Five Feet Apart

Will draws in his room when he receives a FaceTime call from Stella. She confronts him for not wearing his AffloVest and informs him that they will now be doing their treatments together to ensure that he is actually doing them. Will and Stella begin completing their treatments together via Skype, and he notes how “for some reason me doing my treatments is helping her to relax. Gradually she’s becoming less and less uptight” (92).

As they continue their treatments, Stella shares her sadness over her missed senior class trip to Cabo. Will shares how his father left, surprising himself. He asks himself: “Why did I tell her that? I never tell anyone that. I don’t think I’ve even mentioned my dad in years” (94). Their conversations grow more intimate and, at the end of night, Will reflects, “I realize for the first time in a long time, I don’t really feel alone” (97). Stella has grown more relaxed, and Will feels more connected.

Stella’s gastrostomy tube (G-tube) infection has grown worse. Dr. Hamid optimistically believes they can clear up the infection with an antibiotic, but Stella fears surgery is in her immediate future. Stella’s mother comes to the hospital for a lunch date, and Stella lies to her about her growing infection. Stella observes how her mother “picks at her food, face tired. She looks like she’s been Googling again, up until the early hours of the morning, reading page after page, article after article, on lung transplants” (100). After her mother takes her milkshake suddenly and drinks it, Stella hits the milkshake out of her mother’s hand, causing it to spill all over them. This shocks them both, and “[f]or the first time in a while, [they] completely crack up” (100). As Stella’s mother cleans herself off, she begins to cry and confesses, “I don’t know what I’d do without you” (101). Overwhelmed, Stella reflects on how much her parents rely on her survival.

After her meeting with her mother, Stella heads to the gym with Will to work on strengthening her lungs. Will complains that Stella has yet to own up to her side of their deal. They head to the yoga room after their workout. As Will draws her, Stella returns to her lists and begins to cross out tasks. Will notices and asks Stella to share her larger goals from her master list. Her goals include mastering French and studying all of Shakespeare’s works. She unveils that she has a YouTube page and realizes that Will is not surprised by her revelation. Will criticizes Stella’s list, since “none of that sounds fun” (105). He shares his desire to travel and see the world beyond the hospital rooms he has been confined in throughout his life. Stella holds back on telling Will about number 27 on her list: visiting the Sistine Chapel with her sister Abby. After Will compliments Stella’s hazel eyes, she notes her thumping heart and his warm gaze.

Later that evening Stella returns to her room and opens a folder on her computer named “Abs.” She scrolls through the photos and watches a video of Abby bungee jumping while holding Stella’s stuffed panda bear. Upset, Stella closes her computer and ventures out of her room to the nurse’s station. She finds a sleeping Barb who, upon waking, calls for Stella to “climb onto her lap, like a child, and wrap my arms around her neck, smelling the familiar, safe, vanilla scent of her perfume” (109). She finds comfort in Barb’s embrace.

Julie enters Will’s room with the treatment for his drug trial. As Julie remarks on Will’s newfound hope, Will thinks, “Getting my hopes up when a hospital is involved doesn’t seem like a good idea to me” (111). Will delivers the drawing he made of Stella. It features Stella “in a white doctor’s coat, a stethoscope slung around her neck, her small cartoon hands resting angrily on her hips” (111). He places the drawing under Stella’s door and listens for her reaction. Stella calls him via FaceTime to thank him for the drawing. Will notices Abby’s drawing behind Stella and asks her about it. Stella hardens at Will’s questions; “[a] strange look comes onto her face, and her voice turns cold” (113). She abruptly ends the call. Angry, Will rushes off to confront Stella before his friends Hope and Jason interrupt him with their weekly visit. As they head back to Will’s room, he realizes that he has not heard Stella mention Abby once in their time together. He updates Hope and Jason on Stella and their growing relationship. He shares Stella’s outburst and his realization that Abby has not appeared on Stella’s YouTube channel since last year. Together, they conclude that “something happened to Abby” (116).

Later, after Hope and Jason leave, Will heads to the gym for his scheduled workout session with Stella. He finds her meditating and almost immediately blurts out, “Abby’s dead, isn’t she?” (117). Stella begrudgingly confirms Abby’s death as “[s]he takes a deep breath, the weight of the world on her shoulders,” and confesses, “It will kill my parents if I die too” (118). Will realizes that, contrary to his previous understanding of Stella’s rigid adherence to her treatment plan as a denial of her inevitable death, Stella is actually suffering from the guilt of surviving while her healthy sister Abby died prematurely. Stella flees from the gym, and Will calls after her. Dejected, Will stares at the place where Stella sat and contemplates how she has changed him by making him vulnerable to the possibility of losing her.