Five Feet Apart

by Rachael Lippincott

  “Seven. Six. Five.” The night sky suddenly comes to life, swimming past the flowers, the stars filling the air around me. They twinkle and dance above my head, close enough for me to reach out and touch them.

  I hear a voice humming, somewhere in the distance. “A Bushel and a Peck.”

  “Four. Three.”

  The edges of my vision start going black, my world going darker and darker. I focus on a single star, a single point of light, getting brighter and warmer and more overwhelming.

  The humming stops and I hear a voice, far-off and muddled. Abby. Oh my god. It’s Abby’s voice.

  “. . . back . . . don’t.”

  “Two,” I whisper, not sure if it’s in my head or out loud. And then I see her. I see Abby, right there in front of me, blurry at first and then as clear as day. My dad’s curly hair, and her larger-than-life smile, and her hazel eyes identical to my own.

  “. . . more . . . time . . .”

  She’s pushing me away from the light.

  “One.”

  Darkness.

  CHAPTER 14

  WILL

  I quietly push open the door, looking both ways before sneaking out of the pre-op area and almost running smack into a nurse. I quickly look away and put my face mask up to disguise myself as she heads inside.

  I take a few quick steps and hide behind the wall next to the stairwell, noticing a man and a woman sitting on opposite sides of the empty waiting room.

  Squinting, I look from one to the other.

  I know them from somewhere.

  “Can I ask you a question?” the man says, and the woman looks up to meet his eyes, her jaw tightening.

  She looks like an older Stella. The same full lips, the same thick eyebrows, the same expressive eyes.

  Stella’s parents.

  She nods just once, looking wary. You can practically cut the tension with a knife. I know I should leave. I know I should open the stairwell door and get back before I get in trouble, but something makes me stay.

  “The tile in my bathroom is, uh, purple? What color bath mat do I—”

  “Black,” she says, putting her head back down and looking at her hands, her hair falling in front of her face.

  There’s a moment of silence and I see the door into the hallway quietly open, Barb sliding through. Neither of them notices her come in. Stella’s dad clears his throat. “And the towels?”

  She throws up her hands, exasperated. “It doesn’t matter, Tom.”

  “It mattered when we painted the office. You said the rug—”

  “Our daughter’s in surgery and you want to talk about towels?” she snaps, her face livid. I’ve never seen Barb look so displeased. She crosses her arms, standing up a little straighter as she watches their back-and-forth.

  “I just wanna talk,” her dad says softly. “About anything.”

  “Oh my god. You’re killing me. Stop . . . .” Her voice trails off as they both look over to see Barb, her face steadily growing angrier and angrier until it has the same look that she gives us when we get in trouble.

  She takes a deep breath, pulling all the air from the room. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, losing Abby,” she says, her voice deathly serious. “But Stella”—she points at the pre-op doors, where somewhere in the distance, Stella is lying on a table about to be operated on—“Stella is fighting for her life in there. And she’s doing it for you.”

  They both look away, ashamed.

  “You can’t be friends? At least be adults,” Barb fires at them, her voice filled with frustration.

  Dang, Barb. Take it to church.

  Stella’s mom shakes her head. “I can’t be around him. I look at his face and I see Abby.”

  Her dad looks up quickly, barely taking in her face before he looks away again. “I see Stella when I look at you.”

  “You are their parents. Did you forget that part of the deal? Did you know that when she found out about the surgery, she insisted on telling you herself because she was so afraid of how you’d take it?” Barb says, looking up.

  God, no wonder Stella was so obsessive about staying alive. These people lost their child and then they lost each other. If she died, they’d probably lose their minds.

  My dad left before I got sicker and sicker, before the CF could take a toll on my body. He couldn’t handle a sick child. He definitely couldn’t handle a dead one. But two?

  I watch as her parents finally look at each other, really look at each other, a teary silence settling over them.

  Stella’s been taking care of all of us. Her mom, her dad, me. I keep counting down to eighteen, to being an adult, holding the reins. Maybe it’s time I actually acted like it. Maybe it’s time I took care of myself.

  I blink, looking over to Barb, her eyes widening at the same time as mine.

  Uh-oh. I’m like a deer caught in the headlights, unsure if I should bolt or just get what’s coming to me. I hesitate for too long and she storms over, grabbing my arm and pulling me down the hall to the elevator. “Oh, hell no.”

  I stay silent as the elevator doors slide open and she drags me inside.

  She presses the button for the third floor, again and again and again, shaking her head. I can feel the anger literally radiating off her.

  “Look, Barb. I know you’re mad, but she was scared. I just had to see her . . . .”

  The doors slide shut and she spins around to look at me, her face like thunder. “You could kill her, Will. You could ruin any chance she has for new lungs.”

  “She’s in more danger under that anesthesia than she is with me,” I fire back.

  “Wrong!” Barb shouts as the elevator slows to a stop, the doors opening. She storms out and I follow behind her, calling after her.

  “What is your deal, Barb?”

  “Trevor Von and Amy Presley. Young CFers, just like you and Stella,” Barb says, turning on her heel to face me. “Amy came in with B. cepacia.”

  Her eyes are serious, so I close my mouth before I make one of my usual comments and let her keep talking. “I was young, about Julie’s age. New at this. New at life.”

  She looks past me, staring into a different time.

  “Trevor and Amy were in love. We all knew the rules. No contact, six feet apart. And I”—she points to herself—“I let them break the rules because I wanted them to be happy.”

  “Let me guess, they both died?” I ask, knowing the ending long before she tells it to me.

  “Yes,” she says, looking me dead in the eyes, fighting back tears. “Trevor contracted B. cepacia from Amy. Amy lived for another decade. But Trevor? He got ripped off the top of the transplant list and lived only two more years after the bacteria tanked his lung function.”

  Shit.

  I swallow, looking from her to Stella’s room, just past the nurses’ station. The list of things that can happen to us CFers, the ghost stories we’re told, is pretty much endless. But hearing Barb talk about Trevor and Amy, it doesn’t feel like a ghost story at all.

  “It was on my watch, Will,” she says, pointing at herself and shaking her head adamantly. “I’ll be damned if it’s gonna happen again.”

  With that, she turns and walks away, leaving me speechless.

  I look over to see Poe standing in his doorway, his expression unreadable. He heard the whole thing. He opens his mouth to say something, but I hold up my hand, cutting him off. I make a beeline for my room, closing the door loudly behind me.

  I grab my laptop from my nightstand and sit down on the bed. My fingers hover over the keyboard, and then I search it. I search B. cepacia.

  Words jump out at me.

  Contamination.

  Risk.

  Infection.

  With just a cough, with just a single touch, I could ruin her entire life. I could ruin any chance she has for new lungs. I could hurt Stella.

  I knew it, I guess. But I didn’t really see it.

  The thought of that makes every bone in my body
ache. Worse than surgeries, or infections, or waking up on a bad morning barely able to breathe. Even worse than the pain of being in the same room as her and not being able to touch her.

  Death.

  That’s what I am. That’s what I am to Stella.

  The only thing worse than not being able to be with her or be around her would be living in a world that she didn’t exist in at all. Especially if it’s my fault.

  CHAPTER 15

  STELLA

  “Time to wake up, honey,” a voice says, somewhere far in the distance.

  It’s my mom’s voice, closer now. From right beside me.

  I take a deep breath, the world swinging into focus, my head foggy. I blink as her face comes into view, my dad standing beside her.

  I’m alive. I made it.

  “There’s my Sleeping Beauty,” she says, and I rub my eyes groggily. I know I just woke up, but I am exhausted.

  “How do you feel?” my dad asks, and I respond with a sleepy groan, smiling at the both of them.

  There’s a knock on the door and Julie pushes it open, coming in with a wheelchair to take me down to my room. And my bed. Thank goodness.

  I swing my hand into the air, holding up my thumb hitchhiker style, and shout out, “Can I get a ride?”

  Julie laughs, and my dad helps me get off the gurney and into the wheelchair. Whatever pain meds I’m on right now are strong. I can’t feel my face, let alone the pain from my G-tube.

  “We’ll stop by later to check in on you!” my dad says, and I shoot them both a thumbs-up, freezing.

  Wait.

  We’ll.

  We’ll stop by later to check in on you?

  “Did I wake up in an alternate universe?” I grumble, rubbing my eyes and squinting at them.

  My mom smiles and strokes my hair comfortingly as she looks over at my dad. “You’re our daughter, Stella. Always have been, always will be.”

  These pain meds are strong.

  I open my mouth to say something, but I’m too stunned and exhausted to string a sentence together. I just nod, my head swinging wildly up and down.

  “Go get some sleep, sweetie,” my mom says, planting a kiss on my forehead.

  Julie takes me down the hall and into the elevator. It’s almost impossible to keep my eyes open, my eyelids feeling heavier than a sack of potatoes.

  “Phew, Jules, I am pooped,” I slur, shooting her a side eye and seeing her pregnant belly at eye level just over my shoulder.

  The elevator doors open and she wheels me into my room, locking the tires on the wheelchair. “The skin and tube look much better. You’ll be up and around by this afternoon. No crunches, though.”

  I struggle as she helps me stand slowly and get into bed, my legs and arms feeling like lead weights. She fixes my pillows and tucks me in gently, pulling the covers up over my body.

  “You get to hold your own baby,” I say, sighing sleepily, sadly.

  Julie meets my gaze. She sits down on the edge of my bed, letting out a long sigh. “I’m going to need help, Stella. It’s just me.” She smiles at me, her blue eyes warm. “Can’t think of anyone I would trust more.”

  I reach out, trying to be as gentle as possible as my exhausted hand pats her stomach once, twice.

  Nailed it.

  I give her a big grin. “I’m going to be the best aunt ever.”

  Aunt Stella. Me. An aunt? I slump down sleepily, the surgery and the pain meds finally overtaking me. She kisses me on the forehead and leaves, the door gently closing behind her. I sink into my pillow, curling up and pulling my panda closer. I look over at my side table, my eyes slowly clos— Wait! I sit up, grabbing a folded-paper box sitting there, tied with a red ribbon.

  I pull the ribbon, and the box unfurls into a handmade, colorful, pop-up bouquet of flowers, the same purple lilacs and pink hydrangeas and white wildflowers as in Abby’s drawing suddenly brought to life.

  Will.

  I smile, putting it gently back down as I fumble around for my phone. I grab it, and it takes everything in me to focus on the screen as I scroll through to Will’s number. I hit dial, listening to it ring, my eyes closing as it goes to voice mail. I jump at the beep, my voice slurred when I start speaking. “It’s me! Stella. Don’t call me, okay? ’Cause I just had surgery and I’m so tired, but call me when you—get this. But no, don’t. Okay? ’Cause if I hear your sexy voice, I won’t be able to sleep. Yeah. So, call me, okay?”

  I fumble with the phone, pressing the end button. I curl up, pulling my blankets closer to my body and grabbing my panda again. I’m still staring at the flowers when I finally drift off to sleep.

  * * *

  My phone starts chirping, pulling me out of my deep, postsurgery sleep. I roll over, my eyes less heavy as they open, and see that Poe is calling me on FaceTime. Fumbling with the screen, I finally press the green button, and his face appears.

  “You’re alive!”

  I grin, rubbing my eyes and sitting up. I’m still sleepy, but the drugs have worn off enough that my head doesn’t feel like a paperweight.

  “Hey. I’m alive,” I say, my eyes widening as they land on the beautiful bouquet of flowers still on my side table. “The tube’s looking good.”

  Will. I vaguely remember opening the bouquet.

  I quickly double-check my text messages. Two from my mom. Three from Camila. One from Mya. Four from my dad. All checking in to see how I’m feeling.

  There are none from Will.

  My heart falls about twenty stories.

  “Have you talked to Will?” I ask, frowning.

  “Nope,” Poe says, shaking his head. He looks like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t.

  I take a deep breath, coughing, my side aching where the skin infection was. Ow. I stretch. The pain is definitely there. But manageable.

  I have a message on Instagram, and I swipe to see that it’s a reply from Michael that I got while I was sleeping. He messaged me last night to see how Poe was doing, asking about his bronchitis. And—most surprisingly—if he was going to visit his parents in Colombia. I had no idea he was even considering it.

  We talked back and forth for close to an hour, about how happy he is that I’m here with Poe at the hospital, about how great Poe is.

  How he doesn’t understand what went wrong.

  He really cares about him.

  “Michael DM’d me,” I say, glancing up to see Poe’s reaction to my words as I toggle back onto FaceTime.

  “What?” he asks, surprised. “Why?”

  “Asking if you’re okay.” Poe’s expression is unreadable, his dark eyes serious. “He’s sweet. Really seems to love you.”

  He rolls his eyes. “In my business again. Clearly, you’ve fully recovered.”

  Poe is missing out on love. Because he’s afraid. Afraid to go the distance. Afraid to fully let someone into all the crap we have to live with. I know what it’s like to have that fear. But that fear didn’t stop the scary shit from happening.

  I don’t want it anymore.

  “I’m just saying,” I say, shrugging casually, even though my words are serious. “He doesn’t care that you’re sick.”

  Michael doesn’t care that Poe has CF. He cares that he can’t be there for Poe.

  When you have CF, you don’t know how much time you have left. But, honestly, you don’t know how much time the ones you love have left either. My gaze travels to the pop-up bouquet.

  “And what’s this about visiting your family—you’re definitely going, right?”

  “Call me when you’re off the drugs,” he says, glaring at me and hanging up.

  I send a quick text to both my parents, telling them to head home and get some rest, since it’s already late afternoon and I need to sleep a bit longer. They’ve been stuck here for hours, and I don’t want them waiting for me to wake up when they need to take care of themselves.

  They both object, though, and a few minutes later there’s a knock on my door, the two of the
m, together, popping their heads in to look at me.

  I remember vaguely the “we” from when I first woke up, the two of them a united front for the first time since Abby’s death.

  “How are you feeling?” my mom asks, smiling at me and kissing my forehead.

  I sit up, shaking my head. “Listen, you two should really go, you’ve been here—”

  “We’re your parents, Stell. Even though we aren’t together, we are still here for you,” my dad says, taking my hand and squeezing it. “You always come first. And these past few months . . . we definitely haven’t showed that.”

  “These past few months have been tough on all of us,” my mom says, sharing a look of understanding with him. “But it’s not on you to make us feel better, okay? We’re your parents, honey. More than anything, we want you to be happy, Stella.”

  I nod. Never in a million years would I have expected this.

  “By the way,” my dad says, plunking down in the chair next to my bed. “The soup was great. Say what you want about cafeteria food, but they make a mean broccoli cheddar.”

  My mom and I look at each other, smiles giving way to deep belly laughs that I have to suppress so my new G-tube doesn’t hurt. The sadness stays put, but I feel an ounce of the weight on my shoulders slowly drift away, and I inhale, breathing a little easier than I have in a long time. Maybe this surgery wasn’t the worst thing after all.

  * * *

  I doze off for a little longer after my parents leave, sleeping off the last bit of the fogginess, and when I wake up an hour later, I’m fully out of the anesthesia haze. I slowly sit up, stretching, the pain from my surgery pulling at my side and chest. The pain meds are wearing off too.

  I lift up my shirt to take a look. My skin is still raw and sore from surgery, but the area around my G-tube already looks about a million times better.

  My eyes fall on the pop-up bouquet and I grin excitedly, carefully standing up and taking a deep breath. The air struggles in and out of my lungs, and I take my portable oxygen off my bedside table, putting the nose cannula in and turning it on to give them a hand.