If Only I Had Told Her(15)

“Sorry,” I say, trying to swallow my mirth. “It’s just really obvious that you’re upset.” And you’re just so wonderful that it makes me terrible, I do not say. “And I meant I thought something was really wrong. Like Jamie had called you.”

“Who cares if Jamie called me?” she says.

I feel my grin widen again, but I can’t help it.

“Who cares about Jamie?” she says and begins to cry again.

I use the excuse to pull her close. Who cares about Jamie indeed?

“You don’t understand,” I feel her moan above my heart.

I take a deep breath of her scent.

“I know,” I say.

I understand this much: 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.

“But I can’t wait to read it,” I say. I’m smiling again, and I know she can hear it in my voice. She knows me almost as well as I know her.

“You can’t read it.” We’re leaning into each other like two sides of a triangle. She’s still sniffling.

“Why not?” She said something before about how I might take elements too literally, how I’d draw parallels to her real life. Maybe there’s stuff in there about Jamie or her dad, or rather his absence. Maybe there’s something about Sylvie? That seems unlikely.

The thing is I know that she wants me to read it. She knows what she wrote is good, in the same way she knows that she’s pretty. She knows it’s good, but she’s terrified that it’s not as good as she hopes. At least that’s what I assume, because that’s what she said about the final draft of her four-part poetic drama about the faerie-dragon wars she finished when we were almost twelve.

“Not all dragons want to wipe out faeries, only some of them, and the other dragons are finally joining the faeries’ fight,” Autumn explained to me as if these were current events.

I wasn’t enthused by faeries, but I figured I wouldn’t hate her story. When I read her superlong poem, though, it was so much better than what I had expected. She surprised me. It didn’t sound like something a kid had written, and I told her so afterward. I told her how I found myself caring about that dragon prince way, way more than I had expected or even wanted to. It was the truth. She was triumphant, and it was wonderful to see.

It’s turned dark now. Her breathing is quiet. She could move if she wanted to. Why hasn’t she moved?

“Okay,” she says. “You can read it after dinner.” She lifts her head off my chest, and both of my arms fall away.

“All right,” I say. I don’t need to tell her that I ate dinner a while ago. Meals don’t have time or meaning for us this summer. I hop off the bed and hold out my hand to her.

“Um, I need to get dressed?” she says.

I drop my hand.

“Oh.” I try to laugh. “I forgot. How about you meet me in the car?”

I guess I can’t be too bad of a guy if my concern for Autumn’s emotional state could make me entirely forget her state of undress.





seven





Outside, with the moon and streetlights, it’s brighter than inside her house. I get in my car and start the engine, turning my headlights on so that her back porch is illuminated like a stage. It isn’t long before she makes her entrance. Autumn’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, casual and untouchable. She carries her laptop. Is she bringing it now so that she doesn’t lose her nerve later? Autumn shades her eyes as she heads to the car.

“So where are we going? Tacos? Burgers? Chicken?” I ask as she sits next to me in the passenger seat. The flush is gone from her face.

“Oh?” she says, as if she had forgotten that dinner involves food.

“This is a celebratory drive-through run,” I tell her. “We’ll stop at that gas station that sells those candies that you like, the one that looks like hair gel in a tube and the one that comes in the paper packets that looks like laundry detergent.”

She doesn’t laugh. “Okay.”

“I mean, it’s great that you finished your novel, even if you feel like you’ve”—I try to choose my words carefully—“like you’ve lost your main characters?”

“Yeah,” she says with a nod. She turns and faces forward, looking out the windshield. “I didn’t know it would hurt this much.”

“You’ll still have to edit it, right?” I take the car out of park. “And when it’s published, they’ll live forever within other people, you know?”

She gives me an annoyed scoff.

“What?” I ask.

“You can’t just say, ‘When it’s published,’ Finny.”

I catch a glimpse of her face before I turn in my seat to navigate down the long driveway. She’s gazing out the dark window.

She sighs. “It’s probably never going to be published. That’s simply a fact.”

“No, no, no.” I wait for a car to pass before I turn onto Elizabeth Street and continue, “That’s not a fact. A fact is that you’re good. A fact is that you’re going to let me read it.” I’m starting to feel giddy. It must be an aftereffect of holding her.