Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

“Okay,” she said slowly, clearly not buying it, and then moved her feet from the sofa to the floor, making space for me. “Want to watch a movie about aliens trying to destroy the world?”

I looked at the television screen. “You’re watching that stupid ‘modern’ version of Cinderel a starring the actress whose head weighs more than her whole body for the ten mil ionth time.”

“I know,” she said. “But I can change the channel. And hey, you can laugh at me when I get scared.”

“I don’t want—”

“I know how you feel,” she said. “You don’t have to tel me, but just—I real y do know, okay?”

I didn’t believe her—I’d spent my whole life watching her break hearts, not getting hers broken, after al , but she sounded so sincere. That was another thing about Tess. She had this way of making everything and anything sound true, sound like she knew what you meant, that she understood you.

She had a way of making you feel like she needed to be there for you. Like she wanted to. And that night, I needed to believe that someone was there for me.

Even if it was her.

And so I sat next to her, and we watched a movie where people got eaten by aliens. Tess hid her face behind her hands for most of it and never once said a word about the sand on my clothes or how the mascara she’d seen me put on before she left for work had washed into muddy smears under my eyes. She was so nice, so understanding—so Tess. And I hated her for it. For being so perfect yet again.

When I went to bed that night, I lay there, dry-eyed because I wasn’t going to cry. I wouldn’t let myself, and wondered if Tess would ever know what heartbreak was.

If she would ever know anything unpleasant, and how much I wished that she would.

And now she does.

I know I didn’t cause the accident, I know I’m not why Tess’s in the hospital. But now I wish I could take al the anger I’ve ever felt when I looked at Tess, when I thought about her, and make it disappear.

I wish a part of me doesn’t stil feel that anger when I look at her lying silent and far away. I wish I wanted her to wake up only because I miss her.

But I don’t. I miss her, but not like I should. I … I want her to wake up so I don’t have to be tied to her forever.

I want her to wake up so I won’t forever be reminded that I’m not her.

That I’l never be her.

the hospital the next day, frowning because my bag got wet on the ferry and the lone bathroom on it was out of paper towels.

I curve my mouth into a huge, fake smile, and he laughs and pul s out a cough drop.

“Found someone to work in the gift shop starting today,” he says. “Have something you’d like to say to me?”

I grin at him. “I hear that eating too many of those things you like so much gives you gas.”

He laughs. “My wife would have loved you. Do you like Jaffa Cakes? Harriet loved them. Used to be hard to find them over here, but now the supermarkets have international aisles and you can get anything.”

“I love them,” I say, and wonder what the hel Jaffa Cakes are.

He grins at me. “Now what are you going to do when I bring you a box of them?”

“Tel my parents my new boyfriend is a little older than I am.”

Clement laughs so hard he chokes on his cough drop, causing the reception area people to come running with water and offers of help.

Sometimes I think he gave more money to the hospital than even rumor says, because normal y the people at reception don’t and won’t move unless someone’s bleeding al over the place. Or if it’s time for their breaks.

“Go on,” he says, waving me off through a sea of faces watching him. “Tel Eli I said hel o.”

I go up to Tess’s unit, and see Eli sitting in the smal waiting room outside. He’s easy to spot because a couple of nurse’s aides are busy organizing carts by the door and gawking at him.

I ask them if they’ve seen Claire, and they both shrug and go back to gawking. I squeeze past them and into the room where Eli sits, tapping the fingers of one hand against a chair as he stares at the television bolted to the wal .

“Hey,” I say, and tel myself the kick-in-the-gut drop I get when he looks at me is just an involuntary reaction. Like stomach cramps after eating bad food.

I don’t real y believe it.

“Hey,” he says, voice as low and steady and sweet as I remember, and the aides out in the hal are gawking so hard I can feel their gazes boring into me.

I can feel them wondering how and why someone like him is talking to someone like me.

“You ready to go?” I say, and they’l stop wondering as soon as Tess wakes up and they see him with her.

“Did you see Clement?”

“Yeah. He says to say hi.”

Eli gets up then, unfolding from the chair like a work of art come to life, al grace and skin the color of caramels my mother used to buy, individual y wrapped golden candies that she’d melt down and pour onto ice cream.

Tess would eat spoonfuls of the stuff.

“I—you—are you okay?” he says, looking a little hesitant, and I nod, say, “Yeah. Let’s go see Tess, you’l love her, trust me,” wil ing my voice not to crack, wil ing myself to sound normal, like I’m not hoping so hard my heart hurts.

Like I’m not noticing him.

We head out into the hal and I punch in the door code that lets the nurses know someone’s waiting to be buzzed in.

“I wanted to say—I wanted to ask about your bag,” Eli says. “It looks a little wet. I can get you a towel or something if you need to dry it off.”

I shake my head, say no without words, because I can’t talk just now.

I don’t know what to think about the fact that he even noticed my bag was wet. No one … it’s been a long time since someone looked at me and saw me.

I wish—

Luckily, before I can finish that dangerous thought, a nurse buzzes us in, and we walk to Tess’s room.

Once I’ve done that and settled into my usual seat, I feel better. Less thrown by his comment. By him noticing me, even if it was only my bag.

I look at Tess and touch her shoulder, wait for her chest to rise and fal .

It’s such a tiny movement, but it’s the biggest one she makes. The one that keeps us al coming here. Keeps us al waiting.

“I brought someone to see you,” I tel her, and then look at Eli.

He sits down across from me, and I think she’s caught him, that he’s trapped by her beauty like everyone else is, but then he starts tapping the fingers of one hand against the chair and looks at me like he’s waiting for something.

“He’s shy,” I tel Tess, and then look at him again, widening my eyes so he knows he’s supposed to be talking now. “But you heard him the other day, remember? The guy with the voice?”

Eli clears his throat and says, “Hey.”

I look at Tess’s face. Nothing.

“Can you say something else?” I say.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever you tel girls when you meet them.” I don’t know what else to do. Tess talks to guys. I don’t. They don’t even notice me.

I turn back to Tess and watch her face as he starts to talk.

“Um. I’m Eli,” he says. “I go to Saint Andrew’s. I’m a junior, and I—”

“A junior?” I say, and look at him again. His fingers are stil tapping against the chair. “There’s no way you’re a junior.”

“I am.”

Oh, crap. I was sure he was a senior, eighteen and getting ready for col ege. “You don’t look like any of the guys in my school. How old are you?”

Maybe he got held back a year or something. Anything.

“Seventeen.”

Double crap. “Okay, but you’l be eighteen soon, right?”

“Wel , if nine months counts as soon.”