I fill my lungs with air to steady my nerves. I look at her out of the corner of my eyes. It’s an old trick: looking at Autumn without really looking at her.
Autumn is watching me, still sitting up in my bed. Her hair is glowing around her face like an aura. The sheet has fallen away again. I cannot trust myself to look her in the face. I’ll lose my nerve.
“You said—” I start. I need to know. She was crying when she said it and, amazingly, unsure of how I felt about her. “You said that you loved me too.” Perhaps in her vulnerability, she said more than she meant.
“Yeah,” Autumn says, “I do.” Her voice is trembling but certain.
“Since when?” Since last night? Last month?
“I dunno,” she whispers. “Maybe since forever too, but I didn’t admit it until two years ago.”
Maybe forever too?
I cannot resist anymore. I look directly up at her. Autumn has this soft, sublime smile on her face that breaks into a sigh as she collapses back on to my chest.
She loves me.
She really, truly loves me.
I’m holding her so tightly that I order my body to relax so as not to hurt her.
Autumn.
My Autumn.
If she wants to be.
“So…” I don’t know how to ask this. Autumn loves me, but I am trying to make sure there’re no more misunderstandings.
“What?”
“It’s you and me now, right?”
I feel her laughter against my chest before she speaks.
“Phineas Smith, are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”
Isn’t that all I’m ever doing? I think wildly. My heart is beating fast. To me, this seemed like a formality, but perhaps my history of misunderstanding Autumn is catching up with me again.
“Well, yeah. Is that weird?”
“Only because it feels like we’re already so much more than that.”
I relax again. “Yeah, I know,” I say to her as I tell my brain to stay calm, that asking Autumn to elope to Vegas is absurd. “But it’ll have to do for now.”
For now.
I close my eyes.
“You still have to break up with Sylvie,” she whispers.
My eyes open again.
“I know. I’m going to. Tomorrow.”
“You mean today,” she says.
My stomach drops. Of course, it’s morning. I’m such a fool.
“Oh. Right.” I hug Autumn to me. “We should get some sleep, I guess.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Autumn says.
We cuddle up close, and soon, Autumn is snoring softly.
But I don’t sleep. There’s too much to think about.
eleven
One of the things that might be ironic—I really must remember to ask Autumn to explain irony to me—is that now I have something to tell Sylvie.
Sylvie will accept that I’m choosing Autumn over her if it’s for more than friendship. That’s what makes this so hard.
I try to be careful with my words. I try to only say what I mean and exactly what I mean. People think I’m hard to read, but I never understand that. I’m not secretive. More often than not, I simply don’t share information unless I’m asked.
The first time Sylvie asked me about Autumn, we didn’t actually talk about her.
It was the last day of freshman year.
Jamie had crossed in front of us as we left campus. He was carrying Autumn over his shoulder as she shrieked with joy and pretend panic, and their court of grungy offbeat friends trailed behind them singing an obnoxious song at the top of their voices.
“What’s with that?” Sylvie said.
Jamie’s little parade had passed us, and we’d started walking again. Sylvie and I were headed to the fast-food place near campus, and I had a sinking feeling that was their celebration plan too.
“Eh, that guy is always showing off,” I said. I watched as Jamie spun Autumn around and set her down.
“No,” Sylvie said. “What’s with you every time you see her with him?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Autumn Davis and Jamie Allen.” Sylvie tugged on my arm, and I looked at her. “Come on, Finn. You were just glaring at them.”
“I don’t like him.” I shrugged. “I told you before: Autumn’s an old friend from when we were kids. Sucks that she likes such a show-off.” I shrugged again. Up ahead, Autumn and her friends were waiting at the crosswalk for the light to change.
“I mean,” Sylvie said, “aren’t they all kinda, ‘Woo-hoo, I’m so quirky’? She wears a tiara every day and seems to like the way Jamie tosses her around in public.”
“Autumn was born strange,” I said. “She’s being herself. Jamie does things for attention, and you know how I feel about that.”
That was a low blow, aimed as much at Sylvie as it was at Jamie, and we were silent for a bit.
Some weeks before, egged on by some older guys and someone Victoria was dating, Sylvie had made out with Alexis on a Ferris wheel, and we’d had our first really big fight.
I’d told Sylvie I wouldn’t have cared if she made out with Alexis because that was what she wanted to do. It would have been hot if either of them were really into it. That Sylvie had done it to impress some dudes we’d never met before grossed me out. And I had told her so.
“I can’t be with you if you’re only looking for attention.”
The rest of the way to the burger place, Sylvie and I were silent. Autumn and her friends were already there when we arrived. Sylvie went to the bathroom. I ordered for us and sat down facing away from Autumn and her friends.
When Sylvie came back from the restroom, she looked like she’d been crying.
“Syl—”
She held up a hand to stop me.
“I need to tell you something later,” she said.
We ate, and I was glad when Autumn and her friends left so they couldn’t see how awkward Sylvie and I were together. Afterward, we walked to the park and sat on a hill, and Sylvie told me about Mr. Wilbur.
Sylvie explained how in seventh grade, this teacher was interested in helping her develop her many talents. He’d offered to personally tutor her, talking about how he would prep her to finish high school early so she could start college classes at sixteen. Sylvie’s parents had thought this was evidence of how intellectually gifted she truly was.
Wilbur had taken his time with his motives. He claimed disappointment again and again in Sylvie’s progress, asking her why she refused to work as hard for him as he worked for her. He isolated her from her friends and had her drop her other activities to focus on her studies. And then came the comments about her needing to cover up, how he was a man after all, and she was so pretty. It wasn’t until midway through the second semester of eighth grade that he’d finally told her that she’d disappointed him academically and tempted him sexually too many times. She owed him, he’d said.
Luckily, someone had walked in.
“We got caught,” Sylvie said, then frowned and corrected herself. “Someone walked in, and he got caught.”
“Yeah, they caught him,” I agreed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were rescued.” I wanted to say so much more, about how strong she was, how her intelligence wasn’t a lie he told her but a fact he exploited.
Sylvie shrugged. “A bit late anyway.”
We were sitting on this hill that overlooked the lake. It was too hot to be comfortable, but neither of us said anything about it. I was horrified to find myself frozen, unable to offer comfort or support. I simply sat there next to her and listened.
“So,” Sylvie continued, and for the first time in nearly an hour, she looked over at me. “I see this therapist once a month, and the point of me telling you all this is because you were right.”
My brow furrowed in confusion, and I blinked at her.
“About the Ferris wheel. I told Dr. Giles about our fight, and I talked with him about why I did it. It’s just—”
“Sylvie, it doesn’t matter.”
“No,” she said. “It does matter. I need you to understand this. Wilbur was awful to me, but his approval was like getting high. He had me so desperate for his validation that it was such a rush when it came. I don’t know. Dr. Giles says sometimes I miss that feeling. I”—she rolled her eyes here—“‘act out,’ but maybe he has a point.”