“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” he says. He hasn’t let me go. I sniffle.
“It’s like they’re dead,” I say.
“Like who is dead?”
“Izzy and Aden,” I say. “My main characters.” I feel the tears building up again.
I feel Finny let out a breath. He laughs once through his nose.
“I thought something was really wrong,” he says. Before I realize I’m doing it, I pull away from him in anger.
“Something is wrong!” I say, “Can’t you tell I’m upset?” Finny laughs again. His right arm is still around my shoulders. I make a fist and punch his left one. He still laughs. “Stop laughing at me,” I say.
“Sorry,” he says, but he’s still smiling. “It’s just that it’s really obvious that you’re upset, and I meant I thought something was really wrong, like Jamie had called you.”
“Who cares if Jamie called me?” My voice is shrill. “Who cares about Jamie?” Finny grins. I start to cry again. He pulls me into another hug. “You don’t understand,” I say into his chest.
“I know,” he says. His voice is soothing; I close my eyes. “But I can’t wait to read it,” he says.
“You can’t read it,” I say.
“Why not?” he asks, and I can’t answer him. He doesn’t say anything else. He holds me even after my sniffling stops. It’s dark outside now. I realize I want this over. I can’t do this to myself anymore.
“Okay,” I say. “You can read it after dinner.”
80
Once upon a time there were a boy and a girl named Aden and Izzy. They lived next door to each other and were best friends. Aden was smart and handsome, and Izzy was awkward and funny. Nobody else understood them the way they understood each other.
Aden and Izzy grow up, and Izzy doesn’t leave Aden, and Aden isn’t afraid to wait to kiss her until he is certain she is ready to be kissed. They go to high school and they aren’t just best friends anymore. When they undress at night they leave their blinds open so the other can see. Aden plays soccer but Izzy doesn’t do anything but watch him from the stands. They go to school dances sometimes, but mostly they just want to be alone together. They don’t have any other friends, and they don’t want any others because they’re still best friends too. They steal vodka from Izzy’s dad and go down to the creek where they used to play and get drunk. Aden learns to drive and he helps teach Izzy to later.
One night, Aden and Izzy have sex, and it is wonderful and scary. Then Izzy is pregnant, but before anyone finds out their baby dies and it is very, very frightening but also a little bit beautiful, the way sad things sometimes are.
Sometimes people tell them they should make other friends or date other people, but Izzy and Aden never listen because they know that it’s just supposed to be the two of them, and it doesn’t matter if no one else understands.
Then in their senior year, Izzy is offered a scholarship to study writing at a school far away from where Aden is going to go. Izzy really wants to accept, and Aden tells her she has to go. They cry a lot, and then they decide they don’t want to ruin their perfect love by trying to stretch it across the distance. They think that they will be able to forever remember each other as they are now and never have to have arguments over the phone or wonder what the other is doing that night. When Izzy leaves, it will just have to be the end, and so they try to make the best of the last few months.
The day comes when Izzy is supposed to leave, and they are going to say good-bye at the airport. Aden holds Izzy for the last time, but when the time comes neither of them can let go. They keep holding on and the speakers are starting to call for Izzy’s plane but neither of them moves, and they finally admit that they would rather ruin their perfect love trying to make it work because being unhappy together is better than being unhappy apart.
And then Izzy and Aden are finally able to let each other go.
And that’s the last line of my novel.
81
Finny sits on the living room couch while he reads off my computer screen. I read a book for a while, and the only sound in the room is the click of the keyboard as he scrolls down to the next page. Every time I hear it, I look at his face, but his face says nothing, nothing at all.
Around eleven, I turn on the TV and watch an old movie. Finny doesn’t comment. Just before the movie is over, he gets up. I hear him drink a glass of water in the kitchen. He walks back to the couch without looking at me. The movie ends and another starts, and Finny is still reading.
But he’s frowning now.
I stay awake for another hour, but my eyelids are heavy and my head is aching again. I turn off the TV, and Finny does not move. I stand and stretch, and he does nothing. I walk past him, out of the room, and up the stairs.
In Finny’s room, I crawl under his covers and lay my head on his pillow. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. I thought I would feel jittery and want to bite my nails, but all I want to do is sleep; the act of giving it to him has exhausted me.
I sleep deeply, and I dream.
***
When I wake, it is either so quickly or so slowly that I cannot remember waking; I am just suddenly alert.
Finny is standing by the bed, his silhouette dark in the weak light. His hands are limp at his sides. I cannot see his face, but I do not doubt that he is looking at me. He says my name, and somehow I know that he is saying it for a second time.
“What?” I say. I sit up. My hair falls forward and I push it off my face and rub my eyes.
“Why did you have to leave me like that?” he says.
“I was tired,” I say. “You were reading.”
“No,” he says. There is a slight tremble in his voice. “After we turned thirteen. Why did you have to leave like that?” The question hangs in the air between us, the way it always has.
“I didn’t leave,” I finally say. My words lack conviction; even I can hear it. “We just grew apart.” Finny shakes his head.
“We did not just grow apart, Autumn,” he says.
“I didn’t mean to,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“I already know why you did it,” he says. “I just want to know why you had to be so cruel about it.” My breath comes quicker.
“Okay, I was stupid and selfish that fall,” I say. “And I’m sorry. But everything would have gone back to normal if you hadn’t kissed me out of nowhere without even asking. Do you have any idea how much you scared me that night?”
“I scared you?”