So I know that John Green has explicitly said he ended the book where he ended the book for a multitude of good reasons, and that life is not a wish-granting factory, and that horrible thing happen to lovely people, and that marvelous things happen to terrible people, and anything contrary to this rule is unrealistic in portraying reality, and that blights like this set people up to believe that fantasy applies to nonfiction, and they subsequently fall on their faces when let into the Real World, and all that being said, Isaac needs some semblance of a happy ending. I probably won't continue this beyond chapter two and I'll leave it at that because...ambiguity. And also because I don't want to beat this to death. But Isaac who believed in 'true love' and 'promises' and 'forever' and was told he would have a life full of beautiful and terrible things that he could not even possibly imagine should, in fact, experience some beautiful and terrible things. And I wanted to read about those things. So I wrote my own version. Thus, this.

~50/50 for Five~

Eep...

'Oh please don't,' I thought. Curled in a fetal position with my arms pulled tight around my chest, stupid tearstains probably still drying on my face, the last thing I needed was—

Eep, eep...

'Your timing is impeccable,' I thought, now starting to get angry.

Eeeep! Eep, eep, eep, eep...

I groaned aloud and wished for the ten thousandth time that I could glare.

My ceiling fan, after easing its way into rhythm, was making the awful squeaking noise again. It would happen every now and then when it got off its track—it was kind of old after all—and it used to be that I could just throw a ball or a shoe and knock it back on kilter, but my aim had started sucking soon after The Gouge, and never really stopped sucking, even a year and a half later.

To be fair, the squeak itself wasn't so terrible. At least, it hadn't been a year and a half ago. But since my receptive senses had been reduced to a grand total of four, hearing being the most prominent of the quad, I was a little more justified in getting annoyed when my main stimulus was a continuous, grating chirp that I had no control over. Also, I was having a decidedly terrible summer.

Rejecting the A and B plans of hurling a sneaker (that would almost certainly miss) or submissively listening to the squeak, I pulled a pillow over my face and curled my body, already rolled up on my bed, into a tighter ball. And yet the noise, though now muffled, was still coming awfully close to being the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Isaac?"

I sighed. That would be my mother, stopping at my door again, as she had done once every other hour, all day, every day, for three months. Her voice was deadened, so I knew she hadn't tried to enter the room. Much as I ought to be taking note of small blessings—at least, that's what the therapists were saying—I didn't really have the heart to be grateful for the privacy.

"Isaac, it's Mom."

"I know."

"It's four-ten Isaac."

"I know."

"It's time...well, it's...support group starts in twenty minutes.

"I know."

"Do you want to go tod—?"

"No thank you."

"But honey—"

"I'm alright Mom, don't worry about it."
"Isaac." Her voice became clearer and I knew she'd entered the room. As expected, she sighed when she saw me. There was a shuffling and a rustle and then the bed slanted to the side as she sat on the edge of the mattress.

"Isaac, you can't stay tucked in a ball forever."

"Can I play the Ornery Teenager Card and disagree?"

"Only if I get to play the I-Pay-for-Your-Everything-So-Do-What-I-Say Mother Card." I groaned and turned to her, giving her the best eyes-closed-glare I could muster. (Something I've learned since The Gouge: you can be very expressive with just your eyebrows.)

"Wouldn't you think I'm entitled to be like this as long as I want?" I demanded. "Lately, it's been pretty shitty for me, Mom." She made a little noise, probably to object to the swearing, and I said a quick "Sorry. But look. Thank you for feeding me, and doing bills, and clothes, and house, and medicine, and stuff. But I'm going to be depressed and grouchy and even kinda mean because everything has gone to shit in the past two years—sorry—and I don't want to hear a bunch of people, who I don't even know what they look like, tell me 'we're here for you Isaac,' while I gush about my problems."

She took a breath, one of those sad, remember-when-he-was-little-and-I-didn't-have-these-problems kind of breaths, and said.

"Isaac. Understand this: I am not belittling your grief. I'd gotten used to having Hazel come around here too. I liked her a lot. Really. But, honey, it's been three months and you never—"

"Exactly Mom," I interrupted. I was still tucked in a ball on the bed, not facing her any more, but, rather, speaking into my pillow. "Three months. It'd be, admittedly, a problem after a year or something, but what exactly am I supposed to do right now?"

"Go to Support Group and please your mother?"

"Do you know the looks I'll get when I go in there!?" (Mercifully, she did not say the obvious, "Do you?" line.) 'There goes Isaac,' they'll be thinking. 'He's lost another one, we should pat him on the shoulder to make him feel better.' Then these hands will start coming in out of nowhere and they won't leave me alone and—"

"You won't be alone," Mom interrupted, and there was something of a smile in her voice that made me stop to listen. "And you won't be targeted for getting all that "consoling,"(Another thing I've learned since The Gouge: You don't need eyes to be aware of air quotes.)

"What?" I muttered. "What is this?"

"I'm not sending you to Patrick's support group," she said, and there was an air to her voice as if she was gearing up for a punch line. "I'm sending you to Mrs. Lancaster's. In fact, she invited you, and she'll be here in five minutes to pick you up, so put on something that's not pajamas, brush your teeth-slash-hair, and clean your face."

Leaving me to stew in that information (probably with a smug smile on her face) my mother got up and made her way to the door. Click, that was the door opening, creek, her stepping on the hardwood just outside my room, then a shuffle, then a pause, then a hard thwack above my head, and the ceiling fan stopped squeaking.

"Get dressed," she said again, shutting the door. "And bring my shoe when you come."

I only curled my body tighter, considering my position as far as still playing the Ornery Teenager Card, but I knew it was hopeless.

So, Mrs. Lancaster had a support group now.

So, Mrs. Lancaster had invited me.

So, Mrs. Lancaster was coming to pick me up.

So, Mrs. Lancaster would probably want to talk to me in the car.

I groaned again and almost wished Mom hadn't fixed the fan so that I'd be justified in noisily throwing something against a surface.

So, Hazel had died three months before.

So, I was sad. And bitter. And in total anguish. And inconsolable. And whatever else the therapists had said as they danced around the word 'depressed.' Whatever it was, they were right; I was miserable.

But now—now!—Hazel's mother was being constructive and helpful and efficient and kind and starting her own support group. And how exactly was I supposed to tell that mother, "I'm sorry, but no, your child is dead and it's still the time to be upset about that. Excuse me, I think I ought to cry again?" According to the conventions of cancer kids, as Hazel herself would have put it, the ones Left Behind after a cancer kid Moves On, are supposed to valiant in the face of grief, strong under duress, gentle despite their anger, basically be what Mrs. Lancaster was being. And how was I to tell her "no, I refuse, I'd rather mope and wallow in self-pity?"

Groaning for a final time as I came to the conclusion that I was, in fact, stuck; I uncurled my body and rose to my feet, feeling some of the blood painfully start flowing back into my clenched legs. I made my way around the room with limited stumbling, pulling clothes from where I had specifically put them (so that I knew which was which) and hoped I didn't clash so royally that people would be sorry for the blind kid who couldn't even dress himself. I combed my hair into something less chaotic than usual, stuck a pea-size dollop of toothpaste on my tongue, and washed my face off.

To complete the picture, I flumped back onto the bed again, pulled a small box off my dresser table, and held it in my lap. This was the part I always hated. The box held my two glass eyes, their purpose being that if someone was standing at just the right angle and managed to see just behind my sunglasses, they wouldn't be freaked out on the off chance that my eyelids fluttered and there would, obviously, be nothing there.

The glass eyes were unbelievably stupid and were put in entirely for other peoples' peace of mind. Apparently, if the indisputably blind kid has glass eyes, it is easier to pretend that he is not, in fact, blind, and the world is, in fact, an all-around nice, healthy place. Passerbys will not be guilted into feeling grateful for their innate gifts, but allowed to take advantage of them as carelessly as they please. Never mind, of course, that I thought the eyes were uncomfortable, the world wanted me to appear healthy, and thus, I appeared healthy.

Four minutes passed—I kept pressing a button on my alarm clock to tell me the time—and right at the five minute mark I heard a car pull into the drive.

"Isaac?" Mom was back. I walked over to her, kicking my cane up into my hand as I went, and she kissed me on the forehead when I reached her.

"I didn't find your shoe," I said. (I hadn't really searched for it.)

"It's okay. I see it."

"Okay."

"This'll help," she said. "Support Group is good."

"Sure," I replied. "Love you Mom." And I went downstairs to meet Mrs. Lancaster.

She was waiting for me at the door and once she'd led to me to her car and helped me in without hitting my head, she said, "Isaac, I'm contractually bound to ask you how you're doing." Her voice sounded kind of tired and sad.

I smiled slightly and said, "And I'm contractually bound to answer, 'Hanging in there.' You?"

"Hanging in there." She revved up the car and we backed out.

"Apparently, we meet at a church," she said after a moment, once we were on the road. "And I have no more information on the locale other than that."

"Sounds like an adventure."

"Doesn't it though?"

"Is it the first time you've done this?"

"Yep."

"Any idea who's going to be there?"

"Nope. I just put out in the email that I was doing this and that it would be an alternative to other forms of support group that people might have experienced in the past."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I will not sing songs or use puppets."

"Much obliged."

"You're welcome." She sighed. "Hazel would gleefully murder me if she found out I was sugar-coating anything. I don't plan to." Ah. So that would be the course of action. We were allowed to address the elephant in the car. Not that I really wanted to.

"Was that in the email? The no puppet rule?"

"I used bigger words. Tried to stay respectful to that sort of thing. But yes, I said so."

"So the kids that come won't be, you know, normal cancer kids? They'll be the rare few who don't actually like sugar-coating?"

"Is that okay?"

"Yeah, just..." I sighed and turned to her. (I've learned this since The Gouge too. People like it when I look at them to talk, even if I'm not actually looking. I think it makes a point when I do bother.) "Mrs. Lancaster I'm about to say something, and as an adult you will be contractually bound to tell me not to say or do the thing I am about to say."

"I think we're beyond that, Isaac."

"Oh, okay. Alright. Thanks. But, ah, here at Support Group-don't make me make friends."

"Isaac—"

"Ah ah ah, no, you said you wouldn't. I refuse to make friends with another cancer kid. There will not be a Five."

"Five?" I could tell that it slipped out and she hadn't meant to ask the question so bluntly by the way she made a little breathy noise right after. I didn't mind. She was, after all, a support group leader now. I was allowed to say stuff like this.

"Five," I repeated quietly. "Caroline Mathers was One. She was Gus' girlfriend and she called me "Isaac the Cyclops" once every twenty seconds and we were never super close but she was the first one I knew to officially leave because of cancer.

"Two was Monica. You know the story there, I assume."

"In detail. Sorry."

"Don't worry. It sucked at the time, but don't worry. Three was Gus."

"And Four was Hazel."

"Yes ma'am."

She sighed again.

"Fair enough, Isaac the Cyclops," she said. "You don't need a Five. But don't just sit there the whole time, for my sake, because heaven knows I'll be nervous and want some sort of familiarity to engage in."

"Fair enough," I replied.

She made another little breathy noise that kind of sounded like a smile.

"Isaac, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," she said.

"Ditto," I replied.

She did the breathy smile noise again.

Weeks went by. It felt kind of good to get back into a routine, Support Group being the catalyst that got me back to eating meals at regular times and sleeping more like a human being and less like a sloth. I got dressed in the mornings, combed my hair, came out of my room to talk to people, even messed around with Graham sometimes. Stopped hiding so I could cry once a day. Mrs. Lancaster was the real key. She drove me to and from Support Group everyday, partly to give my parents a break, but mostly, as I guessed, because she liked having me in the car.

We talked about normal stuff, like movies and music and late night comedy shows but a lot about Hazel and sometimes about Augustus too. I hadn't been there when Hazel died, though I'd been hanging around at the hospital for the week leading up to it. Mrs. Lancaster filled me in, crying a little and unashamedly there in the car, but addressing it without pretending like it was glorious or particularly special. I appreciated that.

Hazel's lungs had filled up again in her sleep a week before, she choked, she was quiet, she was unconscious, she was taken to the hospital, she was on life-support, they pulled the plug after a few days. The last time I'd actually hung out with her was to play blind-guy video games and talk about how the next Max Mayhem book was coming out soon. Then she was in the ICU. Then she was dead.

I cried a lot (more than the laws of masculinity allow in fact, but that was the least of my worries,) stayed in my room a lot more, and my parents graciously gave me my space. To be honest, I was going through the same motions as I had when Gus died, except this time, there was no Hazel to talk to about it. Before, we had often gone and sat on his grave and eaten french fries and talked to him like he was sitting there with us, even though we both knew that was stupid. Now it was just me, and there is nothing as lonely as a lone survivor. With Mrs. Lancaster, it was good to know she was a lone survivor too.

And so as before with One, Two, and Three, I managed. I was miserable. I hated myself. I hated Four. I hated Cancer. But it was good talking to Mrs. Lancaster. She said she was kind of mad at Four (her Two) also. Then she said that was silly. Then she cried a little, there in the parking lot. Then she was alright. We got out of the car and went into Support Group.

I had decided she was a much better leader than Patrick. She opened the very first day up by talking about Hazel and blatantly told us (there were eight other kids in there, as she told me later when I asked) that she didn't really know what she was doing and hoped that she would be as much a part of the group as the rest of us in talking about recovery. And after that, she didn't tell Hazel's story again. She told me she knew that kids would talk and new members would figure it out soon enough. I was glad about that. I didn't want Hazel to be the eternal icebreaker for a bunch of sick teenagers.

I managed. I was miserable. But I managed. And things did, in some small, slow degrees, get better.

We went on like this and it was four months since Hazel had died (going on the year-and-a-half mark for Gus) when I met Claire.