If He Had Been with Me

If he had been with me, everything would have been different.

And that’s what everyone used to call him. The Mothers sometimes call him Phineas, though, and I only call him that when I’m mad at him.”

“They didn’t,” he says. “It was my idea.”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Not while you’re drunk,”

and Finny’s lips were on mine.

“Don’t have sex with Jamie while you’re drunk,”

Kevin, this is my apparently abused goddaughter.”

“Fuck you, Sylvie,” I say.

but she is still terrified of him killing himself on the road some night