You live with rules. Lists and reminders, every pill scheduled, every tube cleaned, every breath measured. Cystic fibrosis doesn’t forgive mistakes, and you’ve promised yourself that you’ll never let it win. Yet when he walks into your life—dark eyes, sketchbook in hand, reckless smile—you feel the tight order of your world tremble.

His name is Lucas. He is trouble in human form, refusing treatments, living like every breath is borrowed and wasted. You hate him for that. You envy him for that. And, slowly, you begin to love him for that.

But love is dangerous. CF patients can’t risk cross-infection. Six feet apart. That’s the rule, the wall that stands between you and him. Six feet, as if love could be measured like a sterile zone in a hospital ward. The first time you talk, he smirks. “Do you always clean your cart like that?” “Yes. Some of us care about surviving.” He laughs, a low sound that annoys you. But later that night, alone in your hospital room, you remember it. And you smile, though you tell yourself not to. You become friends because you can’t help it. He teases you into loosening your grip on perfection. You nag him into taking his medicine. Somewhere in the middle, friendship becomes something heavier, something your chest can’t contain.

One night, you hold your phone, FaceTiming him, the blue glow spilling across your sheets. He shows you sketches of stars, messy lines that somehow feel alive. “Why do you draw them?” you ask. “Because they’re far away,” he replies softly. “Untouchable. But I still want them.” You know then what he means. You are his star. He is yours.

The day comes when you both decide six feet is too much. You steal a foot back. Five feet. Just one foot closer. You measure it with a pool cue, holding it between you like a fragile bridge. And suddenly the air feels lighter, even though danger curls around you. Five feet apart. A rebellion. A love story measured in inches stolen from death.

You walk the hospital halls together, your IV poles rattling like clumsy chaperones. Nurses glare, friends worry, but nothing can erase the warmth in your chest when his hand hovers near yours. Never touching. Always aching.

“I wish I could touch you,” he whispers. You whisper back, “I wish you could, too.” The cold air hurts your lungs, but it doesn’t matter. For the first time, you feel warm.

Later, in the quiet hum of machines, Will tells you the truth. His infection could kill you. His body is already losing, piece by piece, and he can’t let you lose too. Tears blur your vision. “Don’t say that. We can fight it together.” He shakes his head. “No. You deserve a chance. A transplant. A life beyond this hospital.” “You’re my life,” you breathe, breaking He steps back, pain carved deep into his face. “If you love something, you have to learn and let it go.”

The words slice you open. You want to scream, to throw the line back at him, but all you do is cry silently, your body trembling. Because you know he’s right. The night he leaves, you watch from your window. His figure disappears down the hospital corridor, and the space between you grows wider than six feet, wider than miles. Your heart feels hollow, yet full of something sharp and unbearable. Days pass. You breathe with new lungs, a second chance stitched into your chest. But every inhale carries his name, every exhale feels like a prayer you never got to finish. You wonder where he is. You wonder if he’s still sketching stars, still living recklessly, still thinking of you. You don’t see him again. Not really. But sometimes, in dreams, you feel him close, five feet apart, smiling that reckless smile that once broke your rules and rebuilt your heart.

And when you wake, you whisper into the dark: “I’ll keep that foot we stole.” Because love doesn’t disappear. It lingers like breath on cold glass, like a star burning far away. Always out of reach, but always shining. And though you let him go, a part of you will always live five feet apart.