Five Feet Apart(51)

A shape bends over him, cutting open his favorite Colombia soccer jersey, which his mom sent him for his birthday, slapping two pads on his chest. I finally see his face; his eyes are rolled back, his skin blue.

My arms and legs go numb.

“Poe!” I shout, wanting to get to him, wanting him to be okay.

Barb’s eyes meet mine and she shouts, “No! Someone get her away from here.”

“Massive tension pneumothorax. His lung is collapsing. We need an intubation tray!” a voice yells, and I stare at his unmoving chest, trying to will it to lift.

Breathe. He has to breathe.

Bodies are all around me and I try to shove past them. I need to get to him. I need to get to Poe. I struggle against arms and shoulders, trying to push them away.

“Close that door!” Barb says as hands pull me back out into the hallway. I hear her voice one more time, talking to Poe. “Fight, baby! Fight, goddammit!”

I see Julie, her eyes dark.

Then the door closes in my face.

I stumble back, turning to see Will standing behind me. His face as pale as Poe’s was. He reaches out for me, then closes his hands into fists, frustration filling his eyes. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I reach for the wall, sliding down it onto the floor, my breathing coming in short gasps. Will sits down against the wall, five feet away. I wrap my shaking arms around my legs, resting my head on my knees and squeezing my eyes tightly shut. All I see is Poe lying there.

Striped socks.

Yellow soccer jersey.

This can’t be real.

He’ll come to. He has to come to. He’ll sit up and make a joke about eating too much pasta or swooning too hard over Anderson Cooper, and ask if I want to go get a late-night milk shake with him. The same milk shakes we’ve been having for ten years.

The same milk shakes we need to have together for another decade.

I hear footsteps and lift my head to see Dr. Hamid hurrying down the hallway.

“Dr. Hamid—” I start, my voice croaking out.

“Not now, Stella,” she says firmly, pushing open the door. It swings wide and I see him. His face is turned toward me, his eyes closed.

He still isn’t moving.

But worse than that is Barb. Barb has her head in her hands. She’s stopped trying. No.

They’re taking everything off him. The wires. The intubation tubes.

“No!” I hear my voice scream out, my entire body screaming with it. “No, no, no, no!”

I reach up, pulling myself to my feet, and start running back to my room. He’s gone.

Poe’s gone.

I stumble down the hallway, seeing his eyes the day we first met, seeing him smile at me from his bedroom door, seeing his hand resting in mine through the kitchen mitt just hours earlier. My fingers find the handle to my door and I crash through, everything blurring as tears stream down my face.

I spin around to see Will has followed me, and I take a step closer as sobs rack my body, making my rib cage ache as it becomes impossible to breathe. “He’s gone. Will, he’s gone! Michael, his parents, oh my god.” I shake my head, clutching at my sides. “Will! He was just about to . . . They’ll never see him again.”

The realization slams me. “I’ll never see him again.”

I ball my hands into fists as I pace. “I never even hugged him. Never. Don’t touch! Don’t stand too close. Don’t, don’t, don’t!” I scream out, hysterical, coughing, dizzy. “He was my best friend and I never hugged him.”

And I never will. The feeling is so horribly familiar, I can’t stand it. “I’m losing everyone,” I gasp out. Abby. Poe. All gone.

“You’re not losing me,” Will says, his voice soft but determined. He walks toward me, reaching out, his arms almost wrapping around me.

“No!” I shove him away, stepping back, farther and farther, well past five feet. I press my back against the far wall of the room. “What are you doing?!”

Realization fills his eyes, and he backs away to the door, looking horrified. “Oh, fuck. Stella. I wasn’t thinking, I was just—”

“Get out!” I say, but he’s already in the hallway, already running back to his room. I slam the door, my head pounding with anger. With fear. I look around the room, and all I see is loss everywhere, making the walls close in on me, closer and closer.

This isn’t a bedroom.

I run to the wall, my fingers curling around the edges of a poster. It gives way, tearing down off the hospital wall.

I rip the bedspread off, throwing the pillows across the room. I grab Patches, chucking him at the door. I push all the books and papers and to-do lists off my desk, everything clattering loudly to the ground. I blindly grab at my nightstand, picking up the first thing I can get my hands on and throwing it at the wall.

The glass jar shatters, a sea of black truffles scattering across the floor.

I freeze, watching them roll in every direction.

Poe’s truffles.

Everything goes quiet except for my chest heaving in and out, in and out. I sink to my knees, sobs racking my entire body as I try desperately to pick up the truffles, one by one. I look at Patches, toppled over on his side, ragged and worn, all alone on the floor except for a lone truffle, resting against his tattered leg.

His sad brown eyes stare back at me, and I reach out, picking him up. I hug him to my chest, my eyes traveling to Abby’s drawing and then to the picture of the two of us.