If He Had Been with Me

by Laura Nowlin

If he had been with me, everything would have been different.

Sometimes I am disappointed with love. I thought that when you were in love, it would always be right there, staring you in the face, reminding you every moment that you love this person. It seems that it isn’t always like that.

Finny got his driver’s license on his birthday.

Aunt Angelina taught him to drive ages ago. She says he is a good driver, but she is still terrified of him killing himself on the road some night.

Now why would we manifest this into the universe Aunt Angelina?

My Finny. He isn’t your Finny.

“No, because sometimes sad things are beautiful,”

can feel the printed words seeping through my skin and into my veins, rushing to my heart and marking it forever. I want to savor this wonder, this happening of loving a book and reading it for the first time, because the first time is always the best, and I will never read this book for the first time ever again.

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.

“Don’t have sex with Jamie while you’re drunk,”

“Do what?” I say, just to be cruel.

frightened. He looks down at me.

“Oh, Autumn,”

It was because loving you from a distance was one thing, but it wouldn’t have been fair to her if I were in love with my best friend.”

“But if I have the chance to be with you—God, Autumn, you’re the ideal I’ve judged every other girl by my whole life,” Finny says. “You’re funny and smart and weird. I never know what’s gonna come out of your mouth or what you’re gonna do. I love that. You. I love you.”

“I promise you,” he says, “I’ll come back as soon as I can. It may take a while though.” “Please don’t go,” I say. He puts his hands on my shoulders and pulls me to his chest. “I have to do this,” he says. “You know that, Autumn.”

you really didn't have to tho.

“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.

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?

But the temptation to be close to him one last time is too great for me to resist.

How am I going to live the rest of my life in love with Autumn Davis with no hope of reciprocation?