Between Here and Forever

worthy of him.

“Oh,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else to say, I can’t find any words, not now, not after his, and look at him.

He is looking at me.

He is looking at me like everyone has always looked at Tess. As if I am someone worth seeing.

It’s everything I’ve wanted, right down to Tess seeing it. But I never wanted Tess to see it like this. I never wanted her to be a silent, blind witness.

I never wanted her here but gone, at least not like this. Never like this.

“Abby?” Eli says, his voice tentative, questions laced through each letter, and I know what comes next. It’s easy. I take his hand, I say his name, and we wil be together. But I don’t …

I don’t know if I’m ready for this. For him. I’ve spent so long wanting someone to see me—real y see me—that I never thought about how it would feel if it happened.

It’s not scary. It’s past that, beyond that, and I don’t know what to do now that this thing—this dream, and yes, that’s what it’s always been, a dream, an impossibility that came true only when my eyes were closed—is real.

It’s not that I don’t believe in the kiss or what he just said.

It’s that I do. I believe he likes me, that he … that he sees me and wants me.

I don’t know what to do with the happiness I feel, with the want racing through me. I have lived with broken need and anger and fear. I have lived with an ache to get out of Ferrisvil e, to get away. I have built worlds where I leave this place and become someone others want to see.

I’ve never pictured anyone finding me here. Wanting me here.

I’ve never, ever pictured anyone like Eli.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say, and he’l know what to do, he has to know, this is the part where it wil al work out. I haven’t run away; I have stayed despite my fear and now this is real. Now we are real.

“Oh,” he says, and I watch him move back, hands clenched in on themselves until he’s back in his chair, where they rest on the arms and start to tap. “I thought—”

He shakes his head. His eyes aren’t meeting mine now, and I don’t understand. I haven’t left. I haven’t run. Why has he moved away? What’s happening?

“You thought what?” I say, my heart pounding please, please.

His fingers are moving very fast now, and he stands up, a jerky, quick movement. “I should go,” he says. “Let you think. Be with Tess.”

“Eli—” I say, but he walks away. Going, going.

Gone.

I sit there, and this—being alone, having watched someone leave—it’s more like what I’m used to. What I expect. But it feels wrong, and I am up and out of my chair suddenly, racing after him.

Tell me, I wil say to him. Tell me what you were going to say.

But he’s gone, and I can’t find him anywhere. Even Clement is gone, the basement storage room that is now his office shut and locked.

So maybe Eli didn’t mean what he said after al . I know al about that. I know what to do when a guy tries but can’t quite make himself care for me.

I know what it’s like to watch a guy walk away, but something is different now. I think of how Eli didn’t look at me before he left. I think of al the questions I couldn’t and don’t understand that were in his voice when he said my name.

I could go to his house. Talk to Clement. Talk to him. There is no need to create drama here, I have enough in my life already, and I don’t need to imagine how things wil be when I’m away from Ferrisvil e anymore. Not now, not when I have said everything that was in my heart and Eli stil wanted to look at me.

But it didn’t go like it was supposed to. If it’s real, if I saw what was in his heart, then why did he leave? Why am I here now, alone?

“What are you doing standing out here?” Claire says, and I jump, startled, and turn around, see her behind me.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey. What’s going on?”

“Just …”

“Just what?”

“Nothing,” I say, because I don’t want to talk about it, not even with her. I want to understand what happened. I want to know how I took a moment that was so right and turned it wrong and why—worst of al —part of me is okay with that.

“You want a ride to the ferry?”

I shrug and she helps me load my bike into her car. I don’t ask her to take me by Eli’s. I don’t even mention him.

I want to know why it is easier for me to stay quiet and be miserable than act. I want to know why I went after him, but only after he was gone. I want to know why I’m here, with Claire, instead of him.