Disclaimer: I do not own The Fault In Our Star
The service was terrible. It would never match her smiles. He didn't know how he would live without her. Maybe he didn't want to. He looked at all the crying faces and felt himself choke. Hazel would not approve of this. Hazel would not approve of all this sadness. He pushed the thought out of his mind as his speech came up. His mom, teary eyed, rolled him closer to the casket, his green wheelchair giving no resistance to the grass. He took out the folded paper and flattened it nervously. "I sent an email to a writer we both used to liked. And I decided to read it as my eulogy to Hazel Grace." He said as he stood awkwardly and rested his hand on her casket.
"I'm a good person but a shitty writer. You're a shitty person but a good writer. We'd make a good team. I don't want to ask you any favors, but if you have time—and from what I saw, you have plenty—I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I've got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently." He smiled and looked around hoping for some weak smiles and he was relieved to see them on the tearstained faces.
"Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease." He said frowning at this. Cancer had killed her and it was going to kill him too soon enough.
"I want to leave a mark." He said the thing he wanted most in life. Remembering their first meeting, him explaining his fear of oblivion.
"The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimal or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimal becomes a lesion." He frowned as he heard the sobs retake the crowd. She was not a scar, not a lesion. She was the one that fixed the scars and lesions on him, and even though he was dying of cancer, he was the best he'd been in a long time. And it was because of Hazel Grace. And he hoped she knew that. He was so happy to have his heart broken by Hazel Grace, because she'd fixed him more than anyone else. It made him feel like he'd finally settled their score somehow.
"We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless—epically useless in my current state—but I am an animal like any other." His voice moved from it's calm, almost dull monotone to getting loud and angry.
"Hazel is different. She walks lightly. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either." His voice softened as he spoke of her and he looked dully at the casket.
"People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, it's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm." He smiled as he thought of her desperately telling him she loved him, and huffing over the idea that that wasn't enough for him.
The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox." He cited something Hazel had told him once. She always was smart.
"After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die before I could tell her that I was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar." He said damning himself and hating himself for it. He'd held off the tears during the whole speech until this. Hating himself. It was his fault. He'd hurt her.
"What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she liked hers." He finished his speech and sat back in his wheelchair before wheeling himself back sniffling. He didn't pay attention to the rest of the ceremony, just remembered her. And soon his mother's hand was on his shoulder, comforting.
"Want me to drive you home?" She asked gently. He shook his head.
"I'll drive myself home. I just want a few minutes alone with her." He said watching as everyone else clad in black clothes walked off teary eyed and shaking. She nodded and Mr. And Mrs. Waters walked to their car. He waited for everyone to be gone before he rolled over to her casket, a honey brown color. It was glossy and had bouquets of flowers on top. He'd brought her a lilac and it sat among the roses, standing out proudly. He forced himself to stand, leaning on her casket as he took out a cigarette. He put it between his lips as he let the tears fall without shame. He didn't care anymore. He was going to die. He was going to fall into oblivion. But then, sticking out from under the largest bouquet of flowers was a newspaper. He pulled it out and read the cover story's title.
It's A Metaphor
A story brought to us from a young woman struck with cancer about a boy named Augustus Waters. A love story about a bookworm girl and a boy who is scared of oblivion.
He felt himself get choked up. She'd done this for him. She'd made him loved because that's what he wanted. He would not be oblivion. He'd made her feel like her love wasn't good enough so she made others love him. And now she was gone. He could never thank her. He could never tell her that her love had always been enough. He cried desperately and when he fell back into his chair, not able to stand any longer, he reached in his pocket. He pulled out a lighter and lit his cigarette.