Filed to story: If He Had Been With Me Book PDF Free
“Okay,” he says. “That was better. This time, try to hit it upward.” He gets into position again, then pauses. “But not straight up,” he adds.
This time when I hit the birdie, it veers off to the left. Finny dashes to the side, and suddenly it’s flying back at me.
“Whoa,” I cry. I swing at it but miss and it falls to the floor. “Sorry,” I say. I bend over and pick it up. It’s kind of like a bouncy ball, I think. I like bouncy balls. If it didn’t have so many plastic feathers sticking out of it, I might like the game better. But then it would be harder to see. I try to imagine seeing the little ball flying in the air. Maybe if it was brightly colored.
“Autumn?” Finny says. I look up at him again. I realize that I’ve just been standing staring at the ball.
“Sorry,” I say for the second time in two minutes. “I zoned out there for a sec.”
“I saw,” Finny says. “So do you want to serve?”
“Sure,” I say. I carefully toss the birdie in the air and watch it fall. I hit it, and it flies up and out. Finny lopes forward and hits it toward me, graceful, high, and slow. It comes straight to me, and without having to take a step, I whack it up again. We manage to pass it back and forth five times before I finally miss it again.
“That was good,” Finny says. Ms. Scope blows her whistle and we walk to her to place our rackets in a pile at her feet. Finny and I walk together, but not side by side. I lag a bit behind him and keep some distance between us.
“Oh,” I say, “Mom said to ask you what you want for your birthday.”
“I don’t care,” he says. “Whatever.”
“I have to have something to tell her,” I say.
“Um, I could use some new sneakers?” Finny says.
“I’ll tell her to get you an ant farm,” I say as we turn around to walk toward the locker room. Finny shrugs.
“Okay,” he says. “You want one too?”
“Yeah,” I say, though the thought hadn’t occurred to me. I could put it on my desk and watch it when I have writer’s block. We’re nearing the doors now. After I change clothes, I’ll go to my literature class and not talk to Finny again until tomorrow, even if I see him from a distance here or at home. “What are you doing for your birthday?” I ask.
“Just the same thing as always, having everybody over on Friday and we’ll eat and watch a movie,” he says.
“Sounds like fun,” I say.
“Do you want to come?” Finny asks. I stop short. Finny turns to me. We’re standing in front of the locker room doors. Our classmates walk around us to get inside.
“I don’t really—” I stumble on my words and have to look away from his face. “I mean, that wouldn’t really work, would it?” I say.
Finny shrugs, but he doesn’t smile. “I just thought I would ask anyway.”
“I mean, I would ask you too, but, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Finny says.
“But on our actual birthdays, we’ll have dinner with The Mothers, so—” I shrug, unsure of how to finish the thought.
“So it’s fine, we’re good,” he finishes for me.
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re good.”
“Finn, Autumn,” Ms. Scope yells at us. “Do you want to be late?” I realize we’re the last two in the gym. We turn away from each other and go through our separate doors.
“The rose bush you gave me for Christmas is still blooming,” Sasha says. She sits down on the steps next to me and lays her book bag between her knees.
“They do that,” I say. It’s the first week of October. I have a new charm on Jamie’s bracelet and an ant farm on my desk. The weather is cooling off but still warm, and a few trees have started to turn. The novelty of being seniors has worn off a bit. It’s a matter of course now that we’re the oldest and the coolest. All the other students are so young and awkward; how could we not be?
“We should have a party for Halloween this year,” Brooke says. “I mean like actually invite people besides us. My sister could get us some more to drink—“
“Could we wear costumes?” Alex says.
“No,” Sasha and I say. Somewhere in the back of my head, I think of how a few years ago I couldn’t imagine Halloween without a costume.
“Why not?” Brooke asks.
“I’m not wearing a costume,” Jamie says.
“I’m not,” I say. “But my parents are going to some marriage camp therapy retreat thing that weekend so—“
“I’m pregnant,” Angie says. All of our heads swivel together. She’s standing at the top of the steps, just arrived. She wears her book bag on both shoulders, like a child. The pink streaks in her hair have faded and grown out. She stares back at us as if we had just asked her a question.
“Already?” Sasha says.
“I took a test yesterday.”
The bell rings and we stand. We walk in a group toward the doors, but the boys trail behind us. The girls ask questions: what are her symptoms, how is Dave handling it.
“I’m tired and my boobs hurt,” she says. “But that’s all besides being late.” She says Dave seemed pretty freaked out, but he also seemed excited. “It’s almost like he’s kinda proud of himself,” she says in the same strange monotone. She laughs then, and it sounds strangely happy.
“We’re having a Halloween party the weekend my parents will be gone,” I say to Finny. He bounces the Ping Pong ball against the table and hits it slowly.
“Yeah, I heard about that,” he says. The ball bounces and sails past me.
“You did?”
“Yes. You know you were supposed to hit that back to me right?”
“Sorry.” I bend to retrieve the ball and hit it toward him. “The thing is, I have a favor to ask.”
“What?”
“Well, you know I did tell Mom and Dad that I wanted to have a little party for Halloween—“
“Mmhmm.” Finny taps the ball smoothly toward me and I dart over to whack it back.
“But, you know, it’s gonna be more than just a little party. And I was worried about your mom.” In spite of my clumsy dashing, we have a steady rhythm going now. Tap puck, tap puck.
“So?”
“So, I figured that if you were there, your mom would assume it couldn’t be all that bad, you know? That she’d let it slide a bit.”
Finny catches the ball in one hand and raises his eyebrows. “You want me to come,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. I shrug my shoulders without meaning too. “I mean, of course you can bring Sylvie and everybody else too.”
“You know, my mom isn’t as clueless as your mom.”
Ms. Scope blows her whistle, and Finny and I lay our paddles on the table and go to sit on the bleachers. The other half of the class gathers around the six tables.
“Yeah, but that’s because she’s cooler than my mom,” I say. We sit with a foot of space between us on the bottom row.