If Only I Had Told Her(59)

There’s already a new name on the door. I hope Brett likes the Chiefs.

As I push open the door, the three people in my room look up at me, startled.

“Hi,” I say to them.

The guy sitting on Finn’s bed looks surprised even as his mother steps forward to shake my hand. As I take it in mine, I see that she has tears in her eyes. I’ve interrupted something. His father has gone back to staring at his hands clasped in front of him.

“We’re the Carters,” she says. “And this is Brett!”

“Hi,” I say. “Nice to meet you. I was going to grab my stuff and take a shower.” It’s early evening, but it’s still hot as blazes out, and everyone was traveling and moving today, so my excuse to be antisocial is accepted.

“Well, if we don’t see you again, have a good semester!” Mrs. Carter says. The tears in her eyes glitter. “Let us know if you ever need anything!”

“Thanks.” I grab the basket of shower stuff that my mom forced me to pack up before we left for dinner. She told me that I would be glad later, though I don’t think she could have foreseen this exact situation. Either way, I mentally thank her as I bolt out of there.

And here I thought my parents were getting emotional about me leaving home.

Suddenly, I’m grateful for my undemonstrative family. Which makes me miss them, especially my mom. Mentally, I thank her again, this time for not crying.

He’s not dying, part of me had wanted to tell the Carters. Which would have been a dick move, so I’m glad I didn’t, but it’s how I feel. Angelina would give anything to be in that woman’s position, yet she has the audacity to cry? It seems like such bullshit.

At least I’m thinking clearly enough to know that there’s something off about my reaction, so I take that long shower as promised. I hear others coming and going, but a line never forms, so I don’t give up my stall.

I hear two guys laughing together. Clearly, they’ve been friends for years.

I turn up the shower. The water pressure isn’t great, but it blocks out the sound.

I give it enough time that Brett’s parents would have to be seriously unreasonable to still be hanging around. My fingers and toes are wrinkled raisins by the time I get out.

It’s not quiet on the floor of our hall, but it’s the difference between going to a concert and going on a hike: the woods are full of noise and activity, but compared to a concert, it’s silent. There’s some laughter and conversation, some television noise. About half the doors are closed.

It’s only nine o’clock, but I hope this Brett guy is asleep. When I get to the room, I decide he may as well be asleep, because he’s reading the new student manual.

The stapled booklet was sitting on our bare mattresses when I arrived and is filled with campus phone numbers I could get online, rules about alcohol, and a couple of maps or something. Mine is sitting in the recycling bin, where any sane person would put such paper-wasting nonsense.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.” Brett doesn’t look up.

Perfect.

I get into bed with my CD player and pull the top sheet over my head. I listen to Finn’s best of Tom Petty album with headphones until the light filtering in through the sheet goes out.

I keep listening until I fall asleep.





thirteen





So what’s college like?

It’s hard to say.

At breakfasts, I wonder what Finn would have thought about the dining hall eggs that come from a cartoon or the soggy waffle machine. Walking around campus, I think about how Finn would like the trees here. Sometimes I look up and scan the crowds, expecting to see him. I don’t know how to convince myself that it’s not a mistake: Finn’s not at college with me.

Of course, if Finn were alive, he wouldn’t be at college with me. He’d really be at college with Autumn.

What a glorious nightmare that would be.

That’s mostly what I think about on the walk between classes or while eating alone at the dining hall—just how annoying Finn and Autumn would be if they were here together.

After all these years of telling Finn that Autumn didn’t return his feelings and he needed to get over her, I’d have had to let him talk about her constantly, at least for those last weeks of summer. By the time we made it to school, I would have been tired of it. Finn would have been making a conscious effort to not talk incessantly about the miracle of Autumn loving him, but I would have been rolling my eyes every time he’d catch himself from bringing her up. It would be mostly fine, and I’d be happy for him.

But I know that every time I would ask Finn if he wanted to go to the dining hall, he would text Autumn to see if she wanted to come. And we’d wait in the lobby for her, where he would resemble a puppy awaiting his master, perking up the moment he caught sight of her. At the dining hall, there would be their lingering looks across the table, their secret smiles.

I would have been happy for him, really, I swear. If the tension between Autumn and Finn was annoying before, I doubt it would have gotten better when they became a couple. That’s the thing about sexual tension between two people: releasing it doesn’t make less of it. It usually creates more.

Every flyer I see for a freshman mixer or campus activity, I imagine asking Finn if he wants to go and him telling me he’d see if Autumn wanted to come. Autumn would be the underlying impulse behind any decision Finn would make this week. And it would frustrate me to no end. Eventually we would fight about it.