Between Here and Forever

by Elizabeth Scott

  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 will give up everything to keep her alive and end up with nothing. I will have to stay and help them, be the rock they can lean on. I will sink into Ferrisville, and I will decline too. I will 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.

  eight

  Eli is in the gift shop. I figure he’ll be talking to a 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 college, but really all 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 usually 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’ll be better soon,” I tell 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 will 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 selling 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, all 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 roll 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 will—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.”

  nine

  Eli stares at me as if I’ve just said, “Hi, I’m crazy.”

  “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’ll wake up. And when she does, you’ll 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’ll order her some flowers or something, and when you bring them up I’ll 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’ll 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 really serious, aren’t you?” he finally says. “You really think I can wake your sister up.”

  I nod.

  He laughs.

  He actually 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, all 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. “Tell him I got the message and I swear, I’ll 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 swallow 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. Tell Clement I know the gift shop is supposed to benefit whoever it’s supposed to benefit, and—”

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

  “I forgot—”

  “I bet you did. Let me guess, you got in trouble at Saint Andrew’s and got assigned here as some sort of punishment?”

  “I forgot the name of the town, that’s all,” he says. “How did you know I go to Saint Andrew’s?”

  I laugh, brittle and sharp. “We don’t have guys like you in Ferrisville.”

  “You sound happy about that.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. You just laughed at me when I asked you to help my sister, remember?”

  “I—you’re serious?”

  “Yes,” I say, exasperation creeping into my voice. What’s with this guy?

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I—look, I really thought Clement sent you here, and I don’t—I don’t see how I can help your sister. Seriously. I didn’t see her doing anything when I was in her room, and I’m really not the kind of guy girls—”

  “But she did do something,” I tell him. “And we both know you’re the kind of guy girls want. If you—if you say you’ll help
me—help her—I’ll talk to Clement and get you out of here. He likes me and he can make stuff happen around here. I’ll tell him you’re helping me with a project for school.”

  “Clement doesn’t like anyone.”

  “Wrong. He just doesn’t like anyone from Milford,” I say. “Which is probably why he spends all his time here even though he’s a bazillionaire.”

  Eli blinks. “Wait a minute. Are you—are you Abby?”

  Wow, talk about a gamble that paid off. “Yeah.”

  “You … Clement said you were—”

  “He can’t see very well,” I tell Eli. “When you’re old, I think everyone who isn’t is cute or something.”

  “He didn’t say you were cute.”

  Okay, ouch. “Ugly, then. Whatever. The point is, I’ll talk to him, and you won’t have to work here anymore.”

  “He didn’t say you were ugly either.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say, but it does, and I just want to get out of here. “I’ll talk to Clement, and then you just have to talk to my sister.”

  “Okay, but I don’t think she’ll wake up because of me.”

  “You don’t know Tess. She loves gorgeous guys, and you’re the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen. You’ll wake her up, and when she does, you’ll thank me.”

  “Is she like you?” he says. “I mean, is she—does she just say stuff like you do?”

  “No, she’s not—Tess’s perfect. She’s beautiful and smart and everyone loves her. You will too. You won’t be able to help yourself. I’ll talk to Clement now, and we’ll start tomorrow, okay? I would say we should start now, but Clement loves to talk and I have to catch the ferry home before my parents—” I break off. No need to go into that with him. “Anyway, tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay,” he says. “Abby.” I nod at him, and walk out of the gift shop.

  If he says Tess’s name like he just said mine, Tess will be awake about ten seconds after he starts talking.

  Even Jack saying my name never made me feel so—

  Stop it.

  I promised myself all that was gone, forgotten, and it’s going to stay that way. I made myself strong, I taught myself to know who—and what—I am.

  I go find Clement. He’s drinking coffee in the cafeteria and looking out at the river, and he grins the second I mention Eli’s name.

  “Told that boy to look out for you,” he says. “I said, ‘Eli, there’s a firecracker.’”

  Well, Eli was right. Clement didn’t call me ugly. He just called me an object people blow up on holidays. I’d been wondering a bit about how they knew each other, but now I so don’t care. And besides, Clement knows everyone.

  “The thing is, I need him to help me with something,” I say. “And we both know you know everyone and everything and can do stuff. So can Eli help me?”

  “What do you want him to do?” Clement says. “I know how you young girls are about love, Abby, but if you want to go out with him, you should—”

  “Oh no,” I say. “I don’t—this isn’t about me. It’s for Tess. She moved her eyes, remember? And she did it when Eli was talking. So I know that if he talks to her, he can wake her up.”

  Clement takes a sip of coffee. “Just like that?”

  “I know it’ll work. I know my sister. She likes cute guys and Eli—well, he’s—you’ve seen him. If his voice can get her to move, just imagine what she’ll do once she opens her eyes.”

  “He is a good-looking boy,” Clement says. “Takes after his grandmother’s side of the family, but he looks like his mother too. She’s a tiny little thing. Came over here from Japan and—”

  I cut him off. “So can he do it?”

  “You know what your problem is?” Clement says. “You’re impatient.”

  “You said I was worried before.”

  “So you’re both,” Clement says, and takes another sip of coffee.

  “Well?” I say, when he doesn’t say anything.

  “See?” he says.

  “Fine, you’re right,” I say, grinning at him. “So can Eli do it or what?”

  “He can help you,” Clement says. “And you can help him.”

  “Well, I think Tess will take care of that,” I say. “When she wakes up, I mean.”

  Clement starts to say something, and then pats my hand. “You shouldn’t be—you should like yourself more, Abby.”

  I swallow. “I like myself as much as I should,” I finally say. “And thanks for agreeing to this.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I was going to have to move Eli out of the gift shop anyway. He keeps giving away gum. And it takes him forever to count out the magazines.”

  “Sort out.”

  “I know what I said,” he tells me. “I meant count. So I said count.”

  “All right,” I say, holding up my hands in mock surrender, and when he pulls out another of his cough drops, I wave at him and head off.

  “You’re welcome,” he calls out after me, and I walk out of the hospital feeling lighter than I have in months.

  This will work. I know it will. I’m going to give Tess what she wants. I’m going to watch her wake up. I’m going to see my family knit itself back together, return to the way things used to be.

  I’m going to watch Tess wake up, and then I’ll finally be able to get away from her. From seeing her so trapped and helpless now.

  From living in her shadow.

  ten

  I see Claire’s car up ahead of me as I’m waiting for the ferry, but don’t bother even trying to ride up to her. People take waiting for the ferry very seriously around here, and I don’t feel like getting yelled at for “cutting in line,” never mind that together, me and my bike make up about a quarter of a car. The ferry still counts us as one vehicle.

  And makes me pay for it too.

  So I wait, and after I’m ushered on board and everyone has parked and the ferry is finally chugging away from the dock, I go find Claire.

  She’s standing up near the front of the boat, pushing her hair back off her face with one hand. Claire isn’t pretty, but she stands out. She has short hair, barely over her ears, and it’s bright red, almost orange. She used to wear it super short, practically a buzz cut. I was ten and Tess was thirteen when Claire first got it cut that way, and Tess thought it was the most amazing thing ever. She had a photo of the two of them down at the beach, the top of Claire’s head as sunburned as her nose, stuck in the frame of her dresser mirror for ages.

  I wonder what she did with it when she decided she wasn’t speaking to Claire anymore. I never asked her. When Tess was eighteen and I was fifteen, I never spoke to her unless I had to.

  “Hey,” I tell Claire, and plant myself next to her at the rail. The ferry pushes into a wave, and spray mists my face.

  “Hey,” Claire says. “Heard you went to the gift shop today. I didn’t know you were interested in tapping that ass, Abby.”

  “Tap that ass? What year is it?”

  “Rick used to say it,” she says, a tiny smile appearing but fading fast, as soon as she’s said Rick’s name. “Well, he said it about me. ‘I tapped that ass!’ Do you know he actually called me last night and said he didn’t see how Cole could possibly need money since he’s ‘you know, a little kid, and what do they need?’”

  “Sorry,” I tell her. “So I guess you told him you wanted to get back together, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” she says, grinning at me. “You know what the best part was? After I hung up on him, he actually called back and asked again because he thought he got cut off. I don’t know what I was thinking back in high school.”

  “No offense, but what were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t,” she says. “He wanted to have sex, and I thought it seemed so much easier than being in love …” She trails off.

  “Wait, you were in love with someone? Who?”

  She blinks at me, and then looks out at the water.

  “Someone who didn’t love me back,”
she finally says. “Not enough, anyway.”

  “Are they still in town? Never mind, of course they are. Who is it? Did Tess know? Is that why she got so mad when you—?”

  “Nice try,” Claire says. “But I haven’t forgotten you were in the gift shop talking to the guy who’s so good-looking someone who came into the hospital actually stopped and took his picture.”

  “Did not!”

  “Did,” she says. “One of the nurses saw the whole thing.”

  “That’s just sad.”

  “He is awfully—I was going to say cute, but he’s not cute. He’s beautiful. Like, really and truly beautiful. Don’t you think?”

  “I think he’s going to wake Tess up.”

  “What?”

  I tell Claire my plan.

  “So because you think that you saw Tess’s eyes move—?”

  “It sounds stupid when you say it like that,” I say. “She … look, you were in the room. He talked, and something happened to her.”

  “Because of Eli?”

  “Yes, duh,” I say. “You’ve seen him. You even said he was beautiful just now. And you know how Tess is. She’s always wanted to be swept off her feet by the perfect guy. Beth even got her a book of ‘classic romantic fairy tales’ for Christmas.” I swallow. “Or at least that’s what Tess said. She didn’t … she didn’t ever show us her gifts. She left them at school and now—”

  “How is Beth?” Claire says. “I haven’t seen her at the hospital much lately.”

  “She came a lot at first,” I say. “But now she’s … I don’t know. Busy with school, I guess.”

  “They lived together for two years.”

  “Yeah, but that’s how it is in college. Tess says that when you find someone decent to room with, you don’t mess with that.”

  Claire stares down at the river. “You know, Abby, maybe you don’t—maybe you don’t know Tess like you think you do.”

  “Oh, come on,” I tell her. “Tess wants to be happy.”

  “No, she wants everyone to think she’s perfect.”

  “I don’t think Tess ever worried about that. Why would she ever have needed to? I mean, she’s—”