Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

He throws the ball to her, a gentle toss that spirals over the kitchen table, but somehow she still manages to fumble it.

“There goes my college athletic career,” she says, bending to grab the ball. “But I’m still bringing it.”

“When I said you should try some new things,” Aidan says, “I wasn’t really talking about contact sports.”

“Yeah, well, you won’t be laughing when I come back a seasoned quarterback.”

“Now that I’d like to see,” he says as they walk outside together.

In the driveway, her dad is shutting the trunk of the car. He’s wearing a bright yellow slicker with the hood pulled up, and his glasses are speckled with rain.

“I think that’s pretty much everything,” he says. “Unless you want to take the kitchen sink, too.”

“Very funny,” Clare says, but already there’s a lump in her throat, because she would, if she could: She’d rip that stupid, leaky sink right out of the wall and take it with her. For a brief, surging, impossible moment, she wants it all: her dog and her bed and her parents and her boyfriend. Even now, with just minutes to go, she has no idea how she’s going to leave any of it behind.

Her mom steps outside with the end of Bingo’s leash in one hand and a plastic bag full of sandwiches in the other. She locks the door and then turns around, staring at the odd rain-soaked trio assembled in the driveway, all of them looking back at her with obvious reluctance.

“I guess we’re all set,” she says, glancing down at the dog. Bingo is holding his leash in his mouth and wagging his tail, completely oblivious to the fact that they’ll be dropping him off at the kennel on their way out of town. “This is it, huh?

Her dad nods a bit too enthusiastically. “The start of a big adventure.”

“We’ll just give you two a minute,” her mom says, then walks over to Aidan, standing on her tiptoes to give him a quick hug.

“We’ll miss you,” she says. “Good luck out there, okay?”

“Okay,” Aidan manages. “And thanks for everything.”

Her dad claps him on the shoulder, which turns into a hug. “Take care of yourself.”

Aidan nods. “Drive safe.”

And then they’re getting into the car, the engine rumbling to life and the windshield wipers squealing, and Clare is struck by a panic so strong that she feels her heart might gallop straight out of her chest.

This is it, she thinks, frozen in place. Even after all these hours—all these months, really—she’s still oddly stunned to have arrived here in this moment, which feels like it’s happening both much too fast and far too slowly.

She wipes some rain out of her eyes and forces herself to look up at Aidan, who is standing a few feet away from her, his face pale and his eyes filled with dread.

“Last chance to run away together,” he says, attempting a smile, though there’s something wobbly about it. “I hear Canada is nice this time of year.”

“I think I’d prefer the desert island.”

“Even if I refuse to wear a hula skirt?”

“Even then,” says, reaching out to take his hand, terrified about what happens next. Because how do you say goodbye to a piece of yourself? She examines his hand, tracing a finger over his palm, playing connect-the-dots with the constellation of freckles on his wrist. “This is the worst, huh?”

“It’s definitely not the best.”

“Do you think we’ll be miserable?”

“Yes,” he says simply. “For a while, anyway.”

“And then?”

“And then it’ll get easier.”

“Promise?”

“No,” he says with a feeble smile. “So… really no contact at all?”

For a moment, she wants desperately to take it back. Because it’s hard to imagine not being able to text him on the drive out there, not being able to call after she meets Beatrice, not getting messages from him between classes. But she knows this is the way it has to be, and so, with great effort, she shakes her head.

Aidan nods. “No phone calls?”

“Nope.”

“Texts?”

“Nope.”

“E-mails? Letters? Postcards?”

“Sorry.”