The cast of ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ opens up about big changes in season 2

Grab your beach bags, sunscreen, and a lot of tissues because it’s time to return to Cousins Beach to enjoy the debut of The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s second season. The story continues in just over a week, and while we can’t wait to pick up where we left off with the Conklin and Fisher families, audiences everywhere realize that there’s a lot of heartache on the horizon.

In fact, so many changes have taken place that it’ll make some of what we see seem unrecognizable, but Conrad (Chris Briney), Belly (Lola Tung), Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), and Steven (Sean Kaufman) are bridging the gap between the known and the unknown, giving us those familiar storylines we know and love.

Ahead of the new episodes, the cast is opening up about some of what we’ll soon see unfold and, in turn, preparing us for what’s to come. Sean Kaufman tells ABC’s GMA that this season is all about coming together again:

“It’s a season of them coming together. There’s a lot that happens in between the seasons where they really need to turn to each other, I think in a way that very few people understand. And that often turns into fights or arguments or whatever, but at the end of the day, they realize that they have to kind of reconcile with each other and be there for each other in a way that not many other people can be.”

The way they come together is only possible because of their deeply intertwined pasts and how their lives would cease to exist as they know them without the impact of one another. Does that mean things will be easy as they navigate the most arduous waters they’ve ever been thrust into? Absolutely not, but it does mean that they’ll always find their way back to one another; they’ll make it back home.

Some of the ways they’ll find common ground will be easier than others, and Jeremiah and Conrad may have been keeping secrets in season one, but they’re all out in the open when season two rolls around. Briney explains it as the need to be honest.

“There’s a lot going on between them. Conrad doesn’t know that Jeremiah and Belly kissed and Jeremiah doesn’t know that their mom has cancer. And there’s a lot like that’s just not on the table, and then by the second season, it all is. It was really exciting to be able to play a relationship where they have two options: you either talk about it or you don’t. There’s no hiding, there’s no artificial takes. They had to be honest with each other.”

Tung explains that the characters have all grown a lot and that her relationships with her family, the boys, and her friends are evolving as we greet her in this next chapter of life, but most importantly, Belly is “finding herself again and her confidence, and sort of rebuilding.”

Finding herself again and rebuilding all of her relationships is the most crucial thing for Belly, and we can’t wait to see the way they all find their way back to one another again and, hopefully, to sing the praises of Belly and Conrad rekindling their romance, it’s Team Conrad or bust around here.

Season two of The Summer I Turned Pretty begins streaming on Prime Video on July 14, and the first episode is called “Love Lost,” so be prepared to shed some tears.