Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

“What do you mean, why? What else are we going to talk about?”

“Wel , he’s beyond cute, for one thing.”

“Which is why he’s seeing Tess,” I say, and she leans back so she’s lying down, staring up at her porch ceiling.

“Why does Eli have to be Tess’s?”

“You’ve seen him,” I say. “Who else could he belong to? And besides, has anyone who ever saw her decided they’d rather spend time with me instead?”

“I’d rather hang out with you any day.”

“Ex–best friends don’t count.”

Claire laughs again, but the sound is softer now, almost regretful. “That’s true.”

I sit down and lean back next to her. The inside of the porch is easier to look at than the vast, empty nothing of the night sky. It’s real. It’s defined.

It has a beginning and an end.

“Beth came to see Tess,” I say.

“Yeah,” Claire says. “I heard. I also heard you got upset.”

“Wel , yeah. She said that she was boxing up Tess’s stuff, and made up some bul shit about how she and Tess had talked before, and that Tess was going to move out. As if Tess wouldn’t have mentioned that when she came home.”

Claire sits up, and I hear the water slosh as she lifts her feet out of the bucket. “Beth and Tess were—they weren’t going to live together anymore?”

“So she says. I think Beth just found a new roommate and wants to get rid of Tess’s stuff. What kind of friend is that?”

Claire’s silent, and I kick her, lightly. “You’re supposed to say, ‘A crappy friend.’”

“Poor Tess,” Claire says instead, her voice a whisper.

“What does that mean?” I say, sitting up.

“Nothing.”

“Claire.”

“Al right,” she says. “I saw—I saw Tess by herself once when she first came home, at the grocery store. She was buying chocolate wafer cookies.”

“Oh,” I say, because whenever she was real y upset, Tess could and would eat enormous quantities of chocolate wafer cookies, the old-fashioned kind that come in a box and crumble if you touch them too hard.

“Yeah,” Claire says. “When I saw that, I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know it was—I didn’t know it was her and Beth fighting.”

“You didn’t say anything to me.”

“I just figured it was Tess being Tess. I figured it was grades. You know how she always—”

“Yeah,” I say. “She did—does—worry about them. Poor Tess.”

Claire sighs. “Abby, you’re dealing with a lot of shit right now. And I know you think Tess waking up wil fix it al but it—”

“I know it won’t fix everything,” I say. “I’m not stupid. But at least then she’l be awake. Be better.”

“And you won’t be poor Tess’s little sister anymore.” She looks at me and shrugs. “I was her best friend for years, Abby. I lived in her shadow too.”

“Do you ever—do you miss her?” I say.

“No,” Claire says, and that one word is so sharp, so final, that I know she’s lying.

I let it go though, and just lean back again, looking up at the porch ceiling, at the squares that create it, a simple pattern where everything is neatly arranged. Where there are no open spaces, no gray areas. No places where you can miss someone even though remembering how they were only makes you wish they’d disappear.

Not that I wish that for Tess. Not exactly. I just want her back in her life. I’m tired of mine being al about her.

fingernails with her legs curled up under her on the sofa.

“How’s Claire?” she asks, like our conversation from before didn’t happen. Like Claire is the only person I ever see.

Of course, she pretty much is. Not that it stops me from saying, “What makes you think I was with Claire?” just to see if Mom thinks I actual y have a life.

Or could.

“I saw you walk toward her house when you were done listening outside the window,” she says. “You know, when I tel you to go upstairs, I don’t mean leave the house and then listen to our conversations.”

Caught, but I don’t care. “What’s wrong with Dad? And why are you talking to the doctor about Tess? Has something changed?”

Mom pauses, the nail polish brush over her last nail. “Your father and I want to know how Tess—how her outlook is.”

“And how is it?”

“Nothing’s changed.”

“Then why was Dad upset?”

Mom careful y paints her last nail, and then caps the bottle. “Because we al are. Look, Abby, I love that you spend so much time with Tess, but you can’t—you can’t let someone else take over your life, be everything to you. For you. Trust me on that.”

I shift, uncomfortable with what she’s saying. With how close she’s come to the truth: that Tess has taken over my life.

But what Mom doesn’t see is that there is no me when Tess is around. That there never has been.

It’s not that she and Dad have tried to turn me into Tess or anything like that. But Tess was the pretty one, the special one, the one people loved because she was so sunny and friendly and always knew the right thing to say. And no matter how hard I tried, I could never quite sparkle like she did.

“Are you thinking about what I said?” Mom says, and I nod, watching her eyes. They are calm, col ected.

I look at her and almost believe things wil be fine.

“I saw Beth today,” I say. “I bet the nurses told you, but the reason I got upset is because she told me she’s boxing up Tess’s stuff. She might as wel have said, ‘I don’t think Tess’s ever coming back.’”

“She’s boxing up Tess’s things?” Mom says, and there, in her eyes, for a moment, is a flash of what I know she real y feels. Surprise.

Worry.

Fear.

“Wel , Tess can always move her things back,” she says, and she’s smiling and calm.

And lying.

I let her, because I know what it’s like to need to believe in lies. I once believed I could make someone who loved Tess love me.

I once believed someone could see me, just me. I once thought I could be happy like Tess was.

I know better now.

I wake up—I like to sleep as late as I can on the weekends. Past noon is best. Whoever decided high school should start when it’s stil basical y dark outside should be shot.

I take a long shower and dry my hair, then debate what to wear to the hospital. Then I get mad at myself for doing that because Tess doesn’t care what I wear and it’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone. Right?

Not that I can imagine impressing Eli, even if I somehow managed to find an outfit that makes me look both tal er and curvier. I final y throw on an old shirt and jeans that are ratty around the bottom of the legs because they’re too long for me. (I have yet to own a pair of pants that don’t end up dragging along the ground at some point or another.)

Mom and Dad get home late in the afternoon, just as I’ve final y headed downstairs and am grabbing something to eat. They both look tired and sad, how they always look when they get home from visiting Tess, and especial y on the weekends, when I think they remember Tess dragging us al down to the beach or Tess sighing over her homework or Tess getting phone cal after phone cal or talking to the three or four or twelve people who’d stopped by to say “hi” to her.

“What have you been doing?” Dad says, trying to sound cheerful and failing miserably.

I point at my bowl of cereal.

“You don’t have to stay home al the time, you know,” he says. “You can go out. If anything … if anything happens, we’l find a way to get in touch with you.”

I don’t say anything, because we both know I don’t go out. I didn’t when Tess lived here, and I don’t now, except to see her.

I finish my food fast and escape to the ferry.