If He Had Been with Me

by Laura Nowlin

I’ve loved him my whole life, and somewhere along the way, that love didn’t change but grew. It grew to fill the parts of me that I did not have when I was a child. It grew with every new longing in my body and desire in my heart until there was not a piece of me that did not love him. And when I look at him, there is no other feeling in me.

My love for Finny is buried like a stillborn child; it is just as cherished and just as real, but nothing will ever come of it. I imagine it wrapped up in lace, tucked away in a quiet corner of my heart. It will stay there for the rest of my life, and when I die, it will die with me.

And I know that winter is supposed to end, but things are not always the way they are supposed to be.

This is friendship, and it is love, but I already know what they have not learned yet; how dangerous friendship is, how damaging love can be.

Perhaps he would ask me what books mean to me. I would tell him that it means living another life;

“Can I tell you that I love you first?” Finny says. I begin to fall slowly, slowly down.