In the sun-kissed world of The Summer I Turned Pretty, every glance lingers, every kiss carries weight, and every decision lingers longer than it should. But this season, it wasn’t a love triangle or a beach side heartbreak that set the internet ablaze. It was the simple, complicated, and incredibly emotional question, “did Jeremiah cheat?”
It’s a yes or no question the first time you hear it. A topic that makes for a loaded group chat debate and split screen internet reactions. But start unfolding the surface of the question and the edges start to blur. All of a sudden it’s not about Jeremiah and Belly. It’s about modern relationships, what counts as betrayal, and whether “cheating” still fits the old definitions when now the rules seem to be changing all the time.
When Jeremiah admitted to hooking up with someone else during his time apart from Belly, people didn’t ask who, they asked when. Jeremiah gave little to no detail, his timeline was weary, and it was unclear whether he considered it cheating or not. What started as summer romance turned into a moral debate dressed up in SPF and heartache. Were they broken up or were they just on a break? Had they silently moved on, or were they still tethered to an unspoken loyalty? And the impending question, “does the fact that he lied about it make it cheating?”
This is the modern gray area we live in. Cheating is usually pretty easy to define. A secret affair, hidden text messages, or an act of physical intimacy. But today, relationships start without labels, pause without closure, and stretch across emotional distances that can be just as intimate as a physical one. Cheating isn’t just what you do anymore, it’s what you keep a secret. Jeremiah’s secret is what fans are hung up on. Even if it “technically” wasn’t cheating, it felt like it was and Belly took it as such.
For Belly, the betrayal wasn’t just about what he did, it was about what he didn’t tell her. When you love someone, even in the gray area of love, it’s expected that you at least act like you love each other. Or at least act like you respect the trust that is or was once there. Jeremiah may have thought that they were broken up and that he didn’t owe her anything, but Belly clearly thought he did. And therein lies that it’s not about what he did. It’s about what she thought he wouldn’t.
Some will argue that people are allowed to move on when a relationship ends, even if it’s not official. Others will say that if you still hold an emotional connection with someone, there’s a moral responsibility not to break their heart behind their back when you know they’re holding onto hope. There’s not a concrete answer. No matter what the act was, it feels personal. Because in reality, we’re all just making up rules as we go.
What The Summer I Turned Pretty does cleverly is it refuses to give a clean answer. It doesn’t label Jeremiah as the villain or Belly as naive. It paints a situation and trusts us to untangle the nuance. Belly and Jeremiah’s characters mirrored our the emotional contradictions we face as people. We naturally want the clarity of labels whether it’s a good or a bad one. A boyfriend, a breakup, and even a betrayal. But love in any form, especially romantic, rarely fits into boxes neatly.
The question still is “Did Jeremiah cheat? Some say yes, because he broke Belly’s trust. Others argue no, because to him, the relationship was technically over. Most, though, very humanly, sit in the middle. Felling uncomfortable, reflective, and wondering what they would’ve done in her situation. If they would’ve forgiven and what they might have kept a secret. When love is real and endings are unclear, the smallest betrayals leave the biggest scars. And in many cases, the lie hurts more than the betrayl itself.
We all can agree it’s not really about whether Jeremiah cheated. It’s about the fact that he knew it would hurt her, and then didn’t tell her. Or even worse, he didn’t even think about her at all. It’s not cheating in its raw definition, but it’s not faithful either. It sits in the blurred space between forgive and forget where most of us find ourselves when we’re hurt. Asking the hard questions, searching for clarity, and hoping the next person we trust will understand the rules we hope for but can never quite say out loud.
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