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.

I remember when I was reading the section of screenplay pages I’d been given to construct a first chapter, Abby’s drawing was something that REALLY stood out to me. I think the screenplay scenes that were blocked off for my sample chapter actually opened with Stella’s friends physically in the room with her, comparing bathing suits and talking about the Stella-less trip they were about to go on. The drawing seemed like this beautiful entry point into Stella’s life, and a good place to start the book, her friends coming in a few pages later. The reflection and comparison to her own lungs, the zoom out of seeing it’s on a hospital wall, the introduction of Abby. This drawing has so much power throughout the story, and so much history and meaning to Stella, that I really wanted to include it, front and center, as a jumping off point for this story. Also, on a visual level, when people pick up the book it is smack on the cover. It’s the first thing they see. Fun fact, but I remember I actually had to change the description in one of the drafts to match the image depicted on the cover.