Drowning in the Distance

XXVIII | Donghyuck

I fall weakly back onto my gurney, my entire body aching. She's getting new lungs. Y/N is getting new lungs. Through the pain, my heart thumps happily. My mum's hand wraps gently around my arm as Irene puts the oxygen mask over my face.

And then I remember.

No.

I sit bolt upright, my chest searing as I shout down the hallway.

"Dr. Moon!" In the distance, he turns back to look at me, frowning, and nodding for Doyoung to follow him while the attending nurse keeps rolling Y/N through into her surgery. I look at the both of them before I look down at my hands.

"I gave her mouth-to-mouth." The room goes absolutely still as everyone processes what that means. She probably has B. cepacia. And it's all my fault. "She wasn't breathing." I say, swallowing. "I had to. I'm so sorry." I look up, into Doyoung's eyes, and then over at Dr. Moon.

"You did good, Haechan." He says, nodding at me, reassuring me. "You saved her life, okay? And if she contracted B. cepacia, we'll deal with it." He looks at Doyoung, and then at Irene, and then back at me. "But if we don't use those lungs, they're wasted. We're doing the surgery."

They leave, and I slowly sink back onto the gurney, the weight of everything pressing down on my entire body. Exhaustion fills every part of me. I shiver, my rib cage aching from the cold. I meet my mum's eyes as Irene puts the O2 mask back over my mouth, watching as my mother reaches out to gently stroke my hair like she did when I was younger. I close my eyes, breathing in and out, and let the pain and the cold give way to sleep.

I glance at my watch. Four hours. It's been four hours since they took her back. Shaking my leg nervously, I sit in the waiting room, staring anxiously out the window at the snow. I shiver despite myself, reliving the icy shock of the water from just a few hours ago. My mum kept trying to get me to go back to my room, put on more layers, but I want to be here. Need to be here. As close to Y/N as I can be. I pull my eyes away from the window, hearing footsteps coming steadily closer and closer. Looking over, I see Y/N's mother sitting down in the chair two away from mine, a cup of coffee clutched in her hands.

"Thank you." She says finally, her eyes meeting mine. "For saving her life." I nod, fixing my nose cannula, the oxygen hissing noisily out.

"She wasn't breathing. Anyone would have-"

"I mean the lungs." She says, her eyes traveling to the window. "Her father and I, we just couldn't..." Her voice trails off, but I know what she's saying. She shakes her head, looking over at the clock hanging above the OR doors. "Just a few more hours." I smile at her.

"Don't worry. She'll be out making a 'Sixty-Six-Step Lung Transplant Recovery Plan' in no time." She laughs, and a comfortable silence settles over the both of us until she goes off to get some lunch.

I sit alone, still nervous, alternating between texting Johnny and Wendy and staring at the wall, images of Y/N swirling around my head, separate moments over the past few weeks jumping out at me. I want to draw it all. The first day we met, Y/N in her makeshift hazmat suit, the birthday dinner. Each memory more precious than the next. The elevator doors slide open, and Doyoung, as if he had heard my thoughts, emerges carrying an armful of my art supplies.

"Staring at the wall can get a bit boring after a while." He says, handing everything off to me. I laugh. Couldn't be any truer.

"Any news?" I ask him, desperate to know how the surgery is going. But, more important, the results of the culture. I need to know I didn't give Y/N B. cepacia. That those lungs will give her the time she wants. Doyoung shakes his head.