“You thought that I—How could I have—Finny, no,” she says.
We’re staring at each other in amazement.
“I wish I could go back in time,” she says.
“Why don’t you just go back to telling me I’m hot?”
Autumn laughs. She tells me about both loving and hating going with The Mothers to my soccer games. She says my muscled legs in my running shorts drove her to distraction, and it blows my mind that she’d lusted after certain parts of me from a distance the same way I had after her.
As if picking the thoughts from my own head, she tells me she was always secretly aware of any movement my body made when I was near—at the bus stop, on the couch as we watched television, at the holiday dinner table—just as I memorized every detail about her.
I stroke Autumn’s hair and her arm as she talks, and I watch her face as her eyes close in pleasure, then open to look at me as she speaks.
“I want another story,” she says.
I try to remember my most intense memory of longing for her. I move my strokes down her back and she sighs. I’m getting this right. I’m learning the rest.
“Last Halloween,” I finally say. “I was watching you the whole night. I couldn’t stop myself. You were—” I sort through all the vocab words I’d used her to help me remember. “You were splendiferous that night, Autumn. Like, if I’d had one of those new phones that take pictures? It would have crossed my mind to try and take one. Not that I would have!” She’s smiling at me as I confess how horrible I am; I guess I should be glad she thought Wuthering Heights was romantic.
“I wasn’t even wearing a sexy costume.” Autumn giggles.
“You were radiant,” I tell her.
I was particularly moonstruck that night. Her pale skin and the dark shine of her hair have always had the power to hypnotize me. That Halloween, she was particularly bewitching, her laugh dazzling and her every movement like an alien ballet.
“I couldn’t keep my eyes off you,” I confess. “Before you ran into me, I looked away so you wouldn’t see me staring, but I misjudged your speed and we—”
We both laugh at the memory.
I can see her reaching back in her mind. “You were worried Jamie and I would have sex that night.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because, if I had been in Jamie’s position—”
She bites her lip as a smile creeps up. “I guess we know now what would have happened,” she says.
“Well, I can’t imagine how we could have possibly reached that point.”
Autumn’s gaze shifts like she’s watching a movie I can’t see.
“Say that when we collided,” Autumn muses, “my drink spilled on me instead, and I said, ‘Come up with me and stand guard while I change my shirt.’ I’d have wanted to have a moment with you, and I bet you’d have done as I said.”
“Sure,” I say, encouraging her to continue.
“And then upstairs, you’d have finished your drink while I changed shirts.”
“Maybe?”
“Yes,” Autumn tells me. “Because you would have been nervous, right? You said the Halloween magic had you enthralled, and you weren’t driving for once.” She doesn’t wait for me to agree with her. She knows she’s correct. “You would have downed that drink while staring at my door, trying not to think about me taking off my shirt on the other side. And when I came back out, I would have smiled at you, a little drunk too, and gazed up at you for a little too long…”
Suddenly, I can see it exactly as she describes, as if it had happened that way. Autumn’s lips curling up as I look down at her face in the shadowy hallway, the thumping hum of the party beneath us somehow making it more intimate, secret. I feel the tempting circumstances she’s painted us into, and in this version of events, neither of us would be able to resist each other.
“If you’d kissed me, Finny, I would have been astonished, but I would have pulled you right back into my room and—well, like I said before…” She smiles.
“I don’t think we would have gone all the way,” I say as I return her grin. “I’m not reckless. You know that. And besides, would you have been ready?”
“It was never about not being ready with Jamie,” she says. “It didn’t feel right with him, but I didn’t know that until I kissed you. If we had made out that Halloween, you’re probably right. We wouldn’t have done it.” Autumn giggles. “But we’d get in some state of undress before we came to our senses and realized that we’d be missed or caught.”
“And what about that?” I say. “The party is still going on, we’re in your bed, and…”
She grins, but I want to hear this story!
“Okay then. Hold on.” Autumn’s eyes get that distant look, and she mumbles, “We recognize we have to stop before we get caught, and as we detangle our limbs, we make a few whispery, alcohol-fueled confessions. There isn’t time for much. Neither of us would be brave enough to say the L word, I think. We’d fix our clothes and hair, but we’d know we couldn’t be seen going back downstairs together.”
I’m fascinated. This is what she’s thinking in her head when she gets that look?
“We’d agree that I should go first,” Autumn decides. “Since it’s my house, I’d be missed first. I’d sneak back to Jamie and pretend to be more drunk than I was, and you would wait and sneak back to the party a few minutes later.” She looks at me again in this reality. “Do you think we’d get back in our places in time? That our excuses would be believed?”
I’m pleased that she wants my opinion. I think about our classmates, the layout of her house, and my memories of that night.
“Someone would have seen something,” I decide. “But nothing big enough for anyone to say anything about it until the next day.”
Autumn nods and continues, “We’d have to pretend to act normal and try to avoid each other for the rest of the party. We’d probably both drink more to disguise our emotions, both try and fail not to watch the other across the crowd.” Autumn is back in the story she’s writing to please me. “Before the night was over, I’d be wondering if our encounter had really meant anything to you or if you’d just been drunk.” She looks at me for confirmation.
“Yeah. Same,” I say.
“In the morning, I’d pretend to be sick…nah, I’d probably be sick in the morning and use the excuse to get my friends who stayed the night out ASAP. Where would you have been?”
This question is easy. “At home. Alone. I would have called you the moment I saw Jamie’s car leave.”
Autumn smiles, pleased either by my contribution to the narrative or by my obsessive nature, I’m not sure which.
“Okay,” Autumn says. “Over the phone, through the pain of our blinding headaches, we’d stammer confirmations of last night’s heartfelt whispers, offer more detailed explanations of our true desires. One of us ends up over at the other’s house and…” She motions with her hand to our current situation, and we smile. “I mean, that’s about it.”
“But remember, someone saw something the night before,” I prompt.
Autumn yawns.
“Well, of course we’d each have to break up to be together. The story of whatever suspicious thing was seen at the party would get spread and exaggerated. There’s no avoiding that chapter. We’d be the center of a scandal, ostracized for being cheaters. Or I don’t know… Everyone likes you, so maybe it wouldn’t have been that rough for you?”
As glad as I am that Autumn would have broken up with Jamie for me and faced whatever consequences came next, I’m still distracted that she continues to deftly avoid saying Sylvie’s name while we’ve both casually referenced Jamie. This is why I must break up with Sylvie today. Can’t she see that?
“I wish all that had happened,” I tell her. “I wish we’d had that time together and today was another regular day for us.”
Autumn’s gaze finds mine again, and she repeats my words to her. “Everything is going to be okay. We’re together now, right?”