if only we had made it

Autumn

I was a terrible person. 

I had never once actually considered calling myself that but as I sit here waiting for Finny to finish with his checkup I can't help but realize that I am.

I am not a bad person because of something I've done or said, but something that I'm thinking and feeling.

I was a bad person because I had been thinking before Finny had left that if anything were to happen, let it happen to Sylvie in place of Finny. 

Im a bad person because as I sit here I'm relieved that what I was thinking and praying for has been granted. 

I was a bad person, but I wasn't the worst.

I suppose In the eyes of the people that had loved Sylvie I was the worst but in the eyes of the people who loved Finny, I wasn't.

I loved Finny.

So I wasn't the worst.

I wasn't the worst because I do feel bad for praying for such a thing. 

Maybe I don't though.

Maybe I feel bad because what I had prayed and hoped for had come true and not the actual act of praying for it. 

How can you feel guilty for praying for something when it hasn't come true? 

This had come true though and I had felt beyond guilty for it. 

I don't regret it though. 

How can I?

Finny was coming home to me. 

Finny was alive and breathing the same air as me. Finny wasn't stuck in one place and he wasn't cold and lifeless. 

My mother rubs circles on my back with one hand while the other does the same to Aunt Angelina. We know nothing too bad happened to Finny, were mainly upset because of the possibility of what could have happened. 

Aunt Angelina is only imagining it.

 I lived it. 

I wouldn't again. 

Dream Autumn had made it through and by some fault made do with her outcome of life. Real Autumn would not. Real Autumn would have made sure that there wasn't enough of a story to tell after she walked into Finneys closed bedroom and put that note on his door. 

There would no longer be a real-world Autumn because real-world Autumn doesn't exist without real-world Finny. 

Our souls are the same, his and I's. 

We have been here for an hour and the only thing we have been told is that Finny needed an MRI to see if he has a concussion or anything worse. Finny and Sylie both needed one, although Finny would be conscious during his, unlike Sylvie. 

I had my head down, my knee was bouncing so fast that if I were in the car right now the entire thing would shake. 

Sylvie's little group of loved ones sat across us. They were just as worried as we were but unlike us, they had something fierce to worry about. Sylvie had not only gone through the windshield and been cut up pretty badly from that but had broken her arm and had a partial fracture on her leg. She'd also lost a lot of blood from her head. When Sylvie had flown out of the car the impact against the windshield had already caused a fracture but once she landed on the pavement it only did more damage. The doctors say that if she had been wearing her seat belt she would be in the same state as Finny right now.

Again was Sylvie to blame? 

In this case, yes.

Sylvie was old enough to know that seat belts are meant to be worn. it's one of the first things you learn as a child. It's drilled into your head by our parents and family members as a method to keep you safe.