If He Had Been with Me

If he had been with me, everything would have been different.

I imagine it wrapped up in lace, tucked away in a quiet corner of my heart. It will stay there for the rest of my life, and when I die, it will die with me.

I’ve loved him my whole life, and somewhere along the way, that love didn’t change but grew. It grew to fill the parts of me that I did not have when I was a child. It grew with every new longing in my body and desire in my heart until there was not a piece of me that did not love him. And when I look at him, there is no other feeling in me.

“Autumn,” she says. I start in my seat and stop breathing. She still stares straight ahead. “Try to marry your first love. For the rest of your life, no one will ever treat you as well.”

“Autumn,” she says. I start in my seat and stop breathing. She still stares straight ahead. “Try to marry your first love. For the rest of your life, no one will ever treat you as well.”

“Just because I think something different from you doesn’t make me weird.”

“What if I promise not to read into it? No analysis at all. I swear on my mother’s grave.”

“I’m going to tell her you said that.”

“Come on, please?”

I shrug and roll my eyes. “Maybe.”

“Ha.” Finny turns away and looks back at the TV. He holds up his controller and begins pushing buttons. “That means yes.”

“It does not!”

“Does too.”

“Does not!” I punch him in the shoulder and he laughs.

“So what do you want to do now?” he says. I shrug again, but I’m smiling.

“This,” I say.

On August 8th, Phineas Smith died,

If he had been with me, Finny would still be alive. If he had been with me, everything would have been different. But whose fault is it that he wasn’t?

“But if I have the chance to be with you—God, Autumn, you’re the ideal I’ve judged every other girl by my whole life,” Finny says. “You’re funny and smart and weird. I never know what’s gonna come out of your mouth or what you’re gonna do. I love that. You. I love you.”