فصل چهاردهم

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.