If Only I Had Told Her

by Laura Nowlin

it was hard to see you miserable over him when I was so happy. I wanted to pick you up and spin you around.”

“When I told you last month that I was going to break up with Sylvie, it wasn’t because I thought I had a chance of being more than just your friend. 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.”

I confessed to punching blameless walls and rejoicing in her heartbreak, and she smiled sweetly at me. Why is she upset now? I sit up too.

It’s surreal to me, but somehow, after everything, she still doesn’t understand how uncontrollably in love I am.

You’re the ideal I’ve judged every other girl by my whole life. You’re funny and smart and weird. I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth or what you’re going to do. I love that. You. I love you.”

Being with Autumn feels natural, but it also feels supernatural.

I think about the way her novel captured and displayed my love for her so perfectly without her having consciously known all that was in my heart.

I think about my recurring dreams of having returned to the right timeline, where she and I...

‘It took Finn forever to get over you last time. Are you messing with his head?’”

I’ve thought I’d missed my chance with you.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I was trying to decide whether I should kill Jack for telling you I was into you or if I should kill him for telling you that I wasn’t into you. Tough call.”

Because you got over me. After I abandoned you.”

“I couldn’t get over you.”

“You remember how furious I was last night? I thought you’d recorded my devotion in perfect detail and then dropped it in my lap without considering my feelings. And I still loved it as a story. You’re a good writer, Autumn. You’ve always been good.”

I lean over and kiss her deeply. A few minutes are lost to that, and then I gasp as I feel her fingers close around me.

I am entirely at her mercy.

We’ve kissed and dozed the afternoon away.

After Autumn charmingly tortured me with her hands and then triumphantly ravished me with her mouth, I tried to return the favor. I needed more coaching, but Autumn’s enthusiasm remained throughout.

Autumn has looked at me like she’s trying to believe I’m real.

Autumn loves me in return.

Tomorrow is going to be wonderful, and the day after and the day after, because I am hers. Tonight is the only concern, and that’s mine alone.

I’m still amazed that she wants me to touch her.

Something that happened when we didn’t know we loved each other.”

“But you saw me checking you out, right? You had to have. It was so obvious.” She’s smiling like she expects me to agree.

she’d lusted after certain parts of me from a distance the same way I had after her.

“If you’d kissed me, Finny, I would have been astonished, but I would have pulled you right back into my room and—well, like I said before…” She smiles.

“It was never about not being ready with Jamie,” she says. “It didn’t feel right with him,

I’d be wondering if our encounter had really meant anything to you or if you’d just been drunk.”

This is why I must break up with Sylvie today. Can’t she see that?

“Everything is going to be okay.

“We have time, don’t we? Can we just—” We have just enough time, but it’s getting harder to resist making love to her again, so I decide to buy condoms tonight.

“I can’t hear you, beloved.”

run my fingers down her back one last time, and she shivers in a way that almost tempts me to stay after all.

“We have forever,”

wonder if forever is too mu...

we’ve made it back together.

But the certainty of our future together drives me, and when I get back to her, she’ll understand. I’ll show her every day, for as long as she wants me. “I want it to be just us.”

She’s nervous because she’s the one having to wait for me,

have to tell Sylvie.

“I promise you, I’ll come back as soon as I can. It may take a while though.” “Please don’t go,” she says. Oh, beloved.

I can’t help kissing her quickly, but when she moves in to kiss me again, I lose myself in wonder. Autumn wants me. Autumn loves me.

The Mothers will be happy for me. It’s been impossible to hide how much I wanted this.

Finny-Autumn Day has come after all.

my beloved.

“After this, things are going to be the way they were always supposed to be,”

you learn about layers of communication from an early age.

The Mothers have told me many times that they wished, for my sake, Autumn loved me back.

she did love ...

to. I love you. I’m proud of you.”

“Autumn and I are the two stupidest people on earth.”