He's dead. I'm dying. The metaphors are endless. I'm sitting in my room looking over a tulip that was left on my doorstep. He told his mom to get me it. That was ten minutes before he slipped out of conscious. 8 hours after that Augustus Waters died. He died in the hospital.

Exactly where he didn't want to be. I just want to talk to him. To talk about metaphors and to listen to the hectic glows leaked album. It's just bull shit. Life's bull shit. First life gives me cancer then gives me a numbered days, But then finally gives me something good. My Augustus Waters. Only for him to be ripped from my arms.

He wasn't supposed to go. He was supposed to go to my funeral. He was supposed to make sure that our love would die with us. Why did life have to take him from me? I wouldn't be able to answer that question. I got up from my bed and walked out to the living room. The cart trailing right behind me, except now it feels just a little bit heavier. Maybe it's just me.

Maybe my body's slowly starting to give out. Finally I think to myself. I grab the car keys from the dish. My parents don't question me. I walk outside and unlock the car. I get into the driver's seat setting Phillip by my feet. I start the car and pull out of the driveway. My body seems to know where I'm going before my mind does because all of a sudden I'm parked at a cemetery. Augustus soon to be resting place. I get out of the car and start walking up a small hill. Memories start to flash through my mind.

"Stop right here" Augustus says with a crude smile. I can tell he's in pain. "It's beautiful Augustus" I say. He made me stop between two head stones. He's showing me his future grave. "Soon" I hear Augustus mutter. "God please Augustus don't say that just please don't not yet" I tell him and he nods. He knows this is hard. He's just trying to help me. He's just trying to help me get used to the idea of him being dead

I now find myself sitting in the spot where he'll be soon. "Soon" I whisper. I don't know where he is or if he is anywhere but I know I had to say something. Maybe just maybe he'll hear. "Hey" I whisper to the air. "I don't know if you can hear me or if you'd even want to listen but I've just got to tell you something"

I tell the air. Maybe I'm telling him but I'm highly doubtful. "I've just got to let you know I love you god I love you so much. I love you Augustus Waters not loved. Love." I just had to tell him that. He has to know somehow that I will never say I that I loved him because I love him. Present tense.

I don't want to leave. I want to keep talking but the sun is starting to go down. I get up from where I was sitting when I hear a crunching sound. That's when I see it. I see a little piece of grass uprooted a bit. I lift it up and there was a piece of paper in a plastic bag. I take it from the earth and brush the dirt from the bag.

To Hazel Grace. He knew I would come here. He knew I would find this. I open the bag and see a letter. It was a printed out email. He must have sent this to o look at that Vanhouten. He must have known that he would be to drunk to care so he took matters into his own hands. So I start to read the last words Augustus Waters wrote.

"Van Houten,

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.

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.

I want to leave a mark.

But Van Houten: The marks human 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.

(Okay, maybe I'm not such a shitty writer. But I can't pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations.)

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.

Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. 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.

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, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do not harm.

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.

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. Incubated. 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 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.

A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren't allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, "She's still taking on water." A desert blessing, an ocean curse.

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, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."

I do Augustus

I do

I do not understand why you were taken from me. From the world. From Isaac. From the rotation. Its just not fair. Tears are still stinging my cheeks as I walk back to the car. I get in but this time I don't start the car. I put my hands on the steering wheel and cry. I cry for Augustus Waters. I try and lift my head up but my Canola got stuck under my shoe forcing me down. Taking control. It's always had the power. Its always taken MY power. That's when I decided I'm done. So I get the canula unstuck and write a short note to my parents on a receipt I found.

"Went to visit Augustus love you both so much- Hazel. Short and sweet.

I get back out of the car and drag Phillip back up the small hill. "Soon" I whisper one last time. I once again sit back down on the small hill side grave. Its peaceful up here. Quite. I clutch Augustus's letter in my hand. I slowly re read the words. Savoring and indulging one more time. I put the letter down on the grass but the wind steals it. I want to so badly chase after it but I let it go. I need to let it go. I look to the sky one last time. I take the canola from my nose and lift it over my head. I push Phillip away and finally after to long of a time take a deep breath and breathe in my surroundings. Its so beautiful that I don't even feel when my lungs collapse.