Five Feet Apart Quotes

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

How long will I live my life afraid of what-ifs?

I’m tired of living without really living.

Everyone in this world is breathing borrowed air.

...I want to be fearless and free. It's just life, Will. It'II be over before we know it.

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

If this year has taught me anything, it's that grief can destroy a person.

I’m not going far. I’ll always be here. Just an inch away. I promise.

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.

I don't want to leave you, but I love you too much to stay.

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 hope my life wasn’t for nothing,

She’s bossy.” “Nah, she’s a boss,

If this is all we get, then let's take it. I want to be fearless and free," she says, giving me a look, daring me. "It's just life, Will. It'll be over before we know it.

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.

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

You scare me Stella." I looked at him, frowning. "What? Why?" He looks into my eyes his voice serious. "You make me want a life I cant have." I know exactly what he means. He shakes his head his face somber. "That's the scariest thing I've ever felt.

For the first time I feel the weight of every single inch, every millimeter, of the six feet between us.

If I'm going to die, I'd like to actually live first. And then i'll die

And I realize I'm doing the one thing I've told myself this whole time I wouldn't do. I'm wanting something I can never have.

It didn’t hurt. I wasn’t scared.

So is your plan to die really, really smart so you can join the debate team of the dead?

Poe’s gone.

I look at the holiday lights in the distance, twinkling like stars, calling out to me. This time I respond.

I think a well-drawn cartoon can say more than words ever could, you know? It could change minds.

I have nothing left to give. I have nothing left to-no. I straighten, desperately pulling in one more short breath, knowing deep in my chest that it is the last breath I will ever get, and I gave it to her, I gave her everything to her, the girl I love. She deserves that.

I want to stay. I want to stay in the doorway, and right by her side. Even if it's always five feet apart, six feet even, but for exactly that reason, I exhale, and with everything in me, I turn and walk away.

Getting my hopes up when a hospital is involved doesn't seem like a good idea to 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.

You're a dying girl with survivor's guilt. That is a complete mind-fuck.

And I realize I’m doing the one thing I’ve told myself this whole time I wouldn’t do. I’m wanting something I can never have.

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 don’t know what I’d do without you.

I lie back, putting my hands behind my head, the room seeming uncomfortably quiet even though it’s still just me in here. 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.

If this is all we get, then lets take it.

For saying something real.

She gives me a big smile. “Don’t give me that. I see your pills behind you on your bedside table.

Your eyes are hazel,

Nora Stephens,” he says, “I’ve racked my brain and this is the best I can come up with, so I really hope you like it.” His gaze lifts, everything about it, about his face, about his posture, about him made up of sharp edges and jagged bits and shadows, all of it familiar, all of it perfect. Not for someone else, maybe, but for me. “I move back to New York,” he says. “I get another editing job, or maybe take up agenting, or try writing again. You work your way up at Loggia, and we’re both busy all the time, and down in Sunshine Falls, Libby runs the local business she saved, and my parents spoil your nieces like the grandkids they so desperately want, and Brendan probably doesn’t get much better at fishing, but he gets to relax and even take paid vacations with your sister and their kids. And you and I—we go out to dinner. “Wherever you want, whenever you want. We have a lot of fun being city people, and we’re happy. You let me love you as much as I know I can, for as long as I know I can, and you have it fucking all. That’s it. That’s the best I could come up with, and I really fucking hope you say—” I kiss him then, like there isn’t someone reading one of the Bridgerton novels five feet away, like we’ve just found each other on a deserted island after months apart. My hands in his hair, my tongue catching on his teeth, his palms sliding around behind me and squeezing me to him in the most thoroughly public groping we’ve managed yet. “I love you, Nora,” he says when we pull apart a few inches to breathe. “I think I love everything about you.

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.

Nah, unless, of course, a hospital there is claiming to have some new magical stem-cell therapy to cure B. cepacia.

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 time of passion ... and love, we need that touch from the one we love almost as much as we need air to breath.

I don’t want to leave you, but I love you too much to stay.

Let’s get an Uber, at least?

She’s probably planned every step she’s ever taken.

I thought they were brown.

One step at a time," he says, holding my gaze. "This is your chance. And that is what we both want. Don't think about what you've lost. Think of how much you have to gain. Live, Stella.

Always looking for ways to spend more time with me.

needle times

I sit up and cough a whole bunch of mucus into my bedpan. Grimacing,

He gives me a lopsided grin. “Ah, well, then I guess I’ll just have to settle for sex in the Vatican!

I think you have a better shot at meeting Bob Ross.

Seriously, do you ever do anything off list? No offense, but none of that sounds fun.

She's fighting for her life," she finally says, meeting my eyes in the glass. "She doesn't know what's ahead of her or why she's fighting. It's just... instinct, Will. Her instinct is to fight. To live.

Some of the flowers haven’t blossomed yet, and I can feel the promise of life just waiting to unfold from the tiny buds under the weight of my finger.

I bite my lip, knowing Will just got the same notification. But will he follow through?

Pretty old school for someone who builds apps.

Study all the works of William Shakespeare

They’re really nice eyes,

We fly back up,

We vibrate away,

He’s dead,

The Divorce Diet doesn’t look good on you, Mom.

She was always beautiful to me, but now she is free. She is alive.

I'm tired of living without really living. I'm tired of wanting things.

Will.

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.

Lovers’ spat?

I don’t believe my eyes. You’re putting on your AffloVest.

Yeah, I went with my dad when I was little, before he left.” I’m too caught up in the memory to process what I’m saying, but the word “dad” feels weird on my tongue.

Why did I tell her that? I never tell anyone that. I don’t think I’ve even mentioned my dad in years.

Dr. Hamid

I’ve finished my burger and 75 percent of the fries in the amount of time it takes my mom to eat about three bites of her salad.

Can’t you see you need each other? I want to say.

My insides turn cold.

Because I’m pretty sure keeping me alive is the only thing keeping my parents going.

Learn to play the piano.’ Done!

Speak fluent French’—

Take a painting class with Bob Ross.

I bite on my lower lip to hide my smile.

Lighten up, Stella. It’s just life. It’ll be over before we know it.

Thank you.” “For what?” “For saying something real.

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

Maybe death is the same. Maybe it’s just the next life. An inch away.

But we all die alone, don’t we? The people we love can’t go with us.

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.

God, I love you.” The way he says it is so soft and real and the most wonderful thing.

It's just life. 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.

Poe is missing out on love. Because he's afraid. Afraid to go the distance. Afraid to fully let someone into all the crap we have to live with. I know what it's like to have that fear. But that fear didn't stop the scary shit from happening.

His voice is deep. Soft. 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. “Promise?” I ask. He nods and stretches his arm out, holding up a gloved pinky across the distance. I take it and we pinky promise. The smallest contact, but the first time we’ve ever touched. And right now that doesn’t scare me.

There’s one theory I like that says in order to understand death, we have to look at birth. 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. Maybe death is the same. Maybe it’s just the next life. An inch away.

I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw that it was a sooty-black animal that resembled a monstrous cat. It appeared to me about four or five feet long for it measured fully the length of the hearthrug as it passed over it; and it continued to-ing and fro-ing with the lithe, sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out, although as you may suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face, and suddenly I felt a stinging pain as if two large needles darted, an inch or two apart, deep into my breast. I waked with a scream.

I might mess this up,” he says, clearing his throat as he pulls a sheet of paper from his pocket. He starts to sing, softly. “I love you, a bushel and a peck—” “Go away. I’m being stupid,” I blubber as I wipe the tears away with the back of my hand, shaking my head. “A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.” Abby’s song. He’s singing Abby’s song. The tears start rolling down my face faster than I can catch them as I watch his deep-blue eyes, focused on reading every lyric off that crumpled piece of paper. I feel like my heart might burst, I’m feeling so many things at once. “My gran used to sing us that song. I never loved it, but Abby did.

The door slowly opens, and a tall, thin person ducks inside. He’s wearing the same green surgeon scrubs, face mask, and blue gloves that the pre-op nurses wear, but his wavy brown hair is peeking out from under a clear surgical cap. His eyes find mine and I let go of the railings in surprise. “What are you doing here?” I whisper, watching as Will sits down in a chair beside me, scooting it back to make sure he’s a safe distance away. “It’s your first surgery without Abby,” he says in explanation, a new expression I don’t quite recognize filling his blue eyes. It’s not mocking or jokey, it’s totally and completely open. Almost earnest. I swallow hard, trying to stop the emotions that come bubbling up, tears clouding my eyes.

Shortly before school started, I moved into a studio apartment on a quiet street near the bustle of the downtown in one of the most self-conscious bends of the world. The “Gold Coast” was a neighborhood that stretched five blocks along the lake in a sliver of land just south of Lincoln Park and north of River North. The streets were like fine necklaces and strung together were the brownstone houses and tall condominiums and tiny mansions like pearls, and when the day broke and the sun faded away, their lights burned like jewels shining gaudily in the night. The world’s most elegant bazaar, Michigan Avenue, jutted out from its eastern tip near The Drake Hotel and the timeless blue-green waters of Lake Michigan pressed its shores. The fractious make-up of the people that inhabited it, the flat squareness of its parks and the hint of the lake at the ends of its tree-lined streets squeezed together a domesticated cesspool of age and wealth and standing. It was a place one could readily dress up for an expensive dinner at one of the fashionable restaurants or have a drink miles high in the lounge of the looming John Hancock Building and five minutes later be out walking on the beach with pants cuffed and feet in the cool water at the lake’s edge.

How I met Tyler was I went to a nude beach. This was the very end of summer, and I was asleep. Tyler was naked and sweating, gritty with sand, his hair wet and stringy, hanging in his face. Tyler had been around before we met. Tyler was pulling driftwood logs out of the surf and dragging them up the beach. In the wet sand, he’d already planted a half circle of logs so they stood a few inches apart and as tall as his eyes. There were four logs, and when I woke up, I watched Tyler pull a fifth log up the beach. Tyler dug a hole under one end of the log, then lifted the other end until the log slid into the hole and stood there at a slight angle. You wake up at the beach. We were the only people on the beach. With a stick, Tyler drew a straight line in the sand several feet away. Tyler went back to straighten the log by stamping sand around its base. I was the only person watching this. Tyler called over, “Do you know what time it is?” I always wear a watch, “Do you know what time it is?” I asked, where? “Right here,” Tyler said. “Right now.” It was 4:06 P.M. After a while, Tyler sat cross-legged in the shadow of the standing logs. Tyler sat for a few minutes, got up and took a swim, pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and started to leave. I had to ask. I had to know what Tyler was doing while I was asleep. If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? I asked if Tyler was an artist. Tyler shrugged and showed me how the five standing logs were wider at the base. Tyler showed me the line he’d drawn in the sand, and how he’d used the line to gauge the shadow cast by each log. Sometimes, you wake up and have to ask where you are. What Tyler had created was the shadow of a giant hand. Only now the fingers were Nosferatu-long and the thumb was too short, but he said how at exactly four-thirty the hand was perfect. The giant shadow hand was perfect for one minute, and for one perfect minute Tyler had sat in the palm of a perfection he’d created himself. You wake up, and you’re nowhere. One minute was enough Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. You wake up, and that’s enough

It is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language — the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people play at a recital and recite at a play? Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall? Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it’s called cargo? Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy? Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase? Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess? Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper? Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists? Why — in our crazy language — can your nose run and your feet smell?Language is like the air we breathe. It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours — especially happy hours and rush hours — often last longer than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree —no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom? Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane: In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand? Why do they call them apartments when they’re all together? Why do we call them buildings, when they’re already built? Why it is called a TV set when you get only one? Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically? Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic? Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is? Why is the word abbreviation so long? Why is diminutive so undiminutive? Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables? Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus? And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it? If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress? ...

Jack took two steps towards the couch and then heard his daughter’s distressed wails, wincing. “Oh, right. The munchkin.” He instead turned and headed for the stairs, yawning and scratching his messy brown hair, calling out, “Hang on, chubby monkey, Daddy’s coming.” Jack reached the top of the stairs. And stopped dead. There was a dragon standing in the darkened hallway. At first, Jack swore he was still asleep. He had to be. He couldn’t possibly be seeing correctly. And yet the icy fear slipping down his spine said differently. The dragon stood at roughly five feet tall once its head rose upon sighting Jack at the other end of the hallway. It was lean and had dirty brown scales with an off-white belly. Its black, hooked claws kneaded the carpet as its yellow eyes stared out at Jack, its pupils dilating to drink him in from head to toe. Its wings rustled along its back on either side of the sharp spines protruding down its body to the thin, whip-like tail. A single horn glinted sharp and deadly under the small, motion-activated hallway light. The only thing more noticeable than that were the many long, jagged scars scored across the creature’s stomach, limbs, and neck. It had been hunted recently. Judging from the depth and extent of the scars, it had certainly killed a hunter or two to have survived with so many marks. “Okay,” Jack whispered hoarsely. “Five bucks says you’re not the Easter Bunny.” The dragon’s nostrils flared. It adjusted its body, feet apart, lips sliding away from sharp, gleaming white teeth in a warning hiss. Mercifully, Naila had quieted and no longer drew the creature’s attention. Jack swallowed hard and held out one hand, bending slightly so his six-foot-two-inch frame was less threatening. “Look at me, buddy. Just keep looking at me. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you. Why don’t you just come this way, huh?” He took a single step down and the creature crept forward towards him, hissing louder. “That’s right. This way. Come on.” Jack eased backwards one stair at a time. The dragon let out a warning bark and followed him, its saliva leaving damp patches on the cream-colored carpet. Along the way, Jack had slipped his phone out of his pocket and dialed 9-1-1, hoping he had just enough seconds left in the reptile’s waning patience. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” “Listen to me carefully,” Jack said, not letting his eyes stray from the dragon as he fumbled behind him for the handle to the sliding glass door. He then quickly gave her his address before continuing. “There is an Appalachian forest dragon in my house. Get someone over here as fast as you can.” “We’re contacting a retrieval team now, sir. Please stay calm and try not to make any loud noises or sudden movements–“ Jack had one barefoot on the cool stone of his patio when his daughter Naila cried for him again. The dragon’s head turned towards the direction of upstairs. Jack dropped his cell phone, grabbed a patio chair, and slammed it down on top of the dragon’s head as hard as he could.