Flatline ~ Jackson Avery

TWENTY-ONE

Jackson

Altman, Lexie and I walked into a patient room. "Ricky. Big day!" Altman said.

"Bring it on." Ricky replied with happiness evident in his voice. A brown haired girl beside him reminded me of Kylie, except this girl had dark brown eyes instead of pretty blue ones, and Kylie's skin tone was a little less tan. Kylie looked way more innocent and sweet than this girl. I looked back at Ricky.

"Is this your sister?" Altman asked.

"This- She's my girlfriend, her name's Julia."

"You're kidding, Ricky has been talking about you for months!" Teddy exclaimed.

"I figured that the perfect day to take off work would be when your boyfriend is getting new lungs." Julia explained.

"Smart. She waited for the real fun." Altman set down her stuff. "Alright, let's do this." She referred to me.

"Well, your new lungs should leave Portland in about two hours." I started. "You haven't taken any of your Cystic Fibrosis meds since last night, right?"

"No food, no water, no drugs." he coughed.

"Great, so we'll do one last workup and then we'll get you to the O.R." Lexie told him. Altman walked away after explaining the procedure once more for the two, and we followed. After a while, we came back to the two.

"Did they come by with the forms?" Lexie asked, jotting down notes on his chart as I put a stethoscope to Ricky's back.

"Yeah, I think I signed about two hundred of them." He joked.

"That sounds about right." I replied. "You just... Do you need a drink of water, Julia?" I asked. Julia was having a coughing fit.

"J-Just asthma, sorry." She pulled out her bag to get an inhaler.

"Nothing brings people together than Respiratory disorders." Ricky chuckled.

"Mm. Romantic." Lexie replied sarcastically. Julia's bag dropped to the floor, and Lexie helped her pick it up. She stood up with an object in her hand. "Dornase." She muttered.

"It's mine." Ricky blurted out and I stopped my exam.

"It has Julia's name on it." Lexie said back to him.

"Ricky, why is she on Dornase?" I asked.

"I-I'm gonna go." Julia said suddenly, taking her bag. Lexie blocked the door.

"Wait, do you have Cystic Fibrosis?" Lexie questioned.

"Go." Rick urged her, and Julia attempted to run off.

"You know how dangerous Cystic Fibrosis patients are to each other?" I asked.

"We know." Ricky growled.

"Your disease isn't contagious to anybody in the general population. It's not like you can't date. You just can't date each other." Lexie listed a reason.

"You can infect each other with bacteria that you can't fight." I put in.

"We know!" Ricky shouted, coughing.

"Do you know how many times we've heard the warnings? Never get closer than three feet from another C.F. patient."

"It's a drag. I get it." Lexie said.

"No, you don't get it. Nobody gets it, only Ricky." Julia hissed. "We both tried dating other people. They cringe as soon as they hear we're diagnosed with C.F." Lexie and I left the room to let them cool down.