Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between by Jennifer E. Smith

Author:Jennifer E. Smith [SMITH, JENNIFER E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Love & Romance, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Dating & Sex, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Friendship
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

The Dance

12:02 AM

Later, after the ice has melted and new bags have been made, after cuts have been cleaned and bandages pressed on, after the kitchen fills up again and the party resumes as if nothing ever happened, Aidan and Clare slip out to the empty patio together.

When they reach the spot where the fight occurred, they both stop. In the light from the kitchen windows, they can see a few drops of blood on the flagstones, and a small glinting sliver from Scotty’s broken glasses.

“Scene of the crime,” Aidan says, lifting his gaze. Stella fashioned him a thin white bandage out of some tape and gauze, and it sits just below his eye so that from a certain angle, it almost makes him look like a football player, or like one of those tourists with a needlessly thick layer of sunscreen.

But beneath all that, even in the shadows, Clare can see the regret scrawled across his face.

He scratches the back of his neck. “I really am sorry, you know.”

“I know,” she says. “I do. But I still don’t get it. What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug.

“This can’t just be about your sister. That was over a year ago. And honestly, it wasn’t even that bad. There’s no way you can still be mad about it.…”

He’s doing his best to avoid her eyes, so Clare takes a step closer, putting an arm on each of his shoulders, forcing him to look at her.

“So what are you so upset about?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “You and me, I guess. Tonight. Everything.”

“Yeah, but those aren’t reasons to use Scotty as a punching bag. You’ve been annoyed with him all night. How come?”

Aidan ducks away from her grip, walking to the edge of the deck, where he stands looking out over the yard. “I don’t know,” he says again, and when Clare walks over to join him, he sits down on the top step. “We used to always talk about California. Hanging out on the beach. Learning to surf. And now he’s staying here.”

“Yeah, but that’s not—”

“It would’ve been so easy, you know?” Aidan says, the words tumbling out in a rush now. “All he had to do was go to class more often. Read a book every now and then. Pay attention. He’s not an idiot. I mean, he is—but not in that way. All he had to do was try a little harder, and we could’ve been out there together.”

Clare swallows hard, hurt by the truth of it: that she’d wasted so much time thinking similar thoughts about Aidan and Harvard, daydreaming about the two of them together on the East Coast. While all that time, Aidan was wishing the same thing—only about Scotty.

“I don’t know,” he says, kicking at the stones of the patio and scattering a few acorns. “I guess I didn’t even realize I was pissed at him.”

“You’re not really,” Clare says, her face growing warm as she thinks about her own conversation with Stella earlier.

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