Home > If He Had Been with Me(8)

If He Had Been with Me(8)
Author: Laura Nowlin

   ***

   “Class, I was young once too,” Mrs. Adams says. “I know about the pressures to have sex. Not just from your partner, but from your friends and the media and even your own body. It can be hard. But please, please be careful. I know you think that no one you know has an STD, but that’s how they spread. I remember having to hold the hands of several of my teammates after they found out that they had an STD. One girl got herpes, and as we’ve learned, that’s one that never goes away. Imagine having that forever.”

   ***

   One morning, it sounds like Sylvie and Finny are fighting. They whisper back and forth, and Finny is suddenly saying a whole lot more than “Yeah.”

   Now that I want to hear what they are saying, I can’t. I glance over my shoulder at them. Finny is standing next to her, glaring at the ground. Sylvie is facing him and clinging to his side as she looks up at his face. From a distance, it would be hard to tell that they’re fighting.

   “Please,” I see more than hear her say. He shakes his head and doesn’t reply.

   Jamie gives me a promise ring for Valentine’s Day. All day, whenever I see someone I know, I rush up to show them my hand and tell them that I have the best boyfriend ever. He gives me another tiara too. This one is gold and has more curlicues.

   To everyone’s surprise, spring comes early that year.

 

 

10


   It is the moment I reach my door that I realize I left my house keys in my locker. It’s Thursday, the day my mother goes to see her therapist and then to the gym. She won’t be home until five-thirty. It’s two-thirty in the afternoon in early March. The snow is gone but it is still cold out, and it’s about to rain.

   I stand facing my door for a moment. I have two options. One is to stay on the porch, hope the rain doesn’t blow on me, and later try to explain to my mother why I didn’t take the second option.

   ***

   “I’m locked out,” I say as he opens the door. Even so, a flicker of confusion passes over his face.

   “Oh. Okay,” Finny says. He steps aside and lets me come in. I’m wearing Doc Martens and a new pink tiara. He’s wearing khakis and a sweater. He’s kicked off his shoes already. His socks are green. I nearly say something. What kind of boy wears green socks?

   “What time does your mom come home?” I ask.

   “Four,” he says. His mother has a spare key. “Where’s your mom?”

   “It’s therapy day,” I say. I follow him into the living room, where he sits down on the couch. Aunt Angelina’s house is always just a little bit messy, the lived-in kind of messy where books get piled into corners, and throw pillows and shoes seem to be everywhere. Aunt Angelina has never quite finished decorating either; on the wall above Finny’s head, there are three different samples of paint spread in large splotches. They’ve been there as long as I can remember.

   “What do you want to watch?” Finny says. He picks up the remote and looks at me.

   “I’m going to read,” I say. I had been planning when I got home to edit a poem I started during history class, but there is no way I could take out my notebook and start writing here, in front of him.

   I sit down in the armchair across the room. It’s bright blue, and for years Aunt Angelina has been going to have it reupholstered, as soon as she decides on a color scheme for the room. When I hear Finny start flipping through the channels, I take my book out of my bag and glance up at him.

   Finny looks like a Renaissance painting of an angel or like he could belong to some modern royal family. His hair stays blond all winter and looks like gold in the summer. He blushes a lot, partly because he is so fair, partly because he’s shy and gets embarrassed easily. I know that Sylvie must have approached him first and she was definitely the one who asked him out.

   Finny never tells anyone how he is feeling; you just have to know him well enough to understand when he is sad or scared. Today his expression does not tell me how he feels about me being over here. Either he couldn’t care less, or he could be annoyed.

   We see each other frequently, but we rarely are alone together. And even though we will still sometimes side together against The Mothers over an issue, we never have anything to say to each other that isn’t superficial.

   Years ago, Finny and I strung string and two cups across our bedroom windows so we could talk to each other at night. After we stopped talking, we never took it down, but finally the string rotted away.

   Finny’s cell phone rings and he leaves the room without saying anything.

   I look down at my book and begin to read. The rain has started, and I am distracted by the sound of it. Finny used to ask me to go outside with him to save the worms on the sidewalk. It bothered him to see them drying and writhing on the pavement the day after rain. He hated the idea of anyone—anything—ever being sad or hurt.

   When we were eight, we heard his mother sobbing in her bedroom after a breakup and Finny pushed tissues under the door. When we were eleven, he punched Donnie Banks in the stomach for calling me a freak. It was the only fight he ever got in, and I think Mrs. Morgansen only gave him detention because she had to. Aunt Angelina didn’t even punish him.

   “Autumn is already here,” I hear him say in the next room. There is a pause. “She got locked out.” There is a longer silence. “Okay,” he says, and then, “I love you too.”

   This time he looks at me when he comes back in the room.

   “You guys are having dinner over here tonight, so Mom says you might as well just stay.”

   “But my dad’s supposed to be home tonight,” I say. Finny shrugs. My dad cancels family dinners frequently enough that I suppose it isn’t worth pointing out to me. I shrug back and look down at my book.

   When I look up again, it is because I hear Aunt Angelina coming in through the back door.

   “Hello?” she calls out.

   “In here,” Finny shouts back. He mutes the TV and his mom walks into the room.

   “Hi, kids,” she says. Her long patchwork skirt still swirls around her ankles even when she comes to a stop. She brings her scent of patchouli oil into the room with her.

   “Hi,” we say. Aunt Angelina looks at me and smiles with the left side of her mouth. It’s the same crooked smile Finny has when he’s feeling playful.

   “Autumn, why are you wearing a Jimmy Carter campaign shirt?’” she asks.

   “I dunno,” I say. “Why is your son wearing green socks?”

   She looks back at Finny. “Phineas, are you wearing green socks?”

   He looks down at his feet. “Well, yeah.”

   “Where did you get green socks from?”

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