“That’s not good,” I say. He nods in agreement, then looks at me again. I’m hunched forward, rubbing my bare arms.
“Are you cold?” he says. I nod. It’s bearable though; I may still make it to morning. “Here.” Finny starts to struggle with his letterman jacket.
“No, don’t,” I say. This must be what alcohol does to people; it makes them forget all the carefully drawn lines in the world.
“Come on, Sylvie, take the jacket,” he says, holding it out to me.
“Autumn,” I say.
“Huh?” He frowns.
“My name is Autumn. You just called me Sylvie,” I say. His frown deepens.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Autumn. Take the jacket, Autumn,” he says. He leans forward so that the jacket is practically in my lap. I sigh and take it from him. It is warm and smells of him. I slip it on and wrap it tightly around me. “There,” he says. He leans back, satisfied, and regards me. “It fits you,” he says.
“The jacket?” I say. I hold out my arms so he can see how the sleeves dangle far past my wrists.
“No,” Finny says, “your name. Autumn Rose Davis. Except there aren’t roses in Autumn.”
“Sure there are,” I say. “At least in St. Louis there are.” There isn’t a clear border between summer and fall here. It starts and stops and moves backward, luring the trees to turn red while tricking the roses to bloom for just a little longer as the season swings back and forth, hot and cold. The leaves are gold and red, and there are still a few pink roses in my mother’s garden, a bit wilted and a little brown on the edges, but still beautiful. I had admired them without making the connection to my name, but I have to admit now, it does fit me—pretty, but doesn’t belong.
“Yeah,” he says, drawing the word out. “But there aren’t supposed to be roses in autumn.”
“Things aren’t always the way they’re supposed to be,” I say.
There is a long silence after that. I look away from Finny and out at the long, dark lawn separating us from the street, and the clouds hiding the stars from us. I pull the jacket tight around me again. Something shifts inside his pocket. I reach inside and my fingers close around an easily recognizable object. I smile. “Here,” I say, and hold out his keys to him. He smiles back and takes them from me.
“Thanks,” he says. “I didn’t want to have to tell my father that I’d lost the key to that car.” Finny’s father—in another baffling gesture—gave him a car for his sixteenth birthday. I don’t know what kind. It’s something red and sporty, probably ridiculously expensive and Italian. I’m surprised that there is some way for Finny to tell him that he had lost the key. I had always thought the lines drawn between them only allowed one-way communication.
“So are you going to remember talking to me in the morning?” I ask. Finny frowns again.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m not that drunk.”
“Well, I don’t know how these things work,” I say. He cocks his head to the side.
“You’ve never been drunk?” he says.
“No,” I say. I realize too late that my tone sounds defensive. He doesn’t notice.
“Huh,” he says. “I thought—” He breaks off and frowns again. “Huh.”
“What? You thought everybody was doing it?” I ask. He shrugs and looks away from me. I wonder what time it is, how much longer of my self-enforced sentence on the front porch is left. The sky doesn’t look any lighter.
“Why are you out here anyway?” he asks.
I’m surprised that my throat tightens. “My parents had a fight,” I say.
“Oh.”
“My dad drove away and my mom’s at your place.”
“Autumn, I’m sorry.”
“It’s the same old, same old,” I say.
“But I really am sorry,” he says. “I really am.” He has turned to face me on the step again.
“It’s fine,” I say.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“You’re drunk.”
“I’m sobering up,” he says.
“Will you still want to talk to me when you’re sober?” There is another silence after that. I look into his face. I cannot read it. I stare at him and watch him take a deep breath.
“I’ll still want to,” he says, but something in his tone says no anyway.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Do you love Jamie?” My breath catches in my throat again. “I mean—is he good to you?” Finny says.
“What?” I ask. My shock shows in my voice and this time it does look like he notices. I try to make my tone light, as if I’m laughing at him. “Don’t tell me that you’re going big brother on me all of a sudden.”
Finny shrugs. He is not looking at me anymore. I wonder if he’s blushing. He probably is.
“Yeah,” I finally say. “I do love him. And he’s a good guy.” I try to imagine what sort of guy he thinks Jamie might be, what he would do if I confirmed his suspicions. I remember him punching Donnie Banks in fifth grade. “And anyway, I don’t think Sylvie would appreciate it if you fought Jamie to defend my honor.”
“Yeah,” Finny says. His face is still turned away. “I’d do it anyway though.”
“Are you sure you still would want to if you were sober?” I say.
Finny nods. “Yeah,” he says again. “But I’m only telling you because I’m not.”
I think about the things I would say to Finny if I were drunk, or at least brave enough to say them. First I would tell him that his jacket smells good. Then I would tell him that I liked sitting here talking to him, that I don’t want to go inside and end the conversation.
“You remember middle school?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. The wind blows in the trees. The sky still isn’t any lighter. Perhaps no time has passed at all. Perhaps we will sit here together forever. I wouldn’t mind; it might be better than facing tomorrow. I wait for him to finish his thought. He’s frowning again.
“I should probably go inside before I say anything else I shouldn’t,” Finny says. “I think I can fake it enough to get upstairs.”
“Oh, okay,” I say. He stands up and looks at me.
“You’re not going to stay out here, are you?” he asks. I shake my head.