If He Had Been with Me (23 page)

We fell asleep on his bed again. But I am awake now. The afternoon light from the window is streaming over us. On the floor next to the bed is our empty pizza box from lunch. His video game is paused. My book is on his nightstand.

Last night around three a.m., we got our blood pressure taken at one of those machines you stick your arm in at the grocery store. Finny’s was perfect and mine was only a little high. We celebrated with a pound of gummy worms and what was left of the whiskey.

Tomorrow I’m going to have lunch with my dad, so we won’t be able to stay out too late tonight. I wonder if Finny will stay up late without me or if he’ll just go to sleep like me.

I stretch and roll onto my side slowly so that I don’t jostle him. He’s lying on his back with his hands behind his head. His mouth is a little open but he doesn’t look silly, just relaxed and warm.

We had been watching the shadows of the tree outside his window and talking about my parent’s divorce, and then how we should go the art museum sometime or at least the zoo. Somewhere in there, my memory goes fuzzy and I must have fallen asleep. I wonder if it was before or after him. Perhaps we fell together.

It’s nice, looking at his face.

This close, I can see that he isn’t exactly perfect. He has a tiny pimple on the side of his nose and a chickenpox scar on his cheek. We had the chickenpox at the same time. We spent a week in bed together, watching movies and eating nachos off the same plate. Finny was better about not scratching. He got better two days before me, but The Mothers let him stay with me anyway.

The longing to touch that scar is more unbearable than any itch I ever felt.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “We used to even get sick together and I ruined it all.”

If he were awake, he would say it was okay, and he would mean it. But it’s not okay. Jack said that it took him forever to get over me, but that still means he got over me.

“I love you,” I say to him, so quietly that even I cannot hear it. I close my eyes and listen to his breathing. I go back to the story in my head about how it could have been. I’m at the part where he is teaching me how to drive when I hear him take a deep breath, almost a gasp. I still remember that sound; it’s the sound he makes when he wakes up, as if he is coming up from underwater. I let my eyes stay closed. He rolls over onto his stomach, slowly, the way I rolled onto my side. I expect him to put his hand on my shoulder or say my name, but he doesn’t. I wait a little longer, and finally decide he’s gone back to sleep. I open my eyes.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say.

“I guess our late nights are starting to catch up with us,” he says.

“Yeah.”

We don’t say anything else and we don’t move and we don’t look away.

I wish that this meant something. I wish I could hope that he is lying still and looking at me for the same reason I am, that he is thinking the same things I am.

“What’s wrong?” Finny says.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Are you sure?” he says, and then, “Autumn—”

And then his phone rings. He stiffens and sits up. When he picks up his phone, he looks at it and frowns.

“Hi,” he says. “Isn’t it like four a.m. for you?” I watch his frown deepen and then he turns away from me. “Just slow down, Syl—no, it’s okay. Take a breath.” He is quiet for a minute, and then he looks over his shoulder at me. He walks out of the room. “What did you have?” he says, and then he closes the door and I can’t hear him anymore.

I lay my head back down on the bed and close my eyes.

When Finny finally comes back, it is to tell me that The Mothers want us for dinner. He doesn’t look me in the eye. After we eat, I go back home. His window is already dark.

If you want me to, I can clear my schedule and go down with you and your mother when you move into the dorms,” Dad says. We’re sitting outside at the downtown restaurant he chose. He has a new red car that reminds me of Finny’s, but his doesn’t even have a backseat. “It’s an important day,” he continues, “and if you want me to be there, I will be.”

“So if I don’t want you to come, you won’t?” I ask.

“If you want me to, I will, that’s all I’m saying.” Our appetizer comes and my dad ignores the waitress as she lays the plates down. He doesn’t even look up.

“Thanks,” I say to her. She ignores me too and walks away from us.

“You don’t have to make a decision right now, but the closer we get to the date the harder it will be.” He dips his toasted ravioli in marinara sauce. “Not that I won’t do it anyway.” He takes a bite and chews.

“If it’s what I want,” I say. He nods. “And only if it’s what I want. If you wanted to come and I didn’t want you to, you wouldn’t come anyway.”

Dad wipes his hands on his napkin and sighs. “Honey, if you don’t want me there—”

“What if I don’t want Mom there? Can I just tell her not to come and then she won’t?”

“Now, honey, your mom has to come. That is not optional.”

“Why? Why are you optional and she’s not?”

“You’re saying that you want to move into the dorms without either of your parents there?” Dad says.

“No,” I say, “that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that—never mind.”

We look back down at our food. It’s too hot out to be perfect weather.

“Your mother told me about Jamie,” he says after a while. The name startles me.

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Is that why you’re upset?”

“What? I’m not upset.”

“You’re not upset?”

“No,” I say. “I’m fine.”

***

When I get home, I don’t call Finny. I want to, but I don’t. At my desk, I write a couple of sentences, delete them, and close my laptop. I try to nap but I’m not tired. I close my eyes anyway. The sun bleeds through and all I can see is red. I’ll wait for Finny to call me first. The afternoon passes.

A day passes. And then another. I write a little; I read a lot. Finny doesn’t eat dinner with us; he’s out with Jack, his mother says.

On the third day, I watch him as he pulls the red car into the driveway. He hesitates before closing the door; he looks down at the keys in his hand for a long time. He doesn’t move until Aunt Angelina comes out onto the porch and says his name. Then he slams the car door and looks up at her and smiles.

On the fourth day, my mother asks me if Finny and I have had a fight again.

“What do you mean ‘again’?” I say.

“Well, I just mean that you were spending all this time together and suddenly—”

“What do you mean by ‘again’? Who ever said we had a fight the first time? Maybe sometimes people stop spending time together and it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay, Autumn,” she says. She lets me go up to my room.

***

Sasha calls me. I don’t answer.

I wake up early in the morning, and I cannot sleep. I stare at his window until the sun is up and then sleep again.

***

On the sixth day, I call him. He doesn’t answer. I lay my phone down on my nightstand and curl up into a ball. He must have seen it in my eyes.

I’ve managed to ruin everything again.

My cell phone rings. I pick it up. I look at it. It rings again.

“Finny?” I say, instead of coolly saying “Hello?” like I had planned.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” We’re quiet for a little while. I can hear him breathing. He clears his throat.

“I’m going to break up with Sylvie when she comes home.”

“Oh,” I say.

“Yeah. It’s—it’s gonna be hard.”

I draw my knees up to my chin. He would think I was crazy if I started to cry right now.

“You want to come over and watch a movie?” he says.

“Okay,” I say.

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“Right now?”

“Sure.”

After the movie, we go out for pizza. And we don’t talk about Sylvie.

“Do you remember in fourth grade,” Finny says, “when we read
Charlotte’s Web
in class and you cried?”

“Yes. Do you remember when that baseball hit you in the head?”

“Yes. Did you cry then too?”

“No,” I say. We’re sitting in his car. It’s late at night again, but we aren’t quite ready to go inside. The engine is off, but the dashboard light is on; I can barely see his face. I’m curled up in my seat. I’m so tired, but I don’t want him to know.

“You were scared though. You said you thought I was dead.”

“It was scary. You fell like a rag doll.”

“Do you remember the Christmas it snowed and then iced over the snow?”

“We went to the creek.”

“Yeah.”

I lay my cheek on my knee. The windows are starting to fog up, but it doesn’t feel like we’ve been sitting together all that long.

“Do you remember when you punched Donnie Banks?” I say.

“Of course I do.”

“He said I was a freak.”

“You weren’t a freak. You were the only cool girl at school.”

“How would you know? You never talked to any other girls.”

“I didn’t need to. Do you remember the Valentine’s Day that my mother had the date with the bald guy?”

“Which one?”

“The creepy-looking one.”

“I don’t remember.”

Finny turns in his seat to look at me. I struggle to make out the expression on his face. “Yeah, you do, we were plotting to throw a bucket of water from the window when they came home—”

“But the babysitter made us go to bed in separate rooms! I remember that, but I don’t remember the guy.”

“I do. He was creepy-looking.”

“Or maybe you just remember thinking that he was creepy. Maybe if you saw him now, you wouldn’t think so at all. Memory isn’t objective.”

“But you and I always remember things the same way.”

“But that’s because we always thought the same way back then. I bet we wouldn’t remember—” I stop when I realize what I was about to say.

“What?” Finny says.

I shrug like it’s no big deal. “We probably won’t remember middle school the same, or high school.”

“Oh. Maybe.” We are quiet then, and I wonder why I said that and if he’ll say that we should go in now.

“You were Mr. Laughegan’s favorite,” Finny says.

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “But all the other teachers liked you better.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is!” I say. I lift my head off my knees and sit up straighter. “Everyone always likes you. It was the same in elementary school too.”

Finny shrugs. “I don’t know about elementary school,” he says, “but nobody liked me in middle school.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is; I was nerdy and you were, like, the Queen.”

“No,” I say, “Alexis was the Queen. I was just a flunky.” Finny shakes his head. “What are you talking about?” I say. “She was the leader of The Clique.” I can’t tell for sure because of the dark, but I think Finny rolls his eyes.

“But you were the one all the guys liked,” he says.

“Oh,” I say.

“Yeah, it was—weird. Hearing them talk about you like that, I mean.”

“Oh,” I say. The windows are completely fogged up now. I can only make out the glow of the streetlight coming through; otherwise, it could be any street in America out there.

“So why did you leave them?” Finny says.

“Who?” I ask. I’m thinking about the way he stumbled over his words when he said it was weird to hear guys talking about me.

“The girls. Why did you and Sasha leave them?”

“We didn’t leave them,” I say. “They kicked us out.”

“That’s not what they say,” Finny says. I look up at him and wish I could see his face better. “They told me that after they joined the cheerleading squad you started talking about how cheerleading in high school was a stereotype and you wanted to be a part of something more meaningful. And you stopped returning their calls.”

“That is not how that happened,” I say. “They stopped being friends with us.”

“But that does sound like something you would say,” Finny says.

“Yeah,” I say, “but they’re the ones who thought they were too good for us.”

“That’s what they say about you,” Finny says.

“But that’s not true!”

“Memory isn’t objective, right?”

“I guess so,” I say, and for the first time I’m wondering what else might be different from Finny’s point of view.

We’re in his car again, but it’s under different circumstances. It’s one a.m., and a police car has just pulled us over. It’s the second time this week, but Finny has never done anything wrong. They just pull us over because we’re teenagers in a red sports car.

“Do you ever wonder,” I ask Finny as he gets back in after watching the policeman search his trunk, “if this car is more trouble than it’s worth?” Finny shrugs. Behind us, the police car pulls away. Finny turns off his flashers and looks over his shoulder as he pulls out onto the street again. “Your mom says the insurance is crazy.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but I like it.”

“It is a cute car,” I say.

“Don’t call my car ‘cute,’” he says.

I giggle. “Finny has a cute car. It’s so cute.”

“Shut up,” he says, “or I’ll stop driving you everywhere.”

“Will not.”

“Will too.”

“You’d miss me.”

“Not if you keep calling my car cute.”

I laugh again.

“I should teach you to drive,” Finny says.

I frown. “What? No,” I say.

“Oh, come on, you can’t go forever without learning to drive.”

“Watch me.”

“Take the wheel.”

“Nope.”

“Autumn, take the wheel.”

I don’t know if he’s realized that I can’t refuse him when he says my name like that, but it works. I lean closer to him and take over the steering, and the car immediately begins to swerve to the right.

“Whoa!” Finny says. I start to take my hands away but he places his over mine. He presses gently and turns us straight again. “There we go,” he says. My heart is hammering and I feel as if I am falling. “You have to make little adjustments as you go,” he says. “Otherwise you’ll end up going off to one side.”

“Oh,” I say. My voice is shaking. I swallow.

“You’re okay,” he says. “I’ll catch you if we start to go too far.”

He helps me turns us around a corner and then another. We circle several blocks and then he takes us back to Main Street.

“Do you want to go on the highway?”

“No,” I say.

“Too bad,” he says. His hands press down on mine as he forces me to turn us toward the on ramp.

“Oh my God,” I say. Finny takes my right hand off the wheel and places it on the gearshift. “Oh my God,” I say again.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ve got you.” He presses on my hand again and we change gears. My palms are sweating but his are hot and firm. The highway is nearly empty and the road stretches in front of us uninterrupted.