Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between(12)

“I’ll still be pretty close to the water, I think,” he says as they begin to walk toward one of the enormous piles of boulders that act as breakers against the waves, jutting out over the water in regular intervals along the coast.

“You think?” she says, staring at him. “Haven’t you looked at a map?”

Aidan shrugs. “I figured it would be better if it’s all a surprise.”

“All? Have you even read any of your orientation stuff?”

“I looked at some of the lacrosse packet,” he says, and before she can reply, he gives her a hard look. “You sound like my parents.”

“Unfair,” she says, stopping abruptly.

He slings an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close, and they half stumble forward again in the soft sand. “Sorry,” he whispers, his mouth close to her ear. “I’m just…”

“I know,” she says, circling an arm around his waist.

They climb the rocks together, stepping carefully where the waves have made the surfaces dark and slick, and once they’ve reached their spot, they sit together with their feet dangling off the edge.

Far out in the water, they can see the winking light of the tall yellow weather buoy, which was put in a couple of years ago to send environmental data back to a lab somewhere in Indiana. With its broad base and skinny top, and the sensors that appear more like googly eyes than anything else, it looks to all the world like a drowning robot, and they’ve grown rather fond of it over the years, dubbing it Rusty after a lively discussion about the effect of salt water on metal.

Worrying over Rusty’s well-being has become one of their favorite pastimes, and last summer Scotty suggested that someone should swim out and give the poor guy a life jacket or an inner tube or something. A few of the guys made a halfhearted attempt, but the buoy was a pretty long way from the shore, and nobody was quite committed enough to the joke to go the full distance. Still, every time they went down there, someone inevitably brought it up again, and the challenge was passed around once more as they wondered who would finally save poor Rusty.

Now Aidan squints out at the buoy, which flashes white against the pale line of the horizon. “Guess he’ll have to live without us for a little while.”

“I have a feeling he’ll make it.”

Aidan turns to look at her. “I think this is my favorite stop yet.”

“That’s just because it’s the first one you actually remember,” she points out, and he laughs.

“True,” he says, scooting closer. “But I’m in it more for the reenactment.”

“You can’t replicate a first kiss,” Clare tells him, glancing back over her shoulder to where everything had started that night, the night of the bonfire. It wasn’t any sort of special occasion, just a small party, a spontaneous gathering of friends and acquaintances, with a blazing fire at the center of it all that threw off sparks in the night and made everything hazy and indistinct.

Clare had lost Stella only moments after arriving, so she’d wandered over to the cooler on her own, but once she got there, she hesitated. It was a bitter autumn night, teetering on the edge of winter, and the heat from the fire wasn’t enough to warm her all the way through. She was still standing there, trying to decide whether or not she actually wanted a cold drink, when Aidan stepped up and plunged a bare hand into all the ice, fishing around for a can and then handing it to her with a gallant smile.

“Thanks,” she’d said, holding the can between her blue mittens. “Though if you’re gonna play bartender, you really need some gloves.”

He glanced down at his hand, which was raw and red and still dripping, and then, without thinking, without even realizing what she was doing until it was done, Clare had reached out and cupped his hand between her own.

Their eyes met for a startled moment, and then he smiled.

“Much better,” he said. “Thanks.”

After that, they’d started talking—about what? She can’t even remember now—and soon they were walking down toward the water together, daring each other to stick a toe in, though it was much too cold.

“Isn’t it kind of cool that there’s all this sand, but each grain is totally different?”

Aidan gave her a funny look. “Guess I must not have been paying attention that day.”

“What day?”

“In Earth Science,” he said. “I have a habit of daydreaming.”

“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I actually read that somewhere else.” She stopped walking and lifted a finger, pointing up at the sky. “I also read that there are even more stars than there are grains of sand in the whole world. Isn’t that crazy?”

He was looking down at her with a mystified expression, and Clare bit her lip, feeling a little self-conscious. She’d spent enough time watching Aidan over the last few weeks to know that a guy like him probably wouldn’t go for a girl who read science magazines in her spare time, and the wheels in her head spun frantically in an effort to find some other topic of conversation, something he’d be more interested in.

But then he bent down and scooped up a handful of sand, sifting through it with his thumb. She could see his lips moving, see that he was murmuring under his breath as he stared at the grains in his palm. After a little while, he looked up again.