"Hazel? Did you hear me?" Kaitlyn asks, her British voice rising. "Hazel? Are you okay?"

"I'm here," I say, taking a deep rattling breath. "I…" I don't know what to say. I know that he wrote a book and it's in my hands right now? It's not really Van Houten, its Augustus' whose telling the story?

"I can't believe it. I didn't even believe it when I saw it on the news, the news. Apparently, he's some eccentric billionaire and after he went AWOL became all brooding and insightful and now it's groundbreaking that he's writing a new book. Can you believe that? Its bloody bullshit is what it is." She rants, filling up my silence. "And it's about Gus! He's totally ripping him off and using him."

I gulp. "I…"

"I could kill him. I could." Kaitlyn pauses. "Hazel, are you okay? I'm sorry I shouldn't have-"

"I'm o-, fine." I say, shutting my eyes. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. "I just can't believe it."

"I know. I'm sorry I had to tell you like this, but I was worried. The book doesn't come out for another month but-you needed to know and-"

"Thanks for telling me, Kaitlyn." I say, looking down at the black book in my hand. "It's…just a lot to process. I think I…I need a second."

"I get it. God, I'm sorry. This is just so screwed up."

"I know." I agree and bit my lip. "Can I call you later? I kinda just want to be alone right now and think about all this."

"Of course, I get it." She says and I hear a pause in her speech. "Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

"I'll be fine." I promise and before she can say anything else, I hang up and drop the phone down next to me.

I'll be fine, I think again, clutching A Side Effect tight. A little part of me says that I should throw it away, to say the hell with Van Houton and forget about the whole thing. That's the sensible thing. But my heart screams to keep reading, and that's what pushes me to open it again and start again.

I shrug. "Always is there thing. They'll always love each other and whatever. I would conservatively estimate they have texted each other the word always four million times in the past year."

More cars come and go, leaving just me and Hazel Grace and technically Monica and Issac who were off in their own world, wrapped up with one another and leaving the latter in awkward silence. I find myself staring at my friend, his eyes closed as he relishes in second base and girlfriends.

"Imagine taking that last drive to the hospital," She says next to me. "The last time you'll ever drive a car."

I find myself smiling again. "You're killing my vibe here, Hazel Grace. I'm trying to observe young love in its many-splendored awkwardness."

"I think he's hurting her boob." She says bluntly, watching as Issac paws at Monica's shirt and I can't help but agree with her.

"Yes, it's difficult to ascertain whether he is trying to arouse her or to perform a breast exam," I say, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my box of Camel Lights and placing one in my mouth. Most people buy new packs ever week, but I've had the same one for months since I didn't actually light any of them. I turn to ask Hazel what she's doing later this week when her pretty face turns red with blush and her eyes narrow.

I did not blush. I think, feeling my face grow red, knowing what's coming.

"Are you serious? You think that's cool?" She asks. There's a word that perfectly describes how she looks. What is it again? Incredulous, that's it. "Oh, my God, you just ruined the whole thing."

"Which whole thing?" I ask.

"The whole thing where a boy who is not unattractive or unintelligent or seemingly in any way unacceptable stares at me and points out incorrect uses of literally and compares me to actresses and asks me to watch a movie at his house. But of course there is always a hamartia and yours is that oh, my God, even though you HAD FREAKING CANCER you give money to a company in exchange for the chance to acquire YET MORE CANCER." I wince and open my mouth to explain the metaphor but she keeps going. "Oh, my God. Let me just assure you that not being able to breathe? SUCKS. Totally disappointing. Totally."

God, I think. I really laid into him, didn't I?

"A hamartia?" I ask, rolling the cigarette around in my mouth.

"A fatal flaw," She says, and she turns around and steps off the curb, dragging her oxygen tank behind her when I hear a car start from down the street and by the way she looks up at it, it's her ride.

At this point, I know most guys would've walked away. Gotten in their SUVs and drive home for some Counter-Insurgence, forget about support group and the girl who looked a little too much like my ex and dismiss her entirely.

But I knew, watching that girl with Natalie Portman hair and eyes that seemed just a little bit greener in the sun then they did in the heart of Jesus, that I was not, could not, let her go that easily.

"Oh, Gus." I whisper.

As the car pulled up in front of her, I grab Hazel Grace's hand to stop her which she pulls back, but at least turns to face me.

"They don't kill you unless you light them and I've never lit one." I explain, quickly. "It's a metaphor, see: You put the thing that does the killing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."

It was an idea I'd come up with after my surgery. They told me that there was about an eighty percent cure rate and that afterwards I would be fine, minus one leg, but for the entire time before the surgery and even after, I felt so helpless in the realization that the thing that was killing me, was me and that I had no part to stop it. That's about when I bought my first box of cigarettes so that I would be in control of the thing that could kill me and I could stop it.

I put down the book. He never told me how he started his cigarette metaphor and I never wondered about how it started, just accepted it as it was and who he was. Now, knowing the truth, I feel like I was just given another part of him to hold onto and another one to miss.

"It's a metaphor." She looks doubtful and I feel the woman in the car's eyes, her mother probably, watching us.

"It's a metaphor," I repeat.

"You choose your behaviors based on their metaphorical resonances," She says.

When she says it like that it means something more and I can't help the big smile that forms on my face. "Oh, yes. I'm a big believer in metaphor, Hazel Grace."

I smile.

Then she does something amazing. She turns to the car and taps the window which rolls down. "I'm going to a movie with Augustus Waters, please record the next several episodes of the ANTM marathon for me."

And just like that, Hazel Grace has decided to join me and watch V for Vendetta and if it weren't for my prosthetic, I would be jumping up and down the street whooping for joy.

My smile gets bigger, and I flip the page. The end of the first chapter, with so many more to come and I can't tell if I'm more excited or more terrified.

Chapter 2