Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between(29)

“It wasn’t exactly our finest moment,” Aidan says, turning to look at her. “I’m not sure it’s something you’ll want to remember.”

“I want to remember it all,” she says.

In the distance, the sound of a train whistle cuts through the night, and a half second later the bells on the signal lights begin to chime. When the train arrives with a rush of noise, coming to a clattering halt, they watch as a few people step off, then cross through the shadows of the streetlights to their cars.

“Do you ever imagine living here?” Aidan asks, tracking the train as it pulls away again, the red lights growing more distant. “Not like we do now. But the way our parents do. Coming home on the train after work, making dinner, having a house and a yard and all that stuff. Gardening on the weekends.”

“Gardening?”

“Well, raking leaves, maybe.”

She shakes her head. “You know that’s not—”

“I know,” he says, holding up his hands. “You’re gonna be off doing something brilliant. You’ll be some kind of lawyer or banker or journalist, with this crazy apartment in a big city. You’re gonna take over the world. But after that…”

“After I take over the world?” she says with a smile. “I might be kind of tired after that.”

“You know what I mean.”

She lifts her shoulders. “You don’t want that, either. Not really.”

“You’re the one with all the potential. What else do I have to do?”

“Besides gardening?”

He rolls his eyes. “Seriously. I love playing lacrosse. And I’m psyched that I get to do it for four more years. But let’s be honest. It’s not a career.”

“You never know. You said there’s a sports-management program at UCLA, right? That sounds up your alley.”

“Yeah, but it’s just a summer thing, not a real major,” he says. “Besides, who knows if I could even get in.…”

“You could,” she says firmly, but he shakes his head.

“I’m not you.”

“I don’t exactly have a career picked out, either,” Clare points out. “I have no idea what I want to do. I spent the last four years trying to get into college. I never really thought about what would come after that. I can’t even decide on a major.”

Aidan rolls his eyes. “Who has a major picked out before they even set foot on campus? You’re putting way too much pressure on yourself. It’s totally normal not to know what you want to do with the rest of your life.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to be normal. I want to know where I’m going.”

“Maybe it’s okay to be a little lost,” he says, and even in the dark, she can see his eyes, round as the moon and focused entirely on her. “Especially when it’s you.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugs. “Just that you can do anything. And you will. You’ve got all the time in the world to figure it out. But me?” He sweeps an arm out across the town, the quiet shops and the empty streets. “Honestly, this kind of thing is probably more my speed. And I’m okay with that. Maybe I’ll coach.” He holds up a half-eaten chocolate bar. “Or I’ll open a candy shop. Or garden. I could always sell gardening tools.”

Clare tries to imagine it: a future here in this town, the same place where she grew up. But it’s too hard to stretch her mind that far; there are so many things still to come before all that. Right now, the world feels huge and full of possibility, and if she ever returns to this tiny corner of it, she knows it will have to be after she’s collected a whole slew of stories and memories and other experiences to bring back with her.

She reaches for Aidan’s hand. “You’re gonna do great things, too,” she tells him. “You just don’t know what they are yet.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his fingers close around hers, and Clare’s heart sinks. Because right here—right now—it seems like an impossible thing: being with someone for any great length of time. It’s crazy enough to imagine that what you look for in a person at seventeen might be the same at eighteen and nineteen and twenty. But to imagine you might be with the same person at seventeen as at twenty-seven—and then thirty-seven and forty-seven—seems like a leap of faith that borders on insane.

“So what’s next then?” Aidan asks, and Clare takes a deep breath.

“I don’t know,” she says, looking over at him. “Maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about the future. It’s not like there’s any way to tell what’s gonna happen that far down the road. We could end up almost anywhere.…” She pauses, considering her next words carefully. “But the one thing we know for sure is where we’re gonna end up tomorrow. I’m going to New Hampshire and you’re going to California. For four whole years. And whether we like it or not, we have to figure out what to do about that.”

Aidan is watching her with a slightly bewildered expression. “I only meant…” he says, then gives his head a little shake. “I meant what’s next on the list.”

“Oh,” Clare says, her face going hot. “Yeah. The list.”

“But you’re right,” he says. “I know you’re right. We need to figure this out.”