The day after Augustus and Hazel returned from Amsterdam, my mom drove me to Augustus's house. I could hear the door opening and his dad said, "Isaac, long time, no–" I could practically hear him putting his foot in his mouth as my mom's arm tensed around mine.

"It's okay, Mr. Waters. You can say the word 'see.' I won't spontaneously combust or anything."

"Don't be rude, Isaac," my mom said.

"No, no. That wasn't rude," Mr. Waters said. "Please, come in."

"Watch your step," my mom said as she led me through the door.

Through my shoes, I could feel the texture of the floor changing from carpet-soft to tile-hard and then I heard her voice. "Isaac, hi, it's Hazel from Support Group, not your evil ex-girlfriend." My mom led me in the direction of her voice. I heard the sound of a chair sliding, then she wrapped her arms around me. I knew it was Hazel because I could feel her cannula pressed between us. I let go of my mom and put my arms around Hazel's back, hugging her tightly.

This is when I realized that I wasn't going through this alone as I thought I was. Sure my parents understood what it was like to fear for the life of their child, but they didn't understand what it was like to fear losing a friend like Augustus. Hazel understood this. We were bonding over the failing health of our mutual friend. This is possibly the worst way to bond, but I was glad to have her.

"How was Amsterdam?" I asked.

"Awesome," Hazel said.

"Waters," I said. "Where are ya, bro?"

"He's napping," Hazel said. Sadness filled her voice.

I shook my head and said, "Sucks."

My mom grabbed my arm and led me to a chair. As I sat down I heard Augustus say, "I can still dominate your blind ass at Counterinsurgence." I could hear the effects of the chemo in his voice.

"I'm pretty sure all asses are blind," I said as I reached for my mom. She helped me up and led me back to the living room with the carpeted floor. At this point, I never had to tell her where I wanted to be led. She just knew. We were a team that way.

I gave Augustus an awkward hug, the ways guys do when they want to make sure everyone understands that they're just friends, then I said, "How are you feeling?"

"Everything tastes like pennies. Aside from that, I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up, kid."

Finally accepting that I would never understand Gus's fascination with an ever-inclining roller coaster, I laughed, and he said, "How are the eyes?"

"Oh, excellent," he said. "I mean, they're not in my head is the only problem." I actually found this quite unsettling. Part of me had been removed. My eyes had already ceased to exist. They were dead and gone before I was. I wondered if Gus ever felt the same way about his leg after it was removed.

"Awesome, yeah," Gus said. "Not to one-up you or anything, but my body is made out of cancer."

I tried to accept this for the joke it was, but I was very near the point of crying when I said, "So I heard." I reached out, trying to find his hand, but I grabbed a handful of his thigh instead.

"I'm taken," Gus said, which made me laugh enough that I could swallow my tears.

My mom brought over some chairs for Hazel and I to sit next to Augustus, then all the adults went downstairs. We just sat there quietly. All of our breathing mingled together, my healthy breaths, Hazel's struggling breaths, and Augustus's pain-filled breaths. I thought maybe he had fallen asleep again. Chemo-induced exhaustion was notorious for taking over a cancer patient's life. But then, after a while, Gus said, "How's Monica?"

"Haven't heard from her once," I said. "No cards; no emails. I got this machine that reads me my emails. It's awesome. I can change the voice's gender or accent or whatever."

"So I can like send you a porn story and you can have an old German man read it to you?"

"Exactly," I said. "Although Mom still has to help me with it, so maybe hold off on the German porno for a week or two."

"She hasn't even, like, texted you to ask how you're doing?" Hazel asked. She sounded dumfounded, like she could understand why Monica hadn't wanted to be with me, but not how Monica could just stop caring about me so easily.

"Total radio silence," I said.

"Ridiculous," Hazel said.

"I've stopped thinking about it. I don't have time to have a girlfriend. I have like a full-time job Learning How to Be Blind."

Augustus was quiet again after that, so I asked Hazel how she was doing, and she said she was good, and I told her about this new girl that had joined Support Group. She had this really hot voice, and I needed Hazel to help me determine if her voice was indicative of her appearance.

Augustus interrupted us to say, "You can't just not contact your former boyfriend after his eyes get cut out of his freaking head."

"Just one of–" I started, but Gus cut me off saying, "Hazel Grace, do you have four dollars?"

"Um," she said. "Yes?"

"Excellent. You'll find my leg under the coffee table," Gus said. There was so much mischief in his voice that it almost masked the exhaustion. I could hear him moving on the couch and wanted to tell him to lie back down, but Augustus already had a plan in his head, and I knew that there would be no stopping him.

Hazel offered me her arm, guided me out of the house, and to the backseat of her car. I knew Hazel was driving because the ride lacked the random accelerations and quick stops that were standard for a car driven by Augustus.

We stopped at a grocery store, where Gus and I waited in the car. I was glad because I didn't want to imagine the stares we would've attracted. I couldn't see Augustus, but I just knew that his skin was pale and dry, and if that didn't give it away, his limp would have. Add in Hazel with her oxygen tank and me with my blindness and we practically would've been forcing the patrons to tour the local Children's Hospital. Even though we weren't actually in that grocery store together, I couldn't stop envisioning the pity-filled eyes that were falling on us. Or the backs of the people who turned around so they wouldn't have to accept the fact that there are sick kids in the world. Or the people who were using us to remind themselves that life could be worse. I didn't want to be someone's version of a worse life.

When Hazel returned, Augustus instructed me to guide them to Monica's house. I hated admitting that I could still give directions to and from her house with ease. I hadn't even managed to forget a single street name.

As Hazel was coming to a stop I asked, "Is it there?"

"Oh, it's there," Augustus said. "You know what it looks like, Isaac? It looks like all the hopes we were foolish to hope."

I could picture the bright green car sitting in the driveway. "So she's inside?"

"Who cares where she is? This is not about her. This is about you."

Gus got out of the car, then opened my door and helped me out. He led me in the direction of Monica's house, then handed me an egg. The surface was cold and smooth and fragile as I ran my thumb over it. Before I lost my guts, I threw it in the direction of where I estimated Monica's car to be and heard the shell shatter against the concrete.

"A little to the left," Gus said.

"My throw was a little to the left or I need to aim a little to the left?"

"Aim left." I pivoted to the left. "Lefter." I rotated again. "Yes. Excellent. And throw hard." Gus handed me another egg. I threw it much harder than the first, and it didn't hit concrete, but it didn't sound like it had hit the car either.

"Bull's-eye!" Gus said.

"Really?" I asked, starting to feel the rush of adrenaline.

"No, you threw it like twenty feet over the car. Just, throw hard, but keep it low. And a little right of where you were last time."

I grabbed an egg from the carton in Gus's hands, accounted for all the instruction he had just given me, and arched it toward the car. It sounded like it hit something plastic.

"Yes!" Gus said. "Yes! TAILLIGHT!"

I thought I would feel bad for vandalizing Monica's car, but I felt vindicated. I knew that two wrongs didn't make a right, but I couldn't help thinking that she deserved to know what it was like to not be in control of what was happening to her, or, in this case, to her car.

I threw another egg and missed again. Then another and Augustus informed me that I hit the windshield. The next three nailed the trunk. I kept waiting for the guilt to set in, but it never did.

"Hazel Grace," Gus shouted. "Take a picture of this so Isaac can see it when they invent robot eyes."

He draped his hand around my shoulder and I tried to look in the direction of where Hazel should've been while she snapped the picture.

Behind me I heard the voice of a woman. "What in God's name–" It was Monica's mom.

"Ma'am," Augustus said, "your daughter's car has just been deservedly egged by a blind man. Please close the door and go back inside or we'll be forced to call the police."

I thought she would press the issue, demand answers, maybe even call the police on us, but she never said another word. So Augustus guided me back toward the car. "See, Isaac, if you just take–we're coming to the curb now–the feeling of legitimacy away from them, if you turn it around so they feel like they are committing a crime by watching–a few more steps–their cars get egged, they'll be confused and scared and worried and they'll just return to their–you'll find the door handle directly in front of you–quietly desperate lives."

I climbed in the car wondering what Monica's reaction would be when she found out. I hoped she would understand, not so that she wouldn't be mad at me. Frankly, I didn't care if she was mad at me. I hoped she would understand because I wanted her to realize what she had put me through. And as Hazel drove away, I finally realized that I was glad Monica hadn't kept the promise. I was glad she hadn't stayed with me because a relationship that was forced by pity was not desirable. I wanted to have a relationship as beautiful as the one that had formed between Augustus Waters and Hazel Lancaster.