“Why did you get back with her?” Autumn asks, surprising me.
“You loved Jamie all this time too, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” she says, and I’m amazed that I still feel a flicker of jealousy.
“Then why don’t you understand? I wanted—I tried to love only her.”
Autumn’s face tells me that she understands at least that much, so I continue.
“When I told you last month that I was going to break up with Sylvie, it wasn’t because I thought I had a chance of being more than just your friend. It was because loving you from a distance was one thing, but it wouldn’t have been fair to her if I were in love with my best friend.”
Abruptly, Autumn sits up. She hugs the covers around herself like bandages on a wound. I don’t understand what’s happened. I confessed to punching blameless walls and rejoicing in her heartbreak, and she smiled sweetly at me. Why is she upset now? I sit up too.
“Autumn?”
Her hair is hanging over her face. “What if you see her and realize this was all a mistake?”
“That will not happen.”
“It could.”
“It won’t.”
“If you love her—” Autumn says, but I can’t let her go on.
“But if I have the chance to be with you—” It’s surreal to me, but somehow, after everything, she still doesn’t understand how uncontrollably in love I am. “God, Autumn. You’re the ideal I’ve judged every other girl by my whole life. You’re funny and smart and weird. I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth or what you’re going to do. I love that. You. I love you.”
After all these years of feeling like I was holding back the most eloquent words of love, my big speech sounds weak to me, but I try to let all my emotion show in my voice.
Her brown hair parts over her face, and her huge eyes peek up at me from under her eyelashes.
I don’t know how I’m still breathing.
“And you’re so beautiful,” I hear myself say.
She ducks her head again, and I laugh aloud.
“Now, I know you already knew that,” I say. I’m laughing because I’ve seen her shrug off that exact compliment so many times.
“It’s different when you say it.” She speaks so quietly I can barely hear her.
I laugh. “How?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
Sweet Autumn.
“You’re so beautiful.” I reach for her face and tilt her chin up. I need her to see me say this. “Last night was the best thing that ever happened to me,” I tell her. “And I would never think it was a mistake unless you said it was.”
“I would never say that,” she whispers.
I smile and lean my forehead against hers. I close my eyes as I reply. “Then everything is going to be okay. We’re together now, right?” I need to hear her say it. No more mistakes.
“Of course,” Autumn says, and I can’t help my laugh again.
She pulls away.
I explain, “I never ever thought this would happen, and then you say, ‘of course,’ like it’s the most natural thing in the world.”
“Doesn’t it feel like it?” she asks me.
It does, and it doesn’t. Being with Autumn feels natural, but it also feels supernatural. I think about the way her novel captured and displayed my love for her so perfectly without her having consciously known all that was in my heart. I think about my recurring dreams of having returned to the right timeline, where she and I have always been together.
“How did we ever get here?” I wonder aloud. How is it possible that two people could simultaneously seem to be both destined and not destined to be together?
Again, I have that feeling that there must be a catch, that fate will not allow me to be with her; but when I look back at Autumn and see her quietly and calmly watching me, waiting for whatever I say or do next, I realize that it doesn’t matter.
My face must change because she smiles and clambers into my lap. We wrap our arms around each other and settle in. After a moment, she says, “You know, I never thought this would happen either. When Jack told me—” and then she stops.
I move my face away enough to look at her.
“Oh. I didn’t explain that part last night.”
“What part?” I hope I don’t sound as panicked as I suddenly feel. What did Jack tell her?
“It was a couple of weeks ago, after the horror movie we went to with Jack, remember? You went inside to get pretzels or something, and he was all, ‘It took Finn forever to get over you last time. Are you messing with his head?’” Her Jack impression is decent, but she’s still talking. “I was like, ‘Whaaat?’ because I had no idea that you’d ever felt that way. But Jack said you were over me, that he was only worried. So for the past couple of weeks, I’ve thought I’d missed my chance with you.”