"Augustus Waters is dead." These words rush through my brain like giant waves of the ocean as I try to figure out whatever I am feeling in that one sickening moment. The BiPap tubes are strangling me as I try to reach out to the alarm clock that might just be a few centimetres away but the distance feels to be of a myriad miles, maybe the same way Gus is too far away but still seems to be so close that it hurts that I cannot reach out to him. It's been 10 months since he breathed his last in the ICU due to the cancer that took away all of his health but could never deprive him of his sense of humour or his natural charm or to be more precise, the beauty of his crooked smiles. Kaitlyn told me that it was sad I lost him so soon after we started dating but I don't feel like I lost him. He is still somewhere in those moments no one talks about, the 'third space' we enjoyed living in. Dear world, I present to you Augustus Waters who spent most of his life fearing oblivion and killing everyone with his crooked smiles but he never realised that he had already left an irremovable mark on so many lives. He had affected them in ways which are quite difficult to comprehend. He gave me an infinity within a few numbered days during which I really lived my life.
Since Gus left me all alone on the shore of this deadly wild sea, time passes by and I always fail to notice this and somehow live in the moment. This might just be the way losing the love of one's life feels like. I am thankful for the time we got but I would die to live one more moment with Augustus Waters. This does not really mean that I am not dying this very moment; we are always dying. Augustus' absence just makes dying a little harder, a little worse and a bit more breathtakingly hurtful. A few months after Augustus' death, I wake up in ICU and the gentle beeping of the machines can not obliterate Dr Maria's words as she speaks to my parents.
"Hazel's condition has declined very badly and she is just getting worse. The point when all this medication is rendered useless is too near I believe."
I could hear Mom sobbing and Dad's gentle voice soothing her down and promising her that it will go well.
"Hazel will forever be our daughter, whether we die or she does." Mom is agreeing to every word and in that moment the realisation hits me again that no one really talks about how hard it is to lose a child to cancer and the fact that you lose them the day their cancer is diagnosed. My thoughts wander to Gus and his parents again while I am here in this ICU hooked to all these man-made machines that are fighting to buy me some more time.
Eleven months since Gus died. The doctors say my condition is just getting worse day by day. Isaac visits me on a daily basis and this reminds me of when I used to visit Gus everyday in the last month of the seventeen years long life he lived. One day, I receive an e-mail from Peter Van Houten and he says that he needs my phone number. 1. Reading something so polite written by Van Houten comes as a shock. 2. I am not ready for talking to him anyway. 3. I know it has to be something important. So I email him my phone number. A day later, he calls me when my parents are huddled around me and he says. "Hazel. I know you are struggling with cancer really hard. I just want to request you to read my new book which will be launched tomorrow."
"Oh uh sure. I really will if the heavens give me enough time."
The fact that Van Houten wrote something again gets me emotional for no obvious reason at all and I soon find my vision getting blurred because of the tears in my eyes. Mom however tells me that she would buy me the book as soon as she finds it in any bookstore.
"This book has been possible only because of the inspiration Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace gave through their words. While Hazel continues to battle cancer after having seen the love of her life lose this battle a few months ago, she proves to be a reason to continue to live for many and a reason to write for me."
I have read the book within a week and surprisingly I have memorized by heart the words that have been written under the Acknowledgements title on the first page. It seems surreal that my words really helped him out of the deep abyss of ignorance he pushed himself into.
A week later, I am sent to the ICU again and I have this gut feeling that I won't come out of it alive. I continue taking in the medications prescribed by the doctors while I know that they are not helping anymore. One night I overhear Dr. Maria while I realise this fact that its one whole year since Augustus died.
"It could be tonight."
I remember how I heard Augustus' dad saying the same words to me a year ago and this time around, it's my last night. A few minutes later my parents come and sit on either side of the bed and hold hands making it seem like a chain of arms; all interlinked, apparently whole, broken in reality. I do the best I can to not cry in front of them while I look at my dad, his eyes wet with tears and this breaks me to see him this way while mom cries and holds on to her family which is going to be incomplete very soon. At some point, I drift off to sleep while the beeping of the machines gives off a rhythmic tune and my parents' presence provides the best sort of comfort I could have in the moments when my lungs are fighting with my insides to get some more oxygen while for my brain, Augustus is the oxygen whose thoughts keep it alive.
