smiled
"I should've let the kitchen burn down!"
"Well I have some pasta and noodles in here too", he said in a conciliatory voice.
And her eyes softened landing upon the familiar Shin Ramyun packaging.
"You remembered?"
"How can I forget? Hope you still like it"
"I do, I still love it", she replied finding his eyes to gaze in.
An elderly lady's cough interrupted their moment, "You're blocking the way to the fridge! Young people these days!", she shook her head disapprovingly.
So they moved.
"Green apples?"
Did she have to scrutinise every item in the cart?
"Wards off another type of creature", he commented.
"Haha, very funny!"
"It's the forbidden fruit", he whispered near her ear and for a moment she could swear the Jere she knew all too well was back.
"Don't worry I have no intentions of being stranded willingly with my brother's bride", he added after he saw her face turning a shade of beetroot eventhough he rather enjoyed that look. Maybe his vocabulary and analogy was all food lexicon now since he started cooking. You only talk in food now, Steven had once commented when Jere had tried to explain something to him using food items as metaphors.
"You didn't come to the wedding", she commented as if she had the right to feel any sort of resentment over his absence, over him missing it on purpose.
"Thanks for the invite, that was so thoughtful of you", he snarked.
"It didn't rain"
"What?"
"On that day it didn't rain but it rained on ours", she said in a whisper. They had now checked out and were heading to the parking lot, shopping bags in hand.
"Belly, you're turning into those countryside grandmas", he shook his head at her superstitious self, "Please go out more and stop eating Kitkats so regularly"
"Was there a forecast for rain?", he asked.
"No"
"Then how the fuck was it supposed to rain, Belly?"
"I don't know, sometimes it rains despite of the forecast"
"Well sorry that you didn't get your wedding dress ruined??"
"I jumped in the pool when we came back. I tried to get Conrad to come in but he treated it as a crazy idea to do so"
He looked at her, not bewildered but sad. He understood her. She noticed that he didn't make a jab, and she knew he still got her.
"What, that leg injury thing no longer works on him?", he laughed.
She smiled despite herself, "I guess not, but I tried honesty on the wedding day, just extended my hand" which he never grabbed.....that part went without saying of course.
"Should've stuck with the lie, it works better", he replied with a shrug. She eyed him with curiosity, his jaw was tightened.
"Hmm", she drawled morosely, looking out the window.
Belly saw him bring out a cauldron, set it on fire, add some sort of broth and chopped vegetables and stir it with a laddle, in a clockwise direction.
"You're the real witch it seems now, huh?"
"Yeah well since you abandoned your plan of turning into one.......this is a gamasot by the way and I borrowed it from halmoni....it was there when we visited her last time together so you saw it too....but seems like you've clearly forgotten....."
She remembered it now.......that Thanksgiving they had spent at halmoni's back when they were still together, when they were each other's everything.
"Hey, that's not fair, you've forgotten a lot of things too Jere", she came closer and tugged at his shirt reflexively, not liking the accusation aimed at her and presenting hers too.
He managed to look into her eyes and properly this time. The brown broth in the cauldron bubbled but his attention was elsewhere, his gaze was focused on hers. Her burnt caramel eyes were moist.
He extended his hand and took hers, it was reflex and it was one of the most common things he had always done to comfort her, even before they got together as a couple. Physical contact was his love language even as a friend. Her fingers closed against his hand and for the first time he felt oddly complete, it got easier to breathe, even if he was breathing just fine previously and was complete on his own. It still seemed like a missing final puzzle piece finally returning and clicking into place. He was something in her absence, yes, but with her he transformed like a spell changes you, undoes your curse. He felt like he had finally found his witch who'd freed him from some sort of curse cast upon him.
His eyes flickered to her lips and her gaze followed where his went. He was good at boundaries yes but not in this instant. Yet still he tried....
"What have I forgotten, Bells?"
She gulped, it took her a few seconds to find her words, and even then she stumbled upon them, "We.....we had decided to do our beach run tradition after the wedding....when it was us....."
He closed his eyes for a split second, then opened them again and they were as blue as the ocean Belly had dived into along with him countless times every summer before it all changed.
"And?", His voice was soft this time
"I didn't get to do it.....you....you said all my dreams would come true....that was a dream of mine....you're a liar!"
"I'm not a liar, Bells....we could still make your dream come true"
"Why...?"
He rested his forehead against hers, checked her eyes to see if it was ok, found his act welcomed so he continued, "because you have bewitched me mind, body and soul, Isabel", he whispered while tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.
And he'd done the same to her, she wishes he knew.
"You still held onto this all these years?", he was astonished when she appeared a few minutes later in the wedding dress from what was supposed to be their wedding.
She bit her lip cutely, "Well, yes...."
He wasn't surprised, she was bad at letting things go but he wasn't one to talk either.
He held out his hand and she took it, intertwined their fingers somewhere along the walk down the trail that led to the beach.
And when they reached it, Jere cheekily, out of nowhere, yelled, "RACE!" and stormed towards the sea.
"CHEATER!", Belly yelled running after him.
"REVENGE!", he laughed a genuine, real laugh.
She cackled wholeheartedly too. Whether it was revenge for that one summer she tricked him into having a headstart in the race or for....all the other stuff, she didn't know and it didn't matter.
We could call it even, you could call me babe for the weekend