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Chapters 6–9

Summary: Chapter 6

Stella knocks on Will’s door and, from the hallway, asks to see Will’s treatment regimen. Will stalls until he sees the piece of paper outlining his regimen stuffed into his sketchbook with cartoons drawn all over it. Stella is incredulous that Will is so blasé about his own treatment and leaves. Will follows her to the NICU, where Stella explains that she goes there to remind herself that even newborn babies have the instinct to keep themselves alive. Stella tells Will that she’s struggling to see him give up so easily and that she wants to help him stick to a regimen. Will agrees, as long as Stella lets him sketch a picture of her. Stella protests, asking why he would want to draw her, and Will tells her that she is beautiful. Stella, while self-conscious, accepts this deal and says that their first step will be getting a cart in Will’s room to organize his medicine. When Will returns to his floor, he sees Poe, and the two introduce themselves and get to know each other.

Summary: Chapter 7

While Will and Poe keep watch for the nurses in the hallway, Stella sets up the med cart in Will’s room and her app on his phone. While waiting for the app to download, Stella organizes Will’s things, sees a cartoon he drew, and hangs it up on the wall. Once Stella is done, she goes to take off her protective equipment and wash her hands in the bathroom. While looking in the mirror at her scars from various surgeries, Stella wonders how Will could find her beautiful.

Back in her room, Stella is looking at her friends’ social media posts from Cabo when Barb comes in to ask Stella if she had anything to do with Will’s new med cart. Stella denies it, not wanting Barb to know she and Will are getting close. After Barb leaves, Poe and Stella Skype, and Poe teases Stella about having feelings for Will.

Summary: Chapter 8

Stella Skypes Will to make sure he is following their regimen and says they will do all of their treatments together going forward. They stay on Skype together for the better part of two days, and Will begins to feel better as he follows the treatment plan and as they keep one another company.

Summary: Chapter 9

One morning, after Stella has been at the hospital for a week, she shows the infected skin around her feeding tube to Dr. Hamid, who suggests treating it with ointment before considering surgery. Stella goes to meet her mother for lunch in the hospital cafeteria and glosses over her infection so as not to worry her mother. Stella suggests that her mother and father are both suffering from the divorce, but her mother deflects. Her mother becomes emotional, saying she never thought Stella would make it this far and that she does not know what she would do without her. Stella is reminded yet again that she needs to stay healthy until she can get a transplant for her parents’ sake.

After Stella’s mother leaves, she goes to the hospital gym with Will to do exercises that will strengthen their lungs. After they exercise, Will says he has been carrying out his end of the deal and now Stella needs to carry out hers. They go to the yoga room where Will sketches Stella, and Stella tells Will about her to-do lists, one for the immediate future and one long-term. After hearing Stella’s practical goals, such as learning other languages and volunteering, Will asks if Stella ever does anything spontaneously. Will shares his wish to see the world, and Stella wonders what that would be like. Back in her room, while on her laptop, Stella watches a video of Abby cliff diving. Upset, Stella slams the laptop shut, spilling a soda on her tray. When she goes to find paper towels to clean up the spill, she sees Barb at the nurses’ station and allows Barb to comfort her.

Analysis: Chapters 6–9

Once Will agrees to follow Stella’s regimen, Stella steadily becomes less preoccupied with following the rules. She sneaks a cart into Will’s room, lies to Barb, and begins spending more time alone with Will. This newfound rebellion shows that Stella’s relationship with Will is changing her and develops the theme of rebelling versus following the rules. While Stella has been sticking to her regimen and avoiding risks in order to avoid disappointing her parents, now that she is beginning to have feelings for Will, she is motivated to break the rules in order to help him survive.

Stella and Will’s different outlooks on surviving versus living are made even more clear when they discuss their goals and dreams for the future. Will, who knows he does not have much time left, wants to travel the world and see as much as possible before his time is up. Stella, who is just trying to make it until she can receive a lung transplant, focuses on what she can reasonably do to pass the time while staying alive. However, their conversation makes Stella wonder if there is more to life than being stuck in a hospital.

Art becomes a symbol of connection for Stella and Will. While Stella is at first annoyed by the cartoon Will drew on his medical regimen, once she starts setting up his med cart, she admires another one of his cartoons and hangs it up on his wall. In this way, Stella seems to be showing Will how he can make his life at the hospital a little more beautiful. Will, in asking to draw Stella, shows that he sees her as more beautiful than she sees herself and that he can make her see what he sees through his art.

Stella’s visit with her mother again reinforces how Stella feels responsible for making sure her parents don’t worry about her. By downplaying the seriousness of her infection, Stella puts her mother’s needs above her own in the way that is expected of a parent instead of a child. Because she does not want to upset her mother, Stella can’t even seek comfort from her, and her instinct when getting upset is to go to Barb, who welcomes her with open arms. This incident makes it clear that Stella sees Barb as more of a parental figure than her own mother.

Stella’s reaction to the video of Abby—as well as the suggestions that her parents are grieving more than just their divorce—hints that there may be more to Stella’s story than she has shared with Will. The grief she feels at the video and her reaction to her mother’s visit once again show that Stella is driven to survive not out of instinct but out of a sense of guilt and obligation toward her family.

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