If He Had Been with Me by Laura Nowlin

Author:Laura Nowlin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2013-03-31T22:00:00+00:00

36

I am reading Wuthering Heights. It was assigned for school, and I woke up this morning and decided to read the first chapter in bed. It is late afternoon and I am still there. An hour ago, I finished the novel and fell asleep. I dreamed fitfully of Heathcliff locking me away, and when I woke, I picked the book up again and started over.

I do not think Cathy is a monster.

Jamie calls to tell me that he has a present for me. He went to a movie with Sasha this afternoon, the kind with guns and explosions that I refuse to see and Sasha is always up for. After a day spent in bed reading, I have a groggy feeling of unreality, as if I am only watching everything that is happening.

“Are you okay?” Jamie says.

“Yeah,” I say.

“You sound funny.”

“I was reading,” I say.

“Well, I’m coming over,” he says, “so try to be in one piece for me.”

After hanging up the phone, I stand in the middle of my room, unsure of what to do now. I stretch my arms above my head and my mind clears enough to think that I should get ready to see him. As I brush my hair, I think with some worry of Jamie driving in the snow, until I remember that it is a sunny autumn day; it was only snowing inside my book. It was snowing, and the narrator was seeing the remains of Cathy’s tragic mistake.

***

The sun is bright but the breeze carries the promise of a chill. Unaware that they have stayed past their season, my mother’s roses sway in this breeze and scatter a few petals among the red and gold leaves. I wonder if they can feel the cold. I wait for Jamie on the back porch steps.

I love Jamie just as much as I always have.

My love for Finny is buried like a stillborn child; it is just as cherished and just as real, but nothing will ever come of it. I imagine it wrapped up in lace, tucked away in a quiet corner of my heart. It will stay there for the rest of my life, and when I die, it will die with me.

One of the rose petals blows across the yellow leaves and stops on the toe of my boot.

I stare at that rose petal until I hear Jamie’s car stop in the driveway. I look up and see him smiling and closing the door.

“Hello, pretty girl,” he says, and I smile back. His handsome face surprises me as if I am seeing it for the first time. He sits down next to me and nudges me with his elbow.

“You awake?” he asks. I nod. This is my life, I realize. And I haven’t made any tragic mistakes yet. I’ve made a choice, yes, but no one suffers for it but me, and in the end, all will be well.

“How was the movie?” I ask.

“Awesome. And then we went to lunch and I got you this.

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