“I want to. I want it to be with you.”
And with those 10 words, The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s entire trajectory changed as the decision for Belly (Lola Tung) to lose her virginity to Conrad (Christopher Briney) marked one of the Amazon Prime Video TV series’ biggest departures from Jenny Han’s books.
While the pair also staged a secret visit to Cousins during Christmastime on the page, Belly and Conrad did not have sex. But in the second episode, it’s revealed that the couple are intimate for the first time in front of the fireplace. “Conrad, it’s only you,” she tells a sleeping Conrad after. “There’s only ever been you.” Of course, this makes their relationship—which never reached the official distinction of boyfriend and girlfriend in the book, like it does onscreen—much more serious and their eventual breakup all the more devastating.
“That was a big change from the books,” Christopher told E! News’ Erin Lim of the sex scene. “It definitely caught me off guard.”