“Wake up,” I say. “Just wake up.”
I want to believe that she wil . I want to believe that she hears me now, that she hears me when I’m with her. But deep down, I’m afraid she doesn’t. Deep down, I don’t think she hears me. Deep down, I’m afraid she’l never wake up.
I want her to come back, I do. The thing is, I can’t picture it anymore. Not like I used to. What was so sure, so clear, has become hazy.
Has become something I can’t quite see.
I don’t talk to my parents when they get home. They don’t seem to notice, though, because they are clearly angry with each other. So angry they aren’t even speaking to each other.
So I am silent, we are silent, and I think about what has happened. What has been said.
And on Monday, after school, I head for the hospital. For Tess.
stinks, but it has a mirror over the sink and so I’m standing here, holding my breath and combing my hair.
I tel myself I’m not doing it because I’m going to see Eli.
But I am. Of course I am.
He’s been the one thing I haven’t let myself think about since Sunday morning. My parents and their ongoing silence, I’ve wondered about al through school. Tess would have known what to say, would have been able to get them talking. She could always get them to, either just by saying
“What’s wrong?” until they answered, or by having some problem they could step in and fix, some upset that needed soothing. They’d consoled her when she was furious with Claire, and made arrangements to take her to an admissions counselor when she was worried about col ege.
Tess could fix things now, and I can’t.
I’m so tired of knowing that. Of being reminded, over and over again, that I’m not Tess.
But it’s not like I get a break. At school, everyone asks about her. People in my classes, teachers, and even the cafeteria workers want to know how she is. I know people are being nice, I know they care, but it’s just more reminders of what’s happened. Who I am. What I can’t do.
And even on the ferry, surrounded by people I know who are going to work, or coming home, or doing who knows what, there are questions. A
“How’s your sister?” or “Tel your parents we’re thinking about them and praying for Tess,” or “It seems like just yesterday Tess and I were in the same English class/at a party/did something amazing and/or fun together. I miss her. Tel her that, wil you?”
By the time the ferry docks, I’m beyond ready to get off, like I always am, and I ride to the hospital as if a ghost—a shadow—is chasing me.
I guess, in a lot of ways, one is.
When I get to the hospital, I lock up my bike and go find Eli. I don’t look at him at al as we head to Tess’s room. I force my mind and heart to see Tess waking up. Picture it: She breathes deep once, twice, and her eyes flutter. They open. She sighs. Smiles.
Sees Eli, and smiles more.
My heart cramps, a painful twist, and I force myself to keep looking. To see what should happen. What wil happen.
“I know you’l say that you’re fine, but are you al right?” Eli says, and I nod, remembering years of Hal oweens with Tess. Remembering how I used to want the same costumes she had until I realized the smiles I got were always fainter versions of the ones she received, that they were sad with knowledge I hadn’t quite yet gotten. Smiles that knew I wasn’t Tess. Smiles that knew I wasn’t ever going to be Tess.
“Sure,” I say.
“It’s just—I came over here yesterday afternoon,” he says. “And I didn’t see you.”
He was here?
He was looking for me?
“I—I wasn’t here yesterday,” I say, punching in the code for the unit. “My parents were, though. I guess you met them, right? While you were talking to Tess and everything.”
I wonder why they didn’t mention it, and then remember how icy silent and tense everything was last night. My parents weren’t talking about anything, and they probably assumed Eli had seen Tess and had fal en for her.
That thought hurts more than I want it to.
“No,” Eli says. “I just—I was out here, looking for—seeing if you were here, and I saw them through the doors and figured they had to be your parents. Plus you look like your dad.”
The buzzer sounds, signaling that we can go in and almost drowning out my startled bark of a laugh. “I look like my dad? Are you sure you were looking in the right room? Because Tess has my dad’s hair and his eyes and—”
“Yeah, I’m sure. You both have this—you both have this way of looking at someone like they’re the only person in the world.”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
“The other night, when you and I were talking, I …” He pauses and I stop, looking at him. My heart is pounding.
“What?” I say, and I want it to come out like I don’t care, like I’m just asking a question, but my voice is hushed. Hopeful.
