If He Had Been with Me

We do that every day for the next five days. We go out for a late breakfast and then I curl up on Finny’s bed and read while he plays his video game next to me. In the evening, The Mothers have dinner with us. Afterward, we watch a movie, and then I excuse myself and go upstairs.

When it’s finally dark out, I turn out the lights in my bedroom and spy on Finny’s window. He plays video games or surfs the Internet. At eleven o’clock every night, his cell phone rings. I think it’s Sylvie. They talk for half an hour or a little more, and after he hangs up he leaves the room. He comes back in his boxer shorts and gets into bed. He reads for a little while from the book I’ve seen on his nightstand, some bestselling thriller, then he turns out the lights.

Watching Finny keeps me from thinking about Jamie. Somehow, I don’t think Finny would mind if he knew. If I’m wondering what he’s saying to Sylvie, then I’m not wondering what Jamie might be saying to Sasha. I watch Finny scratch his arm or yawn, and my mind isn’t anywhere but in the moment, with him; I’m safe from hurting myself.

On the sixth morning, Finny looks nervous when he comes to the back door to get me.

“Hi!” I say.

“Hi,” he says. His mouth is tight and his hands are shoved in his pockets.

I close the door behind me. Finny walks with me to the car. I wait until he has slid into the seat next to me.

“What’s wrong?” I say. He starts the car and backs us out of the driveway.

“Jack called last night—”

“Oh!” I say. I had wondered who the earlier phone call had been from. Finny gives me a strange look and continues.

“Everybody is talking about getting together today. We haven’t seen each other since graduation.”

“Oh,” I say again, in a different way.

“Will you be okay on your own?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, I don’t want you to feel obligated to babysit me or something.”

“I don’t,” Finny says. He glances away from the road to look at me again.

“You should go have fun with your friends,” I say. “It’s been a week, and I feel better.”

“You do?”

“Not all the way better, but yeah, better.”

“Good,” Finny says. He drives in silence for a while, and then our conversation resumes normally, like on the other mornings. We make fun of The Mothers and talk about the movie we watched last night.

After breakfast, Finny drops me off, and I turn and wave to him from the back porch as he drives away again. The house is empty; Mom and Dad and all the lawyers are meeting downtown today. I go to my room and lay down on my bed. I look out the window and watch the wind in the trees. I nod off after a little while. When I open my eyes again, it’s early afternoon and my room is warm. The cicadas are singing, and the wind is still rustling the trees. I stretch and turn over, and my eyes fall on my laptop.

It’s been a long time since I have written. I started something before Christmas, but it got lost in the muddle of winter and the excitement of spring, and now I can’t remember if what I wrote was any good.

I walk across the floor, my bare feet feeling the sun-warmed wood under me, and I sit down.

It is good, but I take out large chunks and move paragraphs. I have a new vision, a new structure for the story. I’m ready to write something honest. Soon, the only sound is the clacking of my keyboard, and then that is gone too, and all I can hear are the voices in my head.

After Mom comes home, she orders a pizza and we eat with Aunt Angelina. Finny is still gone. As soon as we’re done eating, I leave and they do not protest; I know Mom wants to talk to Angelina about my dad.

I write again, and I do not notice the sun moving across the floorboards, the light beginning to dim. When I come out of my trance, it is dark out, and I hear the sports car in the driveway. The lights in my room are already out. I close the laptop so that the room is fully dark, and I lay down on my bed, facing the window.

He comes into the room and looks around as if he expected something to be there. He crosses the room and looks out the window, and for a moment I think he can see me. Then he turns away and sits down on his bed. He takes out his phone and puts it to his ear.

My cell phone rings. I look at it vibrating on my nightstand and then out the window, at Finny stretching out on his bed.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I say, and then, to make it believable, “just reading.”

“How was your day?”

“Okay. You?”

“It was okay.”

We’re quiet then, but it isn’t an awkward silence; it is as if we were sitting quietly together in the same room. I watch him stretch, and I hear him yawn.

“It’s too bad we didn’t have cell phones back then,” I say. “Then we wouldn’t have needed the cups and string.”

“Yeah,” he says, and then, “wait, are you in your room?”

“Yeah,” I say, and then I remember I was supposed to be reading, and my window is dark. “I just came in.”

“Can you see me?” He waves. I laugh.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m waving back.”

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” I say.