Page 5 of Summer Light on Nantucket
“I know. I’ll be back by then.” He took her hand in his. “I’m sorry. I have to do this. I know it ruins our Christmas, but we have years of Christmases ahead of us.”
“I could go with you,” she suggested softly, afraid to say it, knowing what his answer would be. “You’ve told me I should see Ireland.”
“I did think of that, but no. Not now. Not like this. It will be a madcrush, because we’re a large family and we’ve got to sort things out. First, we’ll have to have a good drunken brawling reunion with all the worst memories spread out and then some of us will have to spend days looking at the company’s records and helping Sarah.”
Blythe was shivering. “I’m so cold. I need to go inside.”
“Come on.”
Aaden took her hand and led her across the street and into the heart of Cambridge. They found a coffee shop, a warm, dark room smelling pleasantly of wet mittens and mufflers. Aaden took her to a booth and helped her slide in.
“I’ll be back with drinks.”
The room was cozy, but Blythe was still cold. She folded her arms across her chest to keep the warmth against her. Her parents had told her, her friends had warned her, high school romances never last. They’re like fireworks, instant, explosive, gorgeous, and doomed to fade and disappear.
Aaden returned. He scooted into the same side of the booth as Blythe, his warm body touching hers, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. He’d brought her a coffee, thick with chocolate, sugar, and cream. He was wearing a Red Sox cap and his high school letter jacket which made a crackling sound as he moved next to her.
She sipped the coffee and let it warm her.
Aaden put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Say something.”
All she could think about was how he had said, “The family is going to Ireland.” As if he did not exist apart from his family. As if being with his family was more important than being with her.
“This seems huge,” Blythe finally said very quietly. She couldn’t face him. She stared at the wall opposite. She didn’t want him to touch her. She would shatter like crystal. “A kind of turning point. Or maybe I mean a fork in the road.”
Beside her, Aaden nodded. “I know. But things are always going to change, aren’t they? We’re graduating from high school in a fewmonths. We have to be adults and face the future. I suppose I mean we need to face the present.”
She couldn’t speak. She didn’t want to face the present, not with Aaden half a world away.
“Just tell me you’ll come back,” she whispered.
“I’ll come back,” Aaden promised.
—
He had kept his promise. He had come back. He’d finished his final semester at the high school.
But he was going to return to Ireland. She had known that the moment she set eyes on him when he returned from Christmas vacation.
That January evening, when Aaden picked her up to go out to dinner, he’d entered the house to say hello to her parents and to chat politely like he always did.
Blythe and Aaden didn’t speak as they walked to the car, but already Blythe sensed how Aaden had changed. During his few phone calls over vacation, he’d been ebullient, unable to talk fast enough to tell her all the reasons Dublin was amazing. She had wanted him to return home so badly that she’d almost told him she’d had a car accident and was in the hospital, but of course she couldn’t lie to him, she could only tell him how happy she was that he was having a great time, even though that was really a lie. When she saw him, his first evening home, he’d seemed taller, larger, more confident, and he had always been confident.
They settled in the car. It was very cold, and Aaden switched on the ignition in order to turn on the heater.
Before they pulled on their seatbelts, Blythe turned to Aaden.
“You’re going back to Ireland.”
He didn’t lie. “I am. I wish I could explain how it is over there. For me. It’shome.The people, the food, the weather, the architecture—I’ve applied to Trinity in Dublin for next year. It’s where I want to be.”
Her heart stopped. She couldn’t think. “Aaden, could we drivesomewhere? I mean, if my parents glance out the window, they’ll wonder why we’re still parked here.”
“Sure.” They both hitched on their seatbelts and he drove the car away from her house and onto Mass Ave, a wider, busier street leading into Cambridge and toward the Charles River.
Aaden said, “Are you hungry?”
“No.” Blythe couldn’t look at him.
