Five Feet Apart(52)

I stand up shakily and collapse onto my bed, curling up into a tiny ball on the bare vinyl mattress, tears streaming down my face as I lie there, alone.

*

Sleep comes and goes, my own sobs jolting me awake over and over again into a reality too painful to believe. I toss and turn, my dreams laced with images of Poe and Abby, smiles twisting into grimaces of pain as they melt away into nothingness. Barb and Julie both come in, but I keep my eyes shut tight until they leave again.

Soon I lie awake, staring at the ceiling as the light shifts across my room, everything giving way to numbness as morning drifts into afternoon.

My phone vibrates noisily on the floor, but I ignore it, not wanting to talk to anyone. Will. My parents. Camila and Mya. What’s the point? I’ll die or they will, and this cycle of people dying and people grieving will just continue.

If this year has taught me anything, it’s that grief can destroy a person. It destroyed my parents. It will destroy Poe’s parents. Michael.

And me.

For years I’d been so okay with dying. I’ve always known it would happen. It’s been this inevitable thing that I’ve lived with forever, this awareness that I would die long before Abby and my parents.

I was never, ever ready to grieve, though.

I hear voices in the hall and I push myself up, wading through the wreckage to the door of my room, picking up my phone as I go, feeling it vibrate in the palm of my hand. I drift out into the hallway, heading toward Poe’s room, watching as someone goes in with a box. I follow, without really knowing why. When I peer inside, some part of me expects to see Poe sitting in there, looking up at me as I pass by, like this was all a horrible dream.

I can hear him say my name. Stella. The way he said it, with that look of warmth in his eyes, that smile playing on his lips.

Instead, it’s an empty hospital room, a lone skateboard leaning against the bed. One of the few traces that Poe, my wonderful best friend, Poe, had even filled it. And Michael. He sits on the bed, his head in his hands, the empty box next to him. He’s come for Poe’s things. The Gordon Ramsay poster. The fútbol jerseys. The spice rack.

His body is shaking with sobs. I want to say something, to comfort him. But I don’t have the words. I can’t reach outside of the deep pit inside me.

So I squeeze my eyes shut, pulling my head away, and keep walking.

As I pass, my fingertips drag along the door to Will’s room. The light is on, shining underneath the bottom, daring me to knock. To go to him.

I keep drifting, though. My feet take me up steps and down hallways and through doors until I look up and see the sign for the children’s playroom, the breath catching in my throat as I stare at the colorful letters. This was where it all began. Where I played with Poe and Abby, the three of us having no idea we had such little life ahead of us.

So much of that life right here inside this hospital.

I pull at the collar of my shirt, for the first time in all my years at Saint Grace’s feeling the whitewashed walls closing in on me, my chest tightening.

I need to get air.

Flying down the hallway, I head back into Building 1, slamming the elevator button until the steel doors slide open, and the elevator pulls me back down to my floor. Yanking open my door, I turn my head to look warily over at my obsessively organized med cart. All I’ve done for the longest time is take my meds and go through my stupid to-do lists, trying to stay alive for as long as possible.

But why?

I stopped living the day Abby died. So what’s the point?

Poe pushed everyone away so he wouldn’t hurt them, but it didn’t make a bit of difference. Michael is still sitting on his bed, crushed, the weeks they could have had together spiraling through his head. Whether I die now or ten years from now, my parents will be crushed. And all I’ll have done is make myself miserable focusing on a few extra breaths.

I slam open my closet door to grab my coat and scarf and gloves, wanting to get away from all of this. I throw my portable O2 concentrator into a small backpack and head for the door.

Peering into the hallway, I see the nurses’ station is empty.

I clutch at the straps of my backpack, turning toward the stairwell at the end of the hall. Walking quickly, I push open the door before anyone can see me, coming face-to-face with the first set of stairs. I climb one by one, each step bringing me closer to freedom, each gasp for air a challenge to the universe. I run, the exhilaration pushing everything else from my mind.

Soon the red exit door is in front of me. I pull out the folded dollar bill of Will’s, still in my coat pocket after all this time. Using it to hold the alarm button down, I pull open the door and use a brick leaning against the wall to keep it open.

I step onto the roof and move to the edge to see the world below. I take a deep breath of the biting air and let out a long scream. I scream until my voice gives way to coughs. But it feels good. Looking down, my lungs heaving, I see Will in his room down below. He pulls a large duffel bag onto his shoulder, heading for the door.

He’s leaving.

Will is leaving.

I look to the holiday lights in the distance, twinkling like stars, calling out to me.

This time I respond.





CHAPTER 22


WILL


I sit in my chair, waiting for Barb to come to take me to isolation like I deserve. The morning has rolled into afternoon, afternoon into evening, evening into night, and I still haven’t heard anything from her, the threat she gave yesterday buried under what has come to pass.