Filed to story: If He Had Been With Me Book PDF Free
I imagine Finny and I sneaking out of our houses to fool around down at the creek. I imagine leaving my blinds open for him when I change clothes. I imagine his hand moving up my thigh as we watch a movie with a blanket thrown over our laps.
I imagine that even though we were friends as children, we wouldn’t have stayed children just because we were together.
The last day of school feels as if it is truly the last, as if I am being set free not for three months but thirty years. My scary finals are all over; all I have today are my English and health finals. I’m taking honors English in the fall, and the health final should be simple. Drugs and sex are bad; water-skiing is good.
There is hugging and squealing on The Steps to Nowhere. Sasha is the only one studying; the rest of us are more or less free. Jamie kisses me loudly and wraps his arm over my shoulders.
“Ugh, I cannot wait for today to be over,” he says.
“Me neither,” Noah says.
“You still haven’t signed my yearbook yet, babe,” I say. This is the third day I’ve asked him. He keeps saying he will do it later.
“I know, I know. Give it to me,” he says. I hand it to him and he opens his book bag.
“Why don’t you just sign it now?” I say.
“I don’t feel like it right now. I’ll give it to you at lunch,” he says. He shoves my yearbook into his bag and zips it closed.
“Fine,” I say. I’ve found it’s just easier to let him have his way on all the little things that shouldn’t matter.
“Hey, Mom says she can drive for our girls’ day tomorrow,” Angie says.
“Yay,” Sasha says between flash cards.
“Yeah, well, you know that we’re going to have a boys’ day tomorrow too,” Alex says.
“Okay,” I say.
“And we’re going to do boy stuff that you aren’t invited to,” Jamie says.
“All right, whatever that means,” Brooke says. “But we’re just going to the mall.”
“Hey, guys, let’s go to the mall,” Noah says.
“No,” Sasha says, “you cannot go to the mall. We are.”
“We can get our nails done,” Alex says.
“And our hair. I need highlights,” Jamie says.
“Oh, shut up,” Brooke says. “You don’t even know what highlights are.”
“Why is it you guys get weird every time we do something alone?” Angie says.
“Yeah, do you think we’re plotting against you?” I ask.
“No,” Jamie says, but for once neither he nor any of the others have a comeback. The boys start talking about going to Noah’s tomorrow to play some video game.
***
I love you, Jamie’s note says.
You are the best thing that ever happened to me. All I want from life is to marry you and have our family. Have a good summer. With me.
I close my yearbook and stuff it back in my book bag. Jamie didn’t give it to me at lunch; it’s now the end of the day. He asked me not to read it in front of the others, so I told everybody I had to go to the bathroom before we walked to Jamie’s house. I flush the toilet even though I didn’t use it, because Brooke came to the bathroom with me. When I come out of the stall, she is staring at herself in the mirror. I wash my hands and look over at her.
“Hey, are you okay?” I say. It takes her a moment to answer.
“Yeah,” she says, “Sorry, I just zoned out for a second there.”
“It’s cool,” I say. “I can’t believe that we’re not freshmen anymore. Can you?”
“No, not really,” she says.
***
At Jamie’s pool, we play chicken-fight, climbing on the boys’ shoulders and knocking each other down. Jamie and I win, and he parades around with me on his shoulders, then suddenly drops me to make me scream. I pout; he kisses me and then dunks me. A dunking war breaks out that the boys win even though there are more of us. They high five and we roll our eyes.
We lean up against the wall in the shallow end and the boys wrap their arms around our bare waists. The sun is warm on our heads and the water. It is summer and we are free.
The pizzas arrive and we lay about eating by the pool until we think we’ll never have to eat again. We decide to ignore the one-hour rule and jump back in. The boys begin to wrestle and we stand to the side and watch them. After a while, I get bored, and I’m thinking I’ll try to get Jamie alone in his room, when I realize that Brooke and Angie have been gone for a long time. I go inside and pad barefoot across the kitchen. The bathroom door is closed. I lean my head against it. I can hear them talking on the other side. I knock.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I ask. There is a pause, and then I hear their voices again. Angie opens the door a crack.
“Are you alone?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. She opens the door enough for me to squeeze in.
Brooke is sitting on the bathtub. Her eyes are red and she is dressed in her shorts and shirt again.
“Oh my God, what’s wrong?” I ask. Brooke looks down at our feet on the tile floor.
“I cheated on Noah,” she says. Angie is leaning against the sink with her arms crossed. This is not new information for her. Brooke loses herself in her tears again. I sit down next to her.
“With who?” I ask. Brooke continues to cry.
“It was her lab partner, Aiden,” Angie says. “They’ve sort of been friends all semester.”
“Aiden Harris or Aiden Schumacker?”
“Aiden Harris,” Angie says.
“We just had fun together in class,” Brooke says. “I didn’t think it meant anything.”
“What happened?” I say.
“He invited me over to study for the final,” Brooke says. “He kissed me, and for a moment, I let him.”
“That’s all?”
“I stopped him and left and I wasn’t going to ever tell Noah,” Brooke says, “but I hate keeping secrets from him.” She begins to cry again. Someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Hey, guys,” Sasha says. “What’s going on?”
We let her in and tell her the story.
“It was just one kiss?” Sasha asks. Brooke nods.