فصل بیست وهفتم

CHAPTER 27

STELLA

I feel something pricking at my arm.

My eyes fly open, my head spinning as my vision slowly comes back, bright lights overhead. But not the holiday lights, wrapping beautifully around the trees in the park. They’re the fluorescents of the hospital.

Then faces block them.

Mom.

Dad.

I sit up, pushing out from under the blankets, and look over to see Barb. She’s standing next to the ER nurse, who is drawing blood from my arm.

I try to push the nurse’s hands away, try to get up, but I’m too weak.

Will.

Where is Will?

“Stella, calm down,” a voice says. Dr. Hamid leans over me. “Your new lungs—” I rip the oxygen mask off, looking for him. Dr. Hamid tries to get it back over my face, but I turn away, squirming out of her reach. “No, I don’t want them!” My dad wraps his arms around me, trying to get me to settle down. “Stella, calm down now.” “Honey, please,” my mom says, grabbing my hand.

“Where is Will?” I cry out, but I can’t see him anywhere. My eyes scan frantically, but my body gives up, falling weakly back onto the gurney.

All I can see is his body slouched over mine, all of his air given to me.

“Stella,” I hear a weak voice say. “I’m here.”

Will.

He’s alive.

I turn my head toward the sound of the voice, my eyes finding his.

We can’t be more than ten feet apart, but it feels farther than ever. I want to reach out, to touch him. To make sure he’s okay.

“Take the lungs,” he whispers, looking at me like I’m the only one here.

No. I can’t. If I take the lungs, I will outlive him by close to a decade. If I take the lungs, he’ll be more of a danger to me than ever. They won’t let us in the same zip code, let alone room. And if I got B. cepacia after I got the healthy lungs all CFers want? It’d be wrong. It’d be devastating.

“You’re taking the lungs, Stella,” my mom says next to me, her hand tightening around my arm.

I look at my dad, grabbing his hand desperately. “Do you know how many things I am going to lose to CF? That I already have lost? The lungs won’t change that.” I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting myself.

Everyone is quiet.

“I don’t want to lose Will, though,” I say, meaning it. “I love him, Dad.” I look from my dad to my mom, and then to Barb and Dr. Hamid. Willing them to understand.

“Take them. Please,” Will says, and he struggles to climb out from under an emergency blanket, the skin on his chest and stomach and abdomen a pale blue color. His arms give way as Julie and a woman with his eyes push him back down.

“But if I do, it doesn’t change anything for us, Will. It makes it worse,” I say, knowing that new lungs won’t rid me of cystic fibrosis.

“One step at a time,” he says, holding my gaze. “This is your chance. And that is what we both want. Don’t think about what you’ve lost. Think of how much you have to gain. Live, Stella.” I can feel Abby’s arms around me back at the pond, holding me close. I can hear her voice in my ear, saying the same words that Will is saying now.

Live, Stella.

I take a deep breath and feel the familiar fight for air that I have every single day. When I was with Abby, I said I wanted to live. I’ll have to worry about how after. “Okay,” I say, nodding to Dr. Hamid, and the decision is made.

Relief fills Will’s eyes, and he stretches out, placing his hand on a medical cart sitting between our gurneys. I reach out, putting my hand on the other side. There’s stainless steel between us, but it doesn’t matter.

His hand is still on the cart as I slowly start to roll away. To new lungs. To a new start.

But away from him.

I hear my parents’ footsteps behind me, and Barb’s, and Dr. Hamid’s, but I look back at Will, one more time, his eyes meeting mine. And in that look I see him when we met the first time in the hallway, running his fingers through his hair. I see him holding the other end of the pool cue while we walk through the hospital, telling me to stick around for the next year. I see him cut through the water in the pool, the light dancing off his eyes. I see him across the table from me at his party, laughing until tears stream down his face.

I see the way he looked at me when he said that he loved me, only a few hours ago, on that icy pond.

I see him wanting to kiss me.

And now he smiles that lopsided smile from the day we first met, that familiar light filling his eyes, until he’s out of view. But I still hear his voice. I still hear Abby’s voice.

Live, Stella.