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.

That, and my lung function is tanking.

Can’t you get them to move your treatments?

Girl no she can't she has CF

both opt to continue looking like I killed their family pets.

“You’d die.”

Lol

Or any of the other fifty I’ve been in for the past eight months of my life.

“Oh, I get it. I’m so good looking you can’t even string a sentence together.”

“You consider yourself a rebel. Ignoring the rules because it somehow makes you feel in control. Am I right?”

Chill

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

with a side of international hospital tourism when I got diagnosed with B. cepacia eight months ago.

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

“You need new lungs. Mic drop!”

“Hey, mami! You are looking WORN,”

Stop lol hes an icon already

He’s fine, sitting in his chair like nothing happened.

Now why would you scare me like that

Every place is different. Every place is unique. It’s the hospitals I’m seeing them from that are the same.

Maybe about eight months ago when I contracted B. cepacia and they ripped my name off the transplant list. There are a lot of possibilities.

“Thank you, but no way.”

“But no nudes,” she adds. She’s taken her face mask off and I can see her lips twitching into a smile. The first one she’s given me. She’s making a joke.

“She’s bossy.” “Nah, she’s a boss,”

Lolll

But as I roll over and turn out the light, I realize for the first time in a long time, I don’t really feel alone.

<3

But what if it does.

It was supposed to be me, Will. Everyone was ready for that.”

:((

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.

Dang, Barb. Take it to church.

The only thing worse than not being able to be with her or be around her would be living in a world that she didn’t exist in at all. Especially if it’s my fault.

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.

“We’re not normal, Stell,” Poe says softly. “We don’t get to take these kinds of chances.”

her long brown hair pulled into a messy bun.

Maybe the most 2010 thing I've ever read

“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.”

Cystic fibrosis will steal no more from me.

“I think about that very last breath. Sucking for air. Pulling and pulling and getting nothing. I think about my chest muscles ripping and burning, absolutely useless. No air. No nothing. Just black.”

She drops the tank top onto the deck of the pool, my jaw going with it.

Theres no way girl-

“Dear god,” I manage to get out. I never thought I could be jealous of a pool cue, but I want to feel her skin against mine.

I close my mouth, clearing my throat. It could’ve been a year for all I know. “I wasn’t counting. I was staring.”

Slowly, I step into the pool, our eyes locked on each other’s as we struggle for air. For once, it has nothing to do with our CF.

We smile at each other, and even though there are a million reasons why I shouldn’t, looking at her now, I can’t help feeling like I’m falling in love with her.

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

“But I knew. She wished for new lungs for me.”

Poe’s gone.

I'm WRECKED

I scream out, hysterical, coughing, dizzy. “He was my best friend and I never hugged him.”

“It’s about Poe. It’s about Abby. It’s about you and me, Will, and everything we’ll never get to do together.”

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

If this is all we get, then let’s take it.

New lungs? Or Will?

LUNGS. PLEASE DONT CHOOSE A MAN OVER LUNGS WTF

And every breath he gets, he gives to me.

Abby smiles at me, shaking her head, already far ahead of me. “It didn’t hurt. I wasn’t scared.”

Don’t think about what you’ve lost. Think of how much you have to gain. Live, Stella.”

“You did good, Will,” she says, nodding at me, reassuring me.

“Looks great,” one of the surgeons says.