Between Here and Forever - Elizabeth Scott [11]
“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