I nod, swallowing to confirm that the rawness in my throat has started to subside. “Already a million times better!” Relief fills his eyes, and I change the subject quickly before he can ask any more treatment-related questions. “How’s your new apartment?”
He gives me an over-the-top smile. “It’s great! It’s got a bed and a bathroom!” His smile fades slightly, and he shrugs. “And not much else. I’m sure your mom’s place is nicer. She could always make anywhere feel like home.”
“Maybe if you just call her—”
He shakes his head at me and cuts me off. “Moving on. Seriously, it’s fine, hun. The place is great, and I’ve got you and my guitar! What else do I need?”
My stomach clenches, but there’s a knock on my door and Julie comes in, holding a dark-green tray with a pile of food.
My dad sees her and brightens up. “Julie! How’ve you been?”
Julie puts down the tray and presents her belly to him. For someone who insisted for the past five years that she was never having children, she seems ridiculously eager to be having children.
“Very busy, I see,” my dad says, smiling wide.
“Talk to you later, Dad,” I say, moving my cursor over to the end-call button. “Love you.”
He gives me a salute before the chat ends. The smell of eggs and bacon wafts off the plate, a giant chocolate milk shake sitting on the tray next to it.
“Need anything else, Stell? Some company?”
I glance at her baby bump, shaking my head as a surprising swell of contempt fills my chest. I love Julie, but I’m really not in the mood for talking about her new little family when mine’s falling apart. “Poe’s about to call me.”
Right on time, my laptop pings and Poe’s picture pops up, the green phone symbol appearing on my screen. Julie rubs her stomach, giving me a strange look before flashing me a tight-lipped, confused smile. “Okay. You two have fun!”
I press accept and Poe’s face slowly comes into view, his thick black eyebrows hanging over familiar warm brown eyes. He’s gotten a haircut since the last time I saw him. Shorter. Cleaner. He gives me a big ear-to-ear smile, and I attempt to grin back, but it ends up looking more like a grimace.
I can’t get the image of my dad out of my head. So sad and alone, in bed, but the lines of his face still deep and filled with exhaustion.
And I can’t even go check on him.
“Hey, mami! You are looking WORN,” he says, putting his milk shake down and squinting at me. “You go on one of your chocolate pudding benders again?”
I know this is where I’m supposed to laugh, but I seem to have used up my pretending quota for the day, and it’s not even nine thirty yet.
Poe frowns. “Uh-oh. What’s wrong? Is it Cabo? You know sunburn is nothing to play with anyway.”
I wave that away and instead hold up my tray like a game-show model to show Poe my lumberjack breakfast. Eggs, bacon, potatoes, and a milk shake! The usual for our breakfast dates.
Poe gives me a challenging look, like I’m not getting away with that subject change, but he can’t resist holding up his plate to show me the identical meal—except his eggs are beautifully embellished with chives, parsley, and . . . Wait.
Freaking truffles!
“Poe! Where the hell did you get truffles?”
He raises his eyebrows, smirking. “You gotta bring ’em with, mija!” he says as he moves the webcam to show me a med cart that he’s converted into a perfectly organized spice rack. It’s filled with jars and specialty items instead of pill bottles, sitting under his shrine to his favorite skateboarder, Paul Rodriguez, and the entire Colombian national soccer team. Classic Poe. Food, skateboarding, and fútbol are by FAR his three favorite things.
He has enough jerseys pinned up on his wall to fully clothe every CFer on this floor for a poor-playing, no-cardiovascular-strength B-team.
The camera swings back to him, and I see Gordon Ramsay’s chest peering out from behind him. “But first—our appetizers!” He holds up a handful of Creon tablets, which will help our bodies digest the food we’re about to eat.
“Best part of every meal!” I say sarcastically as I scoop my red-and-white tablets out of a small plastic cup next to my tray.
“So,” Poe says after he’s swallowed his last one. “Since you won’t spill, let’s talk about me. I’m single! Ready to—”
“You broke up with Michael?” I ask, exasperated. “Poe!”
Poe takes a long sip of his milk shake. “Maybe he broke up with me.”
“Did he?”
“Yes! Well, it was mutual,” he says, before sighing and shaking his head. “Whatever. I broke up with him.”
I frown. They were perfect for each other. Michael liked skateboarding and had a super-popular food blog that Poe had followed religiously for three years before they met. He was different from the other people Poe had dated. Older, somehow, even though he had just turned eighteen. Most importantly, Poe was different with him. “You really liked him, Poe. I thought he might be the one.”
But I should know better; Poe could write a book on commitment issues. Still, that never stopped him on the quest for another great romance. Before Michael it was Tim, the week after this it could be David. And, to be honest, I envy him a bit, with his wild romances.
I’ve never been in love before. Tyler Paul for sure didn’t count. But even if I had the chance, dating is a risk that I can’t afford right now. I have to stay focused. Keep myself alive. Get my transplant. Reduce parental misery. It’s pretty much a full-time job. And definitely not a sexy one.
“Well, he’s not,” Poe says, acting like it’s no big deal. “Screw him anyway, right?”
“Hey, at least you got to do that,” I say, shrugging as I pick at my eggs. I can see Will’s knowing smirk from yesterday when I told him I’d had sex before. Asshole.
Poe laughs midsip of his milk shake, but he sputters and begins to choke. His vital monitors start beeping on the other side of the laptop as he struggles for breath.
Oh my god. No, no, no. I jump up. “Poe!”
I push aside the laptop and run into the hallway as an alarm sounds at the nurses’ station, fear in every pore of my body. Somewhere a voice shouts out, “Room 310! Blood oxygen level is in free fall. He’s desatting!”
Desatting. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe. “He’s choking! Poe’s choking!” I shout out, tears filling my eyes as I fly down the hallway behind Julie, pulling on a face mask as I go. She bursts through the door ahead of me and goes to check the beeping monitor. I’m scared to look. I’m scared to see Poe suffering. I’m scared to see Poe . . .
Fine.
He’s fine, sitting in his chair like nothing happened.
Relief floods through me and I break out in a cold sweat as he looks from me to Julie, a sheepish expression on his face as he holds up his fingertip sensor. “Sorry! It came unplugged. I didn’t tape it back down after my shower.”
I exhale slowly, realizing I’ve been holding my breath this whole time. Which is pretty hard to do when you have lungs that barely work.
Julie leans against the wall, looking just as shocked as I am. “Poe. Jeez. When your O2 drops like that . . .” She shakes her head. “Just put it back on.”
“I don’t need it anymore, Jules,” he says, looking up at her. “Let me take it off.”
“Absolutely not. Your lung function sucks right now. We’ve gotta keep an eye on you, so you need to keep that damn thing on.” She takes a deep breath, holding out a piece of tape so he can tape the sensor back on. “Please.”
He sighs loudly but reattaches the fingertip sensor to the blood-oxygen sensor worn on his wrist.
I nod, finally catching my breath. “I agree, Poe. Keep it on.”
He glances up at me as he tapes the sensor onto his middle finger, holding it up to me and grinning.
I roll my eyes at him, glancing down the hallway to the asshole’s room: 315. The door is tightly closed despite the commotion,
a light shining out from under it. He’s not even going to poke his head out to make sure everybody’s okay? This was practically a floor roll call, as everyone opened their door to double-check that everything was fine. I fidget and smooth my hair down, looking back over at Poe in time to see him raise his eyebrows at me.
“What, you trying to look good for someone?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I glare at him and Julie as they shoot curious looks in my direction. I point at his food. “You’re about to waste some perfectly good truffles on a bunch of cold eggs,” I say, before hurrying off down the hallway to finish our breakfast chat. The more space between room 315 and me the better.
CHAPTER 4
WILL
I rub my eyes sleepily, clicking on another video, my half-eaten tray of eggs and bacon sitting cold on the table next to me. I’ve been up all night watching her videos, one after the other. It’s been a Stella Grant marathon, even with the lame CF content.
Scanning the sidebar, I click on the next one.
This one’s from last year, the lighting ridiculously dark, except for the bright flash of her phone’s camera. It looks like a fundraising event, held at a dimly lit bar. There’s a huge banner dangling over a stage reading: SAVE THE PLANET—SUPPORT EARTH DAY.
The camera focuses on a man playing an acoustic guitar, sitting casually on a wooden stool, while a curly-brown-haired girl sings. I recognize them both from all the videos I’ve watched.
Stella’s dad and her sister, Abby.
The view spins onto Stella, a big smile on her face, her teeth as white and even as I predicted. She’s wearing makeup, and I cough in surprise at how different she looks. It’s not the makeup, though. She’s happier. Calmer. Not like she’s been in person.
Even the nose cannula looks good on her when she smiles like that.
“Dad and Abby! Stealing the show! If I die before I’m twenty-one, at least I’ve been in a bar.” She swings the camera to show an older woman with the same long brown hair sitting next to her in a bright-red booth. “Say hi, Mom!”
The woman waves, giving the camera a big grin.
A waitress passes by their table and Stella waves her down. “Ah, yes. I’ll take a bourbon, please. Neat.”
I snort as her mom’s voice screams out a “No, she won’t!”
“Ahh, nice try, Stella,” I say, laughing as a bright light comes on, illuminating their faces.
The song in the background ends and Stella begins clapping manically, turning the camera to show her sister, Abby, smiling at her from the stage.
“So, my little sister, Stella, is here tonight,” she says, pointing directly at Stella. “As if fighting for her own life isn’t enough, she’s going to save the planet, too! Come show ’em whatcha got, Stella!”
Stella’s voice comes through my speakers, confused and shocked. “Uh, did you guys plan this?”
The camera swings back to her mom, who grins. Yep.
“Go on, baby. I’ll film it!” her mom says, and everything swings out of focus as Stella hands over the phone.
Everyone in the room cheers as she pulls her portable oxygen concentrator onto the stage, her sister, Abby, helping her maneuver up the steps and into the spotlight. She adjusts her cannula nervously as her dad hands her a microphone, before she turns to the crowd and speaks. “This is a first for me. In front of a crowd, anyway. Don’t laugh!”
So, naturally, everyone laughs, including Stella. Only, her laugh is filled with nerves.
She looks over at her sister warily. Abby says something to her that the microphone just barely picks up.
“Bushel and a peck.”
What does that mean?
It works, though, and like magic the nervousness melts away from Stella’s face.
Her dad starts to strum away at his guitar and I hum along before my brain even consciously registers what they’re singing. Everyone in the audience is swaying along too, heads moving left and right, feet tapping with the beat.
“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord . . .”
Wow. They both can sing.
Her sister is rocking this clear and strong and powerful voice, while Stella’s is breathy and soft, smooth in all the right ways.
I hit pause as the camera closes in on Stella’s face, all her features coming alive in the glow of the spotlight. Carefree, and smiling, and happy, up there onstage next to her sister and her dad. I wonder what made her so . . . uptight yesterday.
I run my fingers through my hair, taking in her long hair, the shadow of her collarbone, the way her brown eyes shine when she smiles. Her adrenaline gives her face a twinge of color, her cheeks a bright, exhilarated pink.
Not gonna lie. She’s pretty.
Really pretty.
I look away and—wait a second. There’s no way. I highlight the number with my cursor.
“A hundred thousand views? Are you kidding me?”
Who is this girl?
* * *
Not even an hour later, my first post-all-nighter nap was interrupted by a blaring alarm down the hall, and then my second attempt was foiled later by my mom and Dr. Hamid busting into my room for an evening visit. Bored, I stifle a yawn and stare out at the empty courtyard, the cold winds and the forecast of snow driving everyone inside.
Snow. At least that’s something to look forward to.
I rest my head against the cool glass, eager for the world outside to be covered in a blanket of white. I haven’t touched snow since the first time my mom shipped me off to a top-of-the-line treatment facility to be a guinea pig for an experimental drug to fight B. cepacia. It was in Sweden, and they’d been perfecting this thing for half a decade.
Clearly, it wasn’t “perfected” enough, because I was out of there and back home in about two weeks flat.
At this point I don’t remember much from that particular stay. The only thing I remember from most of my hospital trips is white. White hospital sheets, white walls, white lab coats, all running together. But I do remember the mountains and mountains of snow that fell while I was there, the same white, only beautiful, less sterile. Real. I’d been dreaming of going skiing in the Alps, lung function be damned. But the only snow I got to touch was on the roof of my mom’s Mercedes rental.
“Will,” my mother’s voice says, sternly, cutting right through my daydream of fresh powder. “Are you listening?”
Is she kidding?
I turn my head to look at her and Dr. Hamid, and nod like a bobblehead even though I haven’t heard a single word this entire time. They’re going over my first test results since I started the trial a week or so ago, and as usual, nothing’s changed.
“We need to be patient,” Dr. Hamid says. “The first phase of clinical trials on humans started just eighteen months ago.” I eye my mother, watching her nod eagerly, her short blond bob moving up and down at the doctor’s words.
I wonder how many strings she had to pull and how much money she had to throw away to get me into this.
“We’re monitoring him, but Will needs to help us. He needs to keep the variables in his life to a minimum.” Her eyes focus on me, her thin face serious. “Will. The risks of cross-infection are even higher now so—”
I cut her off. “Don’t cough on any other CFers. Got it.”
Her black eyebrows jut down as she frowns. “Don’t get close enough to touch them. For their safety, and yours.”
I hold up my hand in mock pledge, reciting what could probably be the CF motto by this point, “Six feet at all times.”
She nods. “You got it.”
“What I’ve got is B. cepacia, making this conversation null and void.” That’s not going to change anytime soon.
“Nothing is impossible!” Dr. Hamid says enthusiastically. My mom eats this line up. “I believe that. You need to believe it too.”
I pair an over-the-top smile with a thumbs-up, before turning it into a thumbs-down and shaking my head, the smile slipping off my face. It’s such bullshit.
Dr. Hamid clears her throat, looking at my mom. “Right. I’ll leave this to you.”
“Thank you, Dr. Hamid,” my mom says, shaking her hand eagerly, like she just managed to sign a contract for her most burdensome client.
Dr. Hamid gives me a final thin-lipped smile before leaving. My mom spins around to look at me, her blue eyes piercing, voice biting. “It took a lot of effort to get you into this program, Will.”
If by “effort” she means writing a check that could send a small village to college, then she definitely put in quite a bit of effort just so I could be a human petri dish.
“What do you want? A thank-you for shoving me in another hospital, wasting more of my time?” I stand up, walking over to face her. “In two weeks I’ll be eighteen. A legal adult. You won’t hold the reins anymore.”
For a second she looks taken aback, then her eyes narrow at me. She grabs her latest Prada trench coat off the chair by the door, pulling it on and glancing back to look at me. “I’ll see you on your birthday.”
I lean out the doorway, watching her go, her heels clicking off down the hallway. She stops at the nurses’ station, where Barb is flipping through some papers.
“Barb, right? Let me give you my cell,” I hear her say as she opens her purse, grabbing her wallet from inside. “If the Cevaflomalin doesn’t work, Will may . . . become a handful.”
When Barb doesn’t say anything, she pulls a business card out of her wallet. “He’s been disappointed so many times already, and he’s expecting to be disappointed again. If he’s not complying, you’ll call me?”
She flicks the business card onto the counter before tossing a hundred on top of it like this is some fancy restaurant and I’m a table that needs to be fawned over. Wow. That’s just great.
Barb stares at the money, raising her eyebrows at my mother.
“That was inappropriate, wasn’t it? I’m sorry. We’ve been to so many . . .”
Her voice trails off, and I watch as Barb takes the business card and the money off the counter, meeting my mother’s gaze with the same look of determination she gives me when she’s forcing me to take some medicine. “Don’t worry. He’s in good hands.” She presses the hundred back into my mother’s hand, pocketing the business card and looking past my mother to meet my eyes.
Five Feet Apart Page 4
