The Dance
12:02 AM
Later, after the ice has melted and new bags have been made, after cuts have been cleaned and bandages pressed on, after the kitchen fills up again and the party resumes as if nothing ever happened, Aidan and Clare slip out to the empty patio together.
When they reach the spot where the fight occurred, they both stop. In the light from the kitchen windows, they can see a few drops of blood on the flagstones, and a small glinting sliver from Scotty’s broken glasses.
“Scene of the crime,” Aidan says, lifting his gaze. Stella fashioned him a thin white bandage out of some tape and gauze, and it sits just below his eye so that from a certain angle, it almost makes him look like a football player, or like one of those tourists with a needlessly thick layer of sunscreen.
But beneath all that, even in the shadows, Clare can see the regret scrawled across his face.
He scratches the back of his neck. “I really am sorry, you know.”
“I know,” she says. “I do. But I still don’t get it. What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug.
“This can’t just be about your sister. That was over a year ago. And honestly, it wasn’t even that bad. There’s no way you can still be mad about it.…”
He’s doing his best to avoid her eyes, so Clare takes a step closer, putting an arm on each of his shoulders, forcing him to look at her.
“So what are you so upset about?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “You and me, I guess. Tonight. Everything.”
“Yeah, but those aren’t reasons to use Scotty as a punching bag. You’ve been annoyed with him all night. How come?”
Aidan ducks away from her grip, walking to the edge of the deck, where he stands looking out over the yard. “I don’t know,” he says again, and when Clare walks over to join him, he sits down on the top step. “We used to always talk about California. Hanging out on the beach. Learning to surf. And now he’s staying here.”
“Yeah, but that’s not—”
“It would’ve been so easy, you know?” Aidan says, the words tumbling out in a rush now. “All he had to do was go to class more often. Read a book every now and then. Pay attention. He’s not an idiot. I mean, he is—but not in that way. All he had to do was try a little harder, and we could’ve been out there together.”
Clare swallows hard, hurt by the truth of it: that she’d wasted so much time thinking similar thoughts about Aidan and Harvard, daydreaming about the two of them together on the East Coast. While all that time, Aidan was wishing the same thing—only about Scotty.
“I don’t know,” he says, kicking at the stones of the patio and scattering a few acorns. “I guess I didn’t even realize I was pissed at him.”
“You’re not really,” Clare says, her face growing warm as she thinks about her own conversation with Stella earlier. “You’re just sad to leave. And you’re taking it out on him.”
Aidan shrugs. “It’s just that so much is about to change. It’d be nice if there was at least one thing that could stay the same, you know?”
It takes Clare a moment to find her voice. “I know. But then…”
“What?”
“Well, how can you blame me for the Harvard thing?”
He furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”
“You were worried I’d want you to go,” she says. “If you got in. And honestly, you might be right. I don’t know. Sometimes it seems like it would be crazy to do anything other than break up. But other times…”
“Not so much.”
“Not so much,” she agrees. “Part of me still thinks it might’ve been nice to be closer.”
Aidan bends to pick up an acorn, twisting at the little cap. “I know I should’ve told you.”
“It’s okay,” she says, though it’s not quite—at least not yet.
“But a lot of it was just that I felt really bad about the whole Stanford thing.”
“I wasn’t ever actually gonna—”
“I know,” he says. “But still. I feel like we kind of had a deal, even if it was mostly just a joke. Even if neither of us expected it to go anywhere. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t pull the trigger on that stupid application.”
“Because you were afraid I’d want you to go.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Because I was afraid I’d want to go.”
Clare looks at him sharply. “What?”
He shrugs. “I’ve always hated the idea of Harvard. Obviously. And you know I’ve always wanted to be in California. I mean, I still can’t believe I got into UCLA.…”
“I know, but—”
He cuts her off, looking down at the acorn in his palm. “But I was worried that if I got in, I might still choose Harvard.”
“Why?”
“Because it would’ve been closer to you.”
Clare stares at him. “Seriously?”
“I love you,” he says simply, as if this is what she was asking. And she supposes that, in a way, it was.
“Aidan…” she begins, not sure what to say.
“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” he says. “I think we’re both ending up in the right places. All of us, really. Maybe even Scotty. Who knows, right?”
She manages a nod. “Who knows.”
Inside the house, the music has been turned up again, and people are streaming in and out of the kitchen with their cups held high, swaying to the beat.
Clare glances up at the sky, which is pocked with stars, and closes her eyes.
When she opens them again, Aidan is watching her intently, his face only inches from hers, as if he’s about to kiss her. She pulls back uncertainly, and he frowns.
“You’re definitely gonna have a shiner.”
Clare brings a hand to her cheek, touching it lightly. “So are you,” she says. “Maybe even two.”
“Yeah, but on your first day at school…” he says with a groan. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe we did that.”
“It’s okay,” she says, doing her best to smile in spite of the pressure of her swollen eye. “I’ll look tough. No one’ll want to mess with me.”
He laughs. “Oh, yeah, you’ll be super intimidating.”
Behind them, someone slides open the screen door and then, with a burst of laughter, tosses a pair of sneakers out onto the patio. One of the shoes rolls over a few times and lands right behind them, and Aidan looks at Clare with a wrinkled nose.
“Does that smell like… ?” he asks, and she nods.
“Puke. Definitely puke.” She narrows her eyes at the damp sneaker. “Any chance you want to go for a walk or something?”
Aidan hops to his feet and extends a hand to help her up, too. “Let’s get out of here.”
Around the side of the house, there’s a gated wooden fence that leads out to the street, which is still lined with cars, the sure sign of a successful party. When they pass Aidan’s Volvo, Clare has an urge to climb in, to tell him to start the engine and just drive until they’re somewhere, anywhere but California or New Hampshire. But instead, they walk past it without a word and continue down the street in no particular direction.
It’s after midnight now, and the houses are mostly dark. Every once in a while, they see a flickering TV or the glowing eyes of a cat in a window, but for the most part, this area of town has already been tucked in, and the quiet is thick and ringing, a sound like static.
“I feel bad about your list,” Aidan says after they’ve walked for a little while, turning right here and left there, winding their way deeper into the muffled suburban night. “I feel like it all sort of went awry.”
Clare shrugs. “That’s what I get for over-planning.”
“What did we skip?”
The slip of paper is in her pocket, but she doesn’t take it out. “I don’t know. We were supposed to get ice cream. Stop by the movie theater. Go to the gazebo.”
“Those weren’t firsts, though, right?”
“No, just places that meant something.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t make it, then,” he says, looking at her sideways, and the words flood Clare with a kind of icy grief. She stops walking without meaning to and stares at him, and when Aidan turns around, she can see the recognition on his face, can see the look behind his eyes as he realizes exactly what he just said.
“Oh,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Clare swallows hard. “I know.”
“But I am.”
“What?”
“Sorry we didn’t make it.”
“Me too,” she says, and then they begin to walk again, a little bit closer this time.
“So where were we supposed to be right now?”
At first, it seems to Clare that this, too, might be some larger question with a deeper meaning.
They’re supposed to be on a deserted island.
They’re supposed to be at the same college.
They’re supposed to be together.
But then she realizes he’s talking about the list.
“I don’t know. The dance, I think. But we already ruled that one out.”
Aidan stops walking and turns to face her. “Am I allowed to be romantic now?”
“Now that we’ve broken up?”
Without waiting for an answer, he steps forward, circling his arms around her waist, pulling her close, and she automatically clasps her hands at the back of his neck and leans into him, as she’s done so many times before.
They don’t move—not really. It’s more of a hug than a dance, the two of them standing there in the dark, locked together like they’re afraid to let go. She can smell the antiseptic that Stella used on his cut, a clean, tangy scent, and beneath that, the peppermint shampoo his mother bought for him. She traces a finger along his back, just between his shoulder blades, and she feels him shiver beneath her touch. When he bends to kiss her temple, it makes her feel like crying.
“Remember that night?” she asks, and she’s surprised to hear her voice tremble a little bit. “You kept spilling punch all over yourself.”
He bows his head, laughing softly into her ear. “I was nervous.”
“You were a mess.”
“But a charming mess.”
“You were holding your cup while you danced,” she says, pressing her cheek against his chest. “It was sloshing all over the place. But you refused to put it down.”
“I needed something to do with my hands,” he admits. “I was afraid you’d see what a terrible dancer I am. I needed a diversion.”
“So you sacrificed your suit.”
“It was for a very worthy cause.”
They hadn’t been anything official yet, that night: just two people who liked each other, on the brink of something more. But already, she was beginning to see what it might be like, being with Aidan. Around them, everything else felt plodding and predictable, their classmates all going through the motions, carrying out the overly dramatic business of every school dance: the girls crying in the bathroom, the couples making out in the corners, the two groups of guys on the cusp of a fight, the upperclassmen practicing their most withering stares.
But Aidan—Aidan was fun. All night, he’d danced around her: moonwalking and then break-dancing, marching them around in a stiff-armed tango and then reeling her back for a comically formal waltz, spinning and swinging her so quickly she could hardly see straight. He was nervous and jittery, but also whirling and unpredictable, with flashing eyes and a dazzling smile that was only for her. She was laughing so hard she could barely keep up, and she kept having to stop and catch her breath.
“I’ve got two left feet,” he’d shouted to her over the music, his face flushed in the heat of the gym, “but I know how to use them.”
There was just something about him. He made the room feel brighter and the hours move faster. All that night, they were flying, and it was like magic, giddy and joyful and dizzying.
But even so, there was a part of her that wished he might slow down. Just for a little while, just long enough for her to walk into his arms and fit herself against him, to stand there while the minutes ticked by, just holding him in place, this one bright spot in the midst of so much gray.
And now, two years later, they’re finally here: folded together like this, with the night thrumming all around them and the sound of his heartbeat loud in her ears.
And yet, he’s no longer hers.
All this, and the only thing it means is goodbye.
They stand there like that for a long time, so long she starts to think she can feel each minute slipping away as the night hurtles unrelentingly toward morning. But then Aidan goes abruptly tense, and he loosens his grip, letting her go and taking a step back.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and she can see the change in his eyes, the sudden recollection of what they are to each other now—or rather, what they’re not. “I guess I just don’t know how to do this yet.”
Clare feels a little unsteady. “Do what?”
“Not be together.”
“Oh,” she says. “Yeah. I know.” Her phone makes a whirring noise from her bag, and she glances down at it, then back up at Aidan. “It’ll probably be a lot easier when we’re apart.”
There’s a wounded expression on his bruised face.
“Sorry,” she says as her phone goes off again. She fumbles through her bag until she finds it. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just think it’ll get better when we’re not together.” She groans, then shakes her head. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right, either.”
His face softens. “It’s okay. We’re still new at this.”
“Yeah,” she says, holding up the blue-lit screen of her phone as proof. The electronic numbers across the front read 12:24 AM. “It’s only been a couple hours.”
“Then we’ve still got time to practice,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “What should we do now? I guess it’s too late to cover the stuff we missed, but we could still try to hit whatever’s next on the list.…” He trails off when he sees that she’s not listening. She’s too busy staring at the long chain of missed calls and texts on her phone. “Clare?”
She looks up at him, her eyes wide. “Uh, the next stop isn’t on the list, actually,” she says. “Unless you have some sort of record I don’t know about.”
He stares at her, confused. “Record?”
“Come on,” she says, already turning in the direction of the car. “We’ve got to go to the police station.”
“What?” Aidan asks, jogging after her. “Why?”
“Because,” she tells him. “Scotty’s in jail.”