Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between(7)

“Rob.”

“—his idiot roommate, Rob the surfer—”

“Rob the swimmer.”

“Whatever,” she said, clearly impatient. “Rob the swimmer, whose only concern is apparently whether Aidan is cool with getting a mini-fridge for their room, which I’m guessing is not so they can keep their veggies crisp. You know he’ll definitely be dragging him out to meet girls. And even if he doesn’t, Aidan will meet them anyway. Trust me. That’s what college is all about.”

“Aside from the whole learning thing.”

“That’s a very distant second,” Stella said matter-of-factly. “The point is, do you really want to spend the next four years feeling guilty because you went out with your roommate one night and got all moony-eyed over some drummer with great hair and killer eyes?”

Clare laughed. “When have I ever gone moony-eyed over a drummer?”

“Well, you haven’t,” Stella admitted, giving her a sideways look. “But maybe that’s just because you haven’t let yourself imagine there are other possibilities out there.”

“You mean besides Aidan.”

“I mean,” Stella said, “besides high school.”

But all this was early in the summer, when Stella still cared enough to be honest. And when she had time to listen. Lately, she hasn’t been around to do either, and even though they’re both still here—at least for one more night—it sort of feels to Clare like her best friend has already left.

Maybe it’s that Stella has been trying to give Clare and Aidan time to figure things out on their own, or maybe she’s just been busy getting ready to leave herself. Or maybe it’s that everything is coming to an end, and it’s easier to pretend it’s not. Stella’s never exactly been great at this sort of thing, anyway; she’s allergic to sentiment and wary of emotion, so trying to get her to appreciate the significance of a milestone like this is a bit like trying to hug a skittish cat.

But still, after fourteen years of friendship, Clare refuses to let her slink off to college without some sort of meaningful goodbye.

Now Stella is leaning against the counter, absently pulling napkins from the dispenser, avoiding Clare’s question. Finally, she shrugs.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve been around.”

“Not really,” Clare says, shaking her head. “You haven’t been returning calls, you’ve been showing up late—”

“Maybe she can’t tell time,” Scotty jokes.

“—you haven’t been returning texts—”

“Or type,” he chimes in again.

“Shut up, Scotty,” they both say at the same time, and then they can’t help themselves: As soon as their eyes meet, they start to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” Stella says after a moment. “There’s just been a lot going on. But we’ll make up for it tonight. Really.”

“You promise?” Clare asks, and Stella grins.

“I double-pinky promise,” she says, holding out her fingers the way they used to do when they were kids. Clare smiles grudgingly, then hooks her pinkies around Stella’s.

“Okay,” she says as, behind them, Oscar thumps a fist on the counter. They turn to see that their slices are ready. Aidan grabs the tray, and they all walk over to an empty table by the window.

As soon as they sit down, Scotty takes a huge bite of his pizza. The cheese is still steaming, and he winces, dropping it back onto his plate. “Too hot.”

Stella rolls her eyes. “You’re a numbskull.”

“Word of the day?” Clare asks. Ever since taking the SATs, Stella has become obsessed with neglected vocabulary, picking a new word to work into conversation every day.

But she shakes her head. “Nope, that’s just what he is. Today’s word is gobsmacked, though I can’t imagine I’ll have a chance to use it, since there’s never anything to be gobsmacked about around here.” She glances over at Scotty with a grin. “Except maybe how much of a numbskull you are.”

“Is that the kind of vocabulary that got you into a fine school like Florida State?” Scotty asks, picking at the crust of his pizza while he waits for the cheese to cool, and Stella—still a little sensitive about her only acceptance—gives him a withering look.

“Says the guy going to community college,” she shoots back, and everyone goes abruptly still. Beside Clare, Aidan lowers his pizza, his mouth still half-open, and Stella, immediately realizing she’s gone too far, turns pale.

For months now, this has been the one thing nobody has said. They’ve all spent the summer tap-dancing around the subject, and even now, on the eve of their departure, it feels somehow wrong to mention it.

Because of all of them, Scotty’s the only one not going anywhere tomorrow.

Not that they didn’t all have their share of rejection this past spring. As much as Stella’s now looking forward to the warm weather in Florida, what she’d really wanted was to be closer to home, just downstate at the University of Illinois. Aidan hadn’t gotten into Harvard, even as a legacy. And though Clare had been feeling confident about her chances at most of the places she’d applied, in the end, she’d gone only four for twelve.

Scotty, though, hadn’t gotten a single yes. After a high school career spent coming up with ever more creative ways to escape his classes, it shouldn’t have been a big surprise. But he and Aidan had spent so many months dreaming of conquering California together that it had taken Scotty weeks to get around to telling them, and when he finally did, they could all see how much it hurt. Since then he’s done his best to make a joke of it—as he does with everything else—but Clare suspects that the only thing harder than leaving is being left behind.