Drowning in the Distance

X | Donghyuck

"Cevaflomalin time!" Irene chirps, swinging my door open the next morning, a bag filled with clear liquid in her hand. I nod, sending her a small smile. I already got the notification from Y/N's app, the tiny pill bottle dancing across the top of my screen and bringing a flash of joy to my otherwise boring morning. Upon reading the notification, I moved myself from the desk over to my bed, where the IV rack sits, waiting for Irene's arrival. I watch as the heavily pregnant woman hangs the bag from the hook, taking the intravenous line and turning toward me. As she turns, her eyes linger on the drawing I did of Y/N in the yoga room, hanging next to the lung drawing that the girl had put up above my desk, the corner of her lips turning up as she looks at it. She scans over the sheets of paper, analysing the two very different sketches for a moment more before turning her head back towards me. "I like seeing you like this." She says earnestly, eyes meeting mine as a soft smile appears on her face, her eyes crinkling. I blink at her, slightly confused at her words.

"Like what?" I ask, genuinely curious as I pull down the neck of my shirt to the right, past the circular plastic that's implanted under the skin of my chest. I remember when I first had the port placed under my skin in a hospital in London. It hurt like a bitch during the healing process and I didn't even want it, but it's not like I had a choice, not with my mother overseeing my care. I remember the first time I had this experimental drug, on my second day at Saint Evangeline's; how Doyoung carefully inserted the small, right-angled needle through my skin, into the circular rubber part of the port. He apologised when he'd seen me wince, but I was the one who assured him that I didn't need any numbing cream, so perhaps that was my fault.

"Hopeful." Irene continues, connecting the needle to the IV tubing and capping it. I think about Y/N, my eyes travelling to the IV bag of Cevaflomalin. I reach out to touch it gently, feeling the weight of the bag in the palm of my hand. If I cover the label, it looks like saline. If I close my eyes, maybe I can imagine laying on a beach in the Bahamas, rather than being on an uncomfortable hospital mattress. The trial is so new. Still too new to know how this will turn out, too new to have an idea of whether it might make a difference. With most of the hospitals I've been to over the last eight months guaranteeing results, from previous research, to no avail, it somehow seems more promising to be in that initial research, to be a lab rat. It's the first time I've even let myself think about it... which might be dangerous. Or stupid. Or both. I don't know. Getting my hopes up when a hospital is involved, based on personal experience and track record, doesn't seem like a good idea anymore, not when it devastated me so hard the first few times.

"What if this doesn't work?" I ask, voice shaking a little more than I'd have liked it to. I don't feel any different. Not yet, at least. I watch the IV bag, the steady drip, drip, drip of the medicine working its way into my body. I look back at Irene, the both of us silently staring at each other for a few minutes.

"But what if it does?" She asks, touching my shoulder and giving it a squeeze before turning towards the door and leaving, the gentle click of the latch sounding behind her. But what if it does.

After the IV finishes its course and Irene comes along to remove the line from my port, I carefully slide on a pair of bright-blue latex gloves, making sure to keep my Burkholderia cepacia germs as far away as possible from anything that Y/N will touch. I take one more look at a drawing upon my desk, a sketch that I'd worked on last night and this morning before the Cevaflomalin treatment, carefully evaluating it. I'd thought about giving her the drawing from the yoga room, the one on my wall, but ultimately decided against it. This was fine. It's a cartoon but it's unmistakably Y/N. She's in a white doctor's coat, a stethoscope slung around her neck, her tiny cartoonish hands resting bossily on her hips. Her wavy hair is frizzy and her plush lips are parted in a scream. Squinting at the drawing, I realize it's missing something. I ponder for a few minutes, wondering what it needs to look complete. Then it hits me. With a chortle, I grab red, orange, and yellow pencils from the pot on my desk and draw licks of fire coming out of her mouth as the cartoon Y/N yells. That's perfect, way more realistic. Laughing to myself at the finished product, I take a white envelope that I stole from the nurses' station when I thought I'd finished the drawing, slide the paper inside, and scrawl on the outside.