Five Feet Apart: Chapters 1–2

I look around the formerly stark room I've spent the better part of the morning making my own, once again, the walls now filled with the artwork Abby’s given me through the years, bits of color and life jumping out from clinical white walls, each one a product of a different trip to the hospital.

I look around the formerly stark room I've spent the better part of the morning making my own, once again, the walls now filled with the artwork Abby’s given me through the years, bits of color and life jumping out from clinical white walls, each one a product of a different trip to the hospital.

I eye the empty IV pole warily, knowing my first of many rounds of antibiotics over the next month is exactly an hour and nine minutes away.

Camila pulls away to look at me, pouting, her dark-brown hair practically drooping along with her.

Since I’m not going to be basking in the warm Cabo sun in a bathing suit of my choice, I figure I can at least live a little vicariously through my friends by picking out theirs with them.

Since I’m not going to be basking in the warm Cabo sun in a bathing suit of my choice, I figure I can at least live a little vicariously through my friends by picking out theirs with them.

She sees me notice her checking her watch and grins sheepishly.

Mya looks around the room sadly while Camila twists her bag of suits dejectedly around her hand.

I glance into the corner of my screen as I turn the camera toward the hospital window, the sky a cloudy gray, the trees on the other side of the glass completely barren.

I rattle off the amenities, counting them on my fingers. “Let’s see. I’ve got a full-time concierge, unlimited chocolate pudding, and laundry service. Oh, and Barb talked Dr. Hamid into letting me keep all my meds and treatments in my room this time! Check it out!”

I rattle off the amenities, counting them on my fingers. “Let’s see. I’ve got a full-time concierge, unlimited chocolate pudding, and laundry service. Oh, and Barb talked Dr. Hamid into letting me keep all my meds and treatments in my room this time! Check it out!”

Ever since I first came to the hospital more than ten years ago, she’s been the respiratory therapist here, slipping candy to me and the other CFers, like my partner in crime Poe.

“My lung function is down to thirty-five percent,” I say as I turn the camera back to me. “Dr. Hamid says I’m steadily climbing to the top of the transplant list now, so I’ll be here for a month, taking antibiotics, sticking to my regimen....”

My eyes travel to the drawing behind me, the healthy lungs looming over my head, just out of reach.

The years of coming in and out of the hospital with me have certainly taken their toll on him.

Julie hangs the IV bag of antibiotics next to me, her belly brushing up against my arm. Why didn’t she tell me she’s pregnant? I go rigid, smiling thinly, as I eye her baby bump and try to subtly move away from it.

“No,” I say, a little too quickly. I feel bad when she looks slightly taken aback at my bluntness, her blond eyebrows arching up in surprise.

“No,” I say, a little too quickly. I feel bad when she looks slightly taken aback at my bluntness, her blond eyebrows arching up in surprise.

I remember I used to be afraid of needles, but with every blood draw and IV drip, that fear slowly drifted away. Now I don’t even flinch. It makes me feel strong every time I get poked or prodded.

“All righty,” Barb says when they get all my vitals and finish oohing and aahing over my sparkly, silver A-line gown and my white rose corsage.

And now, even more than the fever and the sore throat, being here in the hospital for the next month doing treatment after treatment to stem the tide while my friends are far away is freaking me out.

I hope when my parents come to visit over the next few days, my breathing is a little less labored.

I peer inside to see Poe fast asleep on his bed, curled into a surprisingly tiny ball underneath his plaid comforter, a suave Gordon Ramsay poster, positioned directly over his bed, keeping watch over him.

His tousled, dark-chocolate-brown hair is perfectly unruly, like he just popped out of a Teen Vogue and landed smack in the middle of Saint Grace’s Hospital.

Judging from her pace and the fact she apparently knows every single person in the building, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were actually the mayor of this place.

Nothing like actual repulsion to start off on the right foot.

“Shouldn’t you be procuring rooms for your ‘guests’?” she snaps, turning to face me as she angrily pulls her face mask off.

I laugh. “‘Fine’ isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but I’ll take common ground where I can get it.”

She glowers at me, quickly pulling her face mask back over her mouth before Barb notices.

Good one. Ms. Goody Two Shoes has some spunk.

“Lighten up, Stella,” I say, sauntering to the door.

I stroll back to 315, coughing when I get there, the mucus thick in my lungs and throat, my chest aching from my excursion.

As if my life span wasn’t already going to be ridiculously short, B. cepacia will cut off another huge chunk of it by making my...lung function deplete even faster than it already has.

And they don’t give you new lungs when you have an antibiotic-resistant bacteria running rampant inside of you.

I squint at the heart, thinking about that fateful last day.