Between Here and Forever - Elizabeth Scott [17]
“I am.”
Oh, crap. I was sure he was a senior, eighteen and getting ready for college. “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’ll be eighteen soon, right?”
“Well, if nine months counts as soon.”
I widen my eyes again and then glance at Tess. “Soon, right?”
“Oh. Right,” he says.
“You can tell him all about college,” I tell Tess. “How to survive his freshman year and all that. And you’re really only halfway through your sophomore year, and twenty isn’t that much older than eighteen. Plus he’s thinking about majoring in English, just like you. If you wake up, the two of you can try to convince me that Shakespeare is interesting, never mind that you can’t understand anything the people in his plays say.”
“I’m not going to major in English. And I don’t get what’s so great about Shake—”
I clear my throat then, to get him to stop, and look at him.
He’s not even looking at Tess. He’s looking at me like I’m some sort of puzzle he can’t figure out. Maybe he’s overwhelmed by Tess or thinks I’m weird. Or both.
“He’s kidding,” I tell Tess. “You know how guys are. Remember when you were Juliet during junior year and the understudy put laxatives in Bill Waford’s lunch so he’d be the one who’d get to kiss you? And then Bill begged to have the play’s run extended so—”
“Did that really happen?” Eli says. He’s still tapping his fingers, but now against his arms. It’s like he’s playing the piano on his skin or something.
I nod. “Just about every guy in school tried out for Romeo as soon as they found out Tess was auditioning for Juliet.”
“What if she hadn’t gotten the part?”
“See, now you have to wake up,” I tell Tess. “Show him how there’s no way anyone else could have gotten it. You were the only one who could ever play a girl people would die for.”
“Were you in the play?”
“Huh?” I say, startled.
“The play. Were you in it?”
“Who’d want to see me onstage?” I say. “Plus, because everyone knew Tess was going to try out, they didn’t even open the auditions to freshmen.”
“So you’re a junior now, like me?”
“Yeah,” I say, surprised he’s figured out what grade I’m in. “But you’re clearly way more ready for college and stuff than me.”
Eli glances down at his hands, which are still moving, and then blushes.
He even makes embarrassed look good. He doesn’t turn bright red or anything, but two spots of color appear right below his cheekbones, making them appear more prominent. Making him look vulnerable, and almost accessible to someone like me.
And he sees me looking. I can tell because he stills for a moment, staring right at me. Damn, damn, damn.
I turn back to Tess, watching her still face.
“Say something else, please,” I tell him, because I don’t know what else to say, and I don’t want to think about him catching me looking at him.
“Like what?”
“Talk to her like you would if I wasn’t here,” I say. “Just pretend I’m part of the wall or something.” If he acts like I’m invisible, I will be, and then things will be normal again.
He’s silent for a moment, and then he says, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to pretend your sister is part of the wall, Tess. She’s very … she’s like a dragon, sort of.”
That hurts. But I asked him to act like I wasn’t there, didn’t I? And got called a big scaly fire-breathing monster. Fabulous.
“See?” I tell Tess, and make sure to keep my voice light. “He clearly needs to be protected from me. So wake up, okay?”
Nothing. I pull my knees up to my chest, curling into the chair, and fiddle with the laces on my sneakers.
“Sorry,” Eli says.
“Oh, she’s just flirting,” I say, and force myself to uncurl, to sound unconcerned, but what more does she need? “You’ll see when you get to know her. The summer before she went to college, she was working over here, in Organic Gourmet, and guys from Milford would actually ride the ferry over to Ferrisville just to try and get her to talk to them.”
Well, one guy. Jack.
“You don’t like Organic Gourmet?”
“What do you mean?”
“You