Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

“It’s not that,” she tells him, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. “It’s just… we’re so young. It’s not that crazy to think we might not end up with the person we dated in high school.”


Aidan gives her a sour look. “We’re not your parents,” he says, picking up a small stone and tossing it out over the water, where it disappears into the gray chop of the waves. “This isn’t the same thing.”

Clare’s mom and dad had both been married before, each to their high school sweetheart. It wasn’t until after those other marriages had fizzled, after they’d both gotten divorced, that they were lucky enough to find each other.

To Clare, it seems like there must be a lesson in there somewhere.

“You don’t know that,” she says with a frown.

“I do, actually,” Aidan says, chucking another rock out into the lake, more forcefully this time. “Because they’re just one example. There are a million other couples who met in high school who are probably still ridiculously happy. You just refuse to see that, because you’ve already made up your mind.”

Clare gives him a wounded look. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Aidan says without meeting her eyes. “It’s like that time we carried that table down to the basement for your parents. We both had it, and it was going fine. And then you dropped your side of it, and the whole thing turned into this huge mess, with the drywall and the broken leaf and my shoulder—”

“I get it,” Clare says, stopping him short. “You think I’m giving up on this. But I’m not. I’m just trying to save us the trouble.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to be saved,” he says, finally looking at her. “Maybe I believe in this enough for both of us.”

“You can’t wish this into working,” she says, feeling miserable even as she does. She can see the anger draining out of Aidan, his eyes going distant, and she wants to take it all back, to say something reassuring, to give him some thread of hope. But it’s too late for that. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Instead, she reaches for his hand, but he pulls it away, and she sighs. “I’m sorry, but believing isn’t enough.”

Aidan stares out over the water, his forehead crinkled. “How do you know unless you’ve tried?”

“I just know,” Clare says quietly. “I just have this feeling.”

“Well,” Aidan says, “so do I.”

She waits for him to say more, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lets out a long breath, running a hand over the top of his head, where his hair used to stick up in a way that Clare always found oddly charming, and her heart seizes at even this smallest of changes: his new college haircut. It’s hard not to think about how many more are still to come.

“I think I liked it better when we were avoiding talking about all this,” he says eventually, and Clare nods.

“Me too,” she admits. “But we have to figure it out. The clock is ticking.”

“You make it sound like a bomb,” he says. “You make us sound like a bomb.”

“Maybe we are.”

There’s nothing either of them can say to that; they don’t even bother to try. Instead, they look out toward the horizon, the last streaks of pink and the first few visible stars and the drowning robot, forever destined to flail hopelessly in the darkening water. Clare pulls her knees up to her chest, shivering a little, though she doesn’t feel cold.

After a moment, Aidan leans forward and picks up another small stone. “Your souvenir,” he says quietly as he hands it over to her.

“My collection,” she says, slipping it into her bag, “is gonna get pretty heavy.”

“I’ll help you carry it.”

“You won’t be there,” she tells him, blinking fast, willing herself not to cry.

“I will for now,” he says, reaching into her bag and taking out both rocks, then raising his eyebrows when he feels the Parmesan shaker. As he lifts it, some of the flakes go floating off in the breeze, and for a second it almost looks like snow.