If Only I Had Told Her

by Laura Nowlin

Genres: YA Social Themes; YA Coming of Age; YA Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

An intensely emotional and gripping companion novel to Laura Nowlin's USA Today and New York Times Bestselling novel If He Had Been With Me about the love that both breaks and heals us. Perfect for fans of Colleen Hoover and Jenny Han.

If only I'd told her that I loved her years ago, then I wouldn't be here now.

Finn has always loved Autumn. She's not just the girl next door or his mother's best friend's daughter, she is his everything. But she's not his girlfriend. That's Sylvie, and Finn would never hurt her, so there's no way Autumn could know how he truly feels. 

Jack, Finn's best friend, isn't so sure. He's seen Finn and Autumn together. How could she not know? And how is he supposed to support and protect Finn when heartache seems inevitable?

Autumn surrounds herself with books and wants to write her own destiny—but one doesn't always get a new chapter and fate can be cruel to those in love. 

Told through three different perspectives, If Only I Had Told Her is a love story brimming with truth, tragedy, and the unexpected bonds that heal us.

 

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Release date: February 6, 2024

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Print pages: 290

Content advisory: This novel includes depictions of death, depression, suicide, and pregnancy.

Sample

FINN

one

Autumn is a terror to sleep beside. She talks, kicks, steals the covers, uses you as a pillow. The stories I could tell if I had anyone to tell them to. Autumn is uncharacteristically embarrassed about her nocturnal chaos though, and it’s one of her eccentricities for which she will not tolerate a bit of teasing. Our mothers—“The Mothers” as Autumn started calling them when we were young—have their own tales of Autumn’s nighttime calamities, and the look that she gives them has been enough to stop me from sharing my childhood memories of her violent, restless sleepovers.

This summer, I discovered just how much she hasn’t changed. The other day, she fell asleep watching me play video games. I had finally, finally, made a specific timed jump when she flung her arm onto my lap, causing my guy to fall to his death. I gently lifted her hand off me and scooted over a few inches, but not too far. I didn’t tell her about it when she woke up; she would say something about going back home when she starts to feel tired, and I’d rather give away all my games than lose a minute of whatever has been happening between us since Jamie broke up with her.

I made sure to insert myself between Autumn and Jack last night for this very reason. It was clear that we were crashing at my house, and I felt it was my duty to be the one to take the blows.

I have to admit: I’d hoped for something like this.

It was her fingers twitching against my ribs that first woke me.

Aunt Claire is right. Autumn snores now. She didn’t when we were children. I’d believed Autumn when, again and again, she insisted that her mother was only joking.

But here we are, in this blanket tent I made for her, her head under the crook of my arm. She’s on her side, curled in a tight ball, snoring, though not loudly. Her breath comes in hot, short puffs.

After Jack fell asleep last night, she and I stayed up talking for a while. Autumn was drifting, but I hadn’t wanted to give her up yet, so I kept her talking until she said, “Hush, Finny. I need to focus on sweeping.”

I turned my face and, in the darkness, saw her closed eyes, her gentle breathing.

“You’re sleeping?”

She frowned.

“No. Can’t you see me with the broom? It’s so messy in here.”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Oh, you know…in the room…in between…”

“Between what?”

“Huh?”

“The room in between what, Autumn?”

“Pretend and reality. Help me. It’s so messy.”

“Why is it messy?” I asked, but she didn’t answer me.

I went to sleep much like I am now, on my back, staring at the quilt above us. I remember stretching my arm above my head, vaguely aware of the way she was twitching and mumbling a few inches away from me, presumably cleaning the space between this world and the next. We weren’t touching, but it felt like the atoms between us were warm with my love for her.

Later on in the night, I woke up when she smacked my face. I pushed her hand away and

turned my head toward her. She was close but not touching me, the covers bunched in her other fist, the hand that clocked me resting between us. I made myself look away and close my eyes, go back to sleep.

But now…

This is heaven: her forehead pressed into me, her head under my arm, and my hand on her shoulder. We found each other by instinct. Even if I was half-asleep, I would never have done this knowingly. I wouldn’t know if she was okay with it. I don’t know it now either, but I am unable to move.

My penis, based on very minimal evidence, has decided that today is going to be the greatest day of both our lives. I understand its enthusiasm, but it’s (sadly) vastly overestimating the situation.

If I move, Autumn will wake up.

If Autumn wakes up, she’ll see my body’s assumption.

This is what I get for putting myself in this position. Again.

Not that I’ve been in this exact position with Autumn. But like I said, the tales I could tell.

The toilet flushes. I hadn’t wondered where my other best friend had gone off to.

I am not going to be able to keep up the brave face with Jack. I don’t think he’ll let me this time. He’s always known that I was still in love with Autumn after all these years, in spite of my being mostly happy with Sylvie. He let it slide all through high school, but he’s not going to let me 

pretend anymore.

A couple of weeks ago, after we went to see that silly horror movie that made Autumn scream three times, both of them—Jack and Autumn—said they had fun. They said they could understand why I liked my other friend so much, and sure, maybe we could do it again.

Autumn had meant it. I could tell.

It wasn’t that Jack didn’t mean it. There was just a lot he wasn’t saying.

I don’t know if last night helped. I want Jack to see that Autumn isn’t a poseur who thinks she’s a princess like Alexis or Taylor make her sound.

It’s more like Autumn is a real princess but from an alien planet. She is the most confident and insecure person I’ve ever known.

Except for Sylvie, of course.

Remembering Sylvie robs my penis of the delusion that a miracle is about to occur and adds to my already bloated guilt.

Jack retches and spits. The toilet flushes again, then the sink runs. I hear Jack get a glass of water in the kitchen.

I try to remember what Sylvie said about her flight itinerary. She must be in the air now

Over the English Channel? I can’t say. I picture her in her seat, on the aisle, like she told me she prefers. Her Discman rests on her tray table, and her golden hair falls back as she tilts her head to listen.

I hope this trip was everything she needed, helped the way her therapist thought it would.

At first, I was doubtful. Sylvie in Europe on her own with no one to rein her in? Sure, she’d been to Europe before, is fluent in French, and has a cell phone. But I still couldn’t believe that her therapist insisted she get away by herself without a single friend or parent on the postgraduation trip he’d prescribed.

I see now that Dr. Giles had been onto something. Sylvie knows how to take care of herself when she’s not trying to impress other people. Sylvie gets drunk to impress people. If no one had dared her first, Sylvie would have never pulled her legendary inebriated stunts.

On her own, with her backpack and her maps, hostel listings and train schedules, Sylvie trekked across that continent. She got herself in a situation in Amsterdam when she didn’t realize some guys were trying to get with her, but she got herself safe, and it was all over by the time she called me.

I hope Sylvie sees how capable she is, how smart and resilient. I hope she can feel good about herself for her own reasons, not for how other people think of her. Sylvie could be anything she wants if she just stops caring what the wrong people think about her.

I’m one of those people, and I hope I’m not going to ruin whatever progress this summer gave her. 

***

Jack enters the room. I close my eyes. Though my penis remains somewhat optimistic, the blankets provide cover. I should move, wake Autumn, pretend my arm was never around her, but I can’t bear to yet.

I hear the flap of the blanket tent flutter. Jack sighs. He says the same thing he told me the night I trusted Sylvie to sober drive for us and I had to drunkenly call him for a ride.

“We both should have expected this, you know,” Jack mumbles.

He drops the blanket and it sounds like he goes to the couch, but I’m paying less attention to him now.

Autumn won’t be asleep for much longer. She twitches occasionally, moving her face in reaction to things I cannot see. She makes a soft noise, the sort of noise I wish I could be responsible for while she is awake and consenting. And with that thought, I lift my arm and shift away from her. She frowns at the loss of heat, and I pause, waiting for her to stir. She whimpers and curls into a tighter ball.

I allow myself the brief luxury of gazing at her face.

It is cosmically unfair how beautiful Autumn is. It puts me at such a disadvantage. Her brilliant, goofy brain was already enough. Why must she have a perfect face too?

I never stood a chance.

Even before she grew breasts.

I need to stop this train of thought.

Might as well get this over with then.

 

***

Jack is typing on his phone at the end of the couch. He doesn’t speak until I sit down.

“Finn, man—”

“I know,” I say.

He flips his phone closed.

“No. You’re in way over your head. You have no idea.”

“I have an idea.”

He stares at me.

“I know what I’m doing,” I try.

“What are you doing? And what about her?” Jack nods toward the tent. Even though we’re talking low, he starts to whisper. “She would have to be the stupidest person on earth to not know you’re bonkers in love with her.”

“She’s not stupid. She just doesn’t know how much I”—I can’t bear to say the word—“care about her. She thinks it’s an old crush.”

I get that stare from him again, but I don’t know what he wants me to say. Autumn doesn’t flirt with me. She doesn’t make suggestive jokes or give me any false reason to hope. Not when she’s awake.

I’m the problem. My heart gets confused when she looks at me with affection that’s only natural given our history.

“Finn,” Jack says, “look at it this way. I’m not like you. I wasn’t raised in a house where people talked about feelings and stuff. This is hard for me, and I’m doing it anyway. Again.”

Again.

It’s true.

“You’re a good friend,” I say. “And thanks. But she needs me. She’s in a weird place with her other friends.”

“She was laughing with you all night,” Jack says, like he’s trying to nail each word into my head.

“She was drunk, and besides, she’s—” I realize what I’m about to say, but it’s out of my mouth before I can hold it back. “—like Sylvie. She’s disturbingly good at hiding how much pain she’s in.”

Jack groans and rubs his face. He says something I don’t quite hear, but it ends with the word “type.” Autumn makes a noise in the tent, and we both hold our breaths and listen.

Silence.

“Since you brought up Sylvie,” he whispers. “Yeah, I complain about her, but she’s my friend too, and I—”

“I know. I’m going to—”

Autumn makes a noise.

“She’s about to wake,

” I tell him.

Jack sighs. He’s right about me when it comes to Autumn, and he knows that I know that he’s right.

Jack and I can both see what happens next. Autumn and I will go off to Springfield. We’ll make friends, probably mutual this time, but eventually, Autumn is going to meet someone she likes, someone who has whatever made her want to be with Jamie. And I am going to be more than devastated. I will be obliterated. Jack and I are close enough that it kinda makes this his problem too. But I can’t give up what I have with Autumn, and when she does meet that guy, I’m going to make sure he’s supporting her, not treating her like a troublesome but valuable acquisition. Or a sidekick. Or a punch line.

“Fin-nah,” Jack sings. He snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Hello!”

“Sorry, I—”

“Zoned out the way she does? You have been so, so… Like last week!” Jack asks, “How could you have missed that game?”

“Autumn and I were at the mall.”

“You never miss it when the Strikers are on TV,” Jack says.

And it’s true; I was annoyed with myself when I remembered that the game was on. St. Louis barely has a league, and I’m on a mission to support it. But Autumn was talking about how the mall was like a neglected garden with some patches dying more quickly than others. According to Autumn, the area around the movie theater is a sunny spot with good rainfall. We walked around and decided that kiosks were weeds, and the department stores were neglected topiaries.

My shrug has not satisfied Jack. He waits for me to explain myself.

“I’m going to break up with Sylvie when she gets home tomorrow.”

“I figured,” Jack says. Simple words, but his tone has the recrimination I deserve. “Then what?”

“Oh God!” Autumn moans as she dashes out of her cave.

“Autumn,” I say involuntarily as she heads to the half bath near the kitchen, the one recently vacated by Jack. I warned her she would be miserable if she had that fourth drink. It was her choice, but I still feel responsible. Plus, Jack made it, so unlike the previous three that I’d made her, it probably contained more alcohol. I am about to comment on Jack’s bartending skills when I see the look on his face and remember that I do not have the high ground. “I’m going to check on her,” I say.

“I figured,” Jack says again. “Then what?”

“Then we’ll hang out?” I try to make it sound flippant, as if I think he’s only asking about today, but I don’t fool either of us. We both know I’m avoiding the real question: How am I going to live the rest of my life in love with Autumn Davis with no hope of reciprocation?

 

two

“Go away,” Autumn says when I knock. She sounds like she’s dying.

“You okay?” I know what she’s going to say.

“Yes. Go away.”

Autumn hates being vulnerable. She inherited that from her mother, despite all her complaining about Aunt Claire’s veneer of suburban perfection.

“Okay.” I have the urge to wait outside the door, even though I know she wants privacy. I turn and ignore the sounds on the other side of the door. When I was lusting after her a few minutes ago, what I should have been doing was worrying about her hangover.

Sometimes it feels like Autumn brings out the worst in me. She makes me feel like the kind of guys I hate, the jocks who say things in the locker room that stun me. I tried, especially after I was an upperclassman, to intervene in those conversations, but often I was so floored by what I’d heard that I missed my chance to interrupt. A few times over the years though, when something was said specifically, vulgarly, about Autumn, my mouth spoke before the rest of me knew what was happening.

I was able to speak up those times, berate them for their disgusting observations, because I agreed with them. I wanted what they wanted or had seen the sight they recalled. Their words were a grotesque reflection of my own feelings.

Then, after the very last track meet of senior year, a freshman came up to me and said, “You’ve let Rick say worse stuff about other girls,” laying bare my hypocrisy.

I sneered at that poor kid. “Then I should have had higher standards before today. I’ll be gone soon. You can take over as chivalrous knight next year.” I slung my bag over my shoulder and stomped off. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he’s probably going to remember Finn the asshole for a while.

In high school, Autumn only had eyes for Jamie. She didn’t want those jock jerks thinking about her, and she doesn’t want me thinking about her like that, then or now. She made that clear years ago. I get why she needed to make it clear. It’s for the best that she did. But someday if we talk about it, I will tell her that she could have at least told me that she didn’t feel the same way. She didn’t have to leave me the way that she did.

That’s probably what my mother meant yesterday. Aunt Claire is celebrating her divorce from Autumn’s dad, Tom, with a wine-themed weekend. She and Mom left Autumn and I cash and surprisingly few instructions for while they were away. When Mom hugged me goodbye yesterday, she whispered, “For fuck’s sake, kiddo. Talk to her.”

It’s been hanging between Autumn and I, this mutually incomplete knowledge. She knows I wish she felt differently about me. She needs to know it’s much worse than she thinks. My love for her is the closest thing I have to religion. But it’s okay that she doesn’t feel the same. I’m fine. I can handle it. We can be friends, like when we were kids. I was in love with her back then, except this time I’m not going to wig out and try to prove anything to her. I learned my lesson when I tried to kiss her and she didn’t kiss me back. But my mother is wrong about the timing. This is not the weekend for that conversation. I need to get through today and breaking up with Sylvie tomorrow. After that, maybe I’ll talk to Autumn. Or maybe it should wait until Christmas. I don’t know.

***

 

Once again, I have forgotten about my other best friend. I came to the kitchen to make toast out of habit, though Autumn has never been hungover at my house before.

Jack appears in the doorway. He watches me.

“Are you going to put cinnamon and sugar on it too?”

“That’s not how Autumn likes her toast, loser.” There I go again, lashing out instead of dealing with my fucking feelings like a man. I try to sound more like myself. “Do you want some too?”

“Sure.” He sits and yawns. Jack has decided to let me off the hook for today. “Did she like Goodfellas?”

I laugh.

“We’d barely started it when you fell asleep. And you talked about it enough last night that she basically didn’t need to see it.”

“There is no way that can be true,” Jack says. “That film is like a carefully constructed house of cards…”

He continues, but I’m not listening. The bathroom door has opened.

She’s back.

Behind me, I can hear her cross the kitchen and sit at the table.

“Feeling better?” Jack asks.

“More or less,” Autumn says. Her eyes are closed when I turn around, and she’s curled up in the chair, chin on her knee.

I pass Jack the first plate of toast and turn back to make more.

“So if you go back to the original source material, Wiseguy,” Jack begins. He talks about this movie all the time. I don’t have to listen to know what he’s saying. I can agree or say the right thing while focusing on her.

I butter Autumn’s toast the way she likes it, and she gives me a weak, grateful smile that melts me. I’m not sure what’s keeping me upright.

Jack is only trying to save me from myself with this Scorsese monologue, and I’m being a terrible friend.

Her breathing is focused and slow. She chews, swallows, and takes a deep breath. Chew. Swallow. Breath. It’s working. She’s relaxing. Her eyes are still closed; she still leans her cheek on her bent knee.

Jack says, “I think you’d dig the narrative style, like, as a writer.”

Autumn opens her eyes and blinks at him. I’m certain she has not been listening to the film history lesson either.

“Why don’t we restart the movie? We can all watch it.” Jack gives me a look to remind me that our other conversation isn’t over.

Autumn shrugs and finishes her toast.

***

I don’t pay attention to the movie. We all sit on the couch in a row, the tent abandoned. They’re watching the movie. I’m just here, near her. It seems like the toast did the trick for the nausea she had when she woke.

When had she woken? What had Jack and I been saying?

When I warned Jack that she was about to wake up, we’d been talking about—

Sylvie or soccer. That’s what she could have overheard.

I already told Autumn that I’m breaking up with Sylvie. I don’t think I said anything that could have revealed the real reason. It’s one thing to be in a relationship with Sylvie while in love with the girl next door; it’s a step too far if she’s going back to being my best friend too.

“She’s just not who I want to be with,” I finally said when Autumn asked me why. It was the truth, even if it omitted so much. She nodded like she understood, and it felt like we both said more than we were, but I’m a fool like that. ...