Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between(53)

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah, but nothing,” he says, banging his palm against the table in his enthusiasm, which sets their cups rattling. “This is why you need to stop worrying so much about everything. Don’t get me wrong, I love the way your mind works, but when you shut it off for a minute, look what happens.”

“I do really idiotic things?”

“That’s not what I mean,” he says. “The way you’ve been so worried about your major, and what you want to do with your life, and all that—”

“Right,” she says. “All those tiny little details.”

“—that’s the version of you that sits back on the shore. But really, you should just be diving right in, you know?”

Clare ducks her head. “Maybe.”

“That’s what college is for—you’re supposed to try new things even if it means making mistakes. If you stop overthinking everything, maybe you’ll have a little more fun.” He sits back again, looking pleased with himself. “That’s always been my philosophy, anyway.”

She laughs. “You might be on to something.”

“Of course I am,” he says. “I’m kind of a genius when it comes to giving advice.”

“And saving robots.”

“That, too,” he says, smiling at her from across the table. He holds her gaze for a long time, long enough to make her wonder whether he’s thinking the same thing she is: that what happened back there in the water—what happened back in her basement, even—might have been enough to shift things between them yet again. That maybe the pendulum has swung back in the other direction. That maybe they still have a chance.

That maybe it’s even something she wants.

Almost as if he can read her thoughts, Aidan lifts his mug. “To you and me,” he says, and they clink glasses, the hot chocolate sloshing over the sides. Clare is about to use the sleeve of the sweatshirt to mop up the spill when Aidan holds up a hand to stop her. He points at the logo on his own hoodie.

“Please,” he says, pulling his hand into the cuff at a purely theatrical pace, then rubbing at the spot on the table.

“Such a gentleman,” Clare says, sitting back again.

“Not at all,” Aidan says cheerfully. “I just wanted to make sure we use the right one as a rag.”

They’re both startled by a voice behind them.

“Very mature,” Mr. Gallagher says, his face twisted into a frown. He’s leaning against the doorframe, a nubby blue bathrobe tied over his plaid pajamas, and without his glasses, his eyes look fuzzy and unfocused. His hair, which is usually neatly combed, is sticking up at the back, so that he almost looks like a little boy just waking up from a nap.

Clare glances back at Aidan, waiting for him to say something, but it’s clear right away that that’s not going to happen. His eyes are on the table, his arms folded tightly across the Harvard logo on his shirt, his jaw stubbornly jutted.

“I hope we didn’t wake you,” Clare says, but Mr. Gallagher doesn’t seem to hear her: He’s too busy staring at Aidan, his face gone slack with surprise.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” Aidan says, lowering his chin as he tries his best to hide his swollen eyes.

“ ‘Nothing’ must have a pretty good right hook,” Mr. Gallagher says, but then his gaze lands on Clare, and he looks even more alarmed. “You two weren’t—”

“No,” Clare says quickly. “We’re fine. There was just a misunderstanding at a party, and we got a little bit mixed up in it, but everything’s okay. Really.”

He stares at her for a few more beats, trying to decide whether to believe her. She doesn’t blame him for being horrified to find them in the kitchen at five in the morning with a pair of matching shiners, and she wouldn’t blame him if he sent Aidan to his room and then marched her home right this minute. But a few more seconds pass in slightly startled silence, and then his shoulders relax, and he sighs, apparently having decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. “Do you need some ice or something?”

“We iced them a bunch before,” she says, smiling brightly. “Really, it’s fine. Looks worse than it is.” She touches a finger to her eye. “I keep forgetting about it, actually.”

He glances back to Aidan one more time, still trying to absorb all this, and then, finally, walks over to the stove and grabs the teakettle. While he fills it at the sink, Clare shoots Aidan a look. She can see that his mind is whirring as he tries to come up with an escape plan.

But once the kettle is on, Mr. Gallagher pulls out a chair, and there’s a long, uncomfortable silence. Clare smiles politely while Aidan sits there fidgeting with the fraying drawstrings of his hoodie.

“Must’ve been some party,” Mr. Gallagher says. “You two are out pretty late.”

There’s no accusation in his voice; in fact, he looks just as awkward as his son right now, and Clare can tell how hard he’s trying.

“Last night in town,” she says with a forced cheerfulness. “There was a lot to do. And a few last goodbyes.”

“Are you excited about Dartmouth?”

“I am,” she says, bobbing her head a little too hard.

“Do you know what you’ll be studying yet?”