The Summer I Turned Pretty’s First Love Triangle Was Not Belly, Conrad and Jeremiah
Long before the children fell in love, their mothers had matching scars, an almost forgotten love triangle and a plan for the family they wanted to build.
The story begins with two small scars.
In the original books, the mothers met when they were nine. They called themselves blood sisters and had matching heart shaped marks on their wrists. The show changes this slightly and has them meet in college, where a serious, practical Laurel first thinks the rich girl with a pony is completely stuck up.
Somehow, they become inseparable. Laurel dated Adam first.
The book reveals it during a random conversation about mini golf. Steven once wished Adam were his father, and Belly thinks that he actually could have been. Her mother had dated him before Susannah, then stepped aside because she believed the two of them were perfect for each other. It is mentioned so casually that you could easily miss it. But think about what it means.
If that first relationship had continued, the families would have looked completely different. Belly and Conrad would not exist as the people we know. Their love story became possible because an older one ended before it became serious. And yes, there was already a love triangle in this family before the children created their own.
The older story even repeats itself in a strange way. Laurel gives Adam up so her best friend Susannah can be with him. Years later, Conrad tells Jeremiah that he can be with Belly and asks him to take care of her. The situations are not exactly the same. Laurel appears to know that Adam is not right for her. Conrad is still in love and trying to bury it. But both believe stepping away is the kind thing to do. Both act as if love can be passed to someone else and neatly left behind.
The supposedly perfect marriage was not perfect either. Adam cheated with his secretary, Kayleigh, during Susannah’s first round of cancer treatment. Laurel had once brought the couple together, and later became the person who stood beside her best friend through the affair, the illness and everything that followed.
Belly was born, and Susannah made her own prediction. She believed the Belly would eventually marry one of her boys. Surprisingly, Laurel agreed. But she added one condition that people rarely mention: her daughter should have a few lovers and live a little before settling down.
One mother cared about who Belly would love. The other wanted her to have enough experience to know whether she was choosing love or simply following a story she had heard since birth. That is what makes the whole “destined for one of my boys” idea both lovely and slightly unfair. The children grew up hearing that their futures belonged together. Cousins gave them a home, but it also handed them a script.
Laurel is the only person who calls Susannah “Beck,” her name before she married Adam. During the memorial toast, everyone remembers a different version of her:
→ Adam calls her “Suz.”
→ The boys say “Mom.”
→ Belly and Steven say “Susannah.”
→ Laurel says, “Beck.”
She is speaking to the girl she knew before the marriage, the children, the cancer and all those summers. Everyone else misses the woman they knew later. She misses the original version.
So before Belly and Conrad had infinity, their mothers had two matching hearts. Before the younger love triangle, there was an older one. And before Belly could choose her future, the people around her had already imagined it.
Belly and Conrad did not discover fate at Cousins Beach. They grew up inside it.