فصل پانزدهم

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 them, 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.

I reply to Mya and Camila to let them know I’m awake and not to worry. I’m as good as new. Or, at least back to 35 percent.

I still have to dish to them about what just happened with my parents, but they’re getting on a boat and I have somewhere I need to be too.

Getting changed, I move slowly and carefully, pulling on a pair of leggings and a tie-dye T-shirt that Abby got me when she went to the Grand Canyon. I catch a look at myself in the mirror, the dark circles under my eyes looking deeper than they’ve been in months. I brush my hair quickly and put it into a neat ponytail, frowning when it doesn’t look as good as I hoped it would.

I put it back down, nodding in contentment at my reflection as my hair falls gently around my shoulders. Grabbing my makeup bag from the bottom of my drawer, I put on some mascara and lip gloss, smiling at the idea of Will seeing me not just alive, but with makeup on, his blue eyes gazing at my gloss-covered lips. Would he want to kiss me?

I mean, we could never, but would he want to?

I blush, shaking my head as I send a quick text to him, telling him to meet me in the atrium in ten minutes.

Pulling the strap of my portable oxygen farther up on my shoulder, I take the quick way, going up the elevator and across the bridge into Building 2, then back down the stairs into the atrium, which takes up the entire back half of the building. I sit down on a bench, gazing around at all the trees and plants, a stone fountain trickling softly behind me.

My heart pumps eagerly at the thought of seeing him in just a few short minutes.

Excited and anxious, I pull out my phone, checking the time. It’s been ten minutes since my text to Will and he still isn’t here.

I send him another text: I’m here. Did you get my message? Where are you?

Another ten minutes goes by. And then another.

Maybe he’s taking a nap? Or maybe his friends came for a visit and he hasn’t gotten a chance to check his phone?

I spin around when I hear the door open behind me, smiling, excited to finally see—Poe. What is Poe doing here?

He looks at me, his face serious. “Will’s not coming.”

“What?” I manage to get out. “Why isn’t he coming?”

“He doesn’t want to see you. He’s not coming.”

He doesn’t want to see me? What? Poe holds out a pack of tissues, and I stretch to grab them, frowning in confusion.

“He told me to tell you that this little thing between the two of you is over.” The shock and hurt change into anger, deep and real, clawing at my stomach. Why would he sing Abby’s song to me before surgery? Why would he sneak into pre-op and risk getting caught? Why would he make me a handmade bouquet of flowers if this “little thing” between us was over?

A frustrated tear rolls down my face and I rip the pack of tissues open. “I hate him,” I say, wiping my eyes angrily.

“No, you don’t,” Poe says, leaning against the wall and looking at me. His voice is soft but matter-of-fact.

I laugh, shaking my head. “He probably had a good laugh about the crazy control freak in 302, huh? He didn’t want to tell me all this himself so he could laugh in my face? How unlike him.” I sniff, and pause because even though I’m angry, that feels wrong. This doesn’t make sense. “Is he okay? Did something happen?” Poe shakes his head. “No, nothing happened.” He pauses, his eyes traveling to look behind me, at the trickling fountain. “Well, let me revise that.” He meets my eyes. “Barb happened.”

He tells me about what he overheard in the hallway, how Barb confronted Will about us, how being together would kill the both of us.

I don’t even let him finish. How long will I live my life afraid of what-ifs? My life revolves around an obsessive regimen and percentages, and given that I was just in surgery, the risk never seems to go down. Every minute of my life is what-if, and it would be no different with Will.

But I can already tell one thing. It’ll be different without him.

I storm past Poe, pushing through the heavy doors and up the stairs and across the bridge to the elevators.

“Stella, wait!” he calls after me, but I need to see Will. I need him to tell me that this is what he wants.

I pound the elevator button, over and over again, but it’s taking too long. I look both ways to see Poe coming after me, his face confused. I keep moving to the stairwell, coughing and clutching at my side, the pain from the surgery making my head spin. I push open the door and speed down the stairs.

I make it back to our floor, throwing open the double doors and banging on the door to room 315. I glance at the nurses’ station, relieved to find it empty.

“Will,” I gasp, my chest heaving. “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.” There’s silence. But I know he’s in there.

Poe’s footsteps pound on the floor of the hallway, stopping six feet from me.

“Stella,” he gasps out, shaking his head, his own chest heaving from trailing after me.

I ignore him and knock again, louder this time. “Will!”

“Go away, Stella,” his voice says through the door. There’s a pause, then, “Please.” Please. There’s something about the way he says it. A longing, deep and strong.

I’m tired of living without really living. I’m tired of wanting things. We can’t have a lot of things. But we could have this.

I know it.

“Will, just open the door so we can talk.”

A full minute goes by, but then the door cracks open, just enough so that I can see his shadow on the tile floor. When he doesn’t come out, I start to step back against the far wall, like I always do.

“I’ll back up, okay? All the way to the wall. I’ll be far enough away.” Tears start to fill my eyes again, and I swallow, forcing them back.

“I can’t, Stella,” he says softly, and I see his hand grip the doorframe through the crack.

“Why not? Will, come on—”

He cuts me off, his voice firm. “You know I want to. But I can’t.” His voice catches in his throat, and I know.

I know in that moment that this “little thing” between us isn’t over. It’s just starting.

I take a step toward the door, wanting to see him now more than I want to even breathe. “Will . . .” The door closes in my face, the latch clicking into place. I stare at it, stunned, feeling all the wind get knocked clean out of me.

“Maybe it’s better this way,” a voice says from behind me.

I turn around to see Poe, still standing there, his eyes sad but his voice resolute.

“No.” I shake my head. “No. I can figure this out. I . . . have to figure this out, Poe. I just . . .” My voice trails off and I look down. There has to be a way.

“We’re not normal, Stell,” Poe says softly. “We don’t get to take these kinds of chances.” I whip my head up, glaring at him. Of all the people to be against us. “Oh, come on! Not you, too.” “Just admit what’s really going on here,” he fires back, matching my frustration with his own. We stare at each other and he shakes his head. “Will’s a rebel. He’s someone who takes risks, just like Abby.” My insides turn to ice. “You want to tell me what to do with my life?” I shout back. “What about yours? You and Tim. You and Rick. Marcus. Michael.” His jaw tightens. “Don’t go there, Stella!”

“Oh, I can keep going there!” I clap back. “They all knew you were sick and they loved you anyway. But you ran, Poe. Not them. You. Every time.” I lower my voice, shaking my head, challenging him. “What are you afraid of, Poe?” “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” he shouts back at me, his voice laced with fury, and I know I struck a chord.

I take a few steps closer, looking him right in the eye. “You’ve ruined every chance at love that ever came your way. So, please, keep your advice to yourself.” I whirl around, marching off to my room, the air still buzzing with anger. I hear his door slam shut behind me, loud and reverberating all around the hallway. I head into my room and throw my door shut with the same amount of force.

I stare at the closed door, my lungs heaving up and down as I struggle to catch my breath, everything silent except for the hiss of my oxygen and the pounding of my heart. My legs give way, and I slide down onto the floor, every fiber of my body suddenly giving out from the surgery and from Will and from Poe.

There has to be a way. There is a way. I just need to figure it out.

• • •

The next few days blur together. My parents come to visit, separately, and then together again on a Wednesday afternoon, and they’re being, if not friendly, at least cordial to each other. I FaceTime Mya and Camila, but only for short bursts of time in between their Cabo-ing. I roam the hospital, checking off treatments on my app halfheartedly and going through the motions of my regimen, just like I’m supposed to, but it doesn’t feel as satisfying.

I’ve never felt more alone.

I ignore Poe. Will ignores me. And I keep trying to think of a way to fix this, but nothing comes.

Thursday evening, I sit on my bed, Googling B. cepacia for the millionth time, and then there’s a clink against my door. I sit up, frowning. What could that be? I walk over and slowly open the door to see a jar resting against the doorframe with a fancy handwritten label: BLACK WINTER TRUFFLES. I bend down, picking it up to see a pink Post-it note sitting on top. I peel it off, reading: “You’re right. For once. images” Poe. Relief floods through me.

I break out into my first real smile in four days. Peering down the hallway, I see his door click shut. I grab my phone, dialing his number.

He answers in half a ring.

“Buy you a donut?” I ask.

We meet in the multipurpose lounge, and I grab him a package of his favorite chocolate minidonuts from the vending machine, tossing them to him on his love seat.

He catches them, giving me a look as I buy a pack for myself. “Thanks.” “Welcome,” I say, sitting opposite from him, his eyes like daggers.

“Bitch,” he shoots back.

“Asshole.”

We grin at each other, our fight officially over.

He opens the package, pulling out a donut and taking a bite. “I am afraid,” he admits, meeting my eyes. “You know what someone gets for loving me? They get to help me pay for all my care, and then they watch me die. How is that fair to anyone?” I listen to him, understanding where he’s coming from. I think most people with a terminal illness have struggled with this. With feeling like a burden. I know I’ve felt like that with my parents more times than I can count, especially these past few months.

“Deductible. Meds. Hospital stays. Surgeries. When I turn eighteen, no more full coverage.” He takes a deep breath, his voice catching. “Should that be Michael’s problem? Or my family’s? It’s my sickness, Stella. It’s my problem.” A tear rolls down his cheek, and he wipes it quickly away. I lean forward, wanting to comfort him, but as always I’m six feet away.

“Hey,” I say, giving him a big smile. “Maybe you can get Will to marry you. He’s loaded.” Poe snorts, his voice teasing. “He’s not picky. He likes you.” I throw a donut at him, hitting him square in the chest.

He laughs before his face gets serious again. “I am sorry. About you and Will.” “Me too.”

I swallow, my eyes focusing on a bulletin board just past his head, filled with papers and notices and—a hygiene notice. It’s made up of intricate cartoon drawings, each one instructing people on the proper way to hand wash or the correct way to cough in public.

I jump up as an idea starts to take shape.

My to-do list just grew by one.