If Only I Had Told Her

by Laura Nowlin

“And sometimes,” she continued, “really good friends go through periods when they aren’t that close, and that’s okay. They still care about each other.

Books are Autumn’s real life. She is made of the stories she has read.

It seems so obvious now; it matters which people you spend time with, and it matters how you spend your time, because you don’t know how much you have.

It feels like our mourning is all she has left of Finn. Our grief is proof of his life.

“Someday,” Brett says, “you’ll think of Finn, and it won’t hurt. It’s not that the hurt ever goes away. You saw me today. But sometimes? Sometimes when I remember Todd, I’m just happy that I got to be his brother. Someday you’ll have that with Finn. I know it.”