Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between(41)

Stella laughs. “Good point.”

“And I actually really like the idea of you guys together,” Clare says, leaning into her a little. “I think it’s kind of perfect. For whatever that’s worth.”

“It’s worth a lot,” Stella says just as the door is nudged open again, and Scotty appears holding a half-filled container of green dish soap.

“What?” he asks, when they both go abruptly quiet. He brings a hand to the blocky stain on his cheek with a sigh. “It can’t have gotten worse.…”

“It’s fine,” Stella says, sliding off the counter and taking the soap from him. “It still looks like a tattoo gone horribly wrong. Sit down. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

Ten minutes, two towels, one roll of toilet paper, half a bottle of dish soap, and a whole lot of scrubbing later, they give up. As it turns out, the ink is even more stubborn than Scotty, and all their efforts hardly make a dent. There are still thumbprints all over him, not to mention the black square across his swollen face.

“It’s fine,” Scotty says miserably. “When we’re getting to know each other, I’ll just tell all my new friends that my mom is a ladybug and my dad’s a leopard.”

In the kitchen, Aidan is pouring steaming mugs of coffee, and they wrap their fingers—pruney from the soap and water—around them gratefully, then head outside, where the night is cool and still and winking with fireflies.

“So,” Scotty says, once they’re settled on the plastic chairs, which they’ve pulled to the far side of the deck so they won’t wake his parents, “I have a theory.”

Aidan raises his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“I think I might—might—be having a harder time with this whole being-left-behind thing than I thought.”

Stella laughs. “You think?”

“Side effects include spontaneous fisticuffs and severe ink-face,” he says with a sheepish grin.

Beside Clare, Aidan clears his throat. “I guess…” he begins, then pauses, scratching at his chin, clearly working up his own apology. Finally, he lifts his eyes to meet Scotty’s. “I guess I might be having a harder time than I thought, too. With the whole you-being-left-behind thing.”

Scotty smiles ruefully. “I know it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Yeah,” Aidan says. “But I’ve been kind of a jerk about it.”

“Kind of?” Scotty asks, pointing at his fat lip.

“Okay, I’ve been a huge jerk.”

“No more than usual,” Scotty says with a grin, and then he shrugs. “It was always gonna be hard, right? Even if we were all in the same place next year, everything would still be different, and that sucks. But it’s also kind of the point, I guess. New beginnings and all that…”

A quiet falls over them, and Clare stares at the slats of the deck, knowing that he’s right. It’s time to move on, and the more time they spend wishing it were otherwise, the harder it will be to let go.

“But I still hate that you’re all leaving,” Scotty says. “Seriously. It’s the worst. And you’re all the worst for doing it.”

Clare lifts her mug. “We’ll miss you, too,” she says as everyone else follows suit.

“Cheers,” Aidan says. “To us.”

“To us,” Stella echoes.

“But mostly to me,” Scotty says, breaking the spell, and when they all give him an exasperated look, he shrugs. “What? I’m the one who’s stuck here. I think we can all agree I need the most cheers out of anyone.”

Stella crosses and then uncrosses her legs, studying his face with amusement. “Your parents are gonna flip when they see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll just tell them you did it,” he jokes, but she only rolls her eyes.

“It can’t be worse than the time we stole your dad’s cigars,” Aidan says. “Remember? We smoked them right out here.…”

“And then we forgot to bring the rest inside, and there was that huge thunderstorm,” Clare reminds them. “They were completely ruined.”

“Yeah, my dad was pretty pissed about that one,” Scotty says. “Though it wasn’t as bad as the time me and Aidan left the sunroof open in the car.”

“What, it rained?” Stella asks, and Scotty shakes his head.

“Snowed.”

“Why in the world would you have the sunroof open in the—”

“Because,” Aidan says, his eyes dancing, “Scotty wanted to try to catch a snowflake on his tongue while we were driving.”

After that, the stories come thick and fast, punctuated by laughter and interrupted only by the occasional teasing. Above them, the stars burn brightly in the night sky, and the minutes continue to tick past as the four of them sit there trading memories and fighting off sleep, hoping that this might be enough to hold back the morning.

It isn’t until later, once they’ve grown quiet again, once all the coffee is gone and the mugs are empty, that Stella tips herself off her lawn chair, struggling to her feet with a yawn. “I think I need more caffeine,” she says as she stretches, and Clare offers to help.

In the kitchen, Stella pours the last inch of cold coffee into the sink, then grabs the canister from a shelf. There’s something so deliberate in the way she moves around, navigating cabinets and drawers with ease; it’s clear she’s been spending a lot of time here.