Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

“You can’t replicate a first kiss,” Clare tells him, glancing back over her shoulder to where everything had started that night, the night of the bonfire. It wasn’t any sort of special occasion, just a small party, a spontaneous gathering of friends and acquaintances, with a blazing fire at the center of it all that threw off sparks in the night and made everything hazy and indistinct.

Clare had lost Stella only moments after arriving, so she’d wandered over to the cooler on her own, but once she got there, she hesitated. It was a bitter autumn night, teetering on the edge of winter, and the heat from the fire wasn’t enough to warm her all the way through. She was still standing there, trying to decide whether or not she actually wanted a cold drink, when Aidan stepped up and plunged a bare hand into all the ice, fishing around for a can and then handing it to her with a gallant smile.

“Thanks,” she’d said, holding the can between her blue mittens. “Though if you’re gonna play bartender, you really need some gloves.”

He glanced down at his hand, which was raw and red and still dripping, and then, without thinking, without even realizing what she was doing until it was done, Clare had reached out and cupped his hand between her own.

Their eyes met for a startled moment, and then he smiled.

“Much better,” he said. “Thanks.”

After that, they’d started talking—about what? She can’t even remember now—and soon they were walking down toward the water together, daring each other to stick a toe in, though it was much too cold.

“Isn’t it kind of cool that there’s all this sand, but each grain is totally different?”

Aidan gave her a funny look. “Guess I must not have been paying attention that day.”

“What day?”

“In Earth Science,” he said. “I have a habit of daydreaming.”

“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I actually read that somewhere else.” She stopped walking and lifted a finger, pointing up at the sky. “I also read that there are even more stars than there are grains of sand in the whole world. Isn’t that crazy?”

He was looking down at her with a mystified expression, and Clare bit her lip, feeling a little self-conscious. She’d spent enough time watching Aidan over the last few weeks to know that a guy like him probably wouldn’t go for a girl who read science magazines in her spare time, and the wheels in her head spun frantically in an effort to find some other topic of conversation, something he’d be more interested in.

But then he bent down and scooped up a handful of sand, sifting through it with his thumb. She could see his lips moving, see that he was murmuring under his breath as he stared at the grains in his palm. After a little while, he looked up again.

“That is pretty crazy,” he said, and she felt a wave of relief.

“Right?”

He cupped his hand, then tipped it to one side, letting the sand pour back out onto the beach. “There’s got to be, like, thousands just right there. And that’s only one handful. From one beach. In one town. In one state. In one country. That means there must be about a zillion stars.” He tilted his head back to take in the speckled sky with wide eyes, then laughed. “I mean… wow.”

“Yeah,” Clare said, unable to keep from smiling as she watched him. “Wow.”

Eventually, they clambered up onto the rocks, continuing to talk until it was late—too late—and the fire behind them had died out, and everyone else had drifted back to their cars. Being there with him, it felt like no time at all had passed, but at some point, Clare heard her name shouted from a distance, the words made thin by the chilly breeze. She half turned in that direction, but just as she was about to get up, just before she could leave, Aidan leaned over and kissed her, and the surprise of it was enough to warm her straight down through her toes.

Even hours later—after he walked her back to the car and she finally let go of his hand, after she told Stella on the ride home what had happened, after she crawled into bed and lay there staring at the ceiling, reliving the whole night again—she felt all lit up inside. Some unseen part of her, which had only ever been lukewarm, was suddenly blazing.

She smiles at him now, still half-caught in the memory.