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Years from now, Isabel Fisher née Conklin is going to look back on this moment, this life-defining moment, and question how she’d been able to delude herself for four whole years. How she’d been able to pretend the very sight of him hadn’t been enough to shake up her entire world six months before this summer, last Christmas.
She’s going to apologise to him again and again and again for pushing her feelings so far down her throat she’d mistaken love for indifference and he’s going to look over at her, in bed or on top of the kitchen bar top or in the passenger seat of their car and he’s going to say it’s okay Belly, it was all worth it to get to this point with you anyway.
She’s not going to remember exactly how this airport smells, or the feel of her backpack strap against her skin, or the weight of her passport in her hand that’s about to take her away from Cousins and the Fishers’ and all things she’s treasured all her life in search for something new. She’s not going to remember the itchiness of her hoodie or the folded corner of her plane ticket or the way the plastic chairs hurt to sit on for too long.
No, the only thing Isabel Fisher née Conklin is going to remember is how devastatingly beautiful Conrad Fisher looks right in this moment in his black shirt, backpack on the seat next to him and head turned towards the left, out of the window where Belly knows her plane is waiting to take her away. She can see his jaw clenching as he pulls at the skin around his nails, fidgeting in a way that makes him look so much younger than he actually is.
He looks like the Conrad from four years ago, she realises. Is this what he’d looked like when she’d chosen Jeremiah over him? Is this a version of him he never allowed Belly to see?
It breaks her heart in a way she didn’t know it could break.
She feels herself turning towards him on instinct, her hand reaching out without her even recognising the move. It’s only the jarring sound of his ringtone that stops her from calling out his name.
It breaks through whatever spell she’s been put under.
When Belly was younger she used to think Conrad was a bit magical, a bit created just for her, her perfect man. Her destined husband. Still, what right does she have to reach out now, after this hell of a week. She still can’t name what she feels and she sure as fuck has no idea how the two of them would even work, after all of this. She’s lost so much of her identity in who Jeremiah wanted her to be that even if Conrad had said he still loved her, that he never stopped, Belly has no idea who that person is anymore.
She needs to find herself again before she can be anyone’s girlfriend again, especially if she’s going to find out she wants to be Conrad’s again .
They both deserve that, she thinks.
Still, Belly wishes she could do something to ease the anxiety spelled out so clearly across his features. Does he know she didn’t go through with the wedding yet, had anyone told him?
She gets the answer almost as soon as she’s had the thought.
“Agnes,” Conrad sighs in relief when the call connects and Belly has to strain over the buzz of the airport to hear him. “Thank you for calling back.”
Agnes.
She recognises the jealousy for what it is. She has absolutely no right but she feels it anyway.
It’s not that she doubts he’d been honest with her a couple days ago when he laid his heart out on the beach and she’d dismissed it, trampled on it. She doesn’t doubt he’s still in love with her, not at all. It’s just, well.
Conrad has gotten himself an entirely new life for the four years he’s stayed away from her and it hits her then that Belly knows absolutely nothing about it.
This Agnes, she knows that version of Conrad Fisher and that’s what Belly hates her for, just a little. She used to know every version of Conrad Fisher, but now he’s been divided, pieces created without her knowledge. This Agnes, she knows him in a way Belly doesn’t.
Eventually Conrad starts speaking again. “Can you meet me at my apartment tonight? My flight gets in at five and I’m going to need you to be there.”
Need you. Yeah, that’s jealousy again.
“On a scale of one to ten? Maybe a 2 if we’re talking the RTS scale.”
Belly frowns. What the hell does that even mean?
He stands up suddenly, phone wedged between his shoulder and his cheek as he goes to grab his backpack and he still doesn’t see her. Still doesn’t look straight ahead at where she’s frozen in place.
“It was so fucking bad Agnes. Fuck, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to see her again.”
I’m right here! Belly wants to scream against her better judgement. Just look at me!
But she doesn’t do that. Instead she watches as he turns his back towards her and walks towards his own gate to board a plane that’s going the completely different direction. San Francisco and Paris, two worlds apart.
And he doesn’t even seem to know that she’s not married.
He’ll find out soon enough though, surely. If nothing else her mother will probably have texted him by the time he touches down on the west coast, hours from now. She wonders briefly what he’ll think when he hears about it but finds out she still didn’t come after him.
It’s for the best though, Belly knows it is. If she wants forever with him, and she really thinks she might, then she needs to become a person worthy of the way he loves her. If she runs after him now they’ll risk falling back into destructive habits and she can’t do that again.
She needs to give him back to Agnes for now and if he’s still in love with Belly when she comes back in a couple of months, maybe longer, then she promises herself she’ll go to California. She’ll give him a grand gesture and everything, she swears it.
It’s not until Conrad disappears around a corner that the spell lifts completely and Belly turns back towards her own gate, hands the flight attendant her ticket, and boards her plane to Europe.
She leaves pieces of herself all across the Atlantic ocean but it’s fine, really, she’ll pick all of them back up when she moves back next year.
Years from now, Isabel Fisher née Conklin is going to look back on this moment, this life-defining moment, and she’ll smile. She’ll find Conrad and kiss him, sometimes softly and sometimes reminiscent of the dramatic airport kisses in the movies she forces him to watch with her sometimes. She’ll take his hand in hers, will feel the metal of his wedding ring against her own skin and know that everything they put each other through was worth it in the end. That she wouldn’t trade it for the world.
He’ll have her whole heart someday, once she’s put it back together on her own. It will be completely his to own, just as she’ll know it, deep in her bones, that she has his. Until the stars fall out of the sky, until the sun explodes into a supernova, she will have Conrad Fisher, and he’ll have her.
One day he'll come back to her, she'll relearn everything about him that she's forgotten and she'll get to know the parts of him she's lost out on.
One day.