If He Had Been with Me

Autumn has an uncomfortable lunch with her dad. When she gets home, she wants to call Finny, but doesn’t. She waits for him to call.

Autumn breaks and calls Finny on the sixth day. He doesn’t answer, but calls her back, telling her he will break up with Sylvie when she returns from Europe. He invites her to watch a movie with him, then they go for pizza.

Autumn and Finny share memories. Finny tells Autumn that all the boys had a crush on her in middle school, but she doesn’t believe him. Finny asks why Autumn stopped hanging out with Alexis and her friends. Autumn says it was because they kicked her out of their clique for not trying out for cheerleading. Finny says that Alexis told him Autumn was the one who called cheerleading a stereotype and Autumn stopped taking their phone calls. Finny points out that memory is not objective.

After getting pulled over for driving a sports car in the middle of the night, Finny offers to teach Autumn to drive. She’s nervous but does well under his tutelage.

Autumn and Finny are watching a movie when Sylvie calls. It’s the first time she has called while Finny was with Autumn in a while, and she says how surprised she is Sylvie would call. Finny explains he cannot break up with her over the phone. He then questions her about her lingering feelings for Jamie, and Autumn realizes she no longer has strong feelings for Jamie. However, she is well aware that Sylvie will be back soon.

Autumn’s parents’ divorce is finalized. Autumn’s mother and Angelina go to a winery for the weekend, leaving Autumn and Finny alone. Autumn spends a few hours alone at home to write, and Finny texts her to let her know Jack is on his way. The three of them build a fort in the living room and spend the night drinking. When Autumn wakes the next morning, Jack and Finny are arguing over a sports game. Autumn rushes out of the room to be sick. They finish a movie, then Autumn goes home and spends a while in the shower as she struggles to feel better. She spends the rest of the day finishing her novel. When Finny comes over, she allows him to read it.

Autumn’s novel is about Izzy and Aden, two friends who had a one-night stand that resulted in a pregnancy and miscarriage. They stay together, sure they are meant to be, but when Izzy gets a scholarship far from Aden, they decide to break up instead of having a long-distance relationship. However, when it comes time to separate, they can’t do it.

Autumn falls asleep in Finny’s bed while he reads her book. He wakes her in the night and asks why she left him when they were thirteen. She claims they grew apart, but he calls her out on how she reacted to his kiss. She tells him she wasn’t ready. He apologizes, but she refuses to accept his apology. She tells him he makes her happy and he asks to kiss her. She quickly agrees. As they kiss, she asks him to continue. He argues for a brief moment but agrees. Finny tells Autumn he loves her, then they become intimate. Afterward, Finny holds her and admits to having been in love with her since he was 11.

Autumn tells Finny she believed he kissed her in eighth grade because he was practicing. Finny explains he loved her and he only wanted to be close to her. She asks about Sylvie and he admits he loves her, but in a different way. Finny promises that he will break up with Sylvie when she returns home the following day.

Sylvie calls in the morning, then texts. Finny tells Autumn that he told her he wouldn’t meet her plane but would see her after she has dinner with her parents. He explains that Sylvie was hurt once, and that she has a difficult time with intimacy. He says Sylvie can only have sex when she’s drunk, which is why Finny was always warning Autumn not to have sex while drunk. He admits he was with her because he believed Autumn loved Jamie, though he did genuinely love her. Autumn worries that he might change his mind about breaking up with Sylvie when he sees her, but he denies it. He insists he loves Autumn.

It’s time for Finny to leave. Autumn walks him out. Finny tells her to go home and go to bed early, and that he will sneak into her bedroom so that he can hold her all night. As they hug, the mothers return home. They joke about how happy the mothers will be to see them together. It begins to rain as he drives off.

Late in the night, Autumn hears footsteps. It’s not Finny. It’s her mother.

Finny and Sylvie were arguing as they drove through the rain. The car spun out and Sylvie went through the windshield. Finny was unharmed, but he got out of the car to check on Sylvie and put his hand into a water puddle that was electrified by a downed power line. He died almost instantaneously.

It is the week of their shared birthdays in September. Autumn has stopped taking her antidepressants and has decided to die by suicide. She takes a knife and sneaks into Finny’s bedroom, leaving a note on the door asking Angelina and her mother not to come inside.

Autumn wakes in the hospital and is immediately disappointed to still be alive. The nurse asks her questions, including when her last menstrual period was. Autumn can’t remember.

Autumn believes Finny wouldn’t want her to die if she’s pregnant. She imagines what life would be like with Finny’s child and knows Finny would have been happy to be a father.

Autumn waits for the results of a pregnancy test, believing things will “turn out the way they were always meant to be” (329).