If Only I Had Told Her

by Laura Nowlin

I’d rather give away all my games than lose a minute of whatever has been happening between us since Jamie broke up with her.

We weren’t touching, but it felt like the atoms between us were warm with my love for her.

It’s more like Autumn is a real princess but from an alien planet. She is the most confident and insecure person I’ve ever known.

It is cosmically unfair how beautiful Autumn is. It puts me at such a disadvantage. Her brilliant, goofy brain was already enough. Why must she have a perfect face too?

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

My love for her is the closest thing I have to religion. But it’s okay that she doesn’t feel the same. I’m fine. I can handle it.

Maybe you are the two stupidest people on earth who somehow don’t realize you’re in love with each other,

My devotion to Autumn is engraved on my very being. I am in awe of her. I will sit in the stands and cheer her on in life as her most ardent admirer. I know I will always love her in the same way I know I’ll always need oxygen.

Autumn, though, I’ve seen her finish a novel, pause staring off into space for a minute like she’s receiving instructions, and then open another book. It’s as if her job is to read and she’s behind on her quota.

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

“When you’re reading a book and you can’t focus, ask yourself, ‘How much is the writer’s fault, and how much is mine?’ Be honest. That’s how you’ll know if you should set it aside forever or for a few hours.”

Autumn lives in this world and the fictions of her mind or those written by others like her. Whatever it is that puts us together as people, be it God, genes, or destiny, Autumn was made to tell stories. She’s going to be an amazing writer. She’s always been amazing. Whatever this novel is about, it’s going to blow my mind. I know it.

It’s like she’s taken slivers and slices from her life and the lives of people she knows, put them in a blender, and then very heavily seasoned it all with fiction.

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.

“There’re always things that we could have done differently. What matters is what we do now.”

“The first step to being a good mother is questioning whether you can be a good mother. And it’s okay if you’re feeling broken, Autumn, because becoming a parent breaks you in a new way. It’s the most joyful and heartbreaking thing you’ll ever do.”

“Just because something seems impossible doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying,”

Sure, as children grow, they’re mostly cleaning and feeding themselves, and the loved part becomes complicated as they start to break away, but by then there will be a foundation to our relationship, and knowing who they are as a person will help guide me.