Some stories arrive like whispers on the wind, gentle yet insistent, stirring something deep in your soul before you even understand why. Five Feet Apart was one of those stories for me. It didn’t come to me as a simple movie recommendation or a casual watch on a lonely evening – it came like fate, entwining itself with my life in ways I could never have anticipated.
The first thread of its magic was spun through a song. Lauv, one of my favorite artists, has lent his music to the film’s promotion, and like a siren’s call, it pulled me closer. Then came the face of Cole Sprouse, brooding and beautiful, the perfect bad-boy heartthrob. I also adored him in Riverdale as Jughead Jones. It felt like the universe has placed this movie before me, threading together my love for music, storytelling, and a deep longing for a love story that could move mountains.
It was a quiet night when I finally let the story unfold. A single candle flickered on my nightstand, casting golden shadows across the room. A glass of wine in my hand, I curled up, pressing play, unaware that I was about to step into a world that would claim a piece of my heart.
From the moment the film began, I was spellbound. Will and Stella were not just characters – they were constellations in a love story written in the stars, bound by an invisible tether of longing and tragedy. The way Will looked at Stella was something out of an ancient love spell, the kind whispered under a full moon, promising devotion that defied reason. I ached for that kind of love. The film unraveled like a prophecy, one that shattered and healed me in equal measure. I cried though nearly every scene, but I didn’t mind – it was a beautiful kind of pain, the kind that makes you believe in something greater than yourself.
I watched it again. And again. And again. I must have seen it at least thirty times, playing the soundtrack like an incantation at work, letting it summon that world back to me. And then, like a storyteller passing down a sacred tale, I shared it with my mother. I still remember her phone call after she watched it – her voice thick with tears as she scolded me, “Why the heck would you make me watch that? It was so sad!” I had laughed through my own tears, asking, “Yea, but wasn’t it still a good movie?” She begrudgingly admitted it was, but swore she wasn’t in a hurry to watch it again.
I didn’t know then that this memory – this seemingly small, fleeting moment – would become something I would clutch like a talisman a year later, after my world was shattered.
My mother was gone. The world had turned cold. And suddenly, Five Feet Apart was no longer just a movie – it was a mirror.
The world was trapped in an eerie parallel to the story, living six feet apart, grasping for connection through invisible barriers. But unlike Will and Stella, I wasn’t just reaching for love. I was reaching for something I could never touch again.
“We need that touch from the one we love, almost as much as we need air to breathe. I never understood the importance of touch, his touch… until I couldn’t have it.”
I had never understood how much I needed my mother’s presence – her hugs, her voice, the way she made the world feel safe – until she was gone. She had been my lungs, my breath, my gravity. Without her, I felt like I was floating in the abyss, untethered, gasping for air in a world that suddenly felt unlivable.
The grief wrapped around me like a curse, and for a while, I let it consume me. I watched Five Feet Apart endlessly, each viewing a self-inflicted wound and a desperate attempt to feel something, anything. I was trapped between wanting to drown in the sorrow and wanting to believe that, somehow, love – life – was still worth it.
And then, something shifted.
I didn’t know it yet, but fate had been weaving another thread into my story. A year after my mother passed, I met him. My “Will.” My prince charming. My Tony.
We were separated by 3,000 miles, a distance that once seemed impossible to close. But love, real love, bends space and time – it ignores logic, defies physics. What was once an insurmountable ocean became a mere five feet. A space between us that I could finally close.
To honor both the movie and my mother, I strung fairy lights in our window – the kind that Stella had longed to see beyond her hospital walls. Now, every night, I stand beside the person I was always meant to find, watching the lights, knowing that love – true, aching, beautiful love – had found its way to me, just as it had found its way to Stella and Will.
There are differences between their story and mine, of course. But the heart of it, the longing, the loss, the way love and grief tangle together like vines in an enchanted forest – that part is the same.
“Human touch. Our first form of communication. Safety, security, comfort, all in the gentle caress of a finger. Or at the brush of lips on a soft cheek. It connects us when we are happy, bolsters us in times of fear, excites us in times of passion… and love, we need that touch from the one we love almost as much as we need air to breathe.”
I had lost my mother’s touch, and for a long time, I thought I had lost my ability to breathe as well. Grief is a phantom hand, gripping your throat, making every inhale feel stolen rather than giving. But like a spell unraveling, I slowly began to reclaim my breath, to take back my life. I learned that even when someone is gone, their touch never truly disappears – it lingers in memories, in dreams, in the warmth of the fairy lights that flicker like whispered lullabies in the night.
I have walked through the shadowed forest of grief, stumbled through its thorns and tangled roots, but I have come out the other side. I have found love – not just in the man who now stands beside me, but in myself. In the quiet moments of remembering. In the way the universe still sends me signs.
Now, when I watch Five Feet Apart, I no longer watch it through the haze of tears and longing. I watch it with gratitude, with reverence. It is a story that once held me in my darkest moments, a love story that reminded me of all that I had lost, but also of all that I had yet to find.
And just like Stella, I have chosen to truly live.
So to those still lost in the fog, still waiting to feel the warmth of love’s embrace again – I promise, it will find you. Even in the strangest of ways. Even through the pages of a book, the flicker of a movie screen, the glow of fairy lights in the dark.
Love is always there, waiting.
And when it comes, step forward. Even if the space between you and happiness feels like an impossible five feet – reach out. Because sometimes, fate will close the distance for you.
LexTalk 
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