Filed to story: If He Had Been With Me Book PDF Free
“Is there anything sexier than a guy holding a baby?” Angie says, and even this does not bring me to my senses.
“Nope,” I say, and I flinch. I move an inch away from Finny, and I can actually feel the loss of his body heat.
“All right, my turn,” Brooke says. “Stop torturing the poor guy.” She walks around the room and takes the baby from Finny. I avoid looking at him.
For the next hour, we talk about normal things and watch TV. I don’t look at Finny and I am careful to not brush against him as I shift my weight on the bed. Jamie talks the most, orchestrating the conversation so that it exhibits his charm and humor. It isn’t any different than before, but it feels different. Jamie and Sasha do not hold hands or kiss, but they sit close together.
During the theme song of the next show, Guinevere begins to cry.
“She’s hungry,” Angie says. She says it with a certain authority that intrigues me. She’s only known her daughter for less than half a day.
“We should probably go,” I say. Finny and I stand up together. Angie looks at us, but her gaze is distracted.
“Thanks for coming,” she says, and looks down at the baby again. I walk quickly toward the door.
“Bye, everybody,” I say.
“Good-bye,” Finny says.
“We should get going too,” I hear Jamie say, but I do not look back or slow down. Finny and I walk side by side. The others are all behind us, Jamie, Sasha, Alex, Brooke, and Noah. They are talking about what they will do next. We walk as if we do not know each other. Finny presses the button at the elevator, and the doors open immediately. We step inside, and Finny press the first floor button as the others round the corner. I look at them, and they look at me. The doors close. Finny turns to me.
“You okay?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“You really want to go see that movie?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, “and we’ll see whatever you want. Thanks for coming.”
“No big deal,” he says. Finny grins at me, and I finally realize that I never, never felt this way about Jamie, even at the best of times.
We are on his bed. I am curled up near the headboard with my laptop on my knees; Finny is stretched out on his stomach, finishing off a boss in his video game.
I just finished a chapter and my head feels light. I watch his character throwing bombs at the dragon. It’s just past noon, but I’m not hungry; we stay out late now and sleep past breakfast time. We spend most of the time driving around with the windows down. We go to drive-thrus after midnight and wander the aisles of twenty-four-hour grocery stores. Last night we sat on the hood of his red car and ate sugary candies with neon food coloring and artificial flavors. Finny left the radio on and we leaned back against the windshield, but the streetlights were too bright to see stars.
I close my laptop and Finny must hear the click because he says, “You done?” Another bomb explodes on the screen and his controller buzzes.
“For now,” I say. I lay my computer next to me and stretch my arms above my head. I watch him win the fight and save his game.
“So when do I get to read it?” Finny says.
“Never,” I say without thinking. “Sorry,” I add.
“Why not?” He sounds surprised. He isn’t looking at me; he’s playing his game again.
“Because it’s private,” I say, “and it isn’t very good yet.”
“Can I read it when it’s good?”
I shrug even though he can’t see. “Probably not.”
“Why are you writing it if nobody can read it?”
“I didn’t say nobody could read it.”
Finny looks at me over his shoulder. “So it’s me then?” he says. On the screen, his character runs in a circle and hits a tree repeatedly.
“No,” I say. I scoot forward on the bed and stretch out on my stomach next to him. “It’s—it’s that I know you. And if you read it you might think ‘Oh, this character is that person’ or ‘she’s talking about that time here,’ but it’s not really like that.”
“What if I promise not to read into it? No analysis at all. I swear on my mother’s grave.”
“I’m going to tell her you said that.”
“Come on, please?”
I shrug and roll my eyes. “Maybe.”
“Ha.” Finny turns away and looks back at the TV. He holds up his controller and begins pushing buttons. “That means yes.”
“It does not!”
“Does too.”
“Does not!” I punch him in the shoulder and he laughs.
“So what do you want to do now?” he says. I shrug again, but I’m smiling.
“This,” I say.
Finny answers his phone after one ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, I’m home.”
“You still outside?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Stay there,” he says. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
When he comes out the back door, I am sitting on the hood of his car. It’s almost midnight. The crickets are chirping and the air is still warm.
“So how was it?” he says.
“It was okay,” I say. “I think she was acting as a representative of everyone else.” I just got back from seeing a movie with Brooke. During the half-hour car ride home, she told me that everyone understood that I was mad at Jamie and Sasha, but that everyone still wanted to be my friend, that I was still part of the group.
“She said that nobody wants to take sides,” I say.
“I figured it would be something like that,” Finny says, “You hungry?”
“Yeah.”
On our way to the all-night drive-thru, I take off my sandals and hang my feet out the window. Finny doesn’t mind.
“Do you feel any better?” he asks. I shrug.
“Kinda. I mean, it’s nice that I can still be friends with the rest of them, but—” I shrug again and sigh. “I dunno. How can we still be a group after this? And we’re all going to different schools…” My voice trails off. A minute passes in silence. We pull up to the bright lights of the fast food restaurant.