THE WINTER I TURNED INTELLIGENT: CHAPTER 1 (PT. 2)

Important Note from Dreamy Plots & Story Talks: This story contains suggestive language and sexual content and is only suitable for readers that are 18+.

Chapter 1 (part 2):

Two weeks ago:

“Stop looking at me like that.”

I looked at Belly knowing exactly what she meant but still played dumb, “whatever do you mean?”

She laughed, “Yes you do, and it’s working”

I teased, “I think you need to spell it out for me because I’m not following, sorry.”

She played along and moved closer to me in the booth we were sitting at. For months now, Belly kept mentioning how she had been craving her favorite pasta from Giulia dal Mare, but with all her traveling, she hadn’t had a chance to go yet. I made reservations a few weeks ago because it was impossible to get a table here any day of the week. I made sure to get us her favorite booth by the fountain. She said it made her feel like she was Juliet and that I was her Romeo. I am aware that this is cheesier than the pizza we also just had, but I don’t care. If it made her happy, it made me happy.

Belly was wearing an emerald sundress with her hair pulled back and the sunflower necklace I got her the first year we started dating. I chose a sunflower because my mom used to call me sunshine boy. When I was younger, sometimes when she would call me that I would get embarrassed. Now I felt awful for ever feeling that way. I would give anything to hear her call me that again.

Every time I saw flowers, I don’t know why, but it reminded me of Belly. Maybe it was the gentle quality she had about her, while also being equally resilient and tough. Even then, I felt it was always my job to protect her. The sunflower was a reminder that she was the one protecting me, like the petals of the flower were protecting the center that I visualized as the sun.

As I eagerly waited for her next response, I felt her left hand move to my left thigh. We didn’t break eye contact as she bit her bottom lip. She moved closer to me, which I didn’t even know was possible and started kissing the bottom of my left ear. The way I even formed a word in that moment was beyond me, but I managed to say, “Belly-“

She just said, “Shhh”

I quickly followed, “Bells- we’re in public” I didn’t mind PDA, but I didn’t trust myself with what could happen if she continued this here.

She mockingly whispered, “you usually don’t want me to stop, is that what you’re asking though now…do you want me to stop?” 

I painfully replied, “Yes-, I mean no-, No I mean yes, not here, let me just quickly pay and we can go.” I quite literally got up from the booth to go pay when the normal thing would have been to wait for our waiter to come to the table with the check. Belly laughed loud enough for me to hear from the hostess stand where I was paying. Her laugh was infectious so I started laughing. We looked like two idiots in the fanciest Italian restaurant in all of North Carolina.

A minute later we were in my car. My heart was beating so fast that I was sure she could hear it from the passenger seat. I placed my right hand on her left thigh, as I started the engine with my left hand. She reached for her phone to play music and asked, “What should I play to distract us?”

I replied, “I don’t know, maybe ‘under the sea’?”

She cackled, and I continued, “anything to extinguish all of this burning passion we’re both feeling right now.”

She laughed even louder making me raise my eyebrows, “ok that was so hot, did you get that from the Gladiator?”

Glaring at the road I said, “Why does everyone make fun of me for loving that movie so much? It’s a classic, and no, I came up with that all on my own.”

She mockingly said, “Wow impressive, I’m impressed.”

Now mocking her, I said, “okay when you say wow impressive and I’m impressed, it’s way too obvious that you’re being sarcastic, so please just choose one.”

She was having way too much fun and continued, “but what if I was that impressed that I wanted to say both, huh?”

Rolling my eyes I said, “Shut up.” She just kept laughing, so naturally I started laughing as well. A second later, I recognized one of her favorite Taylor Swift songs start to play: “I Think He Knows.”

As sarcastic as I could be, I said, “Yeah Bells, when I said extinguish the passion, this is exactly what I meant, thank you so much.”

She placed her hand on my hand that was on her thigh and said, ‘You’re welcome my love.”

I rolled my eyes again while still smiling, as she belted the bridge at me, “lyrical smile, indigo eyes, hand on my thigh, we could follow the sparks, I’ll drive.”

I couldn’t stop smiling and forgot what the lyrics were saying altogether. I loved this woman so much. 

Before I knew it, we were home. We’ve lived together for almost a year now, and it was the most comforting feeling. I wasn’t going to waste any more time. I walked toward her, undid her hair, and ran my fingers through it. I looked at her the way I wanted to at the restaurant. Even though she had a few glasses of wine, and I did not drink anything, I think I was more intoxicated than she was.

Believe me this could have ended quickly, but I wasn’t going to let the moment slip away this soon.

I placed my left hand on her lower hip and moved my right hand to the side of her neck. Her eyes told me she was waiting for something to happen.

Now I bit my bottom lip, and she took in a deep breath, as I opened my mouth slowly to kiss her neck. I shortly whispered into her ear, “this is how I felt at the restaurant.” Then I walked away. I turned around with a slight smirk to look at her face, and you should have seen Belly’s face. She began, “oh okay, I see how it is, two can play that game.”

Then she walked away, surprising me now and I replied, “Where are you going?”

She called back from our bedroom, “to get revenge!”

I burst into laughter.

I was sitting on the navy couch next to Hazel, when Belly came into the living room wearing the rudest silk black dress I’ve ever seen. My jaw was probably on the floor, when I said, “this isn’t over...”

She said, “oh it’s not, what’s going to happen next then?”

I got up from the couch and walked toward her and brushed her hair behind her right ear. After leaving less than an inch between our lips, I looked at her lips, then into her eyes and said, “what do you want to happen next?”

She almost began to respond but instead kissed me with such urgency, that I genuinely almost felt I was going to fall down.

When we both needed air, I began to kiss the right side of her neck, while breathing in her vanilla and peach smell that consumed me. Then I slowly moved down her chest, when I heard a soft whisper, “Yes…Conrad.”

It was loud enough for me to hear. “What the Fuck?”

She realized what she just said and she looked as mortified as I felt and responded, “Nothing, I-, I’m drunk it,- it didn’t mean anything!”

I don’t remember being this angry since I found out she kissed my brother when we were together years ago. My voice got louder when I said, “so you were drunk this whole time that we’ve been talking then too?”

Belly nervously responded, “No that’s not what I meant, of course- I was doing all that, it wasn’t the wine, you know that.”

I responded, “No apparently, I don’t know enough. You had two glasses of wine, I know you’re not a lightweight, you’re not drunk, you were thinking of him, and if you were drunk how does make it any better? Isn’t that even worse because that would mean you meant it more?”

Belly just said, “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m sorry, okay!”

I responded, “Yeah, I’m sorry too- for not being him!”

She desperately tried to convince me, “I don’t want him! How many times do we have to have this same argument? I can’t keep convincing you how I feel, when- when you can’t see that.”

I almost spoke over her when I quickly said, “No what I see is every reason to not believe you. I see how you looked at each other last weekend at Steven’s birthday, I saw the smile you gave him when you opened the gift he got you last Christmas, and I saw how just a few months ago your hands touched while you were staring at each other at Trusky’s movie night- all while I was right beside you! Should I keep going?”

She argued, “You made your point! But none of that means anything, there’s just history there, and those are all little things. Don’t twist this into something it’s not.”

Getting angrier I replied, “No Belly, one thing is a little thing, when you keep repeating the same mistake, and each time it looks even worse, that’s not a little thing anymore.”

She tried to convince me again, “You can’t just erase everything you’ve felt for years for someone who was in your life for so long. There are times where you’ll mention them accidentally when you shouldn’t or think about them randomly when you weren’t even trying to.”

I tried but failed to sound calmer, “That’s valid, I get that, but involving yourself with someone when you’re not completely over someone else, when that someone else also happens to be my fucking brother is so fucked up. How can you not see that?”

She quickly responded, “You think I wanted all of this to happen the way it did? It just happened.”

Getting annoyed I said, “Belly nothing just happens.”

Giving a sarcastic laugh she said, “You just don’t get it, you never will, and I hope you never do.”

Equally curious and annoyed I said, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Her voice got more annoyed but also quieter when she said, “no forget it.”

 This is how our arguments usually went. At some point, she didn’t want to continue, and previously I tried my best to respect that, but part of this is my fault now I realize. Every time I didn’t speak my mind, I have resented her for it, and now I wanted to hear what she had to say so I continued, “no tell me, maybe you might be right.”

She knew I wasn’t going to let this go this time, so she explained, “I’m not saying I feel this way right now, but just going back to when Conrad and I first broke up, I was more hurt than I let on to anyone including you. You don’t know how it feels like to have to walk away from someone when you still loved them, but you knew you deserved better.”

Feeling more hurt than anything I said, “Really? Because I have a hell of a feeling that this is exactly what’s happening to me right now.”

Belly tried to clarify, but it was too late. I knew what she meant, and she was trying to take it back as she kept continuing, “No, I wasn’t trying to invalidate how you feel, I’m just saying what I also went through here for years too. When someone completely breaks your heart, and you know you broke theirs too having to move on feels like nothing and everything is changing. You think you’ve moved on, but then every single memory, every moment spent with that person is engrained in the back of your mind. And I’m not just talking about Conrad, I’m also talking about you. There’s a lot of history between all of us, and this was just a careless moment, that I wish I could take back because I’m telling you it meant nothing.”

I laughed even though there was nothing I found funny about this, “Yeah I fucking know how everything you just said feels like. That’s how I feel around you more often than not. I’ve tried to sympathize with you every time something like this happens, but where is your accountability here? You had a choice. It was your choice. I told you I wouldn’t hold it against you, if you chose him, but you chose me, and it’s not right that you continue to make me feel like I was your second choice.”

Belly knew she was losing me but kept continuing, “You’re not- you’re not my second choice, you’re my first choice.”

I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic here, “Your words don’t match your actions, and now tonight even your words don’t match your own words, you’ve really outdone yourself Bells.”

I knew Belly was getting more annoyed because she called me by my name, “Jeremiah, listen I don’t know what else you want me to say. I agree with you. I said a stupid thing that slipped from my head, I’m sorry.”

I replied, “That wasn’t just a stupid thing Bells. You’re my fiancé and you just called my brother’s name while I was kissing you. Don’t try to make this sound like it was nothing.”

To be completely honest, I understood why she was frustrated. Maybe, I was making a big deal out of this. But the truth of the matter is that I wasn’t just mad at this right now. If this was the only thing she had ever said that made me doubt how she felt about me, I would have been annoyed for only a moment. It’s the fact that this just confirmed everything I ever worried about us.

Belly continued, “It was an honest mistake. What I said meant nothing to me, and it shouldn’t to you too. I’m not trying to excuse saying it, but it already happened. Can we just pretend that didn’t happen and go back to what we were doing please?”

She somehow knew what to say to make me angrier than I’d been this entire conversation, “Are you serious? No, I’m not going to sleep with you when you were just thinking of my brother a minute ago. You’d probably be thinking of him during it too.” I didn’t want to know the answer to my next question, but I had to ask, “Have you thought about him before?”

She genuinely looked confused, “What do you mean?”

I got even more frustrated, “You know exactly what I mean. Have you thought about him before when we were intimate?”

She took too long to respond, “Of course not! Why would you even ask that?”

I couldn’t even look at her right now, “Why don’t I believe you?” I grabbed my coat and headed toward the door.

She walked after me, “Where are you going?”

I didn’t turn around when I said, “for a walk.”

I could hear genuine shock in her voice when she replied, “You’re being so immature, it was just a word, and it slipped out just for a second. I didn’t mean it. Why can’t you just forget about it?”

I turned around and made sure to make eye contact with her when I said this, “Yes, let me forget about you not thinking of me while you were about to sleep with me, and forget about everything else you keep doing that throws me off completely, that would be very convenient Belly, I get it.”

She didn’t break eye contact either when she said, “Maybe I did make the wrong choice-no need to go for a walk, because I’m leaving.”

For once I didn’t stop her.

She knew that would hurt me. But what she didn’t know is that I’ve always thought she felt this way. I just never wanted to believe it. Did it hurt like hell to hear it out loud finally after all these years? You have no idea.

Present Day / Back at Trusky’s party on Saturday:

“You wiped away tears, but not fears under the still and clear indigo, you said, “Baby don’t cry, we’ll be fine, you’re the one thing I swear I can’t outgrow”

 I’ve never seen Belly look this hurt by me before. It killed me to see her like this, but I had to for once think of myself as well when I said, “You know why I didn’t try to stop you that night when you left?”

Her eyes were filling with tears and so were mine when she gently said, “Why?”

I felt a tear fall on my right cheek, so I looked away from her and broke, “because I knew deep down you didn’t want me to.”

Belly was in disbelief when she said, “How can you say that? Of course I wanted you to, but you didn’t.”

I replied, “No, you would have wanted anyone to follow you, again it’s not about me. You know if it was Conrad, he wouldn’t have chased after you, and you knew I always did.”

I looked at her for a second, and as a tear fell on her left cheek, she sarcastically said, “So, you did that to spite me, okay, I get it now.”

We made the most tragic eye contact, when my voice rose, “No, I didn’t do it to fucking spite you Belly. I knew it wouldn’t change anything. Just like nothing I seem to do really changes anything. It would have just made me feel more stupid than I already do. What you did or rather said that night may have been so simple if there was no history to this, but with all the shit that’s happened between all three of us, tonight at this very second, I’m just exhausted. Genuinely for my health, I cannot do this anymore.”

Belly started shaking her head while her voice got louder as well when she said, “I wish I could take it back because I never meant to hurt you, it was a stupid moment, and I am really sorry, and I’m not just sorry for that. I shouldn’t have left like that, that night. I know you just wanted to go for a walk but I just left you, and that wasn’t right.”

I interrupted her, “Yeah, it wasn’t. It was messed up, I would have never just left you like that, and you didn’t even bother to call after.”

Now she interrupted me, “You’ve never spoken to me like that before, so I guess I was in shock that night, and I panicked. I didn’t know this had been affecting you like this, and I’m sorry for making you feel like a second choice. I never want you to feel that way.”

I appreciated her trying to fix this, but I don’t think there was anything she could have said to fix this, in this moment, so all I said was, “Yeah I’m sorry too.”

She continued, “but I want to understand what you mean because you’re not being clear enough. Are you breaking up with me? Are we not engaged anymore?”

I responded frustrated, “I need some space Bells, please.”

Belly coldly said, “We both know what that means, just call this what it is.”

I rolled my eyes as I said, “I’m not using reverse psychology on you here Belly, I really just need some space, from you, from us- from all of this, and no, I am not breaking up with you.”

Belly gave in and said, “Okay, I understand” She turned around when a familiar voice said, “Belly, you have to see Jessica’s Halloween costume for tomorrow,” It was Taylor, Belly’s best friend, practically sister actually. Taylor knew she walked in on the wrong moment when she nervously said in the most Taylor voice possible, “You know what just forget what I said and carry on.”

Belly quickly told her, “No Taylor, um we were done talking, I’m coming.” Taylor looked at me with a defeated look. Her and I had become very good friends these past few years and would hang out a lot even without Belly or Steven, Belly’s brother, who was also her boyfriend. But I knew Taylor’s loyalty was still with Belly, and I couldn’t hold that against her. Now I felt even worse knowing how much I could be losing. It wasn’t just Belly. It was like a few summers ago all over again, where I almost lost Steven, but this felt way worse. Even when things went back more to how they were used to, Steven and my friendship was never the same. As much as I missed how close we used to be, I have a great group of friends and even better best friend now, so I’m still grateful. Life is constantly changing, and I try to remind myself that even when I am losing certain things, I am also gaining others.

After Belly walked away with Taylor to go back to the party, I walked to the beach even though it was a 20-minute walk.

It was practically sunrise by the time my feet touched the cold sand.

The autumn air was as chilly as ever when I sat down right by the shore. The waves were calm for a night that just saw one of the worst storms of the year. I was staring at the horizon feeling like I could never reach it, just like the feeling I would never reach Belly the way I wanted to.

My eyes started to water again. In this moment, I missed my brother. We were never really the same since Belly and I started dating. Now I knew how he felt when he was dating Belly knowing I also loved her. There were moments where I would feel guilty, like I took something he loved so much away from him, even though it was also Belly’s choice. I knew I hurt him and that made me feel like shit. Like I said earlier, no one won here. I also missed my mom like crazy.

The ocean reminded me more of her than even the summer house so when I would sit on the shore and close my eyes, I always pictured she was right in front of me- again at the end of the horizon that I would never reach.

My mind went back to Belly. I felt like I had no control over any of this. Before I knew it, I couldn’t stop crying. You know those moments where you cry so hard that you don’t know when you will stop? I didn’t even remember the last time I cried like this.

We didn’t break up, but why did it feel like we did? I know why she asked me if we were still engaged. I know I just asked for space, but was I just lying to both of us?

Did she ever really love me, or did she stop loving me? Was she telling the truth and what she said that night really didn’t mean anything? How long would I need space? Would we still be living together but in separate rooms? Would she move out? Would I move out?

If we did break up, could we ever be friends again? How would Hazel react to all of this? She was still a puppy and was so attached to Belly. Belly would quite literally place Hazel on her belly and sing her to sleep every night when she was home. Like I said, we both had so much to lose. But, if we kept going like this, we would be losing ourselves, which didn’t compare to anything else.

I looked at the ocean and then at my ring. I wanted to throw this damn thing into the water so far that it would reach that horizon because this was the only thing I could control at this very moment. Instead, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath for more than a few seconds. I wiped away my tears, looked at the horizon one last time, and headed back to my car that was miles away.