Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

“I know what you’re thinking about,” Claire says.

I turn, startled, and see she’s standing right next to me.

“You didn’t come in today,” she says, and smiles at me. “Where were you?”

I shrug.

“Clement was looking for someone too,” she says, stil smiling. “I heard him asking about Eli—guess he wasn’t around either. I wonder where he was?”

I shake my head at her. “That’s what you’ve got? You have to get better at this if you ever want Cole to talk to you once he’s past, say, six.”

“You were with Eli, weren’t you?” Claire singsongs, and when I flush, says, “I knew it! Tel me everything, with many details, as I have no life.”

“There’s nothing to tel . I saw him, we talked, and now I’m here talking to you.”

“Saw him where?” she says. “And you should hear how you said ‘talked.’” She drops her voice down on the last word, fil ing it with innuendo.

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Which means it was.”

“Claire.”

“Abby,” she echoes back at me, and then nudges me with her elbow until I look at her.

“What?” I say.

“You deserve to be happy, you know,” she says. “I know everything’s changed because of Tess, but it doesn’t mean you have to stop living. Just because she’s not—”

“Don’t say ‘not here.’ She is here. You see her almost every day. Just because she isn’t awake doesn’t mean—”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Claire says. “What I was going to say is that just because Tess isn’t able to go back to her life right now, you don’t have to give up yours.”

“Nothing to give up,” I say, forcing my voice to sound light, like what we’re talking about means nothing to me. “I just spent a couple of hours with a guy. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like I mean anything to him. I mean, you’ve seen him. He could have anyone.”

Claire shrugs. “Okay.”

I sigh, because I know what her “okay” means. “Okay what?”

“Nothing. Just—wel , people who can have anyone stil have to pick someone. And why can’t that someone be you?”

I gesture at myself. “You think there’s going to be a run on short, scrawny girls?”

“I’m no Tess either,” Claire says, “but once someone loved me.”

“Yeah, but you and Rick didn’t work out.”

She blinks, then nods and says, “But you don’t know it won’t work out with Eli. And stop trying to change the subject. Tel me more about today.”

So I tel her a little bit about going to Saint Andrew’s, skimming over the cafeteria stuff, which I feel belongs to Eli, is his story to tel if he chooses.

And Eli chose to share his story with me.

“Okay, you’re smiling, but you’ve stopped talking,” Claire says. “So you left the school and—wait, I know. You went to his house, right?”

“Yes,” I say, and when she makes a go-on motion I shake my head at her. “Nothing happened.”

“Oh, you lie. I can tel from the way you’re—holy shit, you’re blushing!”

“Shut up,” I mutter, and she laughs, saying, “So, you’re at his house and then …”

“I was at his house for a while and then I left. That’s it.”

“Abby …”

“Real y, that’s al , I swear,” I say. “I mean, we almost sort of kissed …”

Claire throws both arms up in a victory sign until I elbow her and say, “Quit it. It’s not a big deal.”

“The fact that it took me this long to get you to tel me that means it’s a huge deal. And I meant what I said before, you know. You deserve to be happy.”

I want to believe her. I desperately want to believe her—in fact, I want to beg her to tel me again—so I change the subject. “Did you see my parents today?”

“No, they weren’t there when I left. Why? Do you think they’l find out you weren’t at the hospital? Would they—do they make you see Tess every day?”

“No,” I say. “Nothing like that. It’s just … I hope they’re okay. Yesterday Beth dropped al of Tess’s stuff off, just drove up with it in boxes and then left. She says Tess said she was going to move out, and she’s living with someone else now, but how hard is it to hold on to your roommate’s things? Especial y when it’s someone you’ve lived with for …” I trail off, something about everything I’ve just said making my head spin.

“Wel , maybe her dorm room is smal ?”

“They had an apartment,” I say absently. “Tess said she and Beth wanted more space, so they moved off campus together after their freshman year.”

And that’s when it hits me. What Beth was trying to say about why she and Tess had decided to stop living together when I saw her in the hospital. How I saw Beth touching Tess’s hair, and the look on her face when she did.

The way she looked at Tess when she thought there was no one around to see. The sadness.

The love.

Beth and Tess weren’t roommates. Beth and Tess were living together. I think of al the times Tess came home, and how Beth was almost always with her. I think of al the pictures Tess had, al those guys. And always, in every single picture, Beth was there holding the camera. Beth, who Tess was real y looking at.

Beth and Tess were together.

“Holy shit,” I breathe.

“What?” Claire says, and I tel her. Her eyes go wide, but I can’t quite read the expression in them.

“Did you know?” I ask, but I don’t get to hear her answer because the ferry docks and we al have to go back to our cars. Or, in my case, bike.

I think Claire wil wait for me when I get off the ferry, drive me home so we can talk more about what I’ve just realized, but she doesn’t.

I’m not that surprised, though. If I’m shocked, she must be … I can’t even imagine what she must feel. Tess, with her endless string of boyfriends, goes off to col ege and fal s for her roommate. Her girl roommate.

I ride home, dazed, and just sit in the living room, thinking. When Mom and Dad get home, I look at them. I wonder if they know.

I look at them, at their tired faces, their sad eyes, and no, I don’t think they do. I didn’t know, and I saw more of the true Tess—her sweetness and the dark underneath it—than Mom and Dad ever did.

Should I tel them?

No. It isn’t my story to tel . It was Tess’s, and if she’d wanted to share it, she would have. But she kept it to herself.

We al have our own untold stories, and maybe this is what I can give Tess. I can let her keep her story, the hidden part of her heart, close to herself.

I just—I hope it is stil with her. I hope that the self she knows is stil somewhere inside her. I hope she …

I hope that deep inside, in the places none of us have been able to reach, that Tess is stil there.

is—wel , having him talk to her isn’t necessary. But then, deep down, I know it hasn’t real y been about her, not like I wanted it to be since the first time I looked up from sitting with her and saw him looking at me.

Eli’s waiting for me when I get to the hospital, sitting in the waiting room leaning intently over his notebook, pen in hand.

He looks up when I come in, though, like he knew I was coming. Like he’s been waiting for me.

I tel myself to put a clamp on my brain. I know my heart isn’t the problem. The heart is just a muscle and what makes it beat faster is the thoughts pounding in my head, Eli’s name kick-thudding through me.

The brain clamp isn’t real y working, though, and I swear I feel it crack when he sees me and smiles. I force myself to think of Jack’s face when he spoke about Tess, to remember how sure I was that I could make it change, that I could make that look mine. That I could make it about me.