Between Here and Forever

But when I try to select the files, I get a message that there are two hidden ones.

Hidden files?

I open the menu that controls file viewing options and make al files and folders visible. Two more folders pop up on screen within the “photos”

folder I’m looking at. One is labeled “beth messages,” and the other “over.”

I can guess what the “over” folder is about, think of Beth tel ing me Tess had decided they shouldn’t live together anymore.

I click on it anyway, expecting something that wil tel me what went wrong. That wil show me how Tess lost something—someone—I never even knew was in her heart.

But it’s not what I see.

in the folder, jumbled together as if Tess had copied them from somewhere else in a hurry. Like she had to have them but hadn’t wanted to see them, not even to organize them in any way.

I click on one of the saved messages, and a huge, pages-long conversation opens.

It’s not … it’s not from Tess’s time in col ege. It’s from when she was in high school. I can tel because she’s talking about teachers I have now.

At the end of the message, Claire—and I know it’s her, because I know her screen name, like I know Tess’s, like I used to know everything about them, or thought I did—has typed:

sigh. dinner time find u later xo always

I look for Tess’s reply but there isn’t one. Just that last line, from Claire. xo always I don’t—what is this?

I close the message and click on one of the photos. It’s of Tess, and was taken before she was a senior. I can tel from her hair, which is long, practical y down to her waist. She only wore it short her last year in high school, cut it so it barely reached her shoulders right after—

Right after she found out about Claire.

In the picture, Tess and Claire are lying on Tess’s bed, grinning up at the camera and snuggled against each other like … like friends, but more.

You can see it in how one of Tess’s hands rests on Claire’s leg, lies curved familiar above her knee.

You can see it in how Claire is turned toward Tess, one hand tangled in Tess’s hair as the other holds the camera above them. Both of them are smiling, and they look …

They look happy.

They look like they’re together.

I click through a few more photos. Some of them are like the one I just saw, and some of them make everything even clearer, show Claire’s bare back shielding Tess’s front as Tess grins up at the camera she’s holding, eyes half closed.

In the last one I look at, Tess’s head is resting in the crook of Claire’s neck as her hands cover Claire’s breasts, and Claire has her eyes closed, her mouth turned toward Tess, seeking.

I have to sit and look at the floor for a little bit after that one. I just … Tess and Claire. Al those times they were in here with the door closed, listening to music and working on homework, they were …

No wonder Tess always yel ed at me for trying to come in her room without knocking.

I look at the dates on the photos, and they seem to run from Tess and Claire’s freshman year to right after their senior year started. To right before Tess came home and spit out, “Claire’s pregnant.”

The last two photos are dated about the time I figure Claire got pregnant. The first one is in Claire’s room—I’ve seen Cole scrabbling across the comforter that lies tangled on the bed.

It’s morning, and Tess is lying on her stomach, sleeping, her closed eyes facing the camera but not seeing it. Not seeing anything. The light is tangled in her hair, shining off it and the bare skin of her back. She looks otherworldly, beautiful.

Underneath, someone has added Bliss in an elegant, cursive font, like they tried to title the photo.

The second photo shows Tess at a party on the beach, sitting and talking to a guy. She’s smiling, mouth curved wide, familiar, but her eyes are looking at the camera, not him, and they look—

They look sad, but they look angry too.

The same font has been used to label this photo as wel . It says Your Choice.

I stare at it, wondering who wrote those words—Tess? Claire?—and what they mean. I know what happened, but there’s something … there’s something I’m not getting. Not seeing.

I close the folder and open the other one, “beth messages.” There’s only one thing in it, and it was last opened—

It was last opened on New Year’s Eve, right before Tess left for her party.

It’s another online conversation, but it’s not from that night. It’s from before, from Tess’s last semester in school, from last fal , and from the first line, when someone says, I need to talk to u, I know it’s a fight.

I think it must be the fight that ended things.

It’s hard to tel , though, because the person I think is Beth (Beth0728—it has to be her) is the only one