Between Here and Forever

  I watch the nurses take us in, our clasped hands, watch them turn toward each other, and then I pause by Tess’s door, look inside her room. Look at her.

  So still, so quiet. So alone.

  “I have to tell you something,” I say quietly, and I don’t know if I’m talking to her or Eli or both of them.

  And then I drop Eli’s hand and walk into Tess’s room, sit in the chair I always sit in. I turn it so it’s a little closer to her bed. To her.

  I look up, over to where Eli has sat, and he’s there, looking at me.

  “Tess,” I say, looking back at her and thinking about Beth, about her touching Tess’s hair, about her face when I asked her how she could act like Tess wasn’t coming back. About those boxes, sitting lonely on the front lawn. “Tess, I—”

  I don’t tell her that I know her story. I tell her mine instead.

  I tell her about Jack. I say all the things I didn’t that summer, forgetting everything, even Eli, as the words pour out of me, right down to how loud the river sounded when I sat there after Jack said he was sorry, so sorry, and left.

  “And the worst part was, I couldn’t hate him,” I tell her. “I couldn’t hate you, even. I just … I thought I’d found someone who wanted to be with me. Kiss me. But I wouldn’t let myself see what was obvious. I’m not you. I’m never going to be you.”

  She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t do anything.

  But Eli does. Eli gets out of his chair—I hear the sound of it moving back as he stands, and I look up, surprised, and see him walking toward me—and then he is there, kneeling right in front of me, and all the certainty I felt before is gone. He is too beautiful for me, someone else will see that and worse, see that inside he is gorgeous too, and I am all thorns and loss and anger with bony knees and then—

  And then he kisses me.

  thirty-six

  “Why?” I say when I can breathe again, when I can think again, when we have separated because a nurse walked by and cleared her throat and I unwound my arms from around his neck and felt his leave the sides of my legs slowly, like he wanted to keep touching me. Keep kissing me.

  He blinks at me like I’m speaking another language.

  “Why?” I say again, and move so there is space between us, my gaze falling on Tess, a silent, unseeing witness to what has just happened.

  “Because I—I’m someone who wants to kiss you. Be with you,” Eli says as if it is obvious, as if I know what is written on his heart.

  I look at him, still kneeling in front of me like I’m worthy of that. Like I’m worthy of what he just said. Like I’m worthy of him.

  “Oh,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else to say, I can’t find any words, not now, not after his, and look at him.

  He is looking at me.

  He is looking at me like everyone has always looked at Tess. As if I am someone worth seeing.

  It’s everything I’ve wanted, right down to Tess seeing it. But I never wanted Tess to see it like this. I never wanted her to be a silent, blind witness. I never wanted her here but gone, at least not like this. Never like this.

  “Abby?” Eli says, his voice tentative, questions laced through each letter, and I know what comes next. It’s easy. I take his hand, I say his name, and we will be together. But I don’t …

  I don’t know if I’m ready for this. For him. I’ve spent so long wanting someone to see me—really see me—that I never thought about how it would feel if it happened.

  It’s not scary. It’s past that, beyond that, and I don’t know what to do now that this thing—this dream, and yes, that’s what it’s always been, a dream, an impossibility that came true only when my eyes were closed—is real.

  It’s not that I don’t believe in the kiss or what he just said.

  It’s that I do. I believe he likes me, that he … that he sees me and wants me.

  I don’t know what to do with the happiness I feel, with the want racing through me. I have lived with broken need and anger and fear. I have lived with an ache to get out of Ferrisville, to get away. I have built worlds where I leave this place and become someone others want to see.

  I’ve never pictured anyone finding me here. Wanting me here.

  I’ve never, ever pictured anyone like Eli.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say, and he’ll know what to do, he has to know, this is the part where it will all work out. I haven’t run away; I have stayed despite my fear and now this is real. Now we are real.

  “Oh,” he says, and I watch him move back, hands clenched in on themselves until he’s back in his chair, where they rest on the arms and start to tap. “I thought—”

  He shakes his head. His eyes aren’t meeting mine now, and I don’t understand. I haven’t left. I haven’t run. Why has he moved away? What’s happening?

  “You thought what?” I say, my heart pounding please, please.

  His fingers are moving very fast now, and he stands up, a jerky, quick movement. “I should go,” he says. “Let you think. Be with Tess.”

  “Eli—” I say, but he walks away. Going, going.

  Gone.

  I sit there, and this—being alone, having watched someone leave—it’s more like what I’m used to. What I expect. But it feels wrong, and I am up and out of my chair suddenly, racing after him.

  Tell me, I will say to him. Tell me what you were going to say.

  But he’s gone, and I can’t find him anywhere. Even Clement is gone, the basement storage room that is now his office shut and locked.

  So maybe Eli didn’t mean what he said after all. I know all about that. I know what to do when a guy tries but can’t quite make himself care for me.

  I know what it’s like to watch a guy walk away, but something is different now. I think of how Eli didn’t look at me before he left. I think of all the questions I couldn’t and don’t understand that were in his voice when he said my name.

  I could go to his house. Talk to Clement. Talk to him. There is no need to create drama here, I have enough in my life already, and I don’t need to imagine how things will be when I’m away from Ferrisville anymore. Not now, not when I have said everything that was in my heart and Eli still wanted to look at me.

  But it didn’t go like it was supposed to. If it’s real, if I saw what was in his heart, then why did he leave? Why am I here now, alone?

  “What are you doing standing out here?” Claire says, and I jump, startled, and turn around, see her behind me.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey. What’s going on?”

  “Just …”

  “Just what?”

  “Nothing,” I say, because I don’t want to talk about it, not even with her. I want to understand what happened. I want to know how I took a moment that was so right and turned it wrong and why—worst of all—part of me is okay with that.

  “You want a ride to the ferry?”

  I shrug and she helps me load my bike into her car. I don’t ask her to take me by Eli’s. I don’t even mention him.

  I want to know why it is easier for me to stay quiet and be miserable than act. I want to know why I went after him, but only after he was gone. I want to know why I’m here, with Claire, instead of him.

  “So, are you and Eli fighting or something?” Claire says as we are waiting for the ferry, and I fold my fingers up tight and sink down into the seat.

  “Hey,” she says, when I don’t say anything. “Abby, are you—?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Bullshit,” she says. “What happened?”

  I force myself to talk because it’s Claire and I trust her, and I don’t finish the story until we are on the ferry and the river is churning beneath us.

  When I do, I look over at her.

  To my surprise, she’s looking at me like I’m the dumbest person she’s ever met.

  “What?” I say.

  “‘I don’t know what to do?’” she says. “What a load of crap, Abby. You tell him you w
ant someone to want to be with you, to kiss you—and he says that, he actually fucking kisses you and says that, and you say you don’t know what to do and then wonder why he left? How stupid are you?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yeah, you’re not stupid,” she says. “You’re just like your sister, though. You’re so sure things have to be a certain way that you’ll do anything to make sure they are. God forbid you be honest with yourself and him, right? God forbid you say ‘I want to kiss you too.’”

  “I figured that was implied by me kissing him back. I mean—”

  “Oh, sure, because there’s nothing like putting your heart out there and getting nothing in return to make a girl feel good,” she says, so angry she’s practically spitting. “You’re sitting here feeling sorry for yourself when all you had to do was be honest with him and—”

  “I was honest.”

  “No, you weren’t. You know what you want. You know what to do. You’re just afraid. I didn’t realize exactly how much you’re like—you and fucking Tess, I swear.”

  “I’m not like—”

  “You’re exactly like her,” Claire says. “You want to be loved but when you are, if it’s not exactly how you expected it to be—if it’s real and you have to deal with feelings you can’t control, you freak out and push the other person away and—” She takes a deep breath. “Get out of my car.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” she says. “Get out of my car.”

  “But I—”

  “I swear to God, if you don’t get out I will push you out,” she says, and I stare at her furious face, so like Tess’s the day she found out Claire was pregnant, so much like Tess’s the day Claire walked by the house and Tess ran outside to throw food at her, furious like—

  Furious like her heart had been broken.

  “Tess,” I breathe, stunned, and Claire freezes.

  thirty-seven

  “Get out,” she says, but there’s no heat in her voice now. No anger. Only pleading.

  I stare at her. “Tess was … you and Tess?”

  Claire is silent for a long moment and then nods once, slowly.

  “And then you … you got pregnant and—”

  “I had Cole,” Claire says, her voice going hard again. “And now here I am.”

  “So when Tess found out, she wasn’t mad you were pregnant—”

  “She wasn’t?” Claire says, cutting me off. “She made it so I had to drop out of school, Abby. You don’t call that angry?”

  I think of how sorry I used to feel for Claire. How I used to think that Tess was cruel for turning away from her best friend because she got pregnant like it was a crime or something.

  Like she couldn’t bear to be around Claire anymore.

  “You … you broke her heart,” I say. “You knew how she felt and you hooked up with Rick and—”

  “Abby—”

  “No,” I say, and keep talking. “That’s why you never said much of anything about Beth, right? Why you always smiled when I talked about them living together. You knew, and you’d hurt her, and I thought she was being cruel when you—”

  “Stop,” Claire says, and I realize we are moving, that the ferry has docked and Claire is driving off the boat. Driving back into Ferrisville. “You don’t—Tess dated guys too, Abby.”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly, thinking of all the guys who’d called Tess, who’d hung around her. How she’d talk to them, maybe see them at a party or go on one date, maybe two, and then send them on their way. None of them had turned her into the furious, hate-filled person that Claire had.

  None of them had ever touched her heart.

  “But not like you did,” I say, and she recoils like I’ve hit her, then pulls over to the side of the road.

  “I—I can’t do this right now,” she says. “I have to go home.”

  “You mean, I’ve figured out what really happened and you don’t want to talk about it,” I say, my voice harsh. “You don’t want to think about how you broke Tess’s heart, right?”

  “Abby, come on. I have to see Cole and I can’t—I don’t want him to see me upset.”

  “She told you, right? She told you how she felt and you—you got mad at her or something and—”

  Claire laughs, harsh and angry. “That’s your story, Abby? She told me she loved me, and I ran out and got pregnant so she’d stay away from me. Is that how it went?”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “Yeah, because I stopped you,” Claire says. “We both know you were thinking it. And you know what, Abby? Even Tess wouldn’t think something like that. Even Tess knew—” She blows out a breath. “Even Tess knew me better than that. I thought you weren’t like her, that you didn’t have some fucked-up version of the world and your place in it in your head, but you know what? You do.”

  “I blamed Tess!” I yell. “You hurt her, and I thought Tess was stupid and mean and I—I felt sorry for you!”

  “It’s not like you—” Claire says, and then breaks off as someone driving by slows down long enough to wave at us and then make a gesture asking if we’re okay.

  “I can’t do this,” she says again. “I have to get home to Cole.”

  “Fine,” I say, and open the car door and grab my bike. “But at least tell me why, okay? Why did you hurt her when she just—she just loved you.”

  Claire stares at me for a moment, like she’s lost, and then she says, “Why are you so sure I hurt her?”

  “So you getting pregnant and making Tess miserable had nothing to do with Tess?”

  Claire looks at the steering wheel for a long time before she speaks, and when she does, her voice is so quiet I can barely hear her. “It had everything to do with her. I … she only ever said she loved me, Abby.”

  I slam the door shut and walk off.

  Tess told Claire she loved her. That was it, and when she said it, Claire freaked out, and all those times I felt bad for her, Tess was the one who was hurting, Tess was the one who’d put her heart out there and gotten it stomped on.

  If I’d known, I’d—

  If I’d known, Tess and I—we could have talked. I thought nothing reached her, that nobody had ever held her heart, that she’d judged Claire for not acting like she would have, but all this time—

  All this time, I could have had my sister.

  thirty-eight

  I get home—I didn’t look at Claire’s house when I went by, I won’t ever look at it the same now—and stand in the kitchen in a daze, thinking about all the times Tess railed against Claire during her last year of high school, and finally see her anger for what it was.

  Pain.

  I walk up to Tess’s room, glad I am alone now, glad my parents are with Tess, that she has someone with her who loves her without all the complications I’ve been carrying around.

  I wish I’d never thought anything bad about her.

  I look around her room, at the boxes on the floor. I think about what’s inside them. Her life with Beth and now it’s here, wrapped up and in the middle of the floor, just sitting here waiting.

  I wonder if Beth knew about Claire.

  Poor Tess. She’s lost two people she loved. I’ve always thought she got everything—everyone—she wanted.

  I was so wrong.

  I sit down at her desk, run my fingers across her laptop. Now I understand why Tess never looked at Claire, not even whenever she’d come home from college. Not even after she’d met Beth. I thought she was still angry. I thought she was being petty.

  Tess was angry, but I can see why now, and I’ll bet she was sad too. And hurt, hurt enough to avoid Claire for years. To still think about what had happened. What Claire did, how Tess loved her and Claire … didn’t. Not like Tess loved her.

  My fingers slide across the laptop’s power button, and when the screen lights up, asking me for the password, I don’t think at all. I type Claire, and the welcome screen appears.

  I stare at it. All this time, and the p
assword was right in front of me. All this time and Tess—her real story, who she really was—was right in front of me.

  And I never saw it.

  I take a look around her computer, checking out her files. I should feel guilty, but I don’t. I want to know the real Tess, the sister I never met, but there isn’t much to see. I find some papers Tess wrote, some music she downloaded, and a folder labeled “photos” that has pictures of her and Beth. No guys in them, no pretense.

  I can see they are a couple in these photos, see them with their arms around each other, Tess smiling broader and with more joy than I’ve ever seen. I think about the photos she brought home for us to see, and how she laughed whenever I asked about the guys in them.

  These photos, the ones with Beth, hold the real Tess, and I decide I’ll copy and transfer them to my computer. Then I’ll print one out and take it with me when I see Tess again tomorrow. I want to—I want to let Tess know I see her for who she really is, and not who I made her out to be.

  But when I try to select the files, I get a message that there are two hidden ones.

  Hidden files?

  I open the menu that controls file viewing options and make all files and folders visible. Two more folders pop up on screen within the “photos” folder I’m looking at. One is labeled “beth messages,” and the other “over.”

  I can guess what the “over” folder is about, think of Beth telling me Tess had decided they shouldn’t live together anymore.

  I click on it anyway, expecting something that will tell me what went wrong. That will show me how Tess lost something—someone—I never even knew was in her heart.

  But it’s not what I see.

  thirty-nine

  There are pictures and online message conversations in the folder, jumbled together as if Tess had copied them from somewhere else in a hurry. Like she had to have them but hadn’t wanted to see them, not even to organize them in any way.

  I click on one of the saved messages, and a huge, pages-long conversation opens.

  It’s not … it’s not from Tess’s time in college. It’s from when she was in high school. I can tell because she’s talking about teachers I have now.