Between Here and Forever

“He real y likes you, you know,” Eli says. “Told me I should invite you over to the house again.”

“What, he has more ham he wants to unload?” I say as lightly as I can, simple words to replace the ones I want to say. The question I want to ask.

Do you want to see me again?

“Probably, but I promise I’l throw out al the ham if you’re wil ing to come over for dinner one night,” Eli says, his voice so quiet, so unsure, that I stop and look at him.

I can’t talk; I have no words to shield myself with now. I don’t want to shield myself. I nod. Yes, I wil come over, yes, I am wil ing. Yes.

He grins at me then, so wide and lovely I actual y feel lightheaded.

I wonder how many people Tess did that to with her smile. If Beth once felt like I do now, caught and glad to be.

“What is it?” Eli says, and I can’t believe how wel he sees me. It makes me happy and scared and—it makes me feel a mil ion things at once.

“Tess,” I say. “I was just thinking about her because she—she had this way of smiling, you know? Like it was al you could see.” I hear myself say

“had” and want to change it, want to make it “has.” But I can’t. I know the truth now, have to face what I haven’t wanted to see.

I turn away and start walking down the hal again. I feel myself relax when I hear Eli’s footsteps behind me.

I let myself be glad he’s with me.

“So, how come you cal Clement, wel —Clement?” I ask as we’re waiting for the nurses to let us in.

“He says my dad cal ed him Dad and acted like he didn’t know him, so we could either pretend to be ‘family’ and I could cal him Grandfather or something, or we could try being one, or even just try being two people who like each other enough to be more than a title,” Eli says.

“He’s kind of upset with your dad, I guess.”

“No, sad,” Eli says. “Not that he’d ever say it, I don’t think, but it’s hard to know that someone who’s supposed to love you doesn’t even want to see you.”

I reach out, let my hand brush against Eli’s. He turns his hand so our fingers tangle together, comfort without words as the buzzer sounds and we walk through the doors.

I watch the nurses take us in, our clasped hands, watch them turn toward each other, and then I pause by Tess’s door, look inside her room.

Look at her.

So stil , so quiet. So alone.

“I have to tel you something,” I say quietly, and I don’t know if I’m talking to her or Eli or both of them.

And then I drop Eli’s hand and walk into Tess’s room, sit in the chair I always sit in. I turn it so it’s a little closer to her bed. To her.

I look up, over to where Eli has sat, and he’s there, looking at me.

“Tess,” I say, looking back at her and thinking about Beth, about her touching Tess’s hair, about her face when I asked her how she could act like Tess wasn’t coming back. About those boxes, sitting lonely on the front lawn. “Tess, I—”

I don’t tel her that I know her story. I tel her mine instead.

I tel her about Jack. I say al the things I didn’t that summer, forgetting everything, even Eli, as the words pour out of me, right down to how loud the river sounded when I sat there after Jack said he was sorry, so sorry, and left.

“And the worst part was, I couldn’t hate him,” I tel her. “I couldn’t hate you, even. I just … I thought I’d found someone who wanted to be with me.

Kiss me. But I wouldn’t let myself see what was obvious. I’m not you. I’m never going to be you.”

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t do anything.

But Eli does. Eli gets out of his chair—I hear the sound of it moving back as he stands, and I look up, surprised, and see him walking toward me

—and then he is there, kneeling right in front of me, and al the certainty I felt before is gone. He is too beautiful for me, someone else wil see that and worse, see that inside he is gorgeous too, and I am al thorns and loss and anger with bony knees and then—

And then he kisses me.

think again, when we have separated because a nurse walked by and cleared her throat and I unwound my arms from around his neck and felt his leave the sides of my legs slowly, like he wanted to keep touching me. Keep kissing me.

He blinks at me like I’m speaking another language.

“Why?” I say again, and move so there is space between us, my gaze fal ing on Tess, a silent, unseeing witness to what has just happened.

“Because I—I’m someone who wants to kiss you. Be with you,” Eli says as if it is obvious, as if I know what is written on his heart.

I look at him, stil kneeling in front of me like I’m worthy of that. Like I’m worthy of what he just said. Like I’m