Filed to story: If He Had Been With Me Book PDF Free
“I’m gonna check if his mom needs anything. I’ll be by later. Are Vicky and Taylor there?”
“Yeah, b—“
“Lex, I’ll be by. I should do this.”
“Why?”
“I—He was my best friend, Lex. And she’s been important to me. You know that.” Alexis and I talked about deep stuff at least sometimes.
“Sorry, what? Jack, I gotta go. Everyone is arriving. I know. I can’t believe—“
I hang up. Finn was right about Alexis and me.
Our last conversation.
It hits me again.
I won’t be able to tell Finn that he was right about Alexis.
He’d called me to tell me that I was right about Autumn, or really, that I was wrong. He had a funny way of seeing it.
That had been last night—no, evening?
The day before that, I’d woken up in a blanket fort Finn had built for Autumn. They’d been snuggled into each other like littermates, Autumn snoring like a freight train.
Is she in love with him too, or is she an honest-to-God sociopath?
I’d wondered as I watched them together.
I’d not put the odds in Finn’s favor. So when he called to say she loved him back, I asked if he was sure.
“All the way sure,” he said. He sounded so happy.
He’s dead now.
Finn’s dead.
But he can’t be.
My breath quickens. I pull the car to the side of the road and rest my head against the steering wheel.
What if it was mistaken identity or a mix-up at the hospital?
Alexis said Sylvie saw him herself. Saw him dead.
Dead.
Finn.
This is a new world. Finn is dead.
I am numb.
Finn’s driveway is a pain to get up and down because of the hill, so I park on the street and cross the lawn. His house looks the same as always, though his car isn’t there.
Finn isn’t going to be inside or upstairs or on his way home.
Finn is never coming home again.
With that thought, all the never-agains come crashing down on me, and I’m frozen in place, standing on the grass he’ll never complain about mowing. He’ll never kick another soccer ball or play a new video game. Finn will never tell me another story or joke. He’ll never study for another test, eat another burger, roll his eyes at me, or watch that new superhero movie we were looking forward to in December.
It’s all done.
Finn’s story is over.
His whole life.
That was it.
Not even nineteen years, and he’ll never, ever do anything else ever again. Finn won’t go off to college or celebrate his birthday. He won’t get another haircut or get the oil changed in his car. He won’t bite a hangnail on his thumb or buy another CD. Finn Smith has done everything he will ever do.
He won’t get to be with Autumn.
The memory of his joy last night hits me again.
The thing is I’ve always hated Autumn. The first time I met her, she was ignoring Finn on his birthday. Then she kept ignoring him for, I don’t know, the next four years? It was only in the past two years that when he talked about her (when I’d tolerate it), it seemed like she’d warmed back up to him. Somewhat.
Then, suddenly, Autumn breaks up with Jamie and starts spending every minute with Finn. I was pretty sure that was proof she was as evil as I’d always suspected. But I had fun hanging out with him and Autumn those couple of times. I’ve always understood why Finn was so into her. I’d just never understood why he’d hung on so long when it was clearly never going to happen, and I was preparing myself to spend my first semester of college getting Finn through another Autumn abandonment.
So I hadn’t really processed what Finn told me over the phone last night. It had seemed impossible, what Finn claimed had happened between them, but he’d been so sure, so happy. He was so certain that she loved him.
And he’s dead now.
I can’t ask Finn what made him certain. I can’t ask him anything anymore. He’s never going to have a thought to share because his brain is no longer thinking.
I was afraid that Autumn would break Finn’s heart. Now I wish she had the chance. I wish he was inside, devastated by Autumn or perhaps severely injured in the accident. No matter how horrible, I wish Finn was able to feel something, anything.
I’m still standing in Finn’s yard staring at the grass he’ll never mow again. I don’t know how long it’s been when a woman’s voice says, “Jack, right?”
It’s Angelina’s friend, Autumn’s mother. Finn always called her Aunt Claire or something?
“Hi. Sorry,” I say, though I’m not sure what for—being here or that Finn’s not. “I was coming to see Angelina. If she needed…if I could do…something.”
I feel like I’m pleading, but I’m not sure why.
She hugs me, and I start to cry in front of his house, in front of this woman I barely know, and she pats my hair like my mother did earlier this morning.
“I know,” she says. “I know. I know. I know.”
I can tell that she does understand in a way my own mother hadn’t. She knows how unfair it is. How Finn is the last person who should be in some freak accident. How everyone loved him.
Then it’s like a valve has shut off. My crying stops. I’m trying to get my breathing under control as she steps away from me.
She says, “Look at me,” so I do. She stares into my eyes like she’s trying to find her way inside my brain. “It’s going to be like that for a while, okay? You’ll be fine one minute and crying the next. You aren’t losing your mind. This is too horrible to take in all at once. Do you understand?”
I nod, even though I only sort of do.
“Okay then.” She pauses and looks me over for a moment before she says, “There is something you can do for Angelina, or rather for the two of us. I need to go to the hospital with Angelina. I can’t let her do that alone. Can you stay with Autumn for us?”