Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

“How much longer?” I feel like I can’t breathe, but I know I am, I am stil speaking.

Stil living.

“About a week,” Mom says. “Maybe a little longer, but we’re not sure. We have to wait for the paperwork for the home to be finalized.”

“What if she wakes up?” I say. “No one wil be there. She’l be al alone and—”

“She won’t be alone,” Dad says. “Your mother and I are stil going to go see her. That won’t change.”

“And me? How am I supposed to ride my bike out to Oxford Hil ? It’s like twenty miles from the ferry, and I can’t—” I stop, swal ow the words.

I can’t say what I want to. I can’t say, “I can’t do this.” I can’t say, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here or in a room with Tess.” I can’t leave my parents alone when the one person we al know would make a mark on the world is locked inside her own mind.

“I—I’l have to start visiting her with you again,” I say. “I can come meet you after you get off work, like I used to.”

“No,” Dad says.

“No?” Mom and I say at the same time.

“You have school,” Dad says. “You need to start thinking about col ege, about the SATs. You have things you need to do.”

“Dave,” Mom says. “If she wants to see Tess, we should—”

“I gave up everything to sit by John’s side,” Dad says. “You—look at what you did for your brothers, for your mother. I don’t want that for Abby.”

“She’s not doing that,” Mom says. “She’s visiting her sister. She’s not—she’s not you, Dave. She’s not me.”

“When’s the last time you went out?” Dad asks me, and then looks at Mom. “We both know she doesn’t go out, Katie. She goes to school, she goes to the hospital, and she comes home. We let her keep doing that, we keep Abby with us, and before you know it she’l be where you were when you were eighteen. Where I was after John died.”

Mom’s face pales, but she says, “If she wants to see her sister, I don’t think you or I should tel her—”

“Three times a week,” Dad says. “That’s it. After Tess—after she’s moved out of the hospital, that’s the most she can go.”

“You don’t get to decide that. She’s not you, David! She’s not going to shut down and turn her whole life into one big—”

“She won’t spend al her time rattling around the house or at the hospital?” Dad says, cutting her off, and Mom’s eyes flash ful of something that looks like memory and fear. “She doesn’t yel at people when we aren’t around, doesn’t sit hunched over like she is now, like she’s miserable?”

“Stop!” I say.

And then I say it again, louder, my voice echoing in the kitchen, and the words just pour out of me. “She’s not—stop talking about Tess like she’s gone. Stop talking about her like she’s not here. She is here, and she’s going to wake up. We can’t … we just can’t think she won’t.”

Weirdly, Mom’s face fal s. I’m agreeing with her; I’m tel ing her that I know I need to be here, that I understand how important Tess is. But she’s looking at me like I’ve hit her.

“Abby, I—honey, Tess isn’t going to be the same,” she says. “Not ever. You do understand that, right?”

Dad shakes his head at her, like he wants her to stop talking, and I should be happy that he’s giving me what I’ve secretly longed for. That someone, final y, believes I need a life that isn’t al about Tess.

I’m not happy.

I’m not happy, because it’s like he doesn’t believe that Tess can wake up.

Like he doesn’t believe she ever wil .

“I don’t understand you,” I tel him, and get up, walk up to my room. I don’t slam my door. I close it gently, like Tess would.

No one comes after me. I hear my parents talking. I can’t make out what they’re saying but hear the murmur of their voices, and when I hear nothing but silence I go back downstairs.

They’ve left me a note. They’ve gone to see Tess. They love me. They’l be back soon.

I crumple the note and go back upstairs. I stand in Tess’s room.

“Wake up,” I say. “Just wake up.”

I want to believe that she wil . I want to believe that she hears me now, that she hears me when I’m with her. But deep down, I’m afraid she doesn’t. Deep down, I don’t think she hears me. Deep down, I’m afraid she’l never wake up.

I want her to come back, I do. The thing is, I can’t picture it anymore. Not like I used to. What was so sure, so clear, has become hazy.

Has become something I can’t quite see.

I don’t talk to my parents when they get home. They don’t seem to notice, though, because they are clearly angry with each other. So angry they aren’t even speaking to each other.

So I am silent, we are silent, and I think about what has happened. What has been said.

And on Monday, after school, I head for the hospital. For Tess.

stinks, but it has a mirror over the sink and so I’m standing here, holding my breath and combing my hair.

I tel myself I’m not doing it because I’m going to see Eli.

But I am. Of course I am.

He’s been the one thing I haven’t let myself think about since Sunday morning. My parents and their ongoing silence, I’ve wondered about al through school. Tess would have known what to say, would have been able to get them talking. She could always get them to, either just by saying

“What’s wrong?” until they answered, or by having some problem they could step in and fix, some upset that needed soothing. They’d consoled her when she was furious with Claire, and made arrangements to take her to an admissions counselor when she was worried about col ege.

Tess could fix things now, and I can’t.

I’m so tired of knowing that. Of being reminded, over and over again, that I’m not Tess.

But it’s not like I get a break. At school, everyone asks about her. People in my classes, teachers, and even the cafeteria workers want to know how she is. I know people are being nice, I know they care, but it’s just more reminders of what’s happened. Who I am. What I can’t do.

And even on the ferry, surrounded by people I know who are going to work, or coming home, or doing who knows what, there are questions. A

“How’s your sister?” or “Tel your parents we’re thinking about them and praying for Tess,” or “It seems like just yesterday Tess and I were in the same English class/at a party/did something amazing and/or fun together. I miss her. Tel her that, wil you?”

By the time the ferry docks, I’m beyond ready to get off, like I always am, and I ride to the hospital as if a ghost—a shadow—is chasing me.

I guess, in a lot of ways, one is.

When I get to the hospital, I lock up my bike and go find Eli. I don’t look at him at al as we head to Tess’s room. I force my mind and heart to see Tess waking up. Picture it: She breathes deep once, twice, and her eyes flutter. They open. She sighs. Smiles.

Sees Eli, and smiles more.

My heart cramps, a painful twist, and I force myself to keep looking. To see what should happen. What wil happen.

“I know you’l say that you’re fine, but are you al right?” Eli says, and I nod, remembering years of Hal oweens with Tess. Remembering how I used to want the same costumes she had until I realized the smiles I got were always fainter versions of the ones she received, that they were sad with knowledge I hadn’t quite yet gotten. Smiles that knew I wasn’t Tess. Smiles that knew I wasn’t ever going to be Tess.

“Sure,” I say.

“It’s just—I came over here yesterday afternoon,” he says. “And I didn’t see you.”

He was here?

He was looking for me?

“I—I wasn’t here yesterday,” I say, punching in the code for the unit. “My parents were, though. I guess you met them, right? While you were talking to Tess and everything.”