Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

by Jennifer E. Smith

  “But we were so close,” he says, though they both know that’s not true. “We can do it. We have to.”

  Clare leans forward on the table and fixes him with an even look. “I’m going to tell you the same thing you told me earlier,” she says. “This is not a metaphor.”

  His face doesn’t change, so she tries again.

  “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a stupid challenge.”

  “Yeah, but”—he tosses his paddle onto the table in frustration—“if we beat the record…”

  “What?” she asks impatiently.

  He lowers his eyes. “Then the whole night won’t just be about us breaking up.”

  “Aidan,” she says, softening a bit. “It won’t be. Look how much we’ve done tonight. If anything, it’ll be the night we picked Scotty up from jail. Or the night he gave himself about a thousand tattoos.”

  Aidan smiles, but there’s something somber about it. “The rest of it doesn’t matter,” he says. “Trust me. When we look back on tonight, all we’re gonna remember is that we broke up.”

  “And you think Ping-Pong will help?”

  “Maybe,” he says, and he looks so earnest right now, so sincere, that it’s all she can do to stay on her side of the table. “It could have been the night we set the Ping-Pong record instead.”

  She laughs. “You’re crazy if you think that would outrank our breakup. You think I’d look back one day and remember this”—she holds up the ball—“instead of losing you?”

  He moves around the table, taking a few slow steps in her direction. “It was worth a try,” he says, closing the space between them. When they’re only a few inches apart, she tips her head back to look at him. “And you’re not losing me. I’m losing you.”

  “Either way,” she manages to say around the knot that’s formed in her throat.

  He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then lets his hand linger on her neck, and the feel of his skin on hers sends a shot of electricity through her. She can see the couch out of the corner of her eye, and her face prickles with a sudden warmth.

  This is the thing about Aidan. This has always been the thing about him. He makes her forget all her reasons and rules and plans.

  He makes her forget about everything but him.

  “It’d have to be something a lot bigger,” she says, and he widens his eyes in exaggerated astonishment.

  “Bigger than hitting a Ping-Pong ball a hundred and eighty-nine times in a row?”

  She nods.

  “What could be bigger than that?” he says, but even as he does, Clare sees it happen: his gaze falling on the only painting to brighten the concrete walls, a sweeping watercolor of Lake Michigan in the winter, icy and hardened and dusted with snow. When his eyes flick back to her, she’s already shaking her head.

  “No.”

  He grins. “Yes.”

  “No way,” she says more firmly, but it doesn’t matter: He’s already pacing back and forth in excitement.

  “It’s perfect,” he says, turning away. “No, it’s epic. Nobody’s ever done it. And there’s no way it wouldn’t be memorable.” He pauses in front of the couch, turning to her with a triumphant look. “It’s just big enough.”

  “It’s too big,” she says flatly. “And too stupid.”

  “Sorry,” he says, clapping his hands. “It’s a done deal. This is happening.”

  “You seriously want to jump into Lake Michigan right now? Think about how cold it will be. And aren’t you tired?”

  “Nope,” he says with a laugh. “I’m wide awake.”

  Clare’s eyes wander over to the couch again, and then back to Aidan. He’s all lit up by his idea, smiling so hard that the bandage beneath his eye is losing its grip. Something about the sight of him—so eager to make the best of this night—makes her heart swell, and she sets down her Ping-Pong paddle.

  “Well,” she says. “Don’t I at least get to suggest something, too?”

  He gives her a skeptical look. “There’s no way you have a better idea.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “Better than saving Rusty?” he asks, clearly tickled at the prospect. “Not possible.”

  “You don’t even want to hear it?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope,” he says. “There’s literally nothing in the world that I want to do more than save that stupid robot right now.”

  “Okay,” Clare says, walking over to the couch, next to where Aidan has stopped his pacing just beside the coffee table. “I’m in.”

  “Great,” he says with an officious nod. “Then we should probably get going.”

  But just before he can walk away, she reaches out and grabs his hand. He spins around again, the smile slipping from his face, replaced by a look of confusion.

  “I’m in,” she repeats, feeling uncharacteristically bold. “But I still think we should try mine first.”

  It takes a moment for this to register—the way she’s looking at him, the way her hand is clasped in his—and when it does, his expression changes to one of surprise.

  “Oh,” he says, his mouth caught in the shape of the word. His eyebrows shoot up high on his forehead, loosening the bandage further. “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” she says, tugging him a little closer. “What do you think?”

  A few seconds pass as they study each other, and then his face cracks open again, his smile broadening, and he dives onto the couch without letting go of her hand, pulling her down with him, so that they end up tangled there together.

  “I think,” he says, as they rearrange themselves, his face very close to hers, his breath warm and sweet, “that it sounds like a very good plan.”

  She reaches up and runs her fingers over the bandage beneath his right eye, pressing it gently back into place. “Good.”

  “Though still not as good as mine.”

  “Shut up,” she says, but even as she does, his lips are meeting hers, and they’re both fighting back smiles, because for once, he already has.

  The Lake

  3:54 AM

  The inner tube that’s tucked under Clare’s arm begins to flap in the breeze the moment they hit the sand.

  “This,” she says, holding it tighter, “is a terrible idea.”

  But Aidan isn’t listening. He’s already plunging ahead toward the water, which is almost indistinguishable from the beach in the darkness. Only the sound of the waves and the wedge of moonlight across the surface give it away.

  Clare has never been out here so late before—or so early, really, given that it’s nearly four AM now—and as she stumbles toward the shoreline, she wonders if it’s always so windy at this time of night. Together, they trudge ahead beneath the waning moon, their feet sinking deep into the cool sand with each step.

  Back in the basement, this whole endeavor had sounded vaguely unappealing, but still with some potential to be good fun. Now, though, with the rush of waves loud in her ears, the night deep and vast all around her, it seems downright insane.

  “This is a really stupid idea,” she says again, but Aidan’s head is lost in his shirt, which he’s trying to peel off. When he finds his way out of it, he tosses it to the ground beside him, and looks over as if he’d forgotten she was there.

  “What?” he asks, unbuttoning his jeans and then stepping out of them. He stands there watching her, wearing only his blue boxers, looking pale in the moonlight. But his face is set and determined, and already he’s swinging his arms in circles to loosen up.

  “I don’t think you should do this.”

  “It’s fine,” he says, hopping from one foot to the other. “It’s just a little late-night swim.” He stops and grins at her. “You could come, too.”

  “No way,” she says, shuddering a little. “It’s too dark. And the water’s freezing. And I’m sure it’s a lot farther out than it looks.”

  “That’s the whole point.”

  “What is?”

  “It can’t be epic if there’s
no challenge to it,” he says simply, and then reaches out for the inner tube. She hands it over reluctantly. It’s hard to tell if the thing will even float. She found it in the back of the hall closet, left over from a few years ago, when her dad broke his tailbone trying to prove he could still play hockey on his fiftieth birthday. For weeks, he couldn’t sit down without the black inflatable doughnut.

  Now, if Aidan succeeds, Rusty will wear it proudly on his skinny metal neck: a lifeline for the perpetually drowning robot.

  Aidan turns it over in his hands a few times with a smile. “Sometimes the hardest things are the ones most worth doing.”

  “Who said that?”

  He shrugs. “Me.”

  “Come on.”

  “Fine. My dad.”

  Clare frowns at him. “Is that what this is about? Because you know you don’t have to prove anything.…”

  “I know,” he says, looking back at the water impatiently. Above them, the clouds have parted and the stars are crowded and bright. Clare shivers as a sharp wind cuts right through her thin sweater.

  “I don’t think you do,” she says. “Look, you made your choice, and it’s a good one. Now you have to let yourself off the hook. Your dad will get over it at some point.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “He will,” she says firmly. “But even if not…”

  Aidan folds his arms across his chest. “Even if not, this is still something I need to do for myself.”

  “But why?” she asks. “This is crazy.”

  “It’s our last night. Everything’s ending. I can’t think of a better time to do something crazy.” He tilts his head at her. “Can you?”

  “I guess not,” she says eventually, though she’s still uneasy. “But if you drown out there, I’m going to kill you.”

  He laughs. “Fair enough.”

  “Just be careful,” she says more seriously, and he gives her a little salute.

  “I will.”

  “And hurry up, okay? Rusty’s been waiting a really, really long time.”

  As he goes loping off toward the water, Clare realizes this might be the happiest she’s seen him all night. Just before wading in, he turns back to wave. Even in the dark, she can see that he’s grinning wildly.

  “It’s freezing,” he yells, the words hollowed out by the wind.

  Clare takes a few steps in the direction of the shore, watching as—all at once—he turns and plows into the water, running hard against the waves until it’s deep enough for him to dive in and start swimming.

  As soon as he disappears, she feels a sudden, choking panic. For a few minutes, there’s the blur of his white arms in the moonlight, but it’s not long before she can’t even see that. She walks up to the edge of the surf, straining her eyes against the darkness, which is so thick it feels like some sort of curtain has been pulled across the line between the land and the water, with only the moon left to peek through.

  Glancing at her watch, she wishes she’d noted the time when he took off, or that she’d thought to start counting, to somehow mark the minutes as they pass. She pulls out her cell phone and switches on the flashlight feature, trying to see farther into the darkness, but the dim light is swallowed whole before it makes it even a few feet.

  She knows that Aidan’s right: It’s only a swim. But the night is black and the wind is cold and the beach feels like the loneliest place on earth right now. She keeps her eyes trained on the bobbing robot in the distance, which is topped by a small winking light, like a star that fell out of the sky. From here, it might as well be a million miles away, and Clare finds herself thinking about what Aidan said: It can’t be epic if there’s no challenge to it.

  Standing alone on the shore, she’s aware of how few challenges she’s ever faced. All her life, everything has come easily to her. She’s always been at the head of her class, always excelled at tests and scored well on essays, always been a favorite of most of her teachers. And if you look at it just the right way, that might seem impressive. But Clare knows the truth: None of it was very difficult.

  And now here she is, going off to college completely untested. Even if she hadn’t sailed through so much in life, her parents still would have been proud of her, and she’s grateful for that. But she realizes that she’s never had anyone to push her—truly push her—except Aidan, who was willing to jump into a freezing-cold lake in the middle of the night just to prove something to himself, while Clare stayed behind, warm and dry and completely alone.

  It occurs to her for the first time that maybe this is why she decided to break up with him. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because it seemed like the easy thing.

  Staying together, on the other hand, would be hard.

  It would be the hardest thing imaginable: trying to make it work while being apart. Because what if it turns out her heart isn’t built for that kind of distance? What if it’s like a radio: clear and bright up close, but blurry and full of static from far away?

  She blinks into the darkness, imagining Aidan alone out there in the freezing water.

  Sometimes the hardest things are the ones most worth doing.

  She knows for sure now that must be true.

  But still, there’s no sign of him. She scans the horizon for what feels like the thousandth time, trying to swallow her fear. He’s out there all alone, and there’s no way to know if he needs her, no way to tell if he’s okay.

  This is how it will be from now on: Aidan, far away and drifting farther.

  She hears a distant rumble of thunder, and out across the water, a crack of lightning flashes bright across the rough surface. With it, the panic she’s been trying to push away comes clawing back, jagged and desperate, and she realizes her hands are shaking. She lifts her phone, fumbling with it for a second before typing in the only three numbers flashing through her head right now—9-1-1—so that they’ll be that much closer if she should need them. When she’s done, she lowers the phone again and squints out at the water, her eyes stinging from the wind and her heart pounding so hard it hurts.

  “Come on, Aidan,” she says under her breath.

  But there’s nothing: just a sweep of water as flat and black as a chalkboard, and another far-off growl of thunder. She thinks once more about Aidan’s words, which are still jangling around in her head, and then she makes a decision.

  Before she can begin to overthink it, she kicks off her sandals and takes a step forward. When the first wave rushes over her feet, she stiffens, stunned by the icy temperature, newly frightened at the thought of Aidan having already been out there so long. But she knows if she’s going to do this, she has to keep moving, so she plunges ahead, her teeth chattering as the water rises to her calves and then her knees and then finally the bottom of her dress, which drags behind her as she pushes forward.

  Just before diving in, she takes a big gulp of air, trying to prepare herself. But still, the cold comes as a shock: frigid and bracing and more powerful than she could have imagined. Her numb legs instantly begin churning of their own accord, and her hands move through the water by instinct. As she starts to swim, her body begins to adjust: the goose bumps subsiding, her limbs growing looser as she propels herself through the water, unable to see where she’s going.

  But she doesn’t notice any of that.

  All she cares about is reaching Aidan.

  She’s not sure how long she’s been swimming, night-blind and cold and disoriented, when she pauses to lift her head, gasping for breath. She finds the blinking light of the buoy and scans the water for Aidan, and when she spots him there in the distance—a flash of white, inching slowly toward the shore—she goes weak with relief. She throws her head back and lets out a laugh, the sound of it bright and tinny in the dark.

  “Aidan,” she yells, and he lifts his head as he catches sight of her. He calls out something in return, but the words are lost to the wind, and then he’s swimming toward her once more, paddling doggedly in her direction, and with
a shiver, she starts moving again, too.

  They’re not far apart now, maybe half the length of a football field, and in the light of the moon, she can see him stop every few strokes to wave at her, bobbing up and down like some sort of damaged buoy.

  This time, when he calls out her name, she can finally hear him.

  “Hi,” she yells back, and he spins around to point at something behind him.

  “Did you see?”

  “I can’t see anything!”

  “I did it,” he says breathlessly, splashing over to her. “I actually did it.”

  When he’s near enough, Clare reaches out and loops her arms around him, and she can feel his muscles go limp. But he holds on to her waist, and they stay there like that for a long time, both of them too winded to talk as they cling to each other, their legs still moving frantically beneath the surface.

  “I love you,” she says softly, and he leans back to look at her. There’s a drop of water hanging from his nose, and his lips look bluish, even in the dark.

  “What was that?” he asks with a grin. “I think I might have some water in my ear. Did you say you dove me?”

  She shakes her head, gripping him a little harder. “I love you,” she says again, and as she does, a wave catches them, sending them floating up for a second before dipping them back down again, and it feels like a roller coaster, like a bump in the road, the kind that sends your heart up into your throat, the kind that sets you flying.

  Aidan kisses her then, and it’s cold and wet and shivery, but there’s also a heat to it that warms her from the inside out. “I love you, too.”

  She can feel him shaking all over now, and she realizes she’s doing the same.

  “We should get you back,” she tells him, but he only tightens his hold on her.

  “Not yet,” he says quietly. “Just a few more seconds.”

  Clare doesn’t argue.

  She’s not ready to let go yet, either.

  The Gallaghers’ House (Again)

  4:48 AM

  Even as they tiptoe up the stairs to Aidan’s bedroom, he’s busy reliving the events of the night.

  “It was like one of those ring-toss games at a carnival,” he whispers, his face still all lit up. He stops to demonstrate—with a flick of his wrist—the way he’d managed to throw the inner tube over the top of Rusty’s skinny frame after only three tries, as Clare gives him a little nudge to keep him moving forward.