Okay, I’ll start with sports.
I really mean to do that, but end up saying, “What were you doing when I came into the hospital?” instead, and his fingers pause.
“What?”
“When I came in, I saw you with a notebook. What were you doing?” I say, mentally kicking myself for asking. And for noticing in the first place. And admitting I noticed.
“Oh,” he says. “You—I didn’t see you.”
“Why would you? I wouldn’t notice me.”
He blinks at me, and his fingers still for a moment. “You wouldn’t?”
“No,” I say, really regretting my question—and honesty—now. “I mean, I know what there is to see, you know?” My voice cracks a little on the last few words—stupid, so stupid—and I clear my throat. “So, what were you doing?”
His fingers start tapping again but he looks at them like he’s seeing them for the first time and then presses his hands flat against the chair arms.
“Drawing,” he says quietly. “I was drawing.”
“Oh,” I say. I hadn’t expected that, but it figures. Gorgeous and an artist. “Do you—?” His fingers have started moving again. “What’s up with all the tapping?”
He stands up so fast it’s like someone’s kicked him out of the chair. “I—I just remembered I have to … I’ve got to do this thing for school,” he says.
“Oh,” I say again. “Okay. But Tess—”
“Tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll meet you tomorrow.” And then he’s gone, practically running out of the unit.
“I guess I shouldn’t have asked about his drawings,” I tell Tess. “Tomorrow I promise I’ll ask what you would. I know you want to see him again.”
I do too.
Not … not that I like Eli or anything, but he’s—there’s something different about him. Something that seems almost … fragile. Like there’s a part of him that he wants to keep hidden. That he has to.
I can understand that. I don’t want to—not with him, not with anyone—but I do.
I don’t tell Tess this. She has to think Eli’s perfect. That’s what she wants.
But I want to know more about him.
I want something for myself and I lean over and rest my chin on my hands, looking at Tess. Reminding myself why I’m here. Reminding myself why want isn’t something I should feel.
eighteen
Dad gets home late that night, long after even Mom has gotten home from the hospital. I’m still up, sitting in Tess’s room again, looking at all the things she brought home from college and was going to take back. Laundry, books, some pictures. Her laptop. Her nice, shiny laptop.
I have a computer, sort of. It’s the one Dad got back when Tess was sixteen. I got it when she went away to college, and by then it was still sleek-looking but bordering on outdated. Now it’s basically useless, and the hard drive that Tess carefully wiped clean, her “gift” to me (“It’s just like new, almost!”) churns whenever I turn it on, and if I open more than one program, it freezes.
Tess had a job at college, filing papers for some archive project the library was doing. The school gave all incoming freshmen laptops, but Tess saved her money and got a nicer one, and part of me wants it.
I could use it for just a little while, until she wakes up. I could experience being able to write papers without having to save them every ten seconds, look something up online without wondering if the browser will be able to show the whole page.
I turn her computer on, and am met with a password screen. I didn’t expect that, but I guess it’s something you have to do in college.
I try Tess’s birthday: month-day-year.
Nothing.
I try it backward.
Nothing again.
I try her name, then Beth’s name and everyone else she’d ever talked about from college, all the guys smiling at her in the pictures she’d brought home.
Still nothing.
“Abby?” Dad says, and I freeze, fingers hovering over the keyboard, but he doesn’t ask me anything else, just says, “I was out for a walk. I used to—I haven’t gone on a long walk in ages.”
He comes over and picks up the pictures lying next to the laptop. “She looks—doesn’t Tess look happy?”
I nod, a little frightened by the intense and yet somehow lost look on his face.
“I hope she was,” he says, looking down at the pictures.
“Is,” I say, and he blinks at me.
“She is happy,” I continue. “That’s who Tess is. She’s happy, she’s pretty, and everyone likes being around her. Just look at the photos. She’s happy. That’s Tess.”
“Her fingernails match her outfit,” he says, and I look closer, see that they are the same pinky-red as her shirt.
“Just like Mom.”
“Just like Mom,” he says. “When she was in high school, her best friend, Lauren, would talk about that sometimes, about how Katie always made sure her nails matched her outfits.”
“You used to talk about Mom’s nails with her best friend? The Lauren Mom talks to all the time?”
“I used to—I dated Lauren,” he says quietly. “Back before—well, a long time ago. Before your mom and I really knew each other.”
“Oh,” I say, because what else can I say? I don’t know what’s weirder, that Dad went out with Mom’s best friend before he dated Mom, or that I’m finding it out now, in the middle of the night.
The fact that Dad dated Mom’s best friend is definitely weirder. I mean, Lauren? She’s come to visit before, with her husband, Evan, and their kids and everything. And I never even guessed that … I mean, Dad? And Lauren? If Tess knew, she’d freak out.
Tess. She’d know what to do now, what to say. Shocked or not—and she would be—she’d appreciate this moment for something, while I—I don’t even know what to say.
I settle for “I’m going back to bed,” and start to head to my room.
“Did you really see her move her eyes?” Dad asks.
I stop and look back at him.
“Yes.”
“So you think—you think she can wake up?”
I nod, surprised he’s even asking this. It’s not like you can fake a coma, and Tess has so much to live for. The pictures he holds are proof of that, of Tess leading the life she’s always had: easy, full. Happy. “Don’t you?”
“I’d do anything to have her come back to us.”
“I know,” I say. “And she will. I mean, this is Tess, Dad.”
He smiles, and I slip away, go to bed. I don’t sleep though, and it’s a long time before Dad leaves Tess’s room, almost daylight, and I wonder what he saw in those pictures that had him asking the things he did. I wonder if there are things I’m not seeing.
nineteen
I get to the hospital early the next afternoon because I got out of school early. My last two classes were canceled so we could all sit through an assembly about improving our academic performance, and there was no way I was sticking around for that.
It’s too early for Eli to be here, but I look for him anyway. I don’t see him, and why should I?
I remind myself of that when I’m disappointed.
If only I could wire my brain to think the way it should, instead of the way it does.
I head up to see Tess, but when I’m buzzed in to the unit I stop, frozen, and stare into Tess’s room.
Beth is there. Beth, who hasn’t come to see Tess since before classes started up again, and when she left the last time, something about the look on her face, a sort of bitter sadness, made me think she was never coming back. I didn’t say anything to anyone about it, but I was right.
Or at least, I thought I was.
“Beth?” I say as I walk into the room.
“Hey, Abby,” she says, and moves back from where she was sitting, pushing her chair away from Tess’s bed. She’s been holding Tess’s hand, and I watch as she pulls her fingers away, her thumb smoothing over Tess’s as she lets go. Her hair is longer
than when I last saw her, down to her shoulders, and chunks of it have been colored a deep, rich purple.
“You don’t have to move,” I say, sitting down in the other chair. “When did you get here?”
“A little while ago,” Beth says. “I wanted—I was just thinking about her yesterday and I thought …” She trails off and touches Tess’s hair briefly, like it pains her. “She’s gotten so thin.”
I look at Tess, at the hollows under her cheekbones, at the frail length of her arms. I don’t see anything different, but then I see her all the time. Beth will see things I don’t.
“Are you going to stay over? I know my parents would love to see you.”
Beth shakes her head. “I don’t—no offense, Abby, but I didn’t want to see anyone. I just … I was cleaning up her room, putting Tess’s things into boxes to send back here, and I started thinking about her.”
“Wait, send her stuff back? You don’t have to do that. She’s going to need it—”
“I—I have a new roommate, Abby, and I can’t … I can’t keep Tess’s things around.”
“Can’t? Why?”
Beth’s mouth tightens. “Abby, I—I have a life.”
“Oh. Okay. Don’t let me or Tess keep you then,” I say. “When Tess wakes up, I’ll be sure to tell her you decided you couldn’t be her roommate anymore. That’ll be nice to hear, don’t you think?”
“I should go,” Beth says, and stands up, looks down at Tess with her mouth trembling, and then looks at me. “Look, about me and Tess living together. Before the accident, we talked, and Tess said she was going to move out. We—”
“Hey, I thought you might be here. I came early because I wanted to—oh,” Eli says. “I didn’t see—Hi,” he says to Beth. “I was looking for Abby.”
“Hey,” I say at the same time Beth says, “Hi,” and then turns back to me, saying, “You’re bringing guys with you when you visit your sister?”
“He’s here to see her,” I say. “Unlike her so-called friends, who decide to disappear and then show up and announce ‘Oh, hey, I’m getting rid of her things because I don’t feel like waiting for her to move back.’”
“Like I said, before the accident, Tess and I—”
“Um, should I come back later?” Eli asks, and that’s when I see it. Over the sound of Eli’s and Beth’s voices, I see Tess.
I see her eyes moving behind her closed eyelids, like a part of her is listening.
“Tess,” I say, and lean over, grab her hand. “Tess, I saw that. Come on, open your eyes.”
But she doesn’t.
twenty
Beth leaves, slipping away when the nurses are looking at Tess and we’re all waiting outside the room. I should have noticed, but I don’t because I am watching Eli, who is standing with his arms folded across his chest again, looking almost as freaked-out as he did yesterday.
“Do you need to go get a drink or some air or something?” I ask, and that’s when I notice Beth is gone.
“Crap,” I say. I hadn’t been looking at Eli that much. Or so I thought. “Beth couldn’t even stay and say good-bye to Tess?”
“Is that who was with you?”
“Yeah, her roommate,” I say, and notice that under his crossed arms, Eli is tapping the fingers of both hands against his shirt. “You don’t have to stay, you know. I’m sure Tess is going to wake up now, and of course you can come back and see her because I know you’ll want to, but for now—”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m going—I’ll be in the cafeteria.”
And then he leaves. Or, more accurately, bolts.
I wait for the nurses to come out. When they do, I’ll have to wait for them to call the doctor, and for the doctor to show up, but I have enough money to buy a magazine and I’ll read it while I wait and wait and eventually the doctor will come and tell me how long it’ll be until Tess opens her eyes for good and how long it’ll be until she can sit up. Walk.
Come home.
Unfortunately, none of that happens. The nurses don’t see any change in Tess. I explain about her eyes, and I’m told that “emotional upset’’ can “be stressful for family,” and before I know it, I’m walking out of the unit fast, my stomach churning, my eyes burning.
I open the stairwell door, and then, with a sob rising up out of me, take my bag and throw it as hard as I can down the stairs.
Why isn’t anyone else seeing what I do? Why? I know I’m only seventeen, but that doesn’t make me a liar or stupid or both. I know what I saw.
I wipe my eyes, blinking hard to stop the tears, and head to the cafeteria. Right now, if I go back to Tess’s room, I’m afraid I’ll scream. Or cry. Or both.
I wonder if my parents will hear about what happened. I know they will. What will they think? Will they think I’m a liar? Be disappointed? Both?
My parents have never been disappointed in me, but if Tess doesn’t wake up, if I become all they have, how will they be able to avoid it? How can they not look at me and think of everything Tess could have done?
How can they not see how obvious it is that I can’t ever be her?
I don’t want to let them down, but I will. I let myself down so easily, so stupidly, and there is no way I can ever be like Tess. I can’t be perfect. I can’t make everyone happy. I can’t make everyone want to be me.
This shouldn’t make me angry, but it does. I don’t want to even try to be Tess. I wish she’d just gone back to school after the party. But no, she had to come see my parents again. She wanted to talk to them about her classes, ask for their advice, and thank them for being there for her.
In other words, be the perfect daughter while I skulked around wishing I was anywhere else. I didn’t go to any parties on New Year’s Eve, went over to Claire’s and ate stale microwave popcorn with her while people on television gushed about how next year would be the best one ever and introduced musical acts who lip-synched poorly and exhorted us to “Celebrate!” until I told Claire my New Year’s resolution was to never ever say the word “Celebrate!” like it was a command.
I head into the cafeteria, buy a soda from one of the vending machines against the far wall, and pop the top, glancing around the room. Normally I sit by the plastic tree in the corner, watching people look out at the river and silently counting down how long I have until the nurses will be done with whatever they are doing and I can go back to Tess.
I count because if I don’t, I could easily get sucked into looking out the window. Into watching the river.
Into getting up, leaving, and never coming back.
The hospital is depressing. It’s full of death waiting, just waiting, and Tess’s unit is so silent, like the world has gone away, and if I could, I wouldn’t ever come here.
I come here—I am here—not because it’s the right thing to do, but because I want Tess to be here, really here.
I want her out of this place and back in her life. I want her back at school.
I want life to be like it was after she went to college. I was still in her shadow but not directly under it. Not weighed down by it. Even Tess couldn’t fill up Ferrisville from far away. She was a memory. A strong one, but still, just that.
But now she’s here, she’s a tragedy, and she defines me all over again.
And that’s when I see Eli sitting on the other side of the room, looking at me.
I force myself to look right at him even though I don’t know what to do when he looks at me. Why is he even looking at all?
He lifts a hand, then waves.
There is hesitation there—I see it and it stings, and I hate myself for that—but he waves.
Run.
That’s what I want to do. I want to run and run and run until I am far away from here, from Ferrisville, from everything. I want to run until I can look at myself and not wish I were more like someone I will never be anything like.
I want to run but I know what happens when you pretend things can be different. I held Jack and thought he could love me
, but he couldn’t. He didn’t.
I thought I was free when Tess left for college but now I am tied to her so tightly I am here, spitting and snarling and trying to wake her up.
I am here and once again there is a guy in front of me, a guy who will only ever see Tess, and deep down, in a place I have tried to destroy, part of me sees him and wants. Wants him, wants him to see me.
Stupid. So, so stupid. I square my shoulders and walk over to Eli because I will remind myself why I am here. Why he is here.
I will remind myself that everything is about Tess.
I will remind myself that I’m nothing when put next to her.
twenty-one
“Hey,” Eli says when I reach his table. “I—I was going to come back in a little while. I just thought that with everything going on, you might need some space.”
I shrug, because I don’t know what to do with his kindness. I don’t … I don’t know what to do with someone like him. I don’t know why he would even want me to sit with him.
Also, he is looking at me, and away from the fluorescent lights of the hospital, sunlight from outside glinting in and making the river look almost beautiful, he is—it’s like time should be frozen around him. I want to trace—touch—his mouth, his neck, and the hidden hollow of his throat peeking out from his shirt.
I think all that—want all that—and it still doesn’t capture how he looks.
I’m staring. I know I am. The thing is, he’s staring back.
Of course, I am the one gawking at him.
“So,” I make myself say as I sit down and drink some of my soda. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No,” he says. “I was just thinking about stuff you’ve said—about all of this. And okay, no offense, but you’re kind of … it’s like I’m not even an actual person to you.”
“I think you’re a person,” I say, stung. “I just …” I swallow, because I can’t say You’re beautiful and I’m afraid of you. “I’m sorry I’m not drooling all over you like everyone else must, but I guess I can fix that. How’s this?” I arrange my face into a slack-jawed look of awe (sadly, it comes quite easily) and look at him.