Free Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott Page B

me.
    “She is happy,” I continue. “That’s who Tess is. She’s happy, she’s pretty, and everyone likes being around her. Just look at the photos. She’s happy. That’s Tess.”
    “Her fingernails match her outfit,” he says, and I look closer, see that they are the same pinky-red as her shirt.
    “Just like Mom.”
    “Just like Mom,” he says. “When she was in high school, her best friend, Lauren, would talk about that sometimes, about how Katie always made sure her nails matched her outfits.”
    “You used to talk about Mom’s nails with her best friend? The Lauren Mom talks to all the time?”
    “I used to—I dated Lauren,” he says quietly. “Back before—well, a long time ago. Before your mom and I really knew each other.”
    “Oh,” I say, because what else can I say? I don’t know what’s weirder, that Dad went out with Mom’s best friend before he dated Mom, or that I’m finding it out now, in the middle of the night.
    The fact that Dad dated Mom’s best friend is definitely weirder. I mean, Lauren? She’s come to visit before, with her husband, Evan, and their kids and everything. And I never even guessed that … I mean, Dad? And Lauren? If Tess knew, she’d freak out.
    Tess. She’d know what to do now, what to say. Shocked or not—and she would be—she’d appreciate this moment for something, while I—I don’t even know what to say.
    I settle for “I’m going back to bed,” and start to head to my room.
    “Did you really see her move her eyes?” Dad asks.
    I stop and look back at him.
    “Yes.”
    “So you think—you think she can wake up?”
    I nod, surprised he’s even asking this. It’s not like you can fake a coma, and Tess has so much to live for. The pictures he holds are proof of that, of Tess leading the life she’s always had: easy, full. Happy. “Don’t you?”
    “I’d do anything to have her come back to us.”
    “I know,” I say. “And she will. I mean, this is Tess, Dad.”
    He smiles, and I slip away, go to bed. I don’t sleep though, and it’s a long time before Dad leaves Tess’s room, almost daylight, and I wonder what he saw in those pictures that had him asking the things he did. I wonder if there are things I’m not seeing.

nineteen
    I get to the hospital early the next afternoon because I got out of school early. My last two classes were canceled so we could all sit through an assembly about improving our academic performance, and there was no way I was sticking around for that.
    It’s too early for Eli to be here, but I look for him anyway. I don’t see him, and why should I?
    I remind myself of that when I’m disappointed.
    If only I could wire my brain to think the way it should, instead of the way it does.
    I head up to see Tess, but when I’m buzzed in to the unit I stop, frozen, and stare into Tess’s room.
    Beth is there. Beth, who hasn’t come to see Tess since before classes started up again, and when she left the last time, something about the look on her face, a sort of bitter sadness, made me think she was never coming back. I didn’t say anything to anyone about it, but I was right.
    Or at least, I thought I was.
    “Beth?” I say as I walk into the room.
    “Hey, Abby,” she says, and moves back from where she was sitting, pushing her chair away from Tess’s bed. She’s been holding Tess’s hand, and I watch as she pulls her fingers away, her thumb smoothing over Tess’s as she lets go. Her hair is longer than when I last saw her, down to her shoulders, and chunks of it have been colored a deep, rich purple.
    “You don’t have to move,” I say, sitting down in the other chair. “When did you get here?”
    “A little while ago,” Beth says. “I wanted—I was just thinking about her yesterday and I thought …” She trails off and touches Tess’s hair briefly, like it pains her. “She’s gotten so thin.”
    I look at Tess, at the hollows under her cheekbones, at the frail length of her arms. I