Protagonist Isabel “Belly” Conklin recalls watching old musicals with her mother on Wednesday nights when she was little. She explains that her favorite was Bye Bye, Birdie, which she repeatedly watched, pretending to be the lead character, Kim McAfee. The reason she loved this musical most of all, she explains, is because of the lead male character, Conrad Birdie, who shares the same name as her lifelong crush, Conrad Fisher.

Belly explains that she has only ever loved two boys, the Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah. While she loved Conrad first—“in a way that you can really only do it the first time [...] the kind of love that doesn’t know better” (ii)—she sees Jeremiah as her “past, present, and future” (ii). Belly states that the brothers are her two great loves and that she always knew she would have the last name Fisher, only she did not expect it to happen as it did.

Belly is excited to take her last exam and officially finish her freshman year at Finch University. The test goes better than expected, and when she returns to her dorm room afterward, she plans to sleep until dinner.