Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

“No,” he says, so strongly it’s almost like a shout. “I mean, no. I’m okay.”

I know I should say, “Al right, see you later,” and leave, but I don’t.

I stay.

I say, “Are you sure?” and sit down next to him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I just—we didn’t get buzzed out like we’re supposed to, and I started thinking about how I might have taken my first step out of the unit on my right foot and not my left, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about how something terrible was going to happen even though I’ve been trying real y hard to not think like that, and—”

“Wait, what?” I say, total y confused.

“I—I have this thing,” Eli says. “I … sometimes I think things have to be done a certain way and if they aren’t I, um—” He breaks off, drumming his fingers against his legs and then curls them into fists, tight ones like he’s trying to hold his fingers in. “I get upset and think awful things are going to happen and—oh, hel .” He looks at me. “I’ve got OCD.”

outside. Eli first started showing signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder when he started school, and found out he could only do his work in a certain way.

“And if I didn’t,” he says, “I’d get—I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like I was going to die—I mean, I actual y felt like I was—and al because I didn’t do things like I was supposed to.”

It got worse as he got older, and his parents sent him to doctors, put him on medication, and told him he just had to tel himself to stop.

“They made it sound like it was so easy,” he says. “Like if I just thought about it enough, I’d realize ‘Hey, walking through a doorway forty times to stop myself from dying if I cross through it on my right foot is stupid!’ Like I didn’t already know that. I did. I do. I just—I can’t help it.”

I think about how he walks a little behind me, like he has to, and how I’m always catching him moving his fingers like he’s restless.

Or counting out something.

I think about how he reacted when I punched in the unit door code with my left hand instead of my right. How weird I thought he was being afterward.

How upset he must have been.

“I—I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

He looks at me. “You didn’t?”

I shake my head.

“Wow. I figure it’s—I figure it’s al anyone can see,” he says. “After Harvey was put to sleep, I got even worse. It used to take me two hours to get ready to leave the house every morning. My parents were—they weren’t happy. I went to see more doctors, had my medicine adjusted, everything.

But nothing—I couldn’t get better. Even now, I stil have to—” He points at his hands.

“So you came here to see another doctor or something?” I say.

He laughs, but it’s a sad, bitter sound. “No. I mean, I do see a doctor. But my parents—I was embarrassing them. Al their friends have kids who can, as my father says, control themselves. But the madder they got, the worse I got, and … wel , like I said, I was embarrassing them. So they sent me to live with Clement. I spent years listening to my dad complain about this place—we never came to visit, you know, not ever—and they stil sent me here.”

“That’s—your parents suck,” I say.

He stares at me.

“I’m sorry, but they do. You’re amazing and—” I break off, aware of what I’ve just said. Out loud. “Anyway, they do suck.”

“They’re not that—okay, yeah, they do,” he says. “I hate it here. Wel , not everything. Clement’s okay. And you …”

I hold my breath, waiting in spite of myself, hoping in spite of myself, but he doesn’t finish his sentence, just trails off and taps his fingers against his legs.

“I real y hate this,” he final y says, looking at his fingers. “I hate my brain. If it worked right my parents would—I don’t know. Not act like I was something they need to hide.” He looks at me. “What’s it like having parents that actual y like you?”

“Ask Tess,” I say, and realize how bitter I must sound because he tilts his head a little to one side, like I’ve surprised him. I immediately feel guilty, not just because my parents are amazing compared to his, but also because it’s not my parents’ fault I’m not Tess. That’s nobody’s fault.

“I don’t mean it like it sounds,” I say. “My parents are okay. It’s just that since she got hurt, it’s … I’m not Tess, and it’s become this huge, obvious thing that—it’s al I can think about. I can’t draw everyone to me like she does. I don’t know how to shine like she does. She would know what to do now, if I was where she is. She always knows what to do and I … don’t.”

“You seem to be doing okay to me.”

“But I’m not. If Tess doesn’t wake up in the next few days, she’s getting moved to a home. And my parents … it’s breaking their hearts, you know? They’re not happy and Tess could always get them—or anyone—to stop whatever it was they were doing and focus on her.”

“That sounds … I don’t know. She sounds sort of dramatic,” Eli says.

“She wasn’t—wel , she did know how to get attention,” I say. “But you’ve seen her.”

“I have,” Eli says. “You’re as pretty as she is, you know.”

I laugh for real for the first time in ages then, laugh even as my heart kick-thumps inside my chest, a throbbing, hopeful beat.

“Okay,” I say when I’m done, and stand up, start to head farther downstairs, outside. “Thanks for that, for being—for being so nice.”

“Hey, I meant what I said,” he says, getting up and fol owing me, his voice quiet. “How come you’re so sure that your sister is better than you?”

“Because she is. She always has been.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone.”

“Wel , I’m not everyone,” he says as we walk out of the hospital, and smiles at me.

I smile back. I can’t help myself.

I can’t help wanting to believe him.

We’re both silent as we cross to the bike rack, but as I’m unlocking my bike he says, “Thanks for, you know, listening.”

“I like listening to you,” I say, and then mental y kick myself. “I mean, it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It was to me,” he says. “You’re the only person besides Clement I’ve told about my OCD. And Clement—wel , it’s not like he didn’t already know.”

See, there he goes again, getting to me because he’s so—he’s so damn sweet. So not pushing back when I try to push him away. “I haven’t—

you’re the only one I’ve told about Tess. How I can’t be like her, I mean.”

“Like I said, she sounds … dramatic,” he says. “You—”

If he says I’m solid or reliable or something like that, I wil die.

“You think you’re a shadow or something,” he says. “Her shadow. But you’re not. You shine too. I’l see you tomorrow, okay? I gotta go meet Clement now.”

“Okay,” I manage to get out and then just stand there, watch him walk back into the hospital.

He thinks I shine.

I think about that al the way home. That, and Tess.

she always knew what she wanted and got it no matter what, from good grades to getting into her dream school to making sure nobody talked to Claire once Claire got pregnant, but that wasn’t drama. That was wil . And Tess had a lot of it.

But as the breeze created by the ferry cutting through the water blows over me, I start thinking about other things. Like how Tess acted when she found out Claire was pregnant. She was mad. And not just in the angry way. It was like she actual y went a little crazy. The worst was when she saw Claire walk by our house when she was just starting to show. I don’t even remember where Claire was going—she might have just been out walking