She spins around, noticed that she was being watched. She looks guilty of something and embarrassed and meek. Scared, too. The ghost of my dead girlfriend is definitely scared. She looks away out of the window, wishing for an escape. I can just tell. She looks so perfect. So innocent. Her eyes dart to mine and they meet for less than a second before her eyes flicker away from me.
She tilts her oxygen cart onto its wheels and pulls it to an empty seat in the middle of the Literal Heart of Jesus. Isaac sits next to her, and I sit on the other side of Isaac. She glances at me again. I can't help but stare at her. Her eyes dart away from mine again. She pulls out her phone and checks the time: 4:59.
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference," a middle-aged guy says.
"Patrick," Isaac whispers to me.
I still can't turn away from Caroline's ghost.
She looks at me, her cheeks starting to turn pink. She stares at me with a slight intensity. I turn away, the intensity making me a bit nervous. When I turn back to her a second later, she flicks her eyebrows at me to indicate that she won. I give a slight shrug.
"Isaac, perhaps you'd like to go first today. I know you're facing a challenging time," Patrick says, turning towards Isaac.
"Yeah, I'm Isaac. I'm seventeen. And it's looking like I have to get surgery in a couple weeks, after which I'll be blind. Not to complain or anything because I know a lot of us have it worse, but yeah, I mean, being blind does sort of suck. My girlfriend helps, though. And friends like Augustus." He nods toward me. "So, yeah," Isaac continues, "there's nothing you can do about it."
"We're here for you, Isaac," Patrick says. The rest of the group echoes his words in monotone.
A bunch of other kids share. I don't pay attention-they have no meaning to me. After a while, it's my turn.
"My name is Augustus Waters. I'm seventeen. I had a little touch of osteosarcoma a year and a half ago, but I'm just here today at Isaac's request," I say.
"And how are you feeling?" Patrick asks.
"Oh, I'm grand." I smile, and add, "I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend."
After a few more people, it's her. Caroline's ghost.
"I'm Hazel. I'm sixteen. Thyroid with mets in my lungs. And I'm okay."
Hazel. The ghost of my dead girlfriend is Hazel.