All We Can Do Is Wait(54)
Aimee let out another little sob, wiped her nose with her sleeve. “No, it’s not that. I mean, maybe it’s that. I don’t know, Scott. I feel like you kind of think it’s my fault that you’re not in the same place as me.”
Scott didn’t know what to say. Of course it wasn’t her fault. It was his fault. Or maybe it was no one’s fault. But either way, wasn’t that his problem? Didn’t he get to decide what to do about his own shit? He wanted to fight with Aimee, to make her see that she was wrong, that she was being melodramatic, that she was overreacting. But she seemed so determined. Even though she was crying—real tears, not stage ones.
They sat without talking for a moment, Aimee sniffling, Scott trying to grapple with the utter surreality of the moment. Finally, Aimee sat up straight, wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Scott nodded. There didn’t seem to be much else to say beyond “O.K.,” to walk Aimee around the side of the house to her car, to let her hug him goodbye while she cried a little more, the night quiet and foggy with melting snow. Aimee said she’d talk to him soon, that they should still talk. Scott, shell-shocked, wanting to go up to his room and scream, said yup, yup, of course. Then Aimee got in her car and was gone, disappearing down Scott’s narrow little street, putting her blinker on and turning right, back to her house, off to start a life without him.
Scott spent the next months dazed and grieving. He and Aimee barely spoke, Scott sending a few misguided text messages, but mostly retreating. He was quiet at school, quiet at home, going through the motions at work. He and Pete hung out, Pete trying to get him to go after other girls, saying shit like “I mean, Maddy clearly wants it, and now you’re free and clear.” But Scott had no interest. He wanted Aimee back so badly it was like having a disease, a massive tumor throbbing inside him.
But Aimee wasn’t coming back to him. By that summer she’d started seeing another guy, Tim Tumposky, another theater kid. Scott saw this on Instagram, not sure why he still followed Aimee, or why she hadn’t blocked him. Scott, meanwhile, remained in stasis. He spent his summer at the store, working long hours and helping his dad with stuff around the house. It was a lonely existence, but something about all the deafening quiet and stillness helped drown Aimee out. He still thought about calling or texting her almost every day, but he never did.
He did email her on her birthday, though, late in August. He wrote,
Happy 18th, Aims. Hope it’s a great year and you get where you wanna go. Love always, Scott.
He instantly wished he could unsend it, but there it was. Sent. She wrote back a day later.
Hey Scott,
Thanks so much for your e-mail. It was a nice birthday, especially nice to hear from you. Hope you’re doing well. Let’s say hi to each other at school in September?
They gave each other a wave once they were back at North, after Labor Day, but that was all that really happened. Just a wave.
They were done, had been done for months by the time of the accident.
The last time Scott saw Aimee before the bridge collapse, he was leaving soccer practice and realized that Aimee, who had gotten the big part in The Crucible she’d been wanting since the drama department announced they were doing it, the winter before, would probably be getting out of rehearsal around the same time. Scott was driving by then, puttering around in an old Camry his dad had gotten cheap from a friend. Scott was throwing his soccer gear into the trunk when he figured that, since he was parked near the theater doors, maybe he’d wait for Aimee, thinking it might be a little private moment between them. Maybe they’d even say hi, talk a little.
But when Aimee finally did come walking out of the building, she was with a whole group of friends, laughing and oblivious to all of Scott’s pain. Aimee caught sight of him, waiting there, staring at her, and her face did a sorrowful little dip. She gave him a sad smile, and he, immediately regretting his decision, waved. She waved too and then that was it. Scott, red-faced and devastated all over again, for the millionth time, got in the car and drove home.
The next day, Aimee headed up to Salem with Taissa and Cara and the rest. And Pete ran up to Scott after fifth period to say that something had happened, and now here Scott was, skipping a shift at the store to be in the waiting room, saying he was Aimee’s boyfriend because it felt good to say, gave him some authority. Aimee’s mother, frantic and teary, had shot Scott such a repulsed look when she heard the lie. And Alexa was laughing, a strange, high-pitched sound. Scott felt frozen, embarrassed, knocked hideously out of orbit, all over again. Everything was somehow even worse than it had been before.
Chapter Thirteen
Skyler
SKYLER FINALLY GOT through to her grandparents on her third try, standing a block down from the hospital, feeling a relief so deep she thought she might actually melt into the sidewalk. When her grandmother answered, she sounded tired and confused, and it was clear to Skyler that she hadn’t heard anything about the bridge collapse in faraway Boston.
“Why are you calling?” her grandmother asked, sounding concerned, but the kind of concern one might have about something simple and everyday—was the house O.K., was there a leak in the upstairs bathroom again, had Skyler passed her French test? It was so strange to think that Skyler had lived through these hours of pure terror and her grandmother knew nothing about it. So she didn’t tell her much, explained that there had been an accident, a car accident, and that Kate had been involved, but that she was O.K. She had broken her legs, but the doctors said she would be fine, would walk again, it would just take some work.