The nurse had instructed me to keep as still as possible as I lay, confined, in the metal prison that scanned my body. I thought about Hazel and our trip to Amsterdam. I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. What else could I have done?
''I'm afraid,'' the nurse sighed ''that it's not good.'' She smiled condolingly at me as she showed me the scan. It was everywhere. My body was the Christmas tree, the cancer - my decorations.
I'm lying now, in a hospital bed counting the, strikingly white, tiles and thinking, as I always do, of Hazel. My beautiful Hazel Grace. I picture her on the day we met at support group. Her shy smile, her beautiful eyes. I wish she was here with me now, on what I know is my last night. I feel the cancer eating away at my bones and my liver and my heart and I'm scared. The fear suddenly paralyzes me, taking my breath away. Oblivion. What will become of me. The fear is eating my consciousness, pecking away at my ability to breath. Or maybe it's the cancer. I can't tell what's me and what isn't anymore. I feel myself struggling for breath, struggling to fight it. There are nurses running around me and I here my parents scream in pain and sorrow as the doctor tells them what I know is happening. ''We're just going to make him comfortable, there's nothing more we can do.'' My parents explode in gasping breaths and tears that fall from their eyes. The inevitability of my death and the fear of it is crippling me as I realise I will not be remembered, I have done nothing but use up oxygen on this godforsaken planet. I wanted to leave my mark on the world and I didn't, I couldn't. But I'm brought back to thinking about Hazel again. I left my mark on her. And as I'm pulled further into oblivion by the pain and lack of oxygen in my lungs I think about her. I think about how much I loved her and how much I know she loved me. I think about Amsterdam and our meeting with Van Houten. I think about Hazel until I lose consciousness. Hazel Grace is the last thing I think of before I'm gone, into oblivion.