For most of If He Had Been With Me, Jamie Murphy seems like exactly what Autumn needs: steady, patient, handsome, and unwilling to leave even when she is difficult. He tells her he loves her. He tells her they will get married. He says he will never leave.
Then, just after graduation, he leaves. And not just that. He leaves for her best friend.
The Jamie and Sasha betrayal is one of the most gut-punching moments in the novel, and it matters not just because it hurts Autumn, but because of what it makes possible. This article gives you the full breakdown of what happened, when it started, and what it all means for Autumn and Finny’s story.
Who Are Jamie and Sasha?
Jamie Murphy is Autumn’s boyfriend for most of the novel, from early high school through graduation. He is popular, kind on the surface, and emotionally supportive in the way a person can be when they are also slightly condescending. He encourages Autumn to consider teaching rather than writing, as writing is impractical. He is the kind of boyfriend who says all the right things and makes most of the wrong assumptions.
Sasha is one of Autumn’s closest friends, part of the tight-knit group that includes Autumn, Jamie, Angie, Brooke, and their respective partners. She and Autumn have been close since Autumn left the popular group in middle school. Sasha is loyal, fun, and for most of the novel appears to be one of the few constants in Autumn’s increasingly complicated life.
They are not characters you expect to betray Autumn. That is precisely why it works as a story beat, and precisely why it stings so deeply.
What Actually Happened Between Jamie and Sasha
Just after graduation, Jamie comes to Autumn’s house to end the relationship.
He does not blame incompatibility. He does not say they have grown apart. He tells her the truth: he has fallen in love with Sasha. And then he tells her the part that makes it a betrayal rather than just a breakup. They had sex before prom.
So it was not simply that Jamie developed feelings for Sasha over time and ended the relationship before acting on them. He acted on those feelings first. He slept with Sasha, Autumn’s best friend, while he was still with Autumn, while still telling Autumn he loved her, while still talking about marriage.
The betrayal is doubled. Jamie cheated. Sasha participated. And both of them let Autumn believe she was safe in a relationship and a friendship that were, at that point, already over.
Did Autumn See It Coming?
No, and also yes.
Nowlin plants signs throughout the novel that readers can see in retrospect. Jamie’s encouragement for Autumn to give up writing is the most telling. He loves a version of Autumn, the girlfriend who will grow into a stable, conventional life, that is not really Autumn at all. He has been managing her rather than knowing her.
Some readers also pick up on a strangeness between Jamie and Sasha in earlier chapters, moments where Jamie seems slightly too familiar with her and where Sasha is slightly too careful around Autumn. But Nowlin is subtle about this. Autumn is not a suspicious narrator. She trusts the people in her life with a directness that makes her blind to their complications.
The betrayal lands as a shock, even when the re-read makes it feel inevitable.
Why the Betrayal Matters to the Larger Story
This is the crucial point that many readers miss. The Jamie and Sasha betrayal is not just a side plot. It is the narrative mechanism that makes the novel’s ending possible.
Without it, Autumn stays with Jamie through the summer. She does not spiral into depression. Finny does not begin showing up every day to pull her out of it. The summer of reconnection, the driving around at night, the shared meals, the slow rebuilding of what they had, never happens. Finny never gets to read Autumn’s novel, and they never confess their feelings.
Autumn and Finny fall back into each other specifically because Autumn has nothing left to hold her away from him. Her relationship is gone. Her best friend is gone. Her social world has fractured. She is raw and honest in a way she has never allowed herself to be, and into that openness, Finny arrives.
The betrayal clears the space that love needs.
Who Is Sasha as a Character?
Sasha is a complicated character to assess fairly.
On one hand, she betrayed her best friend. She did not tell Autumn what was happening. She let Autumn continue trusting her while knowing that trust was being violated. These are real failures, and the novel does not excuse them.
On the other hand, Nowlin does not write Sasha as a villain. She is a teenager who fell in love with someone she should not have, made the wrong choice about how to handle it, and let it play out badly. The novel does not give us access to Sasha’s inner world. We see her entirely through Autumn’s eyes, which means we do not know how much guilt she carried, whether she tried to stop herself, or what her relationship with Jamie looked like from her side.
What we know is that Sasha effectively exits Autumn’s life after the breakup. The friendship does not recover.
Is Jamie a Bad Person?
Jamie is more interesting as a character flaw than as a villain.
He is not cruel. He is not manipulative in an obvious way. But he is subtly wrong for Autumn in every important respect. He tries to redirect her creativity. He processes her depression as something to be managed rather than understood. He tells her he loves her while being capable of leaving, and of leaving the way he does.
The fact that he confesses honestly, and confesses first rather than being caught, is the most generous reading of his character. He could have let Autumn find out differently. He chose to tell her himself. Whether that is decency or simply the path of least resistance is something the novel leaves open.
How the Betrayal Shapes Autumn’s Arc
In the short term, the betrayal is catastrophic. Autumn loses her boyfriend and her best friend simultaneously. The friend group splinters. She loses her social structure just as she has lost her romantic one.
She falls into the worst depressive episode of her life, the one that eventually leads to a suicide attempt and the discovery that changes everything. For the full breakdown of how that ending unfolds and what the pregnancy means for Autumn’s future, read our ending and pregnancy explained article.
But the betrayal is also, strangely, a kind of liberation. Autumn has been holding herself together with Jamie as the anchor, the stable relationship, the conventional future, the evidence that she was okay. When that goes, she stops performing okay. She lets herself fall apart. And in falling apart, she becomes available to Finny, to the truth of what she actually wants, and to the version of herself she was suppressing to fit a relationship that was never quite right.
The breakup with Jamie is the wound that opens the door. To see how Finny steps through it, read the complete Autumn and Finny relationship timeline.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Betrayal
Did Jamie cheat on Autumn with Sasha?
Yes. Jamie confesses to Autumn just after graduation that he has fallen in love with Sasha, and that they slept together before prom, while he was still in a relationship with Autumn.
Did Sasha betray Autumn in If He Had Been With Me?
Yes. Sasha was one of Autumn’s closest friends and participated in the affair with Jamie while Autumn was still trusting both of them. She did not tell Autumn what was happening.
Why did Jamie break up with Autumn after graduation?
Jamie told Autumn he had fallen in love with her best friend Sasha. He chose to tell her honestly rather than let her find out another way, though he also admitted they had already slept together before the breakup.
Does Autumn forgive Jamie and Sasha?
The novel does not show a reconciliation or forgiveness. Both Jamie and Sasha effectively exit Autumn’s life after the breakup. The focus shifts entirely to Autumn’s grief and her reconnection with Finny. If you want to understand how that reconnection unfolds, read the complete Autumn and Finny relationship timeline.
Why is the Jamie and Sasha betrayal important to the plot?
Without the breakup, Autumn would have no reason to spiral into depression, and Finny would have no reason to begin showing up for her every day. The betrayal creates the emotional conditions that make Autumn and Finny’s final summer together possible.
