“I love you.” How many times have I said that? Surely it will be annoying soon?
“I love you too, Finny,” Autumn says and pokes my nose. “While we’re talking about unsaid things, you haven’t secretly been wishing that I call you Finn?”
“Nah,” I say. “Finn is how I think of myself, but that’s what I like about you calling me Finny. It’s special.”
“Even though The Mothers call you that too?”
I poke her nose, and now I’m the one repeating her words. “It’s different when you say it.”
“Finny.” Autumn kisses me again and then again hungrily. A few minutes later, she breathes in my ear, “We have time, don’t we? Can we just—”
We have just enough time, but it’s getting harder to resist making love to her again, so I decide to buy condoms tonight.
Afterward, I ask her if she wants to join me in the shower. Autumn blushes and hides her face in her hands. We’re lying on our sides, tangled together still.
“Autumn?”
She says something behind her hands.
“I can’t hear you, beloved.”
I’m surprised by the term of endearment. I’ve never used it before in my life, but it’s fallen from my mouth naturally, and I wonder if it’s going to become a habit.
“I’m too shy,” she says. “I can’t take a shower with you.”
“We’re…already naked?” We’ve been in my bed together for hours.
“But there’s water in a shower!” Autumn says, and I decide that this is one of those times when her brain is wired differently.
“Okay,” I say. “Showers are a level of intimacy we can work our way up to.”
“Might take a while,” she says into my bare chest.
I can’t hold back a small chuckle. I run my fingers down her back one last time, and she shivers in a way that almost tempts me to stay after all.
“We have forever,” I whisper into her hair, and then I wonder if forever is too much for her.
Autumn raises her face and grins at me.
“Okay,” she says. “You’re right.”
We lock our lips together deeply, then I kiss her forehead and climb out of bed. She doesn’t follow me as I gather my clothes. She stays in bed and watches me. I give her a quizzical look.
“I can’t get dressed in front of you,” she says. “That’s too awkward.”
I pause, trying to decide how to ask my first question, but then I laugh and say, “I love you, Autumn.”
And somehow, she isn’t tired of hearing it yet.
fourteen
When I come back from the shower, Autumn’s confidence in our future is gone. She’s sitting on the center of my bed, curled up tight in her rumpled clothes and finger-combed hair. She looks wild and elven—and scared.
“It’s going to be okay.” I wish her brain could accept the truth that mine has; we’ve made it back together.
“Can’t you wait until tomorrow?”
“I want it to be over.” I can’t explain how hard it is going to be to break up with Sylvie. It wouldn’t help Autumn’s confidence. But the certainty of our future together drives me, and when I get back to her, she’ll understand. I’ll show her every day, for as long as she wants me. “I want it to be just us.”
I fidget, but the fact of the matter is the time has come for me to go. I’ll be back in a few hours. It’s fine. She’s nervous because she’s the one having to wait for me, but there’s nothing to be worried about. I look at her, still sitting with her knees under her chin.
“Walk me out?” I’m trying to sound casual, but all the dread about seeing Sylvie, how I’m going to hurt her is coming back.
I have to tell Sylvie.
Autumn holds my hand and walks beside me, down the stairs and out of the house. The sky is gray with thick clouds, and the wind has picked up.
The sinking feeling inside me will be there until I get back to her, but she needs to see my resolve. I’m doing this for us, and somehow, amazingly, she still doesn’t understand the depth and breadth of my passion for her.
At my car, I say to her, “I promise you, I’ll come back as soon as I can. It may take a while though.”
“Please don’t go,” she says.
Oh, beloved.
I take her in my arms and hold her close to me.
“I have to do this,” I tell her. “You know that, Autumn.”
She’s quiet, but she leans into me.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” I say with my chin resting on her hair. “When The Mothers get home, you go to bed early, and when I get back, I’ll sneak in your back door and come to your room, and then I’ll hold you all night.” Or do more than that if she wants. When she’s ready again, I’ll be ready with condoms.
She pulls away enough to look at me. “Okay,” Autumn says, like we’re making a sacred vow. I wish we were.
I can’t help kissing her quickly, but when she moves in to kiss me again, I lose myself in wonder. Autumn wants me. Autumn loves me.
As Autumn leans back against the car, she pulls me with her, and I press into her, once more seduced into more than I had planned. I want her again, right now, caution and ethics be damned. Autumn kisses me desperately, and I am breathless with love. If I’m not back inside, skin to skin with her in another minute, I will lose my mind.
I feel her tense before my brain registers the sound of the car door slamming. She peers over the car roof behind her, and I look over her head. The Mothers are home early. Aunt Claire has a quiet smile. Mom seems to be trying to hide her face.
“Do you think they saw?” Autumn asks.
“Definitely.” We aren’t even ten yards away, but they are pretending to be completely unaware of their children, who they have not seen for two days, making out in the driveway.
“Oh God,” Autumn says.
I can tell she’s in misery over the coming tide of discrete smiles and little comments. The thing is, when we were babies, The Mothers daydreamed about us getting married so they could be grandmothers together. But really, The Mothers will be happy for me. It’s been impossible to hide how much I wanted this.
“I think my mother has a special bottle of champagne hidden away for just this occasion,” I say. I’m only partially joking. Mom has labeled some of her alcohol, like for when George W. Bush leaves office and stuff. One expensive one said, “Finny-Autumn Day or NYE 2010.” At the time, I was glad she’d made alternative plans for it.
“Oh God,” Autumn says again. She buries her head in my chest. Finny-Autumn Day has come after all.
I look down at Autumn, my beloved. I will make that name a habit. It suits her.
“I’ll be back to help you fend them off.”
“Okay,” Autumn says, and it’s time.
With space between our bodies, I lean down and kiss her before I go, because I can, because it’s not the last time.
I open the car door. The sinking feeling in my stomach is increasing with every moment, but I’m buoyed by the knowledge that I’m going to come back to Autumn and hold her and kiss her and lie beside her as she fights dragon-faerie wars in her sleep. I smile at her. She looks so somber.
“After this, things are going to be the way they were always supposed to be,” I tell her. I can’t put it off anymore. I sit down and close the door between us. “It will all be over soon,” I mumble as I start the car. I don’t let myself look at her again until she’s in my rearview mirror. I turn onto the street and drive down the hill as the rain starts.
fifteen
I only look at my phone because I know it’s Mom calling. I haven’t even turned off our block yet. Autumn must have already made her excuses and bolted.
“Technically, Mom,” I say instead of hello, “it’s raining and I’m driving, so I shouldn’t have answered.”
“My advice worked, kiddo!” Mom says. “I get one minute to gloat. And it’s barely raining.”