She had stared at it for almost a full hour now. She stared until her eyes ached with dryness. When it finally set in, her body crumpled onto the ground, and she violently sobbed into the tile of her bathroom.
~ A week after Augustus's death ~
She woke up to her mother softly singing beside her, and turned over to face her. "Hazel, you had a nightmare so horrific that you started screaming. I rushed in here to see if everything was alright…" her mother said in a tired voice. The only thing hazel managed to say was a subdued, "Thank you…"
After a minute of silence her mother got up and left her in her room, alone with her thoughts. Though she didn't really think at all, she only stared blankly; in fact she often did that.
She reached behind her head, and to no surprise at all, her pillow was coated with a layer tears. Along with the tears she felt her tube, "How easy it would be to just unplug it… no Hazel… pull yourself together… stop thinking… the pain will go away if you just stop thinking." Maybe this was the reason her mother wanted her to go to a therapist. And she thought she had fixed herself when she read the letter from Augustus; how wrong she had been.
She finally decided she needed to rouse herself from bed, and she slowly inched down the steps into the first floor. A heavy aroma of pancakes and assorted fruits filled the kitchen where her parents stood cooking breakfast. "Hazel, I'm happy to see you out of bed this morning!" her father said with an elated tone. Hazel responded with a half-smile, and a, "Me too."
They ate in quiet state, in which Hazel felt most comfortable. And after breakfast was done, Hazel returned to her room where she proceeded to text Isaac (The only one whom she felt understood how she felt).
Hazel: hey
Isaac: hi
Hazel: what are you doing right now?
Isaac: I'm just listening to Hectic Glow
Hazel: mind if I join you?
Isaac: np, did you want to talk?
Hazel: yeah
Isaac: you can pick me up, and we can go to Funky Bones
Hazel: sounds like a plan
She grabbed the keys to her mother's car, and made her way over to Isaac's house. He stood with a smile smeared across his face when she pulled up to his home. Hazel couldn't help but return the smile, even when she knew that he couldn't see her. "You son of a bitch! Where do you think you've been for the past week?" Isaac said with obvious humor. "I was just at home reading his letter for the billionth time." Hazel responded in a joking, but almost literal meaning way.
As they drove to Funky Bones, Hazel thought about the last time she saw Augustus in a car. She pushed the memory aside with a great deal of strain, and continued on in the car with silence.
They reached Funky Bones, and unpacked the picnic supplies that Hazel had left over from her last picnic with Augustus. He grabbed the supplies, and toted them over to the oak tree where the view of Funky Bones was the best in the park. She smiled because this is where she had been told she was going to Amsterdam, and she didn't feel sorry that Isaac had chosen this spot.
They sat under the tree feeling the sun gleam onto their faces between the leaves, and they sat like that until Isaac finally spoke up. "Sometimes, when I feel the sunshine on my face, it reminds me of how I felt when I was with Monica. Like nothing could ever be sad, no day could ever be unfulfilled, and no life would be left untouched. It's a bright a wonder-filled thing."
"It was like that with Augustus." Hazel said with glowing eyes, and a lovely grin. "Do you ever miss just being with him?" Isaac asked. Her heart beat quickened at the thought, and she looked over at Isaac who smiled into the sky. "Yeah…" she answered with thoughts full of Augustus. They remained quiet for a long time before he came up with something else to say.
"On a less depressing note, how where things in Amsterdam? You never got around to telling me." Hazel smiled and whispered, "We drank stars captured in wine bottles." Isaac laughed, "You drank stars?" Hazel nudged him, "It's a metaphor!"
"Well besides 'drinking stars', what else did you do?" Isaac inquired. "We sat at a bench, and looked at the petals dancing on the river. He and I visited the Anne Frank house after Van Houten drunkenly sent us away. Then we went to eat at this amazing restaurant called 'Oranjee'. Then after the restaurant, we headed back to our hotel." Hazel remembered the night perfectly.
Isaac poked Hazel and said, "You guys had sex, didn't you?" She blushed with increasing embarrassment, "Did not!" He toppled over wheezing like a pig, teasing, "I wondered why he looked so happy when he came back!"
Hazel punched him in the arm, "Oh shut up! We were dying, might as well not die a virgin." Isaac wiped away a fake tear from his face and asked, "Did you guys use protection? Please tell me you weren't stupid enough to not use protection." Hazel winced and shrugged her shoulders, "What can I say, we were in a rush!" Isaac started wheezing again while Hazel snickered in remembrance. With a sudden change to his voice, Isaac stated, "Do you ever think that…something may have happened? Hazel stopped laughing, and for once, she hadn't thought about it. Out of the thousands of scenarios she played in her head, this hadn't been one of them.
She had a change of mind in that instant, and she told him that she needed to go to the store real quick. Hazel dropped him off at his house, and Isaac waved good bye to the car instead of her. She didn't correct him.
The Walgreens sign reflected in her car's left-hand mirror as she parked in the lot. She made her way into the store, and looked for the "feminine care isle". She looked at the pregnancy tests, and wondered if she should even bring one home. Hazel thought about it for a solid minute, and then decided.
The clerk glanced quizzingly at Hazel, but continued to scan the pregnancy test. Her body quivered on the car ride back to her house, and she kept hoping for God to take mercy on her. She parked the car in her driveway, and rushed into the house up into her bedroom.
~ The Present ~
She had stared at it for almost a full hour now. She stared until her eyes ached with dryness. When it finally set in, her body crumpled onto the ground, and she violently sobbed into the tile of her bathroom.
The stick had clearly shown the words, "Pregnant". Nothing could be changed, but she took two more that read the same answer, hoping that it was a fluke. Her parents ran into the bathroom where she lay on the ground. "Hazel! Please tell me what's wrong!" Hazel only clutched onto the three sticks in her hand, and held them into view of her parents.
Both of them looked nervously to each other, and her father whispered something into her mother's ear. He then picked her up from the tear-wetted floor, and placed her gently onto her bad.
"Honey… it's not your fault. The child is probably already developed. This… on top of everything else must feel like the world is crushing you with all of its might. Know that you are not alone in this, and we will be here for you until the end of time. We can go to the hospital tomorrow if you want. It just depends on when you are ready."
Hazel cleared her throat, and whimpered, "I-I think that I… can go tomorrow. Can I just go to sleep for now though?" Her parents nodded, and closed the door delicately on the way out.
In all honesty, she didn't sleep much that night. She gazed at the light pouring in from the stars that glimmered in the sky. She thought about what Augustus had said to her about the stars. "My thoughts are stars that I can't fathom into constellations." She thought now, "I've been that way for a while now, but I can finally feel what it means."
In the morning, she and her parents left out to the Saint Jude's children hospital. Her usual doctor smiled and asks, "Are we feeling any better this morning?" Hazel huffed, "That's a little bit ironic." He mulled over what that could possibly mean, and her parents chimed in, "Actually, we're here for an ultrasound… for Hazel." He raised his eyebrows, and hurriedly moved them to the room.
Hazel almost was amused by how shocked the doctor was, and she nearly busted out laughing when he had trouble starting any sentence. Then she thought to herself, "Why am I laughing about this situation, am I some sort of sadistic teen?"
Before she could form another thought, the nurse began to smear a petroleum-like substance on her belly. She then grabbed a strange laser thing to place on her stomach, which gave off a warm feeling that couldn't exactly be described as pleasant. On the screen placed beside the bed a small, dinosaur-shaped creature appeared in black and white.
"Judging from the shape and size of the baby, it looks around 8 weeks old." The nurse said in a spirited voice. Hazel's parents couldn't help but gleam when they looked at her. "You're having a baby!" Hazel seemed to be the only one in the room who wasn't in the least bit thrilled.
~ Five months into pregnancy ~
Today, Hazel felt the first kick come from the baby. She had been worried all this time because it hadn't really moved around. She kept asking herself, "Am I really ready for this?" Just then, the baby made a small shuffle in her stomach.
Throughout the day, the baby made small movements that felt like the equivalent of moving your tongue around the sides of your mouth. It never made any more kicks.
Her mother walked into the room with a mug filled with Chamomile tea, "I thought this might make you feel better." Hazel had thrown up four times that morning, and this of all things, wasn't going to make her feel better. Nonetheless, Hazel smiled for the consideration and accepted the tea.
She had actually been quite annoyed of how frequent her mother came to "checkup" on her, but she knew that she was just as freaked out about this whole thing as much as herself. The thing that Hazel occupied herself with most of time was a picture of Augustus and her in a boat at Amsterdam. When she looked at the picture, she would ask herself the same thing, "I wonder what the baby will look like. Will it have my nose, and his eyes? What parts of a baby even resemble the parents? Like, you can't say, 'Oh it has my elbows'. This is so strange."
~ Six months into pregnancy ~
Hazel awoke to see that her parents had left a giant box with shiny green wrapping paper, and a large red bow placed on the top. Though she was confused, she decided to open it up anyways. A swing set. Her parents had bought her a swing set.
Hazel's eyes began to spill over with tears, and she sat their holding the box and crying. To say the least, her parents were surprised to have this reaction over a new swing set.
That night, she stared at the box with flakes of memories attached to it. She thought of selling the old one, and Gus admitting that his affections would never lessen. Then, Hazel felt the baby kick the roof of the belly. Hazel then proceeded to think, "This will be your kid, Augustus, and you'd think I'd be unfertile because of the cancer, but this is what my life is going to be. I want to see your face in his, and I want to you to know that this is one of the marks you left on the world. I think this is a good enough legacy, don't you think?"
~ Eight months into pregnancy ~
Hazel grimaced when she saw how pregnant she looked in the mirror. Isaac chuckled, "What's the matter?" Hazel responded with a deep huff, "If you could see just how fat I look in this shirt." She sighed and sat amongst all of her shower gifts. "How could you be upset when you've got all this free baby stuff around you?" Isaac joked.
"Hey, why don't you carry a living thing inside of you for eight months? Then you'll have to deal with morning sickness, and random people touching your belly. It's fucking creepy." Hazel retorted. Isaac got up and laid his head on her shoulder then said, "You know what you need? Some Price of the Dawn video games! Awh yeah baby… we are going to play for six hours straight!" Hazel smiled at him, and she knew it really would make her feel better.
They blared the speakers hooked up to the Xbox, and truly did play for six hours straight. It reminded her of Augustus's basement and his book, and she decided to call it a night and head home. She thought a lot about Augustus on the way home, in fact, that's what she had often thought about the past eight months.
The next day she went to the hospital with her parents, and it was also the day that would tell her the sex of the baby. She got into the bed with familiarity from the countless times she had visited the hospital for an ultrasound. The same goo was smeared on her stomach, and the same laser thingy warmed her belly. "Oh, look what we have here!" Hazel peered up to the screen where a small thing sprouted from the lower end of the baby. "We've got a little baby boy!" Hazel thought, "A boy huh…a boy… I'm having a son."
~ Delivery day ~
Hazel woke up in sudden agony, and she realized her water broke. Her parents rushed her to her designated room, where she stayed for 12 hours in unbelievable pain. When the baby was out, and the gunk was wiped off of him, he was handed to Hazel. She looked at his small nose and eyes, and couldn't believe that this was her child.
She fell asleep with him in her arms, and she had completely forgotten about the world. When she woke up, her parents beamed with joy, and her mother said "The doctor thinks it's time you name him." Hazel was a little shaken from just waking up, but in her dream she had actually thought of a name." Astraeus, his name is Astraeus. It's Greek, and learned about it in my history class." "I think that's a great name." Her parents said to her.
When they got home late in the night, she decided to go to the backyard where a brand new swing set had been placed. She sat in the cherry-red seat and sang to him as he fell asleep, and as he closed his bright blue eyes, she could swear she saw a star flicker in his eye.
When her mother came to check on her, she found Hazel crying softly into her sweater sleeve. "Honey, you will get through this. God makes these things happen to us for a reason, you just helped move along his plans a little faster than he thought. You know that everything will be okay?" Hazel looked up to her mother with a tad bit of renewal to her face, and said to her, "Okay."
~ Fin ~