Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from The Fault in Our Stars. All rights go to John Green.
It had been a year since Gus died when it happened. She was proclaimed cancer-free. The doctors said it was a miracle. Her parents bought her a cake and decorated the house as if Hazel had actually accomplished something. Her mother cried and her father hugged her. She finally got to walk free of an oxygen tank.
But Hazel wasn't happy. In fact, her health seemed to make her even more remote and anti-social than before.
It just doesn't make sense, she thought. Of all people, why should I survive? Why can't someone with goals and a set future be healthy? Gus should be the one out if the hospital, not me.
Her parents noticed this, and decided they should do something. After a few days of debate and long phone conversations, they decided to move to California. Her father was excited to see the place where the sun always shines. Her mother was ecstatic to be away from Indiana. Hazel was just glad for a change.
On their first full day, they went to Hollywood. They watched stupid 3-D movies and ate expensive burgers. They spent the night in a fancy hotel on the top story of a tall building. Hazel's parents were having a blast, but Hazel was only smiling in the outside. Hollywood, it seemed, was a metaphor. Everyone expects to see celebrities on every street, the sun to shine warmly in the citizens, and for everyone in town to always have a smile. In reality, the people Hazel saw were either too rich or too poor. The sun burned down harshly, making every surface scalding. And people may have looked happy, but Hazel knew many if these people felt the same as her:
Lost. Alone. Wandering aimlessly through the streets.
On their second day, they looked at potential houses. They decided to be out of the main city, but be close enough to drive there in an hour or so. So they settled on a small town called San Pedro, and drove around looking for a house. Hazel's parents told her they could live anywhere she wanted. She liked some huge houses as much as other small apartments, but eventually settled on a little house at the end of a street.
It was green, with all the normal things you would expect from a house. Nothing special. But something about it told Hazel it was home. Her dad didn't like the lifeless front and back yards, but her mom said, "They're only dirt now, but they hold so much potential! We could grow our own food!"
The house was a short walk away from a park, and a minute's drive to the beach. the family took a walk around the park, and Hazel found something she truly enjoyed about southern California: the ocean. The never thought she would like it much, but something about the crashing waves and the salty smell relaxed her. The park was on the edge of a cliff, with a wall surrounding it. When Hazel looked over the wall, she knew what people meant when they said "where the water meets the sky."
They moved into the house in a week, buying some new furniture pieces and rebuilding old ones from parts they brought from Indiana. The people who used to live in the house left a dresser behind, so Hazel repainted it and used it as her own.
A few months after they moved in, Hazel was looking for a necklace she temporarily misplaced. She practically tore her room apart looking for it, tossing papers and dumping out drawers, when something caught her eye.
On the bottom of one of her dresser drawers was an engraving. The letters HG+GW surrounded with the shape of a heart.
Suddenly, Hazel was running. Out the door. Across the street. Down the sidewalk. Around lampposts. Over tree roots. Running away. Down the hill. Around the corner. Down another hill. Around a flagpole. Across the sand. Into the waves.
She realized she was standing waist deep in the ocean water. Her jeans were soaked and the end of her tee shirt was threateningly close to the surface of the water. She didn't care. She let a wave drench her shoulders. She sunk under another one, tossing her body into the water. She stood up, hair dripping, and turned around. She waded to the shoreline and just sat.
Hazel sat on the sand, not thinking anything. Just sitting, just sitting. The waves lapped over her legs, covering her, then going back . Then covering her then going back.
That engraving. HG+GW. Hazel Grace and Gus Waters. What was it doing there?
It might not have meant Hazel Grace and Gus Waters. Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley. Hank Green and Gordon Walker. There were countless names that could have meant. But to her, it meant Hazel Grace and Gus Waters.
She looked to her left and with one finger, neatly wrote in the sand, "Hazel Grace". Then under that she wrote "Gus Waters". In the middle she put a plus traced a heart around the words, smiling to herself.
She stood up and walked to the water, rinsing her finger of the coarse sand. She turned around and began to walk away, when she realized, looking at the picture, the cruelness of reality.
The waves had washed away Gus Waters. Only Hazel Grace remained.