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.
For a few days, whenever I’m not in class, the fictional fight Finn and I would have had over Autumn if he were alive is my focus. Sometimes I imagine confronting him after he’s missed plans with me or because I’m tired of vacating to the library so he and Autumn can hook up. Obviously, whatever is going on, Autumn tries to stick up for Finn, but he always tells her no, he needs to work it out with me, so she leaves, and wherever we are on campus or in the dorm, it’s Finn and me and we’re arguing.
Finn and I didn’t fight a lot, but I know him well enough to predict his defenses. He would say that this relationship was still new, and “You know what having the chance to be with Autumn means to me.”
In this dream world where Finn is still alive, I wouldn’t have seen Autumn grieving. I would still be suspicious of her breaking his heart, so I would point out that I was the one who had always been there for him, not her. And if Autumn abandoned him again, was I just supposed to be there waiting for Finn?
It feels so good to be angry at this Finn, this living Finn who is neglecting me to hang out with his dream girl.
No matter what starts the fight or exactly how I decide that the dialogue goes down, it always ends the same way: with Finn apologizing and promising to make more time for me. I know that’s how it would end, because I’ve always been a good friend to Finn, and he knows that. Knew that.
I tend to cry in the shower, same as at home.
Late at night, I can’t distract myself by imagining how it would be if Finn were here. At night, I know that Finn is dead. Or do I? The thought still nags me, but what if it wasn’t really Finn? What if someone about Finn’s height and weight and wearing similar clothes stopped to help Sylvie, and he was the one who put his hand down in the puddle with the downed power line, and he’s the one in the gray box in the grave with his face burned off, not Finn.
Maybe Finn hit his head, had amnesia, and wandered off. Except I know that’s not true.
Other nights, I imagine Finn didn’t hit his head. Maybe Finn thought he’d killed Sylvie and he was so grief stricken and guilt ridden that he ran away, and now he thinks he can never come back because everyone hates him. Maybe he’s even scared the police think he killed Sylvie on purpose.
But Finn, the future doctor, ran to check Sylvie’s breathing and pulse. Ran to help her, because of course, that’s what Finn would do.
Even if I can make myself believe that we buried someone else in Finn’s coffin by mistake, I cannot make myself believe that he would let any of us hurt like this.