Filed to story: If He Had Been With Me Book PDF Free
“My mom,” I say. I hand Finny the towel and he blots his chest, but his shirt is only damp now and it doesn’t do much good. While Brooke and Noah make a rum concoction for Finny, I fill my mug and a plastic cup with wine.
“Here you are, my good man,” Noah says.
“Thanks,” Finny says. The three of us—me and Finny and Sylvie—walk back to the living room. The hallway is empty. I duck under the rope and look over my shoulder to make sure no one saw.
Finny is standing at the bottom of the stairs, his drink untouched in his hand. Sylvie is gone. I hear her laughter in the next room.
“Hey?” he says.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t forget what you promised me, okay?”
I try to flip through all of my memories of us, trying to find a promise that hasn’t been broken yet. There were a lot of promises; there isn’t much left.
“Not while you’re drunk,” he says. My grip on the wine tightens, and I feel myself start to nod and then shrug.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Phineas,” I say. “Okay?”
He looks at me, not blinking, not moving. He does not blush. From the next room, Sylvie calls his name. He doesn’t seem to hear. I swallow, trying to push my heart back out of my throat.
“Fine,” I say, “I’m not—we aren’t going to, okay?”
“Okay,” he says, and turns on his heels.
“Finn?” Sylvie calls.
“So, did you hear about Thanksgiving?” Finny says. He’s lining up his pool cue with the white ball. He shoots and breaks the triangle in the center of the table. Balls roll in every direction. One falls into the left pocket.
“Does that one count?” I say. Finny shrugs and motions for me to shoot. “We might as well count it since you’re going to win anyway.”
“You don’t know that,” he says.
“Yeah, I do.” I lean over and try to position myself the way he did.
“Don’t hold it so high in the back,” he says. “Don’t hunch either.” I shoot anyway and hit the ball on the side. It bounces off the rim and hits the floor. Finny grabs it and places it back on the table. He opens his mouth to explain to me what I did wrong.
“What were you saying about Thanksgiving?” I say. He looks down and begins to line up for his next shot.
“My father wants me to come over to his place and meet his wife and daughter.” He shoots and the white ball hits the one I think he was aiming for, but it doesn’t go in the hole.
“You have a sister?” I say. My chest feels hot and my stomach sinks. Finny shrugs, and anyone else would think that he could care less. I know he cares. And it’s another connection to rival mine. First Sylvie and now this sister.
“What’s her name?”
“Elizabeth.”
“How old is she?”
“She’s four,” he says. I relax a little bit.
“How long have you known about her? Why didn’t you tell me?” He looks up at me again. We’re standing across from each other, on different sides of the table, pool sticks in hand. Around us, other conversations buzz, and balls clack against each other. I know why he didn’t tell me, because we were hardly speaking to each other when she was born. He doesn’t bother reminding me though.
“Your turn,” he says.
“So, you won’t be with us on Thanksgiving?” I say. I shoot and the white ball hits the orange number six, which clacks uselessly against the wall and rolls to a stop.
“No, I will,” he says. “I’m supposed to come over later in the evening, for cocktails and leftovers.”
“Oh,” I say. He shoots, and another ball rolls into the pocket.
“You look relieved,” he says. He smiles.
“Would you want to be alone with them all day?”
Finny shrugs. I lean over and try to aim.
“Stop,” he says. “I can’t take it.”
“What?”
He doesn’t answer, but walks around the table and stands behind me. He lays his hands over mine. They are dry and warm. His hip presses against mine.
“Like this,” he says. He adjusts my hands. I close my eyes. We are still. His hands press against mine. I take a breath. I hear the clack of the balls.
“Oops,” Finny says. I open my eyes. The ball we were aiming for bounces off the side and rolls slowly to a stop. We straighten and step away from each other.
“I guess I’m too big of a screw-up even for you to fix,” I say. He doesn’t answer me or move to take his aim. “Finny?” I say. He blinks.
“That wasn’t your fault,” he says. “It was mine.” He hands me the cue again.
We are in the courthouse downtown. I’m holding my new digital camera, a gift from my birthday. Angie’s dress is short and white, with blue tights. She has a large white flower pinned in her hair. Her back is to me now, but when she turns in profile, I will see the barely discernible swell in her middle. Preppy Dave is in a gray suit. His hair is wetted down and combed so that the lines show. His mother is crying. I’m not sure if they’re happy tears or not. I raise my camera and take another shot. Jamie leans over and looks at the screen. He nods in approval. All of us are sitting in one row on the left. On the other side, three of Preppy Dave’s teammates sit. They are the only other young people here; the rest are parents and grandparents, a few aunts and uncles. There is one baby in the crowd and every few minutes, it mews and is shushed again.
I reach over and take Jamie’s hand again.
“We’re next,” I whisper. He smiles briefly and squeezes back.
Preppy Dave and Angie turn to face each other, and I let go of his hand and raise my camera again. Her smile sends a knifepoint into my stomach; my hands shake and the picture is blurry. I delete it before Jamie sees.
Someday I’ll be happy like that, I tell myself.
Angie’s hands squeeze Dave’s and I think about his hand over mine as we aimed the pool cue. I squeeze Jamie’s hand.
All day, The Mothers made a big deal about this being our last Christmas before we leave for college, and Finny and I had to not roll our eyes or laugh when they got sentimental. Sometimes our eyes would meet, and we gave each other silent warnings not to give in and snort or sigh in reply to them. We didn’t see how things could be so different next year, and they were ridiculous and maudlin in our eyes.
My parents gave me a laptop. Good for schoolwork, they said. Good for writing, I thought. I’ve started something new, something secret, and now I can carry that secret thing with me wherever I go, bouncing against my hip in my messenger bag.
Finny got a sound system for the little red car from his father. He was never that much into music, but he shrugged and kind of smiled.
***
We’re sitting on the couch watching TV with the lights off. Christmas is at Aunt Angelina’s this year. The pine tree by the window sometimes blinks randomly in one section or another, but never all at once or to any rhythm. Finny had tried to find the problem and fix it, but then Aunt Angelina decided she liked it. Because of the tree, the light in the room dances across the ceiling and makes the windows darken and flash again. Finny has the remote. He flips through the channels until he finds
It’s a Wonderful Life. He sets the remote down on the coffee table, leans back against the cushions, and stretches his long legs out in front of him.
At Thanksgiving, when he got up in the evening to leave us for his new other family, our eyes met briefly but we did not say anything. Without him, I sat in the corner with a book and went upstairs early. Nothing about his evening came to me through The Mothers and he did not say anything about it in gym class. All I know is that he isn’t leaving us tonight.
The Mothers laugh in the kitchen and Jimmy Stewart falls in the swimming pool. We both smile, and the movie fades into a commercial break. I stand up.