If He Had Been with Me

by Laura Nowlin

“Try to marry your first love. For the rest of your life, no one will ever treat you as well.”

I’m in love with Finny.

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.

I used to say to myself that I just have to get through winter, that I just have to wait. That things would get better then.

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;

He couldn’t be about to kiss me. Then he turned his face to the side, his nose brushed along my cheek, and Finny’s lips were on mine.

Finny, my Finny, kissed me. It was horrible. It was strange and wonderful.

And we weren’t friends anymore.

Sylvie has been charmed by Jamie.

Angie’s hands squeeze Dave’s and I think about his hand over mine as we aimed the pool cue. I squeeze Jamie’s hand.

I picked up a tiara and almost set it on my head, but then sat it back down.

I feel Finny put his arm around my shoulders.

“Why did you have to leave me like that?”

“After we turned thirteen. Why did you have to leave like that?”

“Okay, I was stupid and selfish that fall,” I say. “And I’m sorry. But everything would have gone back to normal if you hadn’t kissed me out of nowhere without even asking. Do you have any idea how much you scared me that night?”

“What if I kissed you right now?”

Finny pulls me toward him and our noses bump. I turn my face to the side, and he presses his mouth against mine.

We kiss quickly at first, as if we’re trying to make up for lost time, and then long and slow, as if we’re daring each other to see who can last longer. My hands are on his back, trying to hold him closer; his are on either side of my face, holding me still.

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

“After this,” he says, “things are going to be the way they were always supposed to be.” Then he climbs inside and closes the door.

It begins to rain.

Late in the night, I hear footsteps in the hallway. I roll over and look at the door. It opens slowly. “Finny?” I say. There is silence. “Oh, Autumn,” my mother says.

If he had been with me, Finny would still be alive. If he had been with me, everything would have been different. But whose fault is it that he wasn’t?

Death happens to him more suddenly than I can describe to you or even care to imagine.

In the kitchen, I leave the note on the table.

And I come into this room and lock the door behind me.

In books, people always wake up in the hospital and can’t remember how they got there, and then it all slowly comes back to them. I opened my eyes and thought, “Oh shit.”

“And when was your last menstrual cycle, dear?” For the first time in weeks, everything within me goes still and silent.