“Did you see Clement?”
“Yeah. He says to say hi.”
Eli gets up then, unfolding from the chair like a work of art come to life, al grace and skin the color of caramels my mother used to buy, individual y wrapped golden candies that she’d melt down and pour onto ice cream.
Tess would eat spoonfuls of the stuff.
“I—you—are you okay?” he says, looking a little hesitant, and I nod, say, “Yeah. Let’s go see Tess, you’l love her, trust me,” wil ing my voice not to crack, wil ing myself to sound normal, like I’m not hoping so hard my heart hurts.
Like I’m not noticing him.
We head out into the hal and I punch in the door code that lets the nurses know someone’s waiting to be buzzed in.
“I wanted to say—I wanted to ask about your bag,” Eli says. “It looks a little wet. I can get you a towel or something if you need to dry it off.”
I shake my head, say no without words, because I can’t talk just now.
I don’t know what to think about the fact that he even noticed my bag was wet. No one … it’s been a long time since someone looked at me and saw me.
I wish—
Luckily, before I can finish that dangerous thought, a nurse buzzes us in, and we walk to Tess’s room.
Once I’ve done that and settled into my usual seat, I feel better. Less thrown by his comment. By him noticing me, even if it was only my bag.
I look at Tess and touch her shoulder, wait for her chest to rise and fal .
It’s such a tiny movement, but it’s the biggest one she makes. The one that keeps us al coming here. Keeps us al waiting.
“I brought someone to see you,” I tel her, and then look at Eli.
He sits down across from me, and I think she’s caught him, that he’s trapped by her beauty like everyone else is, but then he starts tapping the fingers of one hand against the chair and looks at me like he’s waiting for something.
“He’s shy,” I tel Tess, and then look at him again, widening my eyes so he knows he’s supposed to be talking now. “But you heard him the other day, remember? The guy with the voice?”
Eli clears his throat and says, “Hey.”
I look at Tess’s face. Nothing.
“Can you say something else?” I say.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Whatever you tel girls when you meet them.” I don’t know what else to do. Tess talks to guys. I don’t. They don’t even notice me.
I turn back to Tess and watch her face as he starts to talk.
“Um. I’m Eli,” he says. “I go to Saint Andrew’s. I’m a junior, and I—”
“A junior?” I say, and look at him again. His fingers are stil tapping against the chair. “There’s no way you’re a junior.”
“I am.”
Oh, crap. I was sure he was a senior, eighteen and getting ready for col ege. “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’l be eighteen soon, right?”
“Wel , if nine months counts as soon.”
I widen my eyes again and then glance at Tess. “Soon, right?”
“Oh. Right,” he says.
“You can tel him al about col ege,” I tel Tess. “How to survive his freshman year and al that. And you’re real y 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 tel Tess. “You know how guys are. Remember when you were Juliet during junior year and the understudy put laxatives in Bil Waford’s lunch so he’d be the one who’d get to kiss you? And then Bil begged to have the play’s run extended so—”
