I see Julie, her eyes dark.
Then the door closes in my face.
I stumble back, turning to see Will standing behind me. His face as pale as Poe’s was. He reaches out for me, then closes his hands into fists, frustration filling his eyes. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I reach for the wall, sliding down it onto the floor, my breathing coming in short gasps. Will sits down against the wall, five feet away. I wrap my shaking arms around my legs, resting my head on my knees and squeezing my eyes tightly shut. All I see is Poe lying there.
Striped socks.
Yellow soccer jersey.
This can’t be real.
He’ll come to. He has to come to. He’ll sit up and make a joke about eating too much pasta or swooning too hard over Anderson Cooper, and ask if I want to go get a late-night milk shake with him. The same milk shakes we’ve been having for ten years.
The same milk shakes we need to have together for another decade.
I hear footsteps and lift my head to see Dr. Hamid hurrying down the hallway.
“Dr. Hamid—” I start, my voice croaking out.
“Not now, Stella,” she says firmly, pushing open the door. It swings wide and I see him. His face is turned toward me, his eyes closed.
He still isn’t moving.
But worse than that is Barb. Barb has her head in her hands. She’s stopped trying. No.
They’re taking everything off him. The wires. The intubation tubes.
“No!” I hear my voice scream out, my entire body screaming with it. “No, no, no, no!”
I reach up, pulling myself to my feet, and start running back to my room. He’s gone.
Poe’s gone.
I stumble down the hallway, seeing his eyes the day we first met, seeing him smile at me from his bedroom door, seeing his hand resting in mine through the kitchen mitt just hours earlier. My fingers find the handle to my door and I crash through, everything blurring as tears stream down my face.
I spin around to see Will has followed me, and I take a step closer as sobs rack my body, making my rib cage ache as it becomes impossible to breathe. “He’s gone. Will, he’s gone! Michael, his parents, oh my god.” I shake my head, clutching at my sides. “Will! He was just about to . . . They’ll never see him again.”
The realization slams me. “I’ll never see him again.”
I ball my hands into fists as I pace. “I never even hugged him. Never. Don’t touch! Don’t stand too close. Don’t, don’t, don’t!” I scream out, hysterical, coughing, dizzy. “He was my best friend and I never hugged him.”
And I never will. The feeling is so horribly familiar, I can’t stand it. “I’m losing everyone,” I gasp out. Abby. Poe. All gone.
“You’re not losing me,” Will says, his voice soft but determined. He walks toward me, reaching out, his arms almost wrapping around me.
“No!” I shove him away, stepping back, farther and farther, well past five feet. I press my back against the far wall of the room. “What are you doing?!”
Realization fills his eyes, and he backs away to the door, looking horrified. “Oh, fuck. Stella. I wasn’t thinking, I was just—”
“Get out!” I say, but he’s already in the hallway, already running back to his room. I slam the door, my head pounding with anger. With fear. I look around the room, and all I see is loss everywhere, making the walls close in on me, closer and closer.
This isn’t a bedroom.
I run to the wall, my fingers curling around the edges of a poster. It gives way, tearing down off the hospital wall.
I rip the bedspread off, throwing the pillows across the room. I grab Patches, chucking him at the door. I push all the books and papers and to-do lists off my desk, everything clattering loudly to the ground. I blindly grab at my nightstand, picking up the first thing I can get my hands on and throwing it at the wall.
The glass jar shatters, a sea of black truffles scattering across the floor.
I freeze, watching them roll in every direction.
Poe’s truffles.
Everything goes quiet except for my chest heaving in and out, in and out. I sink to my knees, sobs racking my entire body as I try desperately to pick up the truffles, one by one. I look at Patches, toppled over on his side, ragged and worn, all alone on the floor except for a lone truffle, resting against his tattered leg.
His sad brown eyes stare back at me, and I reach out, picking him up. I hug him to my chest, my eyes traveling to Abby’s drawing and then to the picture of the two of us.
I stand up shakily and collapse onto my bed, curling up into a tiny ball on the bare vinyl mattress, tears streaming down my face as I lie there, alone.
* * *
Sleep comes and goes, my own sobs jolting me awake over and over again into a reality too painful to believe. I toss and turn, my dreams laced with images of Poe and Abby, smiles twisting into grimaces of pain as they melt away into nothingness. Barb and Julie both come in, but I keep my eyes shut tight until they leave again.
Soon I lie awake, staring at the ceiling as the light shifts across my room, everything giving way to numbness as morning drifts into afternoon.
My phone vibrates noisily on the floor, but I ignore it, not wanting to talk to anyone. Will. My parents. Camila and Mya. What’s the point? I’ll die or they will, and this cycle of people dying and people grieving will just continue.
If this year has taught me anything, it’s that grief can destroy a person. It destroyed my parents. It will destroy Poe’s parents. Michael.
And me.
For years I’d been so okay with dying. I’ve always known it would happen. It’s been this inevitable thing that I’ve lived with forever, this awareness that I would die long before Abby and my parents.
I was never, ever ready to grieve, though.
I hear voices in the hall and I push myself up, wading through the wreckage to the door of my room, picking up my phone as I go, feeling it vibrate in the palm of my hand. I drift out into the hallway, heading toward Poe’s room, watching as someone goes in with a box. I follow, without really knowing why. When I peer inside, some part of me expects to see Poe sitting in there, looking up at me as I pass by, like this was all a horrible dream.
I can hear him say my name. Stella. The way he said it, with that look of warmth in his eyes, that smile playing on his lips.
Instead, it’s an empty hospital room, a lone skateboard leaning against the bed. One of the few traces that Poe, my wonderful best friend, Poe, had even filled it. And Michael. He sits on the bed, his head in his hands, the empty box next to him. He’s come for Poe’s things. The Gordon Ramsay poster. The fútbol jerseys. The spice rack.
His body is shaking with sobs. I want to say something, to comfort him. But I don’t have the words. I can’t reach outside of the deep pit inside me.
So I squeeze my eyes shut, pulling my head away, and keep walking.
As I pass, my fingertips drag along the door to Will’s room. The light is on, shining underneath the bottom, daring me to knock. To go to him.
I keep drifting, though. My feet take me up steps and down hallways and through doors until I look up and see the sign for the children’s playroom, the breath catching in my throat as I stare at the colorful letters. This was where it all began. Where I played with Poe and Abby, the three of us having no idea we had such little life ahead of us.
So much of that life right here inside this hospital.
I pull at the collar of my shirt, for the first time in all my years at Saint Grace’s feeling the whitewashed walls closing in on me, my chest tightening.
I need to get air.
Flying down the hallway, I head back into Building 1, slamming the elevator button until the steel doors slide open, and the elevator pulls me back down to my floor. Yanking open my door, I turn my head to look warily over at my obsessively organized med cart. All I’ve done for the longest time is take my meds and go through my stupid to-do lists, trying to stay alive for as long as possible.
But why?
I stopped living the day Abby died. So what’s the point?
Poe pushed everyone away so he wouldn’t hurt them, but it didn’t make a bit of difference. Michael is still sitting on his bed, crushed, the weeks they could have had together spiraling through his head. Whether I die now or ten years from now, my parents will be crushed. And all I’ll have done is make myself miserable focusing on a few extra breaths.
I slam open my closet door to grab my coat and scarf and gloves, wanting to get away from all of this. I throw my portable O2 concentrator into a small backpack and head for the door.
Peering into the hallway, I see the nurses’ station is empty.
I clutch at the straps of my backpack, turning toward the stairwell at the end of the hall. Walking quickly, I push open the door before anyone can see me, coming face-to-face with the first set of stairs. I climb one by one, each step bringing me closer to freedom, each gasp for air a challenge to the universe. I run, the exhilaration pushing everything else from my mind.
Soon the red exit door is in front of me. I pull out the folded dollar bill of Will’s, still in my coat pocket after all this time. Using it to hold the alarm button down, I pull open the door and use a brick leaning against the wall to keep it open.
I step onto the roof and move to the edge to see the world below. I take a deep breath of the biting air and let out a long scream. I scream until my voice gives way to coughs. But it feels good. Looking down, my lungs heaving, I see Will in his room down below. He pulls a large duffel bag onto his shoulder, heading for the door.
He’s leaving.
Will is leaving.
I look to the holiday lights in the distance, twinkling like stars, calling out to me.
This time I respond.
CHAPTER 22
WILL
I sit in my chair, waiting for Barb to come to take me to isolation like I deserve. The morning has rolled into afternoon, afternoon into evening, evening into night, and I still haven’t heard anything from her, the threat she gave yesterday buried under what has come to pass.
My eyes travel to the clock on my nightstand as another minute ticks by. Every change in the red numbers putting yesterday further in the past.
Putting Poe in the past.
Poe died on my birthday.
I shake my head sadly, remembering his laughter at dinner. He was fine and then just like that . . .
I kick myself, the shock and horror that filled Stella’s face as she looked at me, the anger as she pushed me away, haunting me for the millionth time today.
Why did I do that? What was I thinking?
I wasn’t. That’s the problem. Stella thought out all the rules and I couldn’t just follow them? What’s wrong with me? It’s only a matter of time before I do something really stupid. Something that gets us both killed.
I’m getting the fuck out of here.
I launch myself out of the chair, grabbing my big duffel from under my bed. I throw open the drawers and shove my clothes into it, clearing everything out as quickly as I can. Calling an Uber, I pack my art supplies and sketchbooks into my backpack, the pencils and the papers all shoved messily inside after the important stuff. I put the framed cartoon from my mom gently on top of the mound in my duffel bag, wrapping it carefully in a shirt, before zipping my bag closed and dropping a pin for the driver to meet me at the east entrance.
I put on my coat and slip out of my room, booking it down the hall to the double doors and down the elevator to the east lobby. Pulling my beanie on, I shove open the door with my side, heading just inside the lobby doors to wait.
Tapping my foot impatiently, I check the status of my car, squinting when I see movement on the other side of the doors. The glass fogs up and I watch as a hand reaches up to draw a heart.
Stella.
I can see her now, in the darkness.
We stare at each other, the glass of the door between us. She’s bundled up in a thick green jacket. A scarf is wrapped tightly around her neck, a pair of gloves on her small hands, her backpack slung over her shoulder.
I reach up, pressing my palm to the glass, inside the heart that she drew.
She crooks her finger, telling me to come outside.
My heart jumps. What is she doing? She has to come back inside; it’s freezing. I have to go get her.
I push carefully through the door, the cold air hitting me right in the face. Pulling my hat down lower over my ears, I walk over to her, my footsteps crunching noisily as I walk through the perfect blanket of white.
“Let’s go see the lights,” she says as I stop next to her, the invisible pool cue between us. She’s excited. Almost manic.
I look in the direction of the holiday lights, knowing how far they are. “Stella, that’s gotta be two miles away. Come back inside—”
She cuts me off. “I’m going.” Her eyes meet mine, resolute, and full of something I’ve never seen there before, something wild. She’s going with or without me. “Come with me.”
I’m all for being rebellious, but this seems like a death wish. Two kids with barely functioning lungs walking two miles one-way to go look at lights? “Stella. Now isn’t the time to be a rebel. Is this about Poe? This is about Poe, isn’t it?”
She turns to face me. “It’s about Poe. It’s about Abby. It’s about you and me, Will, and everything we’ll never get to do together.”
I stay silent, watching her. Her words sound like they could come straight from my mouth, but when I hear them from her, they don’t sound the same.
“If this is all we get, then let’s take it. I want to be fearless and free,” she says, giving me a look, daring me. “It’s just life, Will. It’ll be over before we know it.”
* * *
We walk down an empty sidewalk, the streetlights over our heads making the icy patches shine. I try to stay six feet away from her while we walk, our steps slow as we carefully try not to slip.
I peer at the road in the distance and then back at Stella. “Let’s get an Uber, at least?” I think of the one that’s already on the way.
She rolls her eyes. “I want to walk and enjoy the night,” she says, leaning in and grabbing my hand in hers.
I jerk back, but she holds on tight, her fingers lacing through mine. “Gloves! We’re good.”
“But we’re supposed to be six feet—” I start to say as she moves away from me, stretching our arms out but refusing to let go.
“Five feet,” she shoots back, determined. “I’m keeping that one.”
I watch her for a moment, taking in the look on her face, and let all the fear and nervousness melt away. I’m finally outside a hospital. Going to actually see something instead of looking at it from a roof or a window.
And Stella is right next to me. Holding my hand. And even though I know it’s wrong, I can’t see how it possibly could be.
I cancel the Uber.
We trudge on through the snow, the lights beckoning to us in the distance, the park border coming slowly closer and closer.
“I still want to see the Sistine Chapel,” she says while we walk, her footsteps assertive as she crunches through the snow.
“That’d be cool,” I say, shrugging. It’s not at the top of my list, but if she’s there, I’d go too.
“Where do you want to go?” she asks me.
“Just about everywhere,” I say, thinking of all the places I’ve been but missed out on. “Brazil, Copenhagen, Fiji, France. I want to go on a worldwide trip where I just go to all the places I’ve been in a hospital at but never got to explore. Jason said if I ever could do it, he’d go with me.”
She squeezes my hand, nodding, understanding, the snow clinging to our hands and our arms and our jackets. “Do you like warm weather or cold weather?” I ask her.
She bites her lip, thinking. “I like snow. But, aside from that, I think I prefer warm weather.” She looks over at me, curious. “You?”
“I like the cold. Not a huge fan of trudging
through it, though,” I reply, fixing my beanie and smirking at her. I bend down, scooping up some snow and packing it together. “But I am a huge fan of snowballs.”
She holds up her hands, shaking her head and giggling as she steps away from me. “Will. Do not.”
Then she scoops up a snowball and with lightning-fast speed pins me right in the chest. I stare at her in shock, dramatically falling to my knees.
“I’ve been hit!”
She tags me with another one in response, hitting me in the arm with a sniperlike aim. I chase after her, the two of us laughing and chucking snow in each other’s direction as we head toward the lights.
Way too soon, we both begin gasping for breath.
I grab her hand in truce as we huff and puff up a hill, turning around to look back at it all when we finally reach the top.
Stella exhales, fog swirling out of her mouth as we look back at the snow and the hospital, far behind us. “Sure looks better behind us.”
I give her a look, watching as the snow falls gently onto her hair and face. “Was this on your to-do list? Break out with Will?”
She laughs, the sound happy, real, despite everything. “No. But my to-do list has changed.”
She spreads her arms wide and falls back onto the hill, the snow giving way around her, puffing softly as she lands in it. I watch as she makes a snow angel, laughing as her arms and legs move back and forth, back and forth. No to-do list, no suffocating hospital, no obsessive regimen, no one else to worry about.
She’s just Stella.
I spread my arms and fall down next to her, the snow molding to my body as I land. I laugh, making a snow angel too, my whole body cold from the snow, but warm from the moment.
We stop and look up at the sky. The stars seem an arm’s length away. Bright enough and close enough for us to just reach out and grab them. I look over at her, frowning when I notice a bulge in the front of her coat, on her chest.
Not that I’ve been looking, but her boobs are nowhere near that big.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, poking at the lump.
She unzips her coat to reveal a stuffed panda, lying limply against her chest. I smirk, looking up to meet her eyes. “I can’t wait to hear this one.”
Five Feet Apart Page 16
