Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between(40)

“I feel like we need bleach or something.”

“Bleach?” Scotty repeats with a worried look.

“What else do you use for this kind of thing?” Stella asks, tapping her chin. “Turpentine? Nail polish remover?”

Scotty stares at his blackened palms, splaying his fingers. “Maybe it’ll just go away on its own,” he says hopefully. “I bet it might even be gone by morning.”

“Sorry, pal,” Clare says, shaking her head. “I think you’re looking at a few really awkward days with those spots.”

Scotty hides his face in his hands with a groan.

“Not to mention the black eye,” Stella adds cheerfully. “All the girls at your new school will probably run away screaming.”

“What about dish soap?” Clare suggests, and Scotty claps his inky hands.

“Brilliant,” he says. “Isn’t that what they use on the animals when there’s an oil spill?”

“Are you seriously comparing your crazy finger-painting spree to the plight of a baby seal?” Stella asks with a raised eyebrow, and Scotty makes a face at her.

It’s quick, so quick that Clare might have missed it if she’d looked away even for a second, but there’s something about this exchange, this moment between them—silly as it is—that feels almost charged. They hold each other’s eyes for a beat too long, and then, with a goofy grin, Scotty spins around and walks out the door to find the soap.

As soon as he’s gone, Clare widens her eyes at Stella. “That’s it,” she says, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice.

“What, dish soap?”

“No. You and Scotty.”

Stella pauses—just for an instant—in the middle of folding a towel, the corners still matched neatly at the edges. “Scotty,” she says dismissively, “is an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Clare says, grinning now, “but he’s your idiot.”

Stella hangs the towel carefully on the silver bar near the sink, then turns around again with a wary look. “Okay, just say it,” she says, and there’s a challenge to her tone.

“Say what?”

“It’s Scotty we’re talking about here. So you must have some sort of opinion.”

Clare hesitates. “I think it’s… great.”

“You do,” Stella says flatly. It’s not a question.

“I do. I mean… I’m surprised, obviously. You have to give me a minute to get my head around it.”

Stella places both hands on the sink, rocking back and forth. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“What? No. Come on. I think it’s great.”

“You already said that.”

“How long has it been going on?”

Stella straightens again. “A few weeks. Maybe a month.”

“Wow,” Clare says, failing to hide her astonishment. “And nobody knows?”

“Nope,” she says with a faint smile. “Turns out, he’s not always such a bigmouth.”

There’s a sound in the hallway, and they both freeze, listening for footsteps. But when it gets quiet again, Clare hoists herself up onto the sink.

“You and Scotty,” she says, the idea of it still settling over her.

“It’s not that crazy, is it?” Stella asks, absently ripping off a square of toilet paper. She begins to shred it into tiny pieces, which flutter like leaves onto the tiled floor.

For Clare, this is almost more of a shock than finding out about Scotty in the first place: Stella—who never cares what people think of her—seems to be nervously waiting for her approval.

“You really like him,” she says, beginning to understand that this is more than what it seems, that perhaps it goes deeper than it might appear.

Stella drops the last bit of toilet paper, then wipes her hands on her jeans. “I don’t know,” she says, unable to meet Clare’s eyes.

“You do,” she says gently. “I can tell. And I don’t think it’s crazy at all.”

Stella lets out a hoarse laugh. “It’s a little crazy,” she admits. “But there’s just something about him. We’ve been fighting for so many years that I kind of forgot what it was about. And he’s funny, you know? I mean, he drives me nuts, too, but…”

“But you like him.”

She shrugs helplessly. “I like him.”

Clare scoots over, patting the counter, and Stella hops up beside her so that their swaying feet drum in rhythm against the cabinet below. “I know I’ve been a self-involved jerk lately,” she says, relieved to see Stella smile at this. “But I wish you would’ve told me.”

“I know,” she says, glancing down at her hands, which are folded in her lap.

“It’s just that… if we can’t even tell each other the big stuff now, while we’re here together, how are we ever gonna survive being apart next year?”

“I know,” Stella says again. “I guess I just wanted to see what happened with it first. I didn’t realize it would turn into something more than just fun, and then when it did, I didn’t know how everyone else would react. Especially you and Aidan.”

“Well, Aidan will probably just be relieved it isn’t Riley.”