Between Here and Forever - Elizabeth Scott [53]
After a moment, he returns with a photo and hands it to me.
It’s Eli—I can tell that right away—and he’s young, maybe three or four. He is smiling at the camera, a hesitant smile, and his hands are clutched tight around a stuffed animal I bet he was supposed to play with, pose with. I think of Cole, with his easy laughter and exuberance, and wonder what could make him look this tense, this anxious.
“You look nervous,” I say, and Eli takes the picture back, putting it facedown on an end table.
“I was. My parents were there, and they wanted me to look happy,” he says. “And to not ‘fidget.’ That’s what they used to say I did. I ‘fidgeted.’ It wasn’t until my first school asked them to take me to a doctor that they admitted something was wrong with me.”
“First school?”
“Yeah,” he says, moving away from the picture and sitting down on a long, low-backed sofa.
After a moment, I sit next to him. “So what happened?”
“What did you look like when you were little?” he says, putting his feet up on the coffee table in front of us.
“Same as now,” I say, not calling him out on changing the subject. “Only I used to try and—I used to try and dress like Tess. I mean, I’ve always had to wear her old clothes—” Will that freak him out? No, he doesn’t look bothered by it. “But I used to try and make my hair look like hers and stuff. It never worked, obviously.”
“And you’ve always lived here.”
“In Ferrisville, yeah.”
“Is it really that different than Milford?”
I place my feet next to his on the coffee table. I point at his shiny, expensive shoes, dark leather that looks buttery-soft. Then I point at my own used-to-be-white-but-are-now-dingy-gray canvas sneakers.
“I have sneakers too.”
“And I bet you didn’t buy them out of a bin where they were tagged ‘Buy One Pair, Get One Pair Free.’”
“My parents do have money,” he says, a bitter little laugh escaping. “Couldn’t have been sent to all the schools I was without that.”
“How many schools?”
“A lot. A dozen, at least.” He holds his hands out toward me briefly. “And all because of these. Well, these and my fucked up brain.”
“You shouldn’t—you aren’t like that,” I say. “I didn’t even notice you had OCD until you told me.”
“Right.”
“Really,” I say. “I thought you were nervous around Tess because she’s so … well, because she’s Tess and she’s beautiful.”
He’s silent for a moment.
“I don’t really know how to say this,” he finally says. “So, um, don’t get mad, okay?” He bites his lips, folds his arms across his chest, and then slowly unfolds them. “I just—I don’t see what’s so great about her.”
“That’s because she’s asleep. If Tess was awake you’d see. She’s the kind of person everyone wants to look at. Like you.”
“Are you kidding? I got asked to leave my last school because I was taking so long getting ready to work—I had to sharpen my pencil a certain number of times, and then I had to have all my papers lined up along the right edge of the desk and—anyway, there was a lot of stuff I had to do, and I wasn’t getting any work done. And yeah, people looked at me then, and at every other school I’ve been to, but not like how you think.”
I’m sure I don’t make a face but I guess I do because he grins at me and says, “I swear! Not until I came here, and you must have noticed that it’s stopped. Word of my—of who I am, of my … you know—it’s gotten around.”
“Like you’ve never ever met a girl who doesn’t care?” I say, and I know I’m making a face now. I mean, yes, I know he has OCD, but he’s also acting like he’s a troll and I’m sure we both know he isn’t.
He’s silent for a second, and then looks out the window that shows the gleaming, green front lawn. “Did Tess like it when guys wanted her because of how she looked?”
And when I don’t say anything because he’s right, Tess knew she was good-looking but always avoided the guys who only saw that, he says, “Exactly. Is it so weird that I want someone who actually likes me even when I’m not—even when I can’t—” He blows out a breath. “I want someone who doesn’t care that