Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

“So, who gets it?” Eli says, looking at the nurse and then at me. “I gotta get back down to the gift shop. Nobody else is there today.”

I point at the nurse and go back to Tess.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I’l —” What? I have no idea how to approach him. I don’t approach anyone.

But this is for Tess. For Tess to wake up.

“I’m going now, but I—I’m going to get Eli for you, okay?” I say. “Don’t go anywhere.”

I pretend her mouth curves up into a smile. I pretend she can hear me. I take the copy of Sassy You the nurse swore Mrs. Johnson wanted from where it lies unopened on the stack of magazines the nurses “read” to Mrs. Johnson by standing there and reading the magazines themselves, and shove it in the trash.

“Sorry you had to see that thing,” I tel her. “And, hey, I’m going to get Tess to wake up. She has to, you know. Otherwise …” I trail off.

Otherwise this is Tess’s future. A long, slow decline. A lifetime without life.

A lifetime of me tied here, because if Tess doesn’t get better, my parents wil give up everything to keep her alive and end up with nothing. I wil have to stay and help them, be the rock they can lean on. I wil sink into Ferrisvil e, and I wil decline too. I wil have a lifetime without a life, and I don’t want that.

I know it’s selfish. I know a better person, a better daughter, wouldn’t think like that. Tess wouldn’t think like that.

But I’m not Tess. And the last thing I want is a life in which I do nothing but prove that over and over and over again.

bunch of girls or admiring his reflection or whatever it is gorgeous people do when they are at work. Tess got a job at a grocery store in Milford the summer before she went to col ege, but real y al she did was spend day after day talking to guys who’d trail around Organic Gourmet after her.

Eli isn’t talking to anyone, and he isn’t looking at himself either. He’s sorting through a bunch of magazines, tapping his fingers against each one and making faces at the headlines. He even scowls gorgeously.

I should probably be nervous about talking to him, but a lifetime of watching guys stumble over themselves to say “Hi” to Tess has made me realize how stupid that is. Acting like you’re not good enough to talk to someone usual y means they decide you aren’t good enough to talk to them.

Also, Eli isn’t for me, he’s for Tess. I’m just making sure they meet.

“I’m sure she’l be better soon,” I tel him, pointing at the blond stick on the cover of the magazine he’s looking at. “They say the sixth time in rehab’s the charm.”

“What?” he says, and then looks at me. “Oh. You’re the girl who—”

“Has the beautiful sister,” I say, just because I know how his sentence wil end. It’s how it always ends. “Can I get a copy of that?”

“You want a copy of this?”

I don’t. I’d sooner poke a stick in my eye than read inspirational tales about how some girl has made a fortune sel ing T-shirts, never mind that one of her parents is always a designer or hip New York store owner, or look at pictures of raccoon-eyed models posing in clothes no one I know can wear. Or afford.

But what I say is, “Yeah.”

He gets up and hands me one, al fluid motion and dark honey-colored skin. I am acutely aware of my shortness, lack of curves, and general blahness.

“Are you sure you want it?” he says. “I saw you make a face when I brought it up for Mrs. Johnson, and you don’t look like the kind of person who”—he glances at the cover—“cares about the new and best sunless tanners.”

Of course not. I look like me, and the way he so easily dismisses me stings a little, but I square my shoulders, dig some money out of my bag, and slap it on the counter.

While he’s making change, I look at the candy. Someone’s gone through and—I swear, I think it’s been organized by bar size and wrapper color.

Bizarre.

“Here you go,” he says, handing me my change. “Enjoy your magazine.”

I rol my eyes before I remember I’m supposed to want the thing and he grins at me, perfect-shaped mouth showing perfect white teeth, and if I were weaker I’d memorize that smile because I am surely never going to see anything like it again.

“Your eyes—do you wear contacts?” he says.

I freeze, my whole body going numb.

“No,” I say. If he says I have pretty eyes, I wil —I don’t know. I just know I won’t cry. Jack said my eyes were pretty once, and I was stupid enough to believe him.

But this guy doesn’t say that. He just says, “Do you want anything else?” so polite, so perfect, and I admit that for a second, one stupid second, I want to jump over the counter and lick his neck and touch his shoulders and his hair and pretend I could make a guy like him go weak in the knees.

“Yes,” I say, squashing that second, that stupid twinge of want, down. “I want you to wake up my sister.”

“But your sister, she’s—”

“She’s in a coma,” I say. “But her eyes moved when you talked. She can hear you. So if you, you know, visit her, she’l wake up. And when she does, you’l love her. Everyone does.”

“So you want me to … what?”

“I just need—I want you to talk to her,” I say. “When her eyes moved, it was—” I take a deep breath. “It’s the most she’s done in ages.”

“Are you going to be there?”

“What?”

“If I talk to her, are you going to be there?”

Oh, I get it.

“No,” I say, and point at the case where bouquets of gently wilting plants are kept. “I’l order her some flowers or something, and when you bring them up I’l go to the lounge while you do whatever it is you do when you meet someone.”

“I can’t,” he says. “I’m only supposed to go into a patient’s room if there’s a nurse or family member present.”

“Okay, so I’l be in there, then.” He’s confusing me. “I won’t—I won’t talk to you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know I’m not … like I said, I’m here for my sister.”

He leans into the counter, leans in closer to me. It takes everything I have to not step back. He’s so—he’s so gorgeous. He’s—

He’s for Tess. I’m doing this for her. I force myself to keep looking at him.

“You’re real y serious, aren’t you?” he final y says. “You real y think I can wake your sister up.”

I nod.

He laughs.

He actual y laughs, eyes crinkling up, hair tumbling in perfect casual disarray over his forehead and down over his ears, and I force myself to smile back, to act like I am unmoved by him, like him laughing at me means nothing. I picture myself as the tiny animal I am, al anger and hard-earned knowledge, claws and fangs and an immovable heart.

I picture Tess awake, and my parents happy.

“I know Clement put you up to this,” he says when he’s done laughing. “Tel him I got the message and I swear, I’l stop giving away gum.”

“Wait, hold up. You’re giving away gum?” I say, and hold out one hand like I’m waiting for a pack.

Something else I’ve learned is that it’s best to take the moments where you want the ground to swal ow you whole—moments like now—and just get through them. Act like you don’t care that you’ve put yourself out there and gotten pushed away. Or, in this case, laughed at.

“I was,” he says. “But I’m not now. Tel Clement I know the gift shop is supposed to benefit whoever it’s supposed to benefit, and—”

“Ferrisvil e,” I say, the little animal that is me now claws-ready. “You’re working to raise money for people from Ferrisvil e who can’t afford to be treated here.”

“I forgot—”