"Don't you dare regret anything Augustus Waters. Not one damn thing." Those were the last words she ever spoke to me. Hazel Grace Lancaster was more than just a she to me though. She was my other half, as cheesy as that sounds, but true. After she died, I always felt like there was this hole in my side, and yeah I tried to meet other girls, but they just made the hole feel more prominent. I never understood why she had to go though. I was the one with the higher chance of a relapse. It had already taken one of my limbs, why didn't it take my life and not hers? I spent the rest of my years, and there were a lot of them, wondering why. Isaac and I talked about her once after she died, but he let the topic drop after that. I think he understood what she was to me, and just talking to someone about it isn't going to make it any better. Its been five years now since Isaac died, and I am an old man. The worst part about getting old is that you start out-living people. I was the last member of that support group still alive. Most of them had died not too many years after I had first joined, and Isaac and I held the particular pleasure of being the oldest two remaining. Now I'm the only one left, but not for long.
I knew it was coming, the way you can feel a sneeze coming on. I had been living in a nursing home for a few years, and could tell that I wasn't going to last much longer. I was okay with that though, the amount of times I had narrowly escaped death had prepared me for it, and besides, everyone else I cared about was gone. I closed my eyes one night, and when I opened them, I wasn't in my room at the home anymore. I was standing in a field of orange tulips, under the bluest sky I had ever seen. I looked down at my hands, and they were no longer the mottled, wrinkled hands of an old man, but the hands of my 17 year old self. I quickly looked down at my leg, and it wasn't just a piece of metal anymore, but real flesh and blood. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the flowers, and when I opened them I was back in Isaac's basement.
Everything looked exactly the same, the color of the walls, the carpet on the floor, the entertainment center with the huge TV flashing the opening screen of The Price of Dawn. I was standing behind the couch, and saw two heads sitting on the couch, both with short hair. "Isaac, how long do you have to "psych yourself up" for ?". I would have recognized that voice anywhere, the unmistakable voice of Hazel. "He isn't psyching himself up, he's just stalling because he knows you're gonna whoop his ass." Hazel whipped her head around to look at me, and I had to remind myself that this was real. Gone were the tubes that kept her alive, gone was the pale skin and the dark circles under her eyes. She looked more beautiful than I ever remembered her being. "Gus?" she said, with a look of disbelief on her face. "Hi." Those were the only words I could manage to get out of my mouth before she leaped off the couch and jumped on me, wrapping her arms and legs around my waist and neck and burying her head into my shoulder. I could feel tears soaking my shirt sleeve, and I just held her tighter. "Its you. Its really you." I had gone so many years without being able to hold her, talk to her, that I didn't know where to begin. She released her grip, and I put her down. "So I guess this means you're…". Her eyes trailed to the floor, and we both knew what she wasn't saying. "I had a good, long life, but I was ready to come home to you." She looked up at me and I had never felt more in love than I did at that moment, looking into her eyes. I took a step closer and brushed a small piece of hair behind her ear. "I missed you so much." She reached her hand behind my neck and gently pulled me closer. " I missed you more." was all she said before she kissed me.
"Okay enough with the smoochy-smoochy over there, I need a worthy opponent over here." I took Hazels hand and led her over to the couch, sat down next to Isaac, and picked up a controller. "Prepare to have your ass handed to you on a platter Isaac." I said. "Go easy on him, he is still getting readjusted to seeing and playing." said Hazel. "Oh boo hoo, he has five years on me. He will be fine.". She leaned her head on my shoulder as the game started. "Promise me you won't ever leave me again, okay?" "Okay."