Chapter Text
Belly
'This campus is so bitching,' says Taylor, looking around with a huge grin. 'Imagine how great it'll look in the fall with all these, like, trees and sh*t.' It is gorgeous, with a huge green quad surrounded by, well, trees.
'Trees and sh*t, sure,' I giggle. She's been so hyper since the day we both had letters hit our doormats with volleyball scholarship offers for Finch. And now we're here, at a special sports tour and and team-building orientation before we come back at the end of the summer. We're like, grown ups, now.
'Girl we are gonna ruuule the schoool,' she says, linking her arm with mine and squeezing it tightly. We both start singing Summer Loving at the same time and then crack up. We watched Grease to death when we were about twelve. I remember making Jeremiah watch it with me at the same time on our laptops and told him he'd make a good Kenickie with his curly hair and then he dressed up as him at Halloween his junior year and no one knew who he was.
Thinking of Jeremiah leaves a sad little cloud in my heart like it always does. After his phone call last year when he told me he hated me and never wanted to see me again, I cried for like a week. Taylor was worried my head would stay like a mutant tomato permanently. I made my mom and Steven promise they'd never talk to me about him ever again, I didn't want to know anything about him or his life, and then I blocked his social media and I only unblock it very occasionally just to look at him, only like twice a week or something, not that the idiot ever posts anything.
'What's wrong?' says Taylor. 'You look like you just swallowed a fly.'
'I was just thinking about Jere. Remember he dressed up as Kenickie for Halloween and no one knew who he was?'
'He must have gone to school with morons, like him,' she says between her teeth. She hasn't forgiven Jere for calling me like that when she was almost about to get lucky with a Vanderbilt. I kept telling her that guy probably told every girl he talked to that he was a Vanderbilt so they'd make out with him, but she wouldn't have it. All her dreams of being Blair Waldorf ruined by my hysterical crying and Jere being a stupid jealous douchebag, apparently.
'Sorry,' I say, because she gets annoyed sometimes if I bring him up, but I can't help it. He's always on my mind in some way and I feel like I see him everywhere I go out the corner of my eye, like the light catches on something and it makes me think of the sunlight on his curls. Like that guy over there with the broad shoulders and sexy arms, he has the same sort of cu -
'f*ck!'
'What?' says Taylor, looking around in a panic. 'What's wrong?'
'Is that...he...' my mouth is just wobbling now and no sense is coming out of it. She follows the line of my sight.
'You have got to be f*cking kidding me,' she says, and her fingers tighten on my arm so hard I think I might bruise. 'Looks like I get to kick that asses ass after all! Jeremiah Fisher you assface!' she yells, and then launches herself in his direction like a demented pocket rocket.
'Taylorrr nooo!' I shout, trying to catch her but it's too late.
Jeremiah - because it is him, looking more gorgeous than any man has the right to look, holy f*ck when did that happen - turns around just as Taylor barrels into him. He doesn't even move and she just bounces back off him and nearly falls on her own ass.
'What are you made of like bricks!' she hollers.
'Taylor?' he says, helping her steady herself. 'What -'
He looks up then like he's sensed me staring and his bright eyes lock with mine. His mouth moves with my name but no sound comes out.
It's like I'm trapped in a bubble of shock and all I hear is my heart pounding in my ears. I've missed him so much, and he's right here in front of me, like I've summoned him somehow. He's...grown. How has he grown so much in two years? There's so much more of him. And he's stunning. All the girls milling around are just staring at him.
I'mstaring at him.
'J-Jeremiah,' I stutter eventually. 'What are you doing here?'
He shakes his head, like he's trying to snap himself out of a daze.
'Orientation. I got a soccer scholarship. What areyoudoing here?'
'Uh...volleyball...' I didn't even know he played soccer, I guess he gave up on football but good for him I know he hated it.
'What, so this is your school? Finch?' he says, and he sounds mad!
'Yeah...I didn't...I didn't know you applied here...' I say. Trying to remember how to form coherent sentences is hard when all these feelings are fighting with each other in my chest.
'Well I didn't know you applied here either!' he says and his eyes glint. 'I'm not like stalking you or anything!'
'You better not be!' interrupts Taylor before making a noise like a cross Shetland pony. 'I'll kick your ass again!'
He looks down at her from a great height. 'That was an ass kicking just now?'
She just folds her arms and gives him her most withering look, and he actually takes a step away from her before he turns to me again.
'Didn't your mom say? I literally told her I was applying here last summer. You know, when you couldn't bear to even show your face at the house.'
I'm going to kill her when I get home!
'I didn't...I told her I didn't want to hear about you. You know since you yelled at me that you hated me and wished that you would never see me again!' My confusion is rapidly being replaced by rage.
'I never said that!' he says hotly, but then a horrified realisation swiftly spreads over his face. 'Oh, sh*t. Did I...err...call you?'
'Yes you called me! You yelled at me then made all these weird like, slurpy sounds down the phone and hung up and then blocked me!'
'Uh, yeah. I was wasted and I dropped my phone in the ocean. I didn't, ah, remember, actually, that I called you. Sorry about that.' He blushes so hard his ears turn pink, but he's not winning me over with his stupid cute pink ears.
'Sorry!' I yell, real pissed now. 'Icriedfor aweek!Steven called me tomato head for a MONTH!'
'You did not!' he says, and somehow we're about half a foot away from each other now and my head is tilted back to look up into his and I swear every shade of blue is burning into my retinas right now from his eyes.
'You stopped answering any of my calls months way before summer! You did not give two sh*ts! One sh*t!' he yells, and my face burns.
'I was just embarrassed! I would have got over myself but you didn't even give me a chance!' Our noses are almost touching now, and my hands are fisted.
'You blocked me on everything how was I supposed to give you a chance?' he says, throwing his arms up in the air with all those lovely muscles.
'Only after you yelled at me that you hated me and you never wanted to see me again! I was just helping a guy out!'
My arms are also flailing around now and that's when we both clearly get the feeling we're being watched, do a slow-mo look around, and realise we have an audience of about fifty people including a dorky looking kid in a huge hat carrying a stick with a Finch flag at the end.
'We don't usually provide entertainment from the drama department on our tours,' the guy says loudly enough for everyone to hear. 'But if you guys are quite finished, shall we start? Gym and training grounds this way!'
He scoots off up the path waggling his stupid flag and everyone reluctantly starts to trail after him, still looking back at us and grinning at each other.
'Belly, come on,' says Taylor, tugging at my arm. 'I think you guys have said enough.'
The way Jeremiah looks at me then could fry an egg. I don't think we could ever say enough.
