“Autumn, Jack, I love you both so much, but if I see your faces right now, I’ll cry. I have to go. I have to go. I have to go…” Angelina repeats, and Autumn’s mother mumbles in soothing tones until the back door closes.
Autumn takes a shuddering breath.
I’m not sure why I came here except that it felt more appropriate than going to Alexis’s house, where there’d be people who knew Finn but also hadn’t.
Not like Autumn and I knew Finn.
I look over at her again.
She’s back to staring at the rug and speaks without looking at me. “You can turn on the TV if you want.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Maybe in a minute.”
Autumn returns to chewing on her nails. Her hair is a disheveled mess, and I can faintly smell her sweat. I don’t know if she loved Finn anywhere close to as much as he loved her, but she loved him. I believe it now.
I’m trying to decide if I should say what I’m thinking. Nothing feels real, so it’s hard to think clearly. Finally, I decide it’s what he’d want me to do.
“You know,” I say, “Finn called me last night on his way to pick her up.”
Autumn looks up at me, startled.
“I thought you should know that he was really, really happy.”
For the briefest of moments, joy lights her face, and then it burns out again.
“Yeah?” she whispers.
I clear my throat to get the tremble out. “He was so happy.”
“I was afraid he would change his mind when he saw her,” Autumn says. I can barely hear her.
“That—no—There’s no way.”
I don’t know how to explain this to her. I don’t know Autumn, not really, and this is such an intimate but vital thing that I need her to understand, for Finn’s sake.
I push past the catch in my throat. “Nope. No way. Autumn, he’s been in love with you for as long as I’ve known him.”
Autumn looks at me with interest but not like she believes me.
I try again. “Like, fairy-tale love? Cartoon character with hearts floating all around him? Or a movie montage with the best song? That’s what you were to him.” I’m sniffling, but I need to finish. “You were the biggest, most impossible dream for him.” I press the tears away with my fingers before they can fall.
“You’re sure?” They sound like the last words she’ll be capable of speaking.
The tears I’d been fighting retreat as quickly as they’d overpowered me, like her mother had told me they would.
“Absolutely,” I say.
Her shoulders relax slightly, and a little bit of tightness leaves her puffy face. I try her mother’s technique.
“Look at me,” I say, trying to sound firm.
She raises her eyes but not her face.
“Finn loved you,” I say, confidently. “He was coming back to you. You can be certain of that.”
“Okay,” she says, but I don’t hear it. Her voice is gone, and I only see it on her lips. Maybe a fraction of a percentage of her devastation has been eased. There’s nothing I can do about the rest of it.
Eventually, I turn on the TV, and we sit in silence.
I wonder how long it takes to formally ID a body and sign papers.
Finn Smith in a morgue. His stupidly long legs and mop of blond hair will never be sweaty from running again. His body is cold.
The body that is Finn and not Finn, because Finn is gone.
I cry for a little bit, discretely brushing away tears and a few sniffles. I’m trying to be quiet, because I’m embarrassed. I stare in the direction of the TV and think I’m doing a pretty good job of hiding my emotion, but right as I’ve caught my breath, Autumn croaks.
“You were a good friend to him.” She was waiting for me to finish. “I’m so glad he had you. You were a better friend than I was for the past few years.” She coughs and strains to speak, then makes a sound like a laugh but maybe not. “The last third of his life,” she finally gets out.
“Are you okay? Are you sick too?” I ask. “Or is that from crying?”
Her eyes get this faraway look, and it scares me somehow.
“I was screaming for a while,” she says. “I was trying to make it not real by not believing it, and screaming worked…for a while.”
I don’t know what to say, but she doesn’t seem to expect an answer. It seems like she’s watching the TV again, but it also looks like she’s been drugged. We’re silent after that.
When their mothers return, I hug Angelina and stay a little while. She looks like she was in a car accident herself, but she’s able to talk to me calmly for a few minutes before I go. Autumn’s mother walks me to the front porch, and she thanks me for staying with Autumn.