Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

I count because if I don’t, I could easily get sucked into looking out the window. Into watching the river.

Into getting up, leaving, and never coming back.

The hospital is depressing. It’s ful of death waiting, just waiting, and Tess’s unit is so silent, like the world has gone away, and if I could, I wouldn’t ever come here.

I come here—I am here—not because it’s the right thing to do, but because I want Tess to be here, real y here.

I want her out of this place and back in her life. I want her back at school.

I want life to be like it was after she went to col ege. I was stil in her shadow but not directly under it. Not weighed down by it. Even Tess couldn’t fil up Ferrisvil e from far away. She was a memory. A strong one, but stil , just that.

But now she’s here, she’s a tragedy, and she defines me al over again.

And that’s when I see Eli sitting on the other side of the room, looking at me.

I force myself to look right at him even though I don’t know what to do when he looks at me. Why is he even looking at al ?

He lifts a hand, then waves.

There is hesitation there—I see it and it stings, and I hate myself for that—but he waves.

Run.

That’s what I want to do. I want to run and run and run until I am far away from here, from Ferrisvil e, from everything. I want to run until I can look at myself and not wish I were more like someone I wil never be anything like.

I want to run but I know what happens when you pretend things can be different. I held Jack and thought he could love me, but he couldn’t. He didn’t.

I thought I was free when Tess left for col ege but now I am tied to her so tightly I am here, spitting and snarling and trying to wake her up.

I am here and once again there is a guy in front of me, a guy who wil only ever see Tess, and deep down, in a place I have tried to destroy, part of me sees him and wants. Wants him, wants him to see me.

Stupid. So, so stupid. I square my shoulders and walk over to Eli because I wil remind myself why I am here. Why he is here.

I wil remind myself that everything is about Tess.

I wil remind myself that I’m nothing when put next to her.

going to come back in a little while. I just thought that with everything going on, you might need some space.”

I shrug, because I don’t know what to do with his kindness. I don’t … I don’t know what to do with someone like him. I don’t know why he would even want me to sit with him.

Also, he is looking at me, and away from the fluorescent lights of the hospital, sunlight from outside glinting in and making the river look almost beautiful, he is—it’s like time should be frozen around him. I want to trace—touch—his mouth, his neck, and the hidden hol ow of his throat peeking out from his shirt.

I think al that—want al that—and it stil doesn’t capture how he looks.

I’m staring. I know I am. The thing is, he’s staring back.

Of course, I am the one gawking at him.

“So,” I make myself say as I sit down and drink some of my soda. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No,” he says. “I was just thinking about stuff you’ve said—about al of this. And okay, no offense, but you’re kind of … it’s like I’m not even an actual person to you.”

“I think you’re a person,” I say, stung. “I just …” I swal ow, because I can’t say You’re beautiful and I’m afraid of you. “I’m sorry I’m not drooling al over you like everyone else must, but I guess I can fix that. How’s this?” I arrange my face into a slack-jawed look of awe (sadly, it comes quite easily) and look at him.

“I can’t help how I look,” he says, like he’s got horns growing out of his head or something.

This is making me nervous. He’s making me nervous. “Okay, I—I think you’re perfect for Tess, and yeah, it’s because of how you look. Or it was, before I realized that you’re nice too. But you—I mean, you know what you look like. You’ve seen a mirror before and everything after al , right?”

“Okay,” he says, shrugging.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, and then hesitates for a moment. “Are your—are your parents like you too? Do they come visit every day?”

“Yeah,” I say, and finish my soda, pushing the can’s sides in. “They pretty much live here.”

“I haven’t seen my parents since last year,” he says.

“Oh, so you board at Saint Andrew’s?”

“No,” he says. “I live here, in Milford. I just—I haven’t seen them since … it’l be a year in two weeks and one day. They both travel a lot, and thought I should … they thought sending me to school here would be good.”

“Is it?”

He shrugs. “It’s different. Milford is very …”

“Scenic?”

“Smal ,” he says. “Milford feels smal to me.”

I bet he’s from L.A. or something. “Where did you live before?”

“Connecticut.”

Not what I expected. But then, this whole conversation has been like that, hasn’t it? I toss my soda into the trash can near us. “You miss it?”

“Not real y,” he says. “But at least there people didn’t—I get tired of explaining what I am to people here.”

“Wel , even in Milford, there aren’t many people as—I mean, you’re like good-looking times a hundred,” I say. “When Tess wakes up, she can help you deal with it.”

He stares at me.

“I mean the fact that I’m not white,” he says. “I get tired of explaining that.”

“Oh. I hadn’t—I mean, I didn’t think …”

“You think people here don’t care?” Eli says. “They care. Everyone’s always, ‘Oh, it’s so great that Saint Andrew’s embraces diversity,’ which means, ‘Oh my God, there’s a non-white boy attending, test scores might slip, and my darling Winthrop might not get into Yale!’”

I laugh because he’s right, that is how people over here talk, and when he looks at me, I say, “No, it’s not—it’s just—that is how they talk. Once in a while the school sends their choir over to sing at the town retirement home, and the guys act like walking through town is so daring. Like, ‘Look at me! I’m in a place where people don’t have numbers after their names!’ I just never thought—I mean, I wouldn’t think you—”

“I know what you think about me,” he says, and for the first time, there’s something sharp in his voice.

I swal ow, hard, and wonder why there’s such a look of confusion and longing in his eyes. Must be about how things are for him here. I can understand that, and take a deep breath. “It real y sucks that people are assholes to you. How come you don’t tel your parents?”

“My dad grew up here,” he says. “So it’s not like he didn’t know what would happen to me.”

“Wait, your dad grew up in Milford? Do you have relatives here? Wait, of course you do. Why don’t they tel al the assholes to—?”

“It’s … complicated,” he says. “Have you ever known someone who lived in their own little world?”

“Like, an imaginary one?”

“No, just like—I don’t know. The past, basical y.”

I shake my head.

“Wel , that’s how my family is. They al want things to be like they used to be.”

“I guess I do get that,” I say slowly. “I want Tess to wake up because—I mean, I want her to wake up just because, but I also—it’s like everyone’s life is frozen because Tess is that way.”

“You don’t like the word ‘coma,’ do you?” he says.

“I know she’s in a coma, I know what the doctor says. But you don’t—‘coma’ is this word without hope, this word that means gone, and Tess isn’t gone.”

“I didn’t mean—”