Five Feet Apart

by Rachael Lippincott

I wonder, all too often, what it would be like to have lungs this healthy. This alive. I take a deep breath, feeling the air fight its way in and out of my body.

People are always looking at my cannula, my scars, my G-tube, not at me.

If I’m going to die, I’d like to actually live first.

I know in that moment, even though it could not be more ridiculous, that if I die in there, I won’t die without falling in love.

I’m tired of living without really living. I’m tired of wanting things. We can’t have a lot of things. But we could have this.

“Most of us can’t have children, a lot of us never live long enough to try. Only other CFers know what this feels like, but we’re not supposed to fall in love with each other.” She stands up, determined. “So, after all that CF has stolen from me—from us—I’m stealing something back.”

“Cystic fibrosis will steal no more from me. From now on, I am the thief.”

“So, while we’re in the womb, we’re living that existence, right? We have no idea that our next existence is just an inch away.” She shrugs and looks at me. “Maybe death is the same. Maybe it’s just the next life. An inch away.” The next life just an inch away. I frown and think it over. “So, if the beginning is death and death is also the end, then what’s the real beginning?”

I didn’t know it was possible for a person to make old things become new again.

“It’s just life, Will. It’ll be over before we know it.”

“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.”