Five Feet Apart(57)

And every breath he gets, he gives to me.

“He’s breathing for you,” Abby says as my chest expands again.

With each breath he blows into my lungs, the view in front of me grows more and more vivid. I can see his face turning blue, every breath painful.

“Will,” I whisper, watching as he struggles to push the air through my body.

“He really loves you, Stell,” Abby says, watching. As the scene sharpens, she fades.

I turn to her, frantic, feeling again the loss that keeps me up at night. The unanswered question.

Abby smiles at me, shaking her head, already far ahead of me. “It didn’t hurt. I wasn’t scared.”

I take a deep breath, letting out a relieved sigh that I’ve been holding for more than a year now. My chest heaves suddenly, and I begin to cough, water pouring out of my mouth.

I watch as my body, just a few feet away, does the exact same thing.

Abby smiles wider now. “I need you to live, okay? Live, Stella. For me.”

She starts to fade and I panic. “No! Don’t go!” I say, grabbing on to her.

She holds me tight, hugging me close to her, and I can smell the warm, flowery scent of her perfume. She whispers in my ear, “I’m not going far. I’ll always be here. Just an inch away. I promise.”





CHAPTER 26


WILL


My throat is on fire.

My lungs are done.

One more time. For Stella.

“Not . . . now. Come . . . on, not now. Breathe,” I beg her, the cold pounding at my body as I hold her face in my hands, pushing all my air into her lungs.

It hurts so bad, I can hardly stand it.

My vision begins to fade, black swimming in from the edges, slowly overtaking everything until all I see is Stella’s face surrounded by a sea of black.

I have nothing left to give. I have nothing left to—no.

I straighten, desperately pulling in one more short breath, knowing deep in my chest that it is the last breath I will ever get.

And I give it to her. I give everything I have to her, the girl that I love. She deserves that.

I push every bit of air in my body into her lungs, collapsing on top of her, no idea if it was enough, hearing the sirens of the ambulance I called blare in the distance. Water trickles over my head as my hand finds hers and I finally let the darkness consume me.





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.