If He Had Been with Me

by Laura Nowlin

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 fight with Jamie because he doesn’t understand anything I say. I hate him for not truly knowing me deep down inside, and at the end of our dates, I cling to his coat and beg him to never leave me. He says he never will.