فصل هجدهم

CHAPTER 18

WILL

I can’t take my eyes off her.

The red ribbon in her hair. The rose tucked behind her ear. The way she keeps looking at me.

I don’t feel like any of this is real. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, mostly because all my relationships before were centered on living fast and dying young and always leaving for a new hospital. I didn’t stay anywhere or with anyone long enough to really fall for anyone.

Not that I even would have, given the chance. None of them was Stella.

We stop in front of a big tropical fish tank, and it takes everything in me to look away from her at the brightly colored fish behind the glass. My eyes follow an orange-and-white fish swimming around and around the coral at the bottom of the tank.

“When I was really little, I used to just stare at these fish, wondering what it would feel like to be able to hold my breath long enough to swim like they do,” she says, following my gaze.

That surprises me. I knew she had been coming to Saint Grace’s for a while, but I didn’t know she’d been here when she was a little kid.

“How young?”

She watches as the fish swims upward before diving back down to the bottom. “Dr. Hamid, Barb, and Julie have taken care of me since I was six.” Six. Wow. I can’t even imagine being in one place that long.

We walk through the doors into the main lobby, the large staircase looming in front of us. She looks back at me, tugging on the pool cue and nodding to them. “Let’s take the stairs.” The stairs? I look at her like she’s actually insane. My lungs burn from just the thought of it as I remember my exhaustion from my trips up to the roof. Not exactly sexy. If she wants this date to last longer than an hour, there is no way we’re about to walk up those stairs.

Her face breaks into a smile. “I’m kidding.”

We roam the almost empty hospital, the hours blurring together as we walk, talking about our family and our friends and everything in between, the pool cue swinging back and forth between us. We head up to the open bridge between Buildings 1 and 2 and walk slowly across, craning our necks to look through the glass ceiling at the stormy gray night sky, the snow falling steadily onto the roof of the bridge and all around us.

“What about your dad?” she finally asks, and I shrug.

“He cut and ran when I was little. Having a sick kid wasn’t in his plan.” She watches my face, trying to see my reaction to those words. “It happened so long ago, sometimes it feels like I’m just telling someone else’s story. Another person’s life that I’ve memorized.” You don’t have time for me, I don’t have time for you. Simple as that.

She moves on when she sees I mean what I’m saying. “And your mom?”

I attempt to hold the door open for her, which is apparently very tricky to do when you’re holding a pool cue and need to be five feet apart at all times, but I’m a gentleman, dammit.

I sigh, giving her the brief, generic response. “Beautiful. Smart. Driven. And focused on me and me alone.” She gives me a look that says this isn’t going to cut it. “After he left, it’s like she decided to care enough for two people. Sometimes I feel like she doesn’t see me. Doesn’t know me. She just sees the CF. Or now the B. cepacia.” “Have you talked to her about it?” she asks.

I shake my head, shrugging the topic away. “She’s not there enough to listen. She’s always dictating, then out the door. But starting in two days, when I’m eighteen, I make the decisions.” She stops short and I’m yanked back as my end of the pool cue is jerked in her direction.

“Hold up. Your birthday is in two days?”

I smile at her, but she doesn’t smile back. “Yep! Lucky number eighteen.” “Will!” she says, stomping her foot, upset. “I don’t have a present for you!” Can she get any cuter?

I tap her leg with the pool cue, but for once I’m not kidding. There’s something I actually want. “How ‘bout a promise, then? To stick around for the next one?” She looks surprised, and then nods. “I promise.”

She takes me to the gym, and the motion-activated lights flicker on as she pulls the other end of the pool cue past the exercise gear and to a door in the far corner that I never bothered to explore before.

Looking both ways, she flicks open the lid to a keypad and punches in a code.

“So you pretty much have the run of the place, huh?” I ask as the door unlocks with a click, a green light shining through the keypad.

She smirks, giving me a look as she closes the lid. “One of the perks of being the teacher’s pet.” I laugh. Well played.

The warmth of the pool deck hits me as we open the door, my laugh echoing around the open space. The room is dim, except for the lights in the pool, shining bright as the water ripples around them. We take off our shoes and sit on the edge. The water is cool at first despite the heat of the room, but slowly warms up as we move our feet back and forth.

A comfortable silence settles over us, and I look over at her, a pool cue’s length away.

“So, what do you think happens when we die?”

She shakes her head, smirking. “That’s not very sexy first-date talk.” I laugh, shrugging. “Come on, Stella. We’re terminal. You have to have thought about it.” “Well, it is on my to-do list.”

Of course it is.

She looks down at the water, moving her feet in circles. “There’s one theory I like that says in order to understand death, we have to look at birth.” She fidgets with the ribbon in her hair as she talks.

“So, while we’re in the womb, we’re living that existence, right? We have no idea that our next existence is just an inch away.” She shrugs and looks at me. “Maybe death is the same. Maybe it’s just the next life. An inch away.” The next life just an inch away. I frown and think it over. “So, if the beginning is death and death is also the end, then what’s the real beginning?” She raises her thick eyebrows at me, not amused by my riddle. “Okay then, Dr. Seuss. Why don’t you tell me what you think.” I shrug and lean back. “It’s the big sleep, baby. Peace out. Blink. Done and done.” She shakes her head. “No way. There’s no way that Abby just ‘blinked’ out. I refuse to believe it.” I’m silent, watching her, wanting to ask the burning question I’ve held on to since I figured out Abby died. “What happened?” I ask. “To Abby?” Her legs stop circling in the pool, the water still swirling around her calves, but she tells me. “She was cliff diving in Arizona and she landed wrong when she hit the water. Broke her neck and drowned. They said she didn’t feel any pain.” She meets my gaze, her expression troubled. “How could they know, Will? How could they know if she felt pain? She was always there for me when I was in pain, and I wasn’t there to do the same.” I shake my head. I have to fight all my instincts, which tell me to reach out and take her hand. I don’t know what to say. There’s just no way to know. She looks back at the water, her eyes glazed over, her mind far away, on the top of a cliff in Arizona.

“I was supposed to be there. But I got sick, just like I always do.” She exhales slowly, with effort, her eyes unblinking, focused on a point at the bottom of the pool. “I keep imagining it, over and over, wanting to know what she felt or thought. Because I can’t know that, she never stops dying for me. I see it over and over and over again.” I shake my head, tapping her leg with the pool cue. She blinks, looking over at me, her eyes clearing. “Stella, if you had been there, you still wouldn’t know.” “But she died alone, Will,” she says, which is something that I can’t deny.

“But we all die alone, don’t we? The people we love can’t go with us.” I think about Hope and Jason. Then my mom. I wonder if she’ll be more upset to lose me, or to lose to the disease.

Stella swirls her legs in the water. “Do you think drowning hurts? Is it scary?” I shrug. “That’s how we’re going to go, isn’t it? We drown. Just without the water. Our own fluids will do the dirty work.” I see her shiver out of the corner of my eye, and give her a look. “I thought you weren’t afraid to die?” She sighs loudly, looking over at me exasperatedly. “I’m not afraid of being dead. But the actual dying part. You know, what it feels like?” When I stay silent, she keeps talking. “You’re not afraid of any of it?” I swallow my usual instinct to be sarcastic. I want to be real with her. “I think about that very last breath. Sucking for air. Pulling and pulling and getting nothing. I think about my chest muscles ripping and burning, absolutely useless. No air. No nothing. Just black.” I look at the water, rippling around my feet, the detailed image in my head familiar and sinking into the pit of my stomach. I shudder, shrugging and smiling at her. “But, hey. That’s only on Mondays. Otherwise, I don’t dwell on it.” She reaches out, and I know she wants to take my hand. I know because I want to take hers, too. My heart slows a beat, and I see her freeze halfway, curling her fingers into her palm and lowering her hand.

Her eyes meet mine, and they’re filled with understanding. She knows that fear. But then she gives me this small smile, and I realize we’re here in spite of all that.

Because of her.

I fight for a deep breath, watching the glow from the pool as it plays against her collarbone and her neck and her shoulders.

“God, you’re beautiful. And brave,” I say. “It’s a crime I can’t touch you.” I lift the pool cue, wishing more than anything it was my fingertips against her skin. Gently, I trace the end of it up her arm, over the sharp angle of her shoulder, slowly making my way to her neck. She shivers underneath my “touch,” her eyes locked on mine, a faint red blooming in her cheeks as the pool cue climbs.

“Your hair,” I say, touching where it falls over her shoulders.

“Your neck,” I say, the pool light brightening her skin.

“Your lips,” I say, feeling the dangerous pull of gravity between us, daring me to kiss her.

She looks away, suddenly shy. “I lied, the day we met. I haven’t had sex.” She takes a breath that’s sharp, touching her side as she speaks. “I don’t want anyone to see me. The scars. The tube. There’s nothing sexy about—” “Everything about you is sexy,” I say, cutting her off. She looks at me and I want her to see it in my face. I mean, look at her. “You’re perfect.” I watch as she pushes the pool cue away, standing, trembling. She reaches for her silk tank top, her eyes fixed on mine as she pulls it slowly off to reveal a black lace bra. She drops the tank top onto the deck of the pool, my jaw going with it.

Then she slips down her shorts, stepping carefully out of them and straightening up. Inviting me to look.

She’s knocked the wind right out of me. I try to take in as much as I can, hungrily making my way up and down her body, gazing at her legs and her chest and her hips. The light dances against the raised battle scars on her chest and stomach.

“Dear god,” I manage to get out. I never thought I could be jealous of a pool cue, but I want to feel her skin against mine.

She smiles coyly at me before sliding into the pool, going completely under the water. She stares up at me, her long hair fanning out around her like she’s a mermaid. I tighten my grip on the pool cue as she comes up gasping for air.

She chuckles. “What was that? Five seconds? Ten?”

I close my mouth, clearing my throat. It could’ve been a year for all I know. “I wasn’t counting. I was staring.” “Well, I showed you mine,” she says, daring me.

And I always take a dare.

I stand up, unbuttoning my shirt. Now she’s the one looking at me. And she doesn’t say anything, but her lips are parted, not frowning, not pitying.

I walk to the pool steps, sliding out of my pants, and stand there for a moment in just my boxers, the water and Stella calling to me. Slowly, I step into the pool, our eyes locked on each other’s as we struggle for air.

For once, it has nothing to do with our CF.

I sink under the water and she follows me, small bubbles floating to the surface as we look at each other across the washed-out world underneath the water, our hair floating up and around us, pulling toward the surface, the lights casting shadows off our thin bodies.

We smile at each other, and even though there are a million reasons why I shouldn’t, looking at her now, I can’t help feeling like I’m falling in love with her.