Throughout the second book, Belly begins to bond more with Jeremiah and they grow closer and closer. Her death hits everyone hard and life without her seems near impossible; it takes everyone almost a year to pull themselves together and form a life without her existence. But in my other reviews I also said how I didn’t want to rage on Conrad because I knew he was a good person and he had all his potential to be. There are some things only a friend who’s known you your whole life can say, and instantly, I felt a little better. Then she made a dig at his fraternity being stupid and something about an inferiority complex because Jere wasn’t premed like Conrad and just a frat boy.

But gosh, it sucked to see an already complicated relationship truly tear into two, watching them stand on two different sides.

Jewel waved and came right over, with Taylor trailing behind her wearing sunglasses and cutoff shorts. Now that I think about it, why was I so hard on Conrad when I would have reacted the same way when I was in his shoes? He remains jealous of Conrad and Belly's friendship and even uses his engagement to Belly to spite Conrad. She seems to always make the wrong choices as far as Belly is concerned, but her desire to be close to her daughter is prevalent and admirable.

Multicolored Christmas lights were haphazardly strung all over the place— on the mailbox, the front porch, even along the edgy of the walkway.I don’t even know where to properly start with how much this book tore my heart out and then tried to piece it back together because I can for sure say that I am not the same. However, Laurel was steadfast in her opinion and statement that they were too young to get married and she would not support Belly and Jeremiah’s engagement. I wanted to hug Belly because she just got cheated on, she’s rushing into an engagement I’m pretty sure she’s going to back out of, and then her mom wasn’t even on her side. She confronts Conrad after suspecting he said something to Belly to upset her and warns him to leave her alone. Conrad hadn’t been back in Cousins or around any of them much since he transferred schools to LA, but this was the first time he had come back.