Scotty turns around and salutes him. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
“I already told you, I’m not a captain,” the man says, rolling his eyes. He looks over at the rest of them. “You’ll get him home?”
Aidan nods. “Thanks so much for being so understanding.”
“That ink isn’t coming off for a little while,” the man says with a chuckle. “I think that’s punishment enough.”
Stella hasn’t said a word yet. She’s still just standing there, staring at this swaying, staggering, polka-dotted version of Scotty. But as soon as the officer leaves, and it’s just the four of them in the empty lobby, she takes a step forward, giving him a hard look.
“You could’ve been arrested,” she says, thrusting a finger at him. “You could’ve been charged with something.”
Scotty holds up both hands, which are smeared with black. “Yeah, but I wasn’t.”
“I know this night is hard for you,” Stella says in a low voice, “but you can’t do this kind of thing anymore. You just can’t. We’re not gonna be around to fix things for you after tonight, so it’s time to grow up. You get that, right?”
The grin on Scotty’s face disappears. “Hey,” he says in a pleading tone, but she’s not listening. She’s already turned on her heel and is walking out of the building, letting the door slam shut behind her as she disappears into the darkened parking lot.
There are a few seconds of clanging silence, and when she turns back to Scotty, Clare sees that his arms are hanging limp at his sides. His broken glasses are balanced at an odd angle on his nose, and there’s an injured expression on his battered, ink-stained face. She lets out a sigh.
“I’ll go,” she says. “Just give me a minute.”
Outside, Stella is already halfway across the parking lot, which is still slick from the earlier rain. By the time Clare catches up with her, she’s breathing hard.
“Hey,” she says, grabbing her friend’s arm, and Stella whirls around. “Why are you so upset? I mean, it’s Scotty. He does this stuff.…”
Stella gives her a cool look. “I thought you were done caring about me.”
“I never said that. I only said I have to stop needing you so much.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not, actually,” Clare tells her. “And I wasn’t trying to be mean. It’s just… I don’t know. You clearly can’t be bothered to act like my friend anymore, so what else am I supposed to do?”
“God, you’re doing it again,” Stella says, tipping her head back with a groan. “Even now. You came out here to see why I’m upset, and now you’re talking about yourself again.”
Clare frowns at her. “What?”
“Have you ever considered the possibility that not everything is about you?” Stella asks, taking a step closer. “That maybe the big dramatic farewell between Clare Rafferty and Aidan Gallagher isn’t the only thing going on tonight?”
“That’s not fair.”
“I’m sorry this is hard for you,” Stella says with a shrug. “I am. But I’m also just so tired of talking about whether you and Aidan will break up or stay together, and who wants what, and why. It’s exhausting.”
“Well,” Clare says, glaring at her now, “we broke up already, so I guess you’re off the hook.”
Stella’s face softens, just slightly. “I know. And I’m sorry. But it’s what you wanted, and you guys seem to be handling it just fine, so I don’t know what else you want from me.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Yet you’re so busy worrying about how I’m not paying enough attention to you,” she says, “that you haven’t even asked about me.”
Clare throws her hands up. “Well, I don’t get it. You’re upset because Scotty’s in jail, which makes no sense at all. I mean, you saw him. He looks like a drunken Dalmatian. What do you expect?”
To her surprise, Stella laughs at this.
“What?” Clare demands, kicking at the asphalt with the toe of her shoe.
“Nothing. It’s just that I was thinking you look sort of like a raccoon, with your eye like that. Aidan, too.”
Clare allows a small smile. “I guess we’re all kind of a mess tonight.”
They’re both silent for a moment, studying their feet. A car pulls into the parking lot, the headlights scraping past them, illuminating their faces just briefly before leaving them once again in the dark.
“I still don’t get it,” Clare says after a moment.
Stella looks at her evenly. “So ask.”
“Ask what?”
“Ask me why I’m upset. Ask me why I’ve been so busy. Ask me why things have felt different lately.”
“I’ve been asking you that all night.”
“No, you haven’t. You’ve been asking me why I’m too busy for you. Why I haven’t been there for you. You haven’t once asked where I’ve been.”
“Fine,” she says, a little impatiently. “So where have you been?”
Stella hesitates, then sighs. “Forget it.”
“No, I want to know,” Clare insists, but Stella is distracted by the clatter of a metal door, which echoes out across the parking lot. They both look over to see the boys come walking out the front of the station. Scotty is wearing Aidan’s button-down, which is hanging open so that the paleness of his chest stands out against the inky spots, and Aidan is trailing behind him in only a white undershirt that’s a little too small. They make a ridiculous pair as they stride over with matching grins.
When they reach Clare and Stella, Scotty produces a black marker, which he must have stolen as well, holding it out in front of him like a trophy. “Look,” he says, laughing. “I’m a human game board. Who wants to play connect-the-dots?”
Aidan snatches the marker from him, hiding it behind his back. “Let’s not make it worse,” he says, and Stella rolls her eyes. She looks around at each of them in turn—Scotty with his polka dots, Aidan with a bright line of white tape across his cheek, Clare with her swollen eye—and shakes her head.
“I’m pretty sure,” she says, turning to walk toward the car, “it can’t get much worse than this.”
The Wrights’ House
1:24 AM
At Scotty’s house, all the windows on the second floor are dark, which means his parents have already gone to sleep. This isn’t usually a problem. Over the years, they’ve mastered the art of the after-hours entrance: tiptoeing and shushing and whispering on their way through the kitchen, where they usually grab a few snacks, and then heading out to the deck to drag the scattered lawn chairs into a circle and let the clock wind down on their curfews.
But tonight, Scotty is still keyed up from his brush with the law, and as they burst into the quiet kitchen, he trips over one of the barstools, stumbling a few steps before crashing into the hutch. The whole thing rattles and chimes, the delicate plates and glasses quivering on their shelves, and they all hold their breath until it settles again.
“Oops,” Scotty whispers, once they’re certain that his parents haven’t woken up.
“Maybe I should make some coffee,” Aidan suggests, and Stella gives him a thumbs-up as she and Clare start steering Scotty out of the kitchen.
In the bathroom, they sit him on the closed seat of the toilet and then assess the damage with matching frowns. He looks back and forth at them, pushing his broken glasses up on his nose every few seconds, only to have them immediately slide down again.
“I’m not sure soap is gonna do it,” Stella says eventually, and Clare nods from where she’s leaning backward against the sink, doing her best to avoid the giant mirror above it. She isn’t quite ready to see the damage to her own face just yet.
“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 be relieved it isn’t Riley.”
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 to 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.
“So are you okay?” Stella asks as she grabs a filter, and Clare shrugs.
“I’m a little tired, but I’m sure the coffee will help.”