Augustus POV:
The cold porcelain of the flowery vase I clutched in my clammy hands burned through my skin. I breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of the Amsterdam spring. I could taste flowers and happiness on my tongue, with a bitter underlying smell of petrol and sour sweat.
It had taken an hour or so to hike to the top of this cliff, and I had nearly dropped the vase about four times, but thankfully I didn't. I knew this is what Hazel would have wanted.
My Hazel Grace.
Tears threatened my eyes as I realised that this was the moment I was letting go of her. The past few weeks had been hell, but not as bad as I had expected, because it hadn't truly sunk in. She was gone, gone and never coming back. It hit me like a train, now that I was about to sprinkle her ashes into the warm summery air, mixing in with the white blossoms that floated gently on the breeze. I was about to part with the last piece of her I would ever truly have.
Some might think of that as weird, that I was so upset about losing the burnt remains of my dead girlfriends body, but I wasn't bothered.
After Hazel passed in her sleep, I drove to the airport. There was a hill there that the planes flew over to land, only ten or twenty metres above your head. Lying down on that hill, the planes screaming over me, I felt totally and utterly lost. I had lived seventeen full years without her, then a few months of Hazel in my life and I had no idea what to do now that she was gone. I stayed on that hill for nine hours, until my mom called for the thirtieth time and it clicked in my head that I had to go, and that no matter how much time I hid from everyone, with the planes screeching over me, she wasn't just going to fly back to me, or jump out of a plane in a parachute.
Hazel was dead.
I stared at the vase, the pink painted roses glaring back at me with an arrogance that a twenty dollar vase should not have. My knuckles were white as the blossoms snowing around me, and my shirt stuck to me like icing on a freshly glazed donut.
I slowly raised my head, beholding the scene in front of me. Amsterdam was spread out at my feet like a picnic blanket, packed full with houses and shops and apartment buildings and bustling with life, even at this time in the morning. Laced through with canals and rivers, surrounded by majestic green hills. Thousands and thousands of blossoms danced through the air, getting caught in my hair and littering the ground around me. Behind all of this was quite possibly the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen. The sky was a velvet carpet of navy blue in the centre, edged with baby blue and white on the horizon. Streaks of rose and pale orange raced through the sky, and the tip of the sun was just peeking over the hills.
I took a deep breath - this was it.
Slowly, slowly, I raised up the vase and tipped it slightly, wincing as the first few black ashes seeped out. Tears slipped from my eyes and poured in a steady stream down my sweat coated cheeks. All of a sudden, I jerked my wrist and the vase dropped from my hand. Ashes swarmed out and were whisked up by the breeze, mixing in with the blossoms and dancing away out of my fingertips. I crumbled to the ground, shaking.
'Hazel, Hazel,' I sobbed. 'Hazel,'
My mind was a whirlwind, and my entire being was broken and twisted because she was totally and utterly gone now. I had nothing of her but memories warped by the sickening suddenness of her death. My fingers curled into the cold cloddy ground, dirt squeezing into my fingernails. Tears swum from my eyes, skating down my cheek and into a shiny puddle on the grass. For what seemed like forever, I sat there and shook. I shook with silent screams and violent tears. I shook with the grief that Hazel Grace Lancaster was never coming back and somehow I would have to live the rest of my life without her. I shook with the knowledge that I was alone. Just in that moment, I sat there and shook.
After an endless amount of sitting and shaking, I drew myself up from the torn up dirt, and gazed over the cliff and down at mid morning Amsterdam. Mixed in with that city was tiny pieces of Hazel, I thought. And I wanted to be a part of that. I stepped closer to the edge of the cliff and inhaled once more.
'Goodbye, Hazel. I'll see you soon,' I whispered, as my feet lined up with the steep drop in front of me.
And clutching the twenty dollar vase in my hand, I stepped into air, and joined Hazel Grace in death.