If He Had Been with Me

by Laura Nowlin

my career goal was to move to New York, wear black turtlenecks, and sit in coffee shops all day, thinking deep thoughts and making up stories in my head.

I love him in a way I cannot define, as if my love were an organ within my body that I could not live without yet could not pick out of an anatomy book.

It’s the way I love Finny. And it’s impossible to say and even harder to feel.