Five Feet Apart(26)
I look back down to see number 27, “Sistine Chapel with Abby.” No line through it.
I clear my throat, moving on. “?‘Learn to play the piano.’ Done! ‘Speak fluent French’—”
Will cuts me off. “Seriously, do you ever do anything off list? No offense, but none of that sounds fun.” I close the notebook, and he continues. “You want to hear my list? Take a painting class with Bob Ross. Lots of happy little trees and cadmium yellow that you don’t think will work but then . . .”
“He’s dead,” I tell him.
He gives me a lopsided grin. “Ah, well, then I guess I’ll just have to settle for sex in the Vatican!”
I roll my eyes at him. “I think you have a better shot at meeting Bob Ross.”
He winks but then his face gets serious. More serious than I’ve ever seen it. “Okay, okay. I’d like to travel the world and really get to see it, you know? Not just the inside of hospitals.” He looks back down and keeps sketching. “They’re kind of all the same. Same generic rooms. Same tile floors. Same sterile smell. I’ve been everywhere without actually seeing anything.”
I look at him, really look, watching the way his hair falls into his eyes when he draws, the look of concentration on his face, no more smirking expression. I wonder what it would be like to go all around the world but never be able to get outside the walls of the hospital. I don’t mind being in the hospital. I feel safe here. Comfortable. But I’ve been coming to the same one pretty much my whole life. It’s home.
If I were in Cabo this past week but stuck inside a hospital, I wouldn’t just be bummed. I’d be miserable.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?” he asks, looking up to meet my eyes.
“For saying something real.”
He watches me a second before running his fingers through his hair. He’s the one who’s uncomfortable for a change. “Your eyes are hazel,” he says, pointing at the sunlight trickling in through the glass all around me. “I didn’t know that until I saw them in the sunlight. I thought they were brown.”
My heart thumps loudly in my chest at his words, and the warm way he’s looking at me.
“They’re really nice eyes,” he says a second later, a faint red creeping onto his cheeks. He looks down, scribbling away and clearing his throat. “I mean to, like, draw.”
I bite on my lower lip to hide my smile.
For the first time I feel the weight of every single inch, every millimeter, of the six feet between us. I pull my sweatshirt closer to my body, looking away at the pile of yoga mats in the corner, trying to ignore the fact that that open space? It will always be there.
*
That evening I scroll through Facebook for the first time all day, looking at all the pictures my friends are posting from Cabo. I throw a heart onto Camila’s new profile picture. She’s standing on a surfboard in her striped bikini, a big goofy smile on her face, her shoulders burnt to a crisp, all my SPF warnings utterly ignored. But Mya sent me a behind-the-scenes Snap video earlier this afternoon, taken seconds after this picture, which revealed that Camila still has no clue how to surf. She maybe balanced for about three and a half seconds, shooting the camera a big smile before flailing off the surfboard a second later.
I do a little victory dance when I scroll to a picture Mason posted, his tan arm slung around Mya’s shoulder. I almost fall out of my chair when I see the caption. “Cabo Cutie.” Grinning, I give it a quick like before closing the app to send her a text.
Way to go, Mya!!! With heart eye emojis for days.
I glance over to see my pocket notebook still open to my master list. My eyes are pulled back to number 27, “Sistine Chapel with Abby.” I open my laptop and my mouse hovers over a blue folder labeled “Abs.”
I hesitate for a second before clicking on it, a sea of pictures and videos and artwork from my sister filling my screen. I click on a GoPro video she sent me two years ago, her balancing on top of a high, rickety bridge. The screen is filled with the dizzying image of the distance from where she’s sitting to the river below, the water underneath her strong enough to overtake anything in its path.
“Pretty crazy, huh, Stella?” she says as the camera swings back to her and she adjusts her harness one more time. “I thought you might like to see how this feels!”
She clicks her helmet in place, the GoPro view shifting back to show the edge of the bridge and the long, long way down. “And I brought my jumping buddy!” She holds up my stuffed panda, the one right next to me now, giving him a big squeeze.
“I’ll hold him tight, don’t worry!” Then, without even a second thought, she launches herself off the bridge. I fly through the air with her, her delighted whoops echoing loudly through the speakers.
Then comes the bounce. We fly back up, the panda’s face coming onto the screen, Abby’s voice, breathless and giddy as she grips the panda tightly, screaming out, “Happy birthday, Stella!”
Swallowing hard, I slam the laptop shut, knocking over a can of soda on the side table. The bubbling cola spills out all over the table and the floor. Great.
I reach down to pick up the can, hopping over the puddle, and toss it into the trash bin on my way out into the hall. As I walk around the nurses’ station, I notice Barb dozing off in a chair, her head lolling to one side, her mouth slightly open. Carefully, I open the door to the janitor’s closet, grabbing the paper towels from a packed shelf of cleaning supplies and trying not to wake her.