"I missed you."
"When?"
"While I was in the hospital."
"I thought I was going to lose you..." My mind flashed back to the day Augustus was supposed to die.
"You kept me alive, so if you plan on thanking anybody, it should be yourself." Gus smiled.
"How? I saw you for all of 20 minutes when your mom insisted I be let in." I frowned.
"All I had to do was think about you, and how you would cry and just go back into your quiet and self conscious Hazel. And how lonely I would be, even if I wasn't before I met you. Hazel Grace, do you even know how much you mean to me?" Augustus looked at me.
"Augustus, you mean everything to me. And I hope that I mean something to you too. And If I was about to die, all I could ask you to do was hold my hand. Touch my cheeks, kiss my forehead. Just something to make me realize that there's some one in this world that's worth surviving for. Worth struggling for. And you are that person, you are that saving grace. And I can not tell you how much I love you for it." I was crying now. So was Gus.
"Hazel Grace, you need to kiss me right now." Is what he chose to say.
And you know what? I did. I kissed Augustus Waters again with as much love and intensity as I have ever felt for him since the minute I bumped into him in the hallway at support group.
And If I'm not mistaken, he returned every ounce of it.
~~~~~~~~
So far, we have raised $348 in the online fundraiser, $102 in the weekly lemonade stand we have, and $267 from the job I got reading books to children at the library. Normally I'd do something like that for free, but I was allowed to be selfish once in a while.
What am I, an Abnegation?*
Oh wait. Ha.
"Augustus?" I called as I opened his front door.
"In here!"
I walked into his kitchen, where there was a giant box with what I guessed to be money.
"I just had a huge yard sale." Gus beamed.
"How'd it go?"
"Hazel Grace, I made $545!" He yelled.
"Gus, that's amazing!!" I ran into his arms and we just stood there in an embrace for eternity.
I was OK with it.
* - Abnegation is a term used in the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. Credits for this term go to her.