“Oh, I don’t want another dog,” Eli says. “After having to see—when Harvey died, I—” He rests his hands against the arms of the chair, fingers tapping. “I can’t get another dog.”
“But maybe one day, you might, right?” I say, pointing at Tess.
“No. I like dogs, but watching someone you love die is—” He clears his throat and looks at me. Really looks at me, straight into my eyes and everything. I force myself to look back and only blow out the breath I’m holding when he glances at Tess.
I force myself to be happy he’s looking at her.
“When you love someone you’ll do anything for them,” Eli says to her. “Right before Harvey died, I slept in the laundry room with him. He wasn’t supposed to go anywhere in the house except my room, and even then it was only during the day, but I didn’t like to think of him all alone. I wanted … I wanted him to get better, just like Abby wants you to.”
He takes a deep breath. “Abby really wants you to wake up. I’ve never seen anybody believe in someone like she believes in you. The nurses all talk about her. How she comes here all the time, how she reads to you. Stuff like that. Supposedly she even yells if someone doesn’t come in fast enough when one of your … well, when something in here starts beeping. You—you’re really lucky, Tess.”
Tess’s eyes don’t move but I’m having to force mine not to. I’m having to force myself to not look at him, to not stare in amazement at what he’s just said.
No one has ever said Tess is lucky to have me. Not ever.
“Oh, now you have to wake up,” I tell her, hearing my voice crack a little and hoping Eli doesn’t. “You’ve got to tell him how I used to try and listen to you and Clai—your friends talking when you were still living at home, or about the time I said the person who tried to flush their broccoli down the toilet was you.”
“You don’t like broccoli?” Eli says, and Tess doesn’t move at all.
“No, she does,” I say. “Weird, right? When you wake up, Tess, I’ll make a whole bunch of it for you and bring it in. You and Eli can eat it.”
“Sorry, I can’t eat broccoli even for you,” Eli says, and I finally glance at him, knowing I should be happy he’s caught up in learning about Tess, that he’s talking to her like she’s here, like she’s going to wake up. I’m not, though. Not like I should be.
And when I look at him, he isn’t looking at Tess. He’s looking at me. He’s talking to me.
“Tess can be very persuasive,” I say, but my voice comes out faint, all flustered-sounding, and when a nurse walks in I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and squeak out, “Hi, how are you?”
“I need to check on a machine,” the nurse says, pointing at a monitor near Eli. “I think that it’s—oh, damn. We need to get a new one of these in here now, and you two need to—” She makes a sweeping motion toward the door.
“What is it?” I say, looking at Tess, trying to see if something’s changed, if she looks worse. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” the nurse says, her voice curt. “I just need to get a new machine in here, and I need you out of here to do it.”
I get up, and Eli does too.
“Did I—did I break it?” he asks, but the nurse doesn’t reply, is too busy fiddling with the display and gesturing for another nurse to join her.
For all that they sometimes drive me crazy, the nurses here really are pretty impressive, because in just a few seconds me and Eli are maneuvered out of Tess’s room and they are clustered around her, faces calm as they move in an intricate dance involving wires and machines and IVs and Tess’s still body.
“Well, we can try going back in a while,” I say, heading out into the waiting room and flopping onto one of the chairs. There’s an old guy sitting in the one closest to the television, head listing to one side as he snores loudly.
I turn to ask Eli if he wants to go somewhere else and see something is wrong with him. Really, really wrong.
He’s sitting down too, but his hands are tapping against the chair so fast it’s like he’s—I don’t know. Trying to push his fingers into the chair, or something. And the look on his face … it’s like he’s going to run away screaming, or throw up. Or maybe both.
“Are you all right?” I say, and then remember his question to the nurse. “Hey, you know—you know you didn’t mess up that machine, right?”
He nods, but it’s stiff, jerky-looking, and then he bolts for the door. I hear what I think might be “Be back,” or “Bye,” but whatever it is comes out in a rush and is barely audible over the old guy’s snoring.
Weird. Maybe he’s sick. Or sad. He was just talking about his dog dying, and it hurt me to hear that. Should I try to find him, make sure he’s okay?
No. If I do anything, I should find Clement and tell him what’s going on. I don’t want to get all worked up over what could be wrong with Eli because he’s just a guy. He isn’t special to me in any way.
Except he is, because I’m an idiot. A full-blown idiot who should know better—and does—but yet still goes looking for Eli anyway.
It doesn’t take me long to find him. I head into the stairwell and he’s right there, sitting on the step in front of me.
“Hey,” I say. “Do you—do you want me to get Clement?”
“No,” he says, so strongly it’s almost like a shout. “I mean, no. I’m okay.”
I know I should say, “All right, see you later,” and leave, but I don’t.
I stay.
I say, “Are you sure?” and sit down next to him.
“Yeah,” he says. “I just—we didn’t get buzzed out like we’re supposed to, and I started thinking about how I might have taken my first step out of the unit on my right foot and not my left, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about how something terrible was going to happen even though I’ve been trying really hard to not think like that, and—”
“Wait, what?” I say, totally confused.
“I—I have this thing,” Eli says. “I … sometimes I think things have to be done a certain way and if they aren’t I, um—” He breaks off, drumming his fingers against his legs and then curls them into fists, tight ones like he’s trying to hold his fingers in. “I get upset and think awful things are going to happen and—oh, hell.” He looks at me. “I’ve got OCD.”
twenty-nine
We end up talking on the stairs until it’s dark outside. Eli first started showing signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder when he started school, and found out he could only do his work in a certain way.
“And if I didn’t,” he says, “I’d get—I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like I was going to die—I mean, I actually felt like I was—and all because I didn’t do things like I was supposed to.”
It got worse as he got older, and his parents sent him to doctors, put him on medication, and told him he just had to tell himself to stop.
“They made it sound like it was so easy,” he says. “Like if I just thought about it enough, I’d realize ‘Hey, walking through a doorway forty times to stop myself from dying if I cross through it on my right foot is stupid!’ Like I didn’t already know that. I did. I do. I just—I can’t help it.”
I think about how he walks a little behind me, like he has to, and how I’m always catching him moving his fingers like he’s restless.
Or counting out something.
I think about how he reacted when I punched in the unit door code with my left hand instead of my right. How weird I thought he was being afterward.
How upset he must have been.
“I—I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”
He looks at me. “You didn’t?”
I shake my head.
“Wow. I figure it’s—I figure it’s all anyone can see,” he says. “After Harvey was put to sleep, I got even worse. It used to take me two hours to get ready to leave the house every morning. My parents were—they weren’t happy. I went to see more doctors, had my medicine adjus
ted, everything. But nothing—I couldn’t get better. Even now, I still have to—” He points at his hands.
“So you came here to see another doctor or something?” I say.
He laughs, but it’s a sad, bitter sound. “No. I mean, I do see a doctor. But my parents—I was embarrassing them. All their friends have kids who can, as my father says, control themselves. But the madder they got, the worse I got, and … well, like I said, I was embarrassing them. So they sent me to live with Clement. I spent years listening to my dad complain about this place—we never came to visit, you know, not ever—and they still sent me here.”
“That’s—your parents suck,” I say.
He stares at me.
“I’m sorry, but they do. You’re amazing and—” I break off, aware of what I’ve just said. Out loud. “Anyway, they do suck.”
“They’re not that—okay, yeah, they do,” he says. “I hate it here. Well, not everything. Clement’s okay. And you …”
I hold my breath, waiting in spite of myself, hoping in spite of myself, but he doesn’t finish his sentence, just trails off and taps his fingers against his legs.
“I really hate this,” he finally says, looking at his fingers. “I hate my brain. If it worked right my parents would—I don’t know. Not act like I was something they need to hide.” He looks at me. “What’s it like having parents that actually like you?”
“Ask Tess,” I say, and realize how bitter I must sound because he tilts his head a little to one side, like I’ve surprised him. I immediately feel guilty, not just because my parents are amazing compared to his, but also because it’s not my parents’ fault I’m not Tess. That’s nobody’s fault.
“I don’t mean it like it sounds,” I say. “My parents are okay. It’s just that since she got hurt, it’s … I’m not Tess, and it’s become this huge, obvious thing that—it’s all I can think about. I can’t draw everyone to me like she does. I don’t know how to shine like she does. She would know what to do now, if I was where she is. She always knows what to do and I … don’t.”
“You seem to be doing okay to me.”
“But I’m not. If Tess doesn’t wake up in the next few days, she’s getting moved to a home. And my parents … it’s breaking their hearts, you know? They’re not happy and Tess could always get them—or anyone—to stop whatever it was they were doing and focus on her.”
“That sounds … I don’t know. She sounds sort of dramatic,” Eli says.
“She wasn’t—well, she did know how to get attention,” I say. “But you’ve seen her.”
“I have,” Eli says. “You’re as pretty as she is, you know.”
I laugh for real for the first time in ages then, laugh even as my heart kick-thumps inside my chest, a throbbing, hopeful beat.
“Okay,” I say when I’m done, and stand up, start to head farther downstairs, outside. “Thanks for that, for being—for being so nice.”
“Hey, I meant what I said,” he says, getting up and following me, his voice quiet. “How come you’re so sure that your sister is better than you?”
“Because she is. She always has been.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone.”
“Well, I’m not everyone,” he says as we walk out of the hospital, and smiles at me.
I smile back. I can’t help myself.
I can’t help wanting to believe him.
We’re both silent as we cross to the bike rack, but as I’m unlocking my bike he says, “Thanks for, you know, listening.”
“I like listening to you,” I say, and then mentally kick myself. “I mean, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“It was to me,” he says. “You’re the only person besides Clement I’ve told about my OCD. And Clement—well, it’s not like he didn’t already know.”
See, there he goes again, getting to me because he’s so—he’s so damn sweet. So not pushing back when I try to push him away. “I haven’t—you’re the only one I’ve told about Tess. How I can’t be like her, I mean.”
“Like I said, she sounds … dramatic,” he says. “You—”
If he says I’m solid or reliable or something like that, I will die.
“You think you’re a shadow or something,” he says. “Her shadow. But you’re not. You shine too. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I gotta go meet Clement now.”
“Okay,” I manage to get out and then just stand there, watch him walk back into the hospital.
He thinks I shine.
I think about that all the way home. That, and Tess.
thirty
Tess wasn’t—isn’t—dramatic. Not really. I mean, she always knew what she wanted and got it no matter what, from good grades to getting into her dream school to making sure nobody talked to Claire once Claire got pregnant, but that wasn’t drama. That was will. And Tess had a lot of it.
But as the breeze created by the ferry cutting through the water blows over me, I start thinking about other things. Like how Tess acted when she found out Claire was pregnant. She was mad. And not just in the angry way. It was like she actually went a little crazy. The worst was when she saw Claire walk by our house when she was just starting to show. I don’t even remember where Claire was going—she might have just been out walking—but Tess saw her and just … snapped. She went over to the fridge, opened it, took out the Crock-Pot of meatballs Mom had made for a week’s worth of dinners featuring them, and went outside.
The next thing I knew, Claire was yelling and Dad had raced outside, Mom right behind him. Tess was just standing there, the Crock-Pot lying on the ground and her hands full of squelched meat, red sauce all over them. It’s the only time I ever remember Tess acting angry where there was a chance someone outside the house could see her. No one else did but me, my parents … and Claire.
She didn’t walk by our house after that until Tess had left for college.
But that had been the only time Tess had been “dramatic” in the sense I’m thinking Eli means. I mean, Tess could get quiet or mean sometimes, but then, she put so much pressure on herself. It’s like when she freaked out about her grades and how she wasn’t valedictorian during the last half of her senior year and went to that stupid admissions counselor.
I was glad Claire was out of school then, so pregnant—and though she’s never said it, I think so tired of Tess ruining her life—that she’d dropped out and ended up getting her GED later. Claire was the only person Tess ever—
She was the only person Tess was ever truly cruel to.
But I think that was about Tess being … well, Tess. She could be judgmental. Like with guys, for instance. She always found something wrong with them—always. They weren’t nice enough, or were immature, or got haircuts she didn’t like. And maybe, after years of people doing whatever Tess wanted, Claire got together with Rick after Tess said she shouldn’t, and Tess couldn’t forgive her for that.
I head home when the ferry docks, exhausted and exhilarated by everything that’s happened … by Eli. Seeing him, talking to him, and by him saying I shine—and then I stop in the driveway, shocked.
Beth is here.
Mom and Dad are with her, are standing by her car looking perfectly polite—they are both so good at it, and Tess got all of that skill—but I can tell from the way Dad has his hands shoved in his pockets that he’s not happy. Mom isn’t either, because she’s picking at the nail polish on her pinkie finger while she nods at whatever Beth is saying.
Beth is here, and now that I’m not looking at Mom and Dad, I see boxes in her car.
Beth has brought Tess’s stuff back.
“Hey,” I say, riding up to Beth’s car and making sure my bike hits it when I get off. “What’s going on?”
“Beth stopped by,” Mom says, all casual and calm except for the polish she’s shredding off her fingernails.
“Oh,” I say, and turn to Beth, pretending I don’t see the boxes. “You’re going with my parents to see Tess? That’s great.”
“I w
as actually telling your parents that I saw Tess—and you—the other day,” Beth says. “And that I’m living with someone else now, and she needs to be able to move her stuff in. So, I’ve—well, I’ve brought Tess’s things back for you.”
“For her,” I say. “Tess’s still here, Beth. You’ve seen her, remember?”
Beth must have a little bit of a heart after all, because she pales at that.
“I’ve seen her,” she says, her voice quiet. “And I—it breaks my heart. Tess was so vibrant, so beautiful. I thought she’d grow into who she was, but now—” She breaks off, turns to my parents. “We’d already decided we … we didn’t want to be roommates anymore. I don’t know if she told you that or not.”
“I—we didn’t know,” Mom says, and Beth says, “I’m sorry.”
“Right,” I mutter, and Mom shoots me a quick, warning look.
I ignore it.
“You just want to forget about her,” I say to Beth even as Mom shoots me another look and Dad puts a hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort and quiet me. “But how can you forget about your best friend?”
“Abby, enough,” Mom says. “Go inside.”
“What? Beth dropping off Tess’s stuff like Tess is gone when she isn’t is okay with you?”
“Abby,” Dad says. “Go.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Beth says to me, and then looks at my parents. “God, no wonder Tess was so screwed up. If you two had—”
“Stop. You’re saying things you know nothing about,” Dad says, his voice very soft but very angry, and then he looks at me. “Abby, this is the last time I’m saying this. Go. Inside. Now.”
Okay, then.
I go inside and watch my parents and Beth unload four boxes from Beth’s car. That’s it. All of Tess’s things fit into four boxes.
Four boxes, and now Tess is lying silent in a hospital bed. She deserves more than that. She deserves her life back.
I bang open the front door and head back outside, but it’s too late to tell Beth off one last time because she’s backing down our driveway and onto the street. It looks like she’s wiping her eyes, but if she’s that sad for real, she could have stayed, could have gone to see Tess.