When I wake up, I'm lying on soft green grass. I sit up and blink in the bright sunlight. Where am I? I think, squinting around me.
The grass goes on for miles, hills rolling every way I turn. The sky is such a perfect shade of blue, it feels like it's been carefully adjusted to look as presentable as possible. The sun is shining directly on me, warming my skin. I'm wearing a thin top and light jeans, simple clothes that I don't recognize by sight, but they fit my body as if they were made for me.
I stand up and instinctively reach for the handle of my oxygen tank-but it's not there. Frantically, like a dog chasing its tail, I circle around myself as if the tank was hiding behind my leg or something. I touch the area of my face under my nose-no tubes. I inhale, then exhale, heart pounding…
I can breathe fine.
I take another breath in. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, my lungs are doing what they haven't been able to do in over four years. I let out a laugh, breathing consciously over and over to feel the lightness that comes with breathing on your own instead of through itchy nose nubbins.
Mid-laugh, I notice someone in the distance. At least, I assume it's a someone; the figure looks like a person walking toward me, but they're too far away for me to make out. However, something inside of me tells me to walk to them as well. Everything I've ever learned about approaching strangers seems to fly out of my brain as I begin walking over to this mysterious stranger. No oxygen tank getting tangled behind me, no getting out of breath after a few steps. I simply walk.
The figure grows closer as well. Broad shouldered, muscular, I think he's smiling, but I can't be sure-then I see it.
The unlit cigarette between his teeth.
Without a second thought I break into a run, and he does the same. Augustus and I sprint into each other's arms and I embrace him, hugging him tighter than I've ever hugged anyone before. I dig my fingers into his hair, smelling his signature cologne that had washed out of his t-shirts long ago. I can feel him doing the same to me, burying his face in my shoulder. I feel like crying out of the pure happiness I feel-like instead of blood rushing through my body, it is just happiness.
"Hazel Grace," he says softly.
"Augustus Waters," I hear myself say back, as we break apart. Almost instantly, though, we embrace again, but this time I'm standing on my toes and kissing him and he's kissing back and it's like the last year had never happened. Like Augustus had never left me at all.
"Am I-" I try to ask when we finally break apart again. He smiles.
"I've been waiting for you, Hazel Grace," he says, taking my hand and squeezing it. "We're okay here."
I giggle. "We're okay, are we?"
He wraps an arm around my shoulder and kisses the top of my head. "We certainly are."