This little thing has been rattling around in my brain since I finished the book a year ago when it came out. I've finally got around to putting fingers to keys. I hope you enjoy this little one shot.
Hazel was sitting in the passenger seat of her parents van with her oxygen life force between her knees. She was coming home from another round of having her lungs drained and in good Indiana fashion it was raining. Hazel sat there not saying anything as her mother turned on the wipers. She had always like watching the wipers go back and forth, never able to stop the rain from hitting the freshly cleared glass.
Watching them now though only made her think of Augustus. Augustus and his existentially fraught free throws. Just repeating the same motion over and over again and not knowing why or how to stop. Maybe it was like the fluid in her lungs, ever having to be drained, but if it really were like that, she told herself, it would mean that the fluid would stop at some point. Augustus had stopped. So had his cancer, for a while.
Hazel always tried to be positive these days but sometimes it didn't work and she had a headache at the moment. It was early so she figured that she would have a nap when she got home them after supper she'd go hang out with Isaac and play "The Price of Dawn". That always helped.