~Grey~

My life was terminal to begin with; it didn't need a genius to figure that out. I had thyroid, stage four, and there were soon many other complications that came with it like metastasis developing in my lungs. I brushed past death with the help of Phalanxifor to keep my lungs working. I didn't give up on living at the time because I was afraid of dying so young and probably the hurt that my parents would feel if I did leave their lives. I used to have friends before my mother pulled me out of school. I knew that I was like a ticking time bomb that would explode eventually, it was inevitable. Those friends of mine slowly drifted away and I was okay with that, because it meant that I wouldn't hurt them if I did explode. Maybe it was because of my parents that I decided to not give up because life was so bleak I couldn't enjoy anything that I had been doing when I wasn't diagnosed yet. The first few years were tough, coming to reality about my condition. I used to view the world as an unhappy place that was grey and dull, where there were no colours. It was so bad that my mother thought that I was depressed, maybe in some ways I was. Even if I did die, my parents could move on. My mother wouldn't have to spend her life taking her of me, putting her masters and degrees behind her where it would just collect dust and not be used. The family finances wouldn't be so tight if I died, my medical fees wouldn't put a strain on my dad anymore. My friends….If I had any left would just learn to move on and probably remember me occasionally, if I was lucky.

Because, People Are Made To Love And Care.

But my life changed drastically after I met Augustus Waters, I saw everything from a different point of view and I enjoyed that feeling. When I was with him, the sun seemed brighter and the sky seemed bluer. I didn't know what it was at first but I learnt it later and it was called love. With him, I learned that maybe the world isn't as bad as I thought it was. I was so afraid that I would die before him, the possibility was highly likely at that time and if I did die, I would leave him heartbroken all alone. When I asked him, I can still remember him saying.

"Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you."

My heart skipped a beat when he said that and when he did, I was fully convinced that maybe I could make this work. My mind-set was along this line "I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?" Maybe I was being selfish for trying to protect him and maybe try to reject his love for me. I didn't want him to get hurt in the process.

Those few months that I had with Augustus Waters was the best in my whole god-damn life he made me feel alive. But, as abruptly he entered my world he left my world on the eighth day after we both had the best trip of our lives in Amsterdam. Augustus Waters left me heartbroken and somehow I couldn't fathom it, I was supposed to leave him first not the other way around.

That was how life worked, it didn't bend to your will. No matter how much you are against it, the world will move on leaving you in the dusk. You obviously don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I can't say I foresaw that he would end up hurting me. I like my choices. Right now, I wonder if my funeral would be as boring as Augustus, I wonder if Isaac would speak at my funeral. I pity Isaac, he has seen so many people leave him because of this horrible mutation by the name of cancer and my name would probably be added to the his list.

Augustus, I love you, present tense.I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful. Those strings of words were part of a letter that I wanted to deliver to Augustus but I can't anymore...

I remember your cute metaphors which I spent half a minute getting angry about back when I didn't know you. It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing.

You know Augustus, The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before . life was so miserable without you and maybe it was maybe considered luck.

Two months later, my miracle expired and the drugs stopped working. My lungs couldn't function on their own anymore and I was bed-ridden in hospital. I really wanted to die, death didn't look scary anymore. You know when people said that we should treasure life? That's a bunch of bullshit. When I'm suffering just to maintain my life I'd rather die. This was suffocating and I'm so tired, I'm really exhausted. I really want to let go, every single breath I take in is laboured. I don't really see the meaning of life anymore, my mother is beside me telling me it's okay to let go. My father sobs like the time where they thought they lost before I go, I want to finish writing this and not be an asshole like Van Houten who leaves his readers in the midst of the ending. I take in sharp breaths and my hands are starting to shake. There are spots in my vision now; I think my time is almost up.

"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities."

I really hope that is right and that I can see Augustus again….

"Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate."

I remember when he told me that and how his eyes lit up when I laughed at his jokes.

I remember the time when we thought maybe 'okay' will be our 'always.

I remember almost every single thing about him and I wouldn't want to forget.

I love him, I love Augustus Waters with all my heart.

I can vaguely feel myself growing distant from this world, my soul slowly drifting away maybe I will get to our Infinity…

Hazel Grace Lancaster