Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

“I was just telling her that I can’t wait to give you another shiner at Thanksgiving.”


“You must be joking,” Aidan says, puffing out his chest as he strides over. “After a few months of lacrosse practices, you won’t stand a chance.”

He tucks Scotty under his arm, tousling his mop of hair until it’s scrambled as a bird’s nest. But this time, they’re both laughing, and when Scotty wrenches away, he only pauses for a second before throwing himself back at Aidan for one last hug.

“See you soon, buddy,” he says, and Aidan nods.

“I’ll call you,” Stella tells Clare as she ducks into the car. “Incessantly.”

“You’d better,” Clare says through the open window as they pull out of the driveway, leaving behind the two pale figures in the dark, each lifting an opposite hand to wave goodbye. The others are clasped between them.

As they wind their way out of Scotty’s neighborhood, the headlights cutting across darkened houses and too-bright stop signs, neither of them says anything. In the quiet, Clare swallows a few times, trying her best not to fall apart, because the night isn’t over yet, and she knows there are far worse goodbyes still to come.

Beside her, she can tell Aidan is doing the same. After a few minutes, he reaches for the radio, scrolling through channels until he finds something soft and twangy. The glowing clock on the dashboard says it’s 2:41 AM, and they’re not even bothering to hide the fact that they’re both yawning now; they just keep passing it back and forth, one and then the other, until they both start to laugh.

“Should we go back to your place?” Aidan asks, and Clare nods hard enough to wake herself up a little.

As they pull into her driveway a few minutes later, they see a shadow pop up in the living room window. Clare unbuckles her seat belt.

“I’m gonna run in before Bingo starts barking,” she says, already opening the door. She fishes for her keys as she hurries around to the side of the house. As soon as she’s inside, the dog—a floppy-eared, black-and-white tornado of energy—flies at her, thrilled to have some company so long after bedtime.

When Aidan arrives, Bingo goes into overdrive, turning frantic circles at his feet, his tongue lolling out in ecstasy. Clare watches with amusement as Aidan drops to the floor, scratching the dog behind the ears.

In the harsh light of the kitchen, she sees just how terrible his eyes look: two half-moon shadows that will surely turn black and blue before long. His left eye is nearly swollen shut, and below his right eye, the white bandage is now streaked with a thin band of red where the blood is soaking through. She touches a finger lightly to her own temple, conscious of what she must look like as well.

“I think,” Aidan says, laughing as the dog licks his ear, “I might miss Bingo the most.”

Clare gives him a look of exaggerated outrage, but he’s already focused on the dog again, so she wanders over to the kitchen counter, which is tiled with sticky notes covered in her mother’s handwriting: reminders for the morning, last-minute to-do lists, notes for Clare. She pulls one off the counter and holds it up for Aidan, who is now lying on his back on the wooden floor of the kitchen, the dog balanced on his stomach.

“Apparently, there’s a gift for you on the dining room table,” she says, and when he rolls over, Bingo slides right off him into a disgruntled heap.

“For me?” Aidan says, rising to his feet. “That’s so nice.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Clare says, crossing into the dining room, where there’s a flat, rectangular box on the table. She hands it to Aidan. “I have a feeling it’s the same thing they got me.”

He rips apart the paper, which is covered in graduation caps—left over from June, but still vaguely appropriate to the occasion—and opens it to reveal a blue towel with his initials embroidered in white across the bottom.