Love can be a risk, a gamble, a dare

Can either lead to hope, to truth, to despair

Hope and happiness a life content

Or so much misery, one cannot bear

It was during Amsterdam when it happened. The most vile words uttered in the history of the earth from his most beautiful Hazel Grace. Their dinner was amazing and afterwards, they enjoyed a long stroll in the peaceful quiet and dark—hearts warm and full. Half an hour later the two sat on a bench, hands intertwined from the time before. The crickets chirped in the silence, but they were content with the serenity.

Or so it seemed.

"Gus?"

"Yes?"

"I need to tell you something."

"Yes?"

"But before you do, I need for you to promise me something." He turned to her, wonder and slight confusion in his expression; yet he was completely serious.

"I promise. I would do anything for you, Hazel Grace." He held up their intertwined hands and kissed the back of hers. Usually she would blush or grin and maybe even give him a chaste kiss (on the cheek), but this time she only continued to stare into his eyes.

"I'm serious."

"So am I." Augustus's unwavering gaze into her eyes seemed to unnerve her, and she took a shaky breath. And another. And another.

"Gus, I—I," there were tears in her eyes now, "I don't want to leave you. I don't want to go."

He held Hazel tightly in his arms, frustrated that he could do nothing to stop her tears and agony. Nothing he could do to save her—only words of comfort and promises of peace. "It's okay, Hazel Grace. You're here, and I'm here, and we're together. We'll be together forever." He held her until her soft sobs subsided, making way to the crickets in the silence once again. Then she spoke into his shoulder, whisper barely audible:

"I'm going to die Gus."

Surprised, the boy held his girlfriend at arm's length, wondering how a person could be so beautiful when they cried, wide and intelligent dark eyes red-rimmed and sniffs to keep mucus from dripping down your nose. "Oblivion is inevitable, and death out final destination. We're all headed into the downwards spiral of destruction and inability. Us, together."

"No, Augustus," she desperately whispers, "I'm running out of tie. I'm going to die soon. Promise me you'll stay with me until the end. Promise me you won't leave. I need you Augustus. I need you."

Silence.

"You have me, Hazel Grace Lancaster," he said without the sense of calm that he sounded like he was that he should have been. He held her, speaking into her nicely-scented hair and keeping out his own panic. Their bodies were warm in the cool nighttime. "You have me."

They spent the entire week together, whether in Amsterdam or back at home. They had nowhere better to be, and it seemed that a hastened expiration date also hastened wishes of a later due date. An endless cycle of wishes of hope and then tears of sorrow. Again and again until oblivion of all man had come.

All seven days, all one hundred and sixty-eight hours, all ten thousand and eighty minutes—even—Augustus had wanted to rage and storm and yell at the cruelty and unfairness of it all. What did Hazel Grace, what did he do to deserve this? But he grit his teeth through the pain and smiled when he felt like crying. The only thing, it seemed, that he didn't fake that week was the joy of having hazel in his arms.

Then the funeral came.

It was in the afternoon before she…left that she had been admitted to the hospital. Augustus refused to leave her side, and his parents had to bring him his meas. He didn't even finish his food due to agitation and anxiety; in fact, the only reason why he ate at all was because Hazel had pleaded him to. When visiting hours close, Augustus had thrown such a fit (took of his prosthetic and refused to budge from his seat) that the nurses took pity on him and left a blanket for the night. Hazel, too weak to move, smiled mutely when he took her hand and they fell asleep like that—hands intertwined and faces smiling.

When Augustus woke up, her hand was cold while the same lovesick, happy smile was plastered on her face. He never let go of her hand throughout the night, silently whispering her name with salty tears streaming down his face and her smile on his lips.

"Augustus." Hazel's mother quietly put her thin hand over his, still tightly gripping Hazel's. She had also lost much weight in that past week, it seemed.

"Augustus," she repeated, tone as gentle and understanding as her grip—his tears were on her cheeks and eyes as well. "It's time to let go. You need to say goodbye."

With as much reluctance he had as bittersweet sorrow, he let his beautiful Hazel Grace be covered by the cold, thin sheet signifying death. The single sheet separated the living and the dead, putting an invisible, inevitable, unbreakable barrier. Augustus pounded against eh wall, threw himself against it until his body broke down and his tears turned into a flood that washed him away. But nothing could bring her back to him.

It was the funeral.

Everyone in black and talking in somber tones. Augustus wore the suit that he wore for their dinner at Amsterdam. Hazel would've liked it, he thought, she's probably smiling wherever she is now. He too wished to see her, see her once again and forevermore.

Her parents had approached him and profusely thanked him with their own tears. He soberly nodded, expression stoic and solemn. Hazel's mother had to be held by her husband, but Augustus saw a single tears run down the elder male's cheek as he muttered words of comfort to his wife. He walked out of the room, feeling like he was suffocating.

Once outside, he walked a couple of blocks to ease his troubled mind. Augustus found himself leaning back against ha chain fence, raindrops on his cheeks. It was raining because he wasn't crying, right? As he put a cigarette in his mouth, he noted that he hadn't eaten in a few days, only a cup of water each day. Yet he didn't mind his path of self-destruction, nor did he notice; hi entire body seemed hollow, and it seemed to mirror how his heart felt—empty and superficial.

It was still raining as he twirled the lighter he found in his hand. The rain fell from his cheeks and fell onto the front of his suit. Silence seemed to envelope him in its cold embrace. It was the only thing that he had left now.

Leaning back and keeping his weight off his nonexistent leg, he looked up to stare at the pleasantly blue sky with cumulus clouds. Hazel would've liked to be outside with him on such a day. Maybe this was her way of communicating with him even if she wasn't physically there.

It was still raining.

Augustus watched the heavens and wished—he wished so much now that he had lost what he had loved—he was there. He watched the heavens and he wished they were real. He watched the heavens and wish that their deaths were not equivalent to the end of their existence. Oh, did he wish that he could just meet again. Did he wish that he could meet his Hazel Grace again.

The rain continuous poured as a wisp of smoke rose up into the air, wishing that death were only a metaphor.

It would forever be raining.

The albino snake rises up in the air,

Blown from chapped lips without a real care

As it rises, it watches the world

Through alabaster eyes equally fair.