Between Here and Forever - Elizabeth Scott [44]
“That sounds … I don’t know. She sounds sort of dramatic,” Eli says.
“She wasn’t—well, she did know how to get attention,” I say. “But you’ve seen her.”
“I have,” Eli says. “You’re as pretty as she is, you know.”
I laugh for real for the first time in ages then, laugh even as my heart kick-thumps inside my chest, a throbbing, hopeful beat.
“Okay,” I say when I’m done, and stand up, start to head farther downstairs, outside. “Thanks for that, for being—for being so nice.”
“Hey, I meant what I said,” he says, getting up and following me, his voice quiet. “How come you’re so sure that your sister is better than you?”
“Because she is. She always has been.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone.”
“Well, I’m not everyone,” he says as we walk out of the hospital, and smiles at me.
I smile back. I can’t help myself.
I can’t help wanting to believe him.
We’re both silent as we cross to the bike rack, but as I’m unlocking my bike he says, “Thanks for, you know, listening.”
“I like listening to you,” I say, and then mentally kick myself. “I mean, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“It was to me,” he says. “You’re the only person besides Clement I’ve told about my OCD. And Clement—well, it’s not like he didn’t already know.”
See, there he goes again, getting to me because he’s so—he’s so damn sweet. So not pushing back when I try to push him away. “I haven’t—you’re the only one I’ve told about Tess. How I can’t be like her, I mean.”
“Like I said, she sounds … dramatic,” he says. “You—”
If he says I’m solid or reliable or something like that, I will die.
“You think you’re a shadow or something,” he says. “Her shadow. But you’re not. You shine too. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I gotta go meet Clement now.”
“Okay,” I manage to get out and then just stand there, watch him walk back into the hospital.
He thinks I shine.
I think about that all the way home. That, and Tess.
thirty
Tess wasn’t—isn’t—dramatic. Not really. I mean, she always knew what she wanted and got it no matter what, from good grades to getting into her dream school to making sure nobody talked to Claire once Claire got pregnant, but that wasn’t drama. That was will. And Tess had a lot of it.
But as the breeze created by the ferry cutting through the water blows over me, I start thinking about other things. Like how Tess acted when she found out Claire was pregnant. She was mad. And not just in the angry way. It was like she actually went a little crazy. The worst was when she saw Claire walk by our house when she was just starting to show. I don’t even remember where Claire was going—she might have just been out walking—but Tess saw her and just … snapped. She went over to the fridge, opened it, took out the Crock-Pot of meatballs Mom had made for a week’s worth of dinners featuring them, and went outside.
The next thing I knew, Claire was yelling and Dad had raced outside, Mom right behind him. Tess was just standing there, the Crock-Pot lying on the ground and her hands full of squelched meat, red sauce all over them. It’s the only time I ever remember Tess acting angry where there was a chance someone outside the house could see her. No one else did but me, my parents … and Claire.
She didn’t walk by our house after that until Tess had left for college.
But that had been the only time Tess had been “dramatic” in the sense I’m thinking Eli means. I mean, Tess could get quiet or mean sometimes, but then, she put so much pressure on herself. It’s like when she freaked out about her grades and how she wasn’t valedictorian during the last half of her senior year and went to that stupid admissions counselor.
I was glad Claire was out of school then, so pregnant—and though she’s never said it, I think so tired of Tess ruining her life—that she’d dropped out and ended up getting her GED later. Claire was the only person Tess ever—
She was the only person Tess was ever truly cruel to.
But I think that was about Tess being … well, Tess. She could be judgmental. Like with guys, for