Lying here and looking up at the stars like this, it makes me feel like I’m lying on a planet. It’s so wide. So infinite.” (pg. 281) Before the wedding, Laurel and Conrad also had such a tender and sweet conversation that made me CRY my heart out 😭! It just felt like such a magical moment. Honestly, I’m proud of Conrad and all that he had to endure in all these years and how he tried his best when he wasn’t doing his best—when he didn’t let anyone in. That day , without another word about it, we decided to leave the past in the past. The future was where we were headed.” (pg. 59)

Because marrying Jere after he cheated and broke her heart wasn’t going to fix the fact that he cheated and he broke her heart 👏🏼!!!!!I liked how it was fate that Taylor and Belly ended up at the same college because it meant that they still had friendship left in them. Taylor was doing her own thing with her sorority and having her friends and Belly was doing her own thing, but they found a healthier dynamic where they still were in each other’s lives, they were still close, just in a different way. He had to take that thorn out himself, and that’s not easy. It’s not easy to confront your anger and pain and say, I’m removing it from my life and moving on. To figure out what healing looks like. Also, Belly had so much pressure on her to plan this entire wedding and Jeremiah was absolutely no help. I love Jere, don’t get me wrong, but Belly had a strained relationship with her mother, her fiancé cheated on her before he was her fiancé, she was living her the guy she used to love, and now she had to plan a wedding practically by herself when she had no clue what she was doing. She was barley eighteen!

Not going to lie though, he wasn’t ready for marriage. Neither was Belly. But Jere needed to work on himself a bit more and mature more in the way he behaved because I felt like he was still going through his party boy phase and that he never really owned up or took responsibility because his dad paid for everything. He needed to recognize the value of a dollar and to actually work to appreciate where he was at. I think he also needed to work on settling down by figuring out himself more at how he communicated with others because he wasn’t working as a team with Belly. I think Jere’s a great guy, but yea, he was still a young kid rushing into marriage. I appreciated that he felt like shiz and like a trash human being because he deserved to after he broke Belly’s heart and trust. I also appreciated how he regoconized what he lost when he almost did lose Belly by cheating on her. But DANG, proposing to her to prove that she was the only girl for him and that he would never cheat or break her heart again!?!?!?!?! When they told their family, I already felt like Laurel was going to combust, Mr. Fisher was going to be confused, Steven was going to be shook, and Conrad was going to be heart-broken but numb.I knew I shouldn’t even be at the summer house, because being there, being near her, I would just want what I couldn’t have. It was dangerous. She was the one person I didn’t trust myself around . . . If she knew how much I still cared, it was all over. I wouldn’t be able to walk away again. The first time was hard enough.” (pg. 162-3) It’s been two years since Conrad told Belly to go with Jeremiah. She and Jeremiah have been inseparable ever since, even attending the same college—only, their relationship hasn’t exactly been the happily ever after Belly had hoped it would be. And when Jeremiah makes the worst mistake a boy can make, Belly is forced to question what she thought was true love. Does she really have a future with Jeremiah? Has she ever gotten over Conrad? It’s time for Belly to decide, once and for all, who has her heart forever. Review When Belly moves into her college dorm, she and other girls play the drinking game “I Never.” The other girls mention things like going skinny-dipping and having sex in public places.

Are you worried about me going on spring break without you?” I could feel my cheeks redden. “No! You can go wherever you want, I don’t care. I just think that it would be nice if you spent some time with your dad. And your mom’s headstone is up. I thought you wanted to go see it.” “Yeah, I do, but I can do all that after school’s out. You can come with me.” He peered at me. “Are you jealous?” “No!” He was grinning now. “Worried about all the wet T-shirt contests?” “No!” I hated that he was making this into a joke. It was infuriating, being the only one who was mad. “If you’re so worried, then just come with us. It’ll be fun.” He did not say, If you are worried, you shouldn’t be. He said, If you are worried, you should come with us. I knew he didn’t mean it that way, but it still bothered me. “You know I can’t afford it. Besides, I don’t want to go to Cabo with you and your ‘bros.’ I’m not going to go and be the only girlfriend and drag down your party.” 26 · jenny han “You wouldn’t be. Josh’s girlfriend, Alison, is going to be there,” Jeremiah said. So Alison had been invited and not me? I sat up straight. “Alison’s going with you guys?” “It’s not like that. Alison’s going with her sorority. They’re getting a bunch of rooms at the same resort as us. But it’s not like we’ll be hanging out with them all the time. We’re gonna do guy stuff, like That was what I would be doing. I would be betting my whole life on him. And I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.” (pg. 245)Conrad tells Belly that Jeremiah cheated on her, and when she replies that she already knows, he openly confesses that he still loves her. Belly is angry that Conrad is telling her the words she always wanted to hear two years too late. He explains that he originally let her go because he felt like he didn’t deserve to love anyone after his mother’s death. Then he removed himself from Belly’s life so Jeremiah could have her, but only did so on the assumption that Jeremiah would treat her well. Conrad asks Belly to cancel her wedding to Jeremiah and be with him instead, but she refuses. All of that love and pride I had in him, it turned to hate. And then I started to hate myself, who he’d made me. . . That scared me. I didn’t want to be the kind of man who cheated on his wife. I didn’t want to be the kind of man who put work before his family, who tipped cheaply at restaurants, who never bothered to learn our housekeeper’s name. This was probably the sweetest, most tender thing I think Conrad has done in my eyes. He heard Belly sobbing in her room and talking to Taylor about how stressed she had been with planning the wedding and wishing her mom was there. He heard her cry and then walked past her door, and was like “I was going to stay out of it.”