Hey everyone! I'm so sorry it's been some time since I updated. So who is going to see Paper Towns the movie?! I cannot wait until it comes out :) I hope you all like this chapter! More to come very very soon (hopefully). Please comment and review I appreciate all feedback!

Okay?

~Wallflower95

15

Today is our last full day in Amsterdam. As I walk through Vondelpark I can't help but think of all things I will miss out if I do end up... you know. The things I would miss out on and the things I haven't done or completed. I haven't left my mark. We found a small cafe with amazing food right next to the Dutch national film museum. A had coffee although it was more milk than coffee. In the cafe we recounted the our encounter with the great Mr. Peter Van Houten. It was a sugarcoated version as we did not want to explain the whole "Hazel yelling at an old drunk guy" part. Sometimes, stories don't always have to be sad and disappointing. That's why we made our version funny. We were acting it all out for Mrs. Lancaster.

"Get up, you fat ugly old man!" Hazel Grace said.

"Did you call him ugly?" I asked, holding in laughs.

"Just go with it." She said with a smile.

"I'm naht uggy. You're the uggy one, nosetube girl." I said in a slurred version of Van Houten's speech.

"You're a coward!" Hazel Grace rumbled. I couldn't contain it anymore. I broke out in laughter and Hazel Grace sat down with a triumphant smile on her face. We also told Mrs. Lancaster about the Anne Frank House minus the superman of all kisses.

"Did you go back to chez Van Houten afterward?" She asked us. I noticed Hazel Grace's cheeks turn red. I smiled.

"Nah, we just hung out at a cafe. Hazel amused me with some Venn diagram humor." I glanced over at her and flashed my lopsided grin. Her cheeks turned bright red. God, she is hot.

"Sounds lovely," Mrs. Lancaster said. "Listen, I'm going to go for a walk. Give the two of you tie to talk," she looked at me when she said that. I swallowed nervously. This whole trip I felt like Mrs. Lancaster knew about my relapse. My mom probably told her. "Then maybe later we can go for a tour on a canal boat."

"Um, okay?" Hazel Grace said, sounding a little confused. Mrs. Lancaster leaned forwards and kissed the top of Hazel Grace's head.

"I love love love you." And she was gone. I tried to breathe. She needs to know. She thinks she's the grenade but she's not. I am. I waved my hand down to the shadows of the branches.

"Beautiful, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Such a good metaphor." I mumbled.

"Is it now?"

"The negative image of things blown together and then blown apart." I said. I got distracted by the shadows of the branches. This was going to be the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I hate my cancer. Not because it's killing me but the fact that it's hurting the people I love most.

"I could look at this all day, but we should go to the hotel." I finally said.

"Do we have time?" She asked me. I smiled sadly. There is never enough time in the world.

"If only." I said.

"What's wrong?" I couldn't reply. I took her hand and lead her back towards the hotel. We walked in silence and I could sense her nerves. She knew something was wrong. Soon we arrived at her room. She sat down on the bed. I took my spot on the dusty old chair in the room. She held her hands, looking down at the ground. I took a deep breath and put a cigarette in my mouth to keep my calm. It's now or never.

"Just before you went into the ICU, I started to feel this ache in my hip."

"No." She said. I looked into her eyes. I saw the panic. The pain.

"So I went for a PET scan." I pulled the cigarette out and clenched my teeth. Yes, this is a horrible thing that has happened to me. But I remind myself every day that others always have it worse. I tried to make it better by flashing her my crooked smile.

"I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace. The lining of my chest, my left hip, my liver. Everywhere." I couldn't look at Hazel Grace now. What if she saw me differently. I was no longer the charming guy she met in a stupid cancer support group. I am not that grenade she was talking about there was now way anyone could stop my destruction.

Everywhere. It's a good and bad word. For example, if you said there were puppies everywhere that would make me crack a smile but if you say cancer is everywhere then that's a completely different story.

Hazel Grace stood up and dragged her cart towards me. She knelt down and put her head on my lap and hugged my waist. I looked straight forwards and stroked her hair.

"I'm so sorry." She said. What else can you say to a dying man? Congratulations! You're dying of cancer!

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," I said, trying to sound calm but on the inside I was breaking apart. Imagine being told that you had a ninety percent chance of getting out of this and then a year later you found out you're in the unlucky ten percent. It sucks. "Your mom must know. The way she looked at me. My mom must've just told her or something. I should've told you. It was stupid. Selfish."

But I knew that not saying anything was better. Why? Because it was for the same reason she didn't want me to see her in the ICU. She didn't want me to feel her pain but you know what? That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.

"It's not fair. It's just so goddamned unfair." I could feel myself breaking apart. Like paper being torn or glass shattering. They always say that cancer patients are so strong and brave and I've tried so hard not to let it beat me but the truth is we are are all freaking terrified. I'm scared shitless. I don't want to die. I want to live. I want to be here and love Hazel Grace. I wanted to live my life.

"The world is not a wish-granting factory." And I broke down for a moment. For one moment I fell apart and let sobs take over. My body shook and for a moment I let all that pain take over. All I wanted was to take Hazel Grace and hug her close. I pulled her towards me until our faces were inches away. There were tears in her green eyes. Her hair was messy and she still had her arms around me.

"I'll fight it. I'll fight it for you. Don't you worry about me, Hazel Grace. I'm okay. I'll find a way to hang around and annoy you for a long time." She was crying now. I held close to me. I never wanted to let go. My arms were wrapped around her.

"I'm sorry. You'll be okay. It'll be okay. I promise." Sometimes though, we can't always keep the promises we make.

We just laid on the bed and I told her everything. About how the doctors wanted to start chemo days before we had left for Amsterdam. How I gave it up because I had wanted to be here. How my parents had been furious with me and how they tried to stop me the morning we left for Amsterdam.

"We could have rescheduled." She said, although I don't think she truly believed those words.

"No, we couldn't have," I said. "Anyway, it wasn't working. I could tell it wasn't working, you know?" She nodded.

"It's just bullshit, the whole thing." She said.

"They'll try something else when I get home. They've always got a new idea." But I knew nothing would work. I just know, I know that I won't make it through the second time.

"Yeah." Hazel Grace said.

"I kind of conned you into believing you were falling in love with a healthy person." She shrugged.

"I'd have done the same to you."

"No, you wouldn't have, but we can't all be as awesome as you." I kissed her on the cheek and then winced, feeling a sharp pain go through my chest. It will always be there.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. Just." I stared at the ceiling, struggling to find words. I wish this hadn't happened to me. I wish I had never had cancer. I wish I could live forever.

"I like this world. I like drinking champagne. I like not smoking. I like the sound of Dutch people speaking Dutch. And now... I don't even get a battle. I don't get a fight."

"You get to battle cancer," Hazel Grace said. "That is your battle. And you'll keep fighting. You'll... you'll... live your best life today. This is your war now." I appreciate the fact that she's trying to help but what she was saying wasn't true. When I was first diagnosed the doctors always said to me I was in the battle for my life and that I would come out and win. I'm sure everyone with cancer hears that same battle speech. It's a battle with what? Cancer is a part of me. I am made of cancer. Therefore I am battling myself. Some battle.

"Some war. What am I at war with? My cancer. And what is my cancer? My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They're made of me as surely as my brain and my heart are made of me. It is a civil war, Hazel Grace, with a predetermined winner."

"Gus..." I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to compose myself.

"Okay. If you go to the Rijksmuseum, which I really wanted to do-but who are we kidding, neither of us can walk through a museum. But anyway, I looked at the collection online before we left. If you were to go, and hopefully someday you will, you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You'd see Jesus on the cross, and you'd see a dude getting stabbed in the neck and you'd see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs. But not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody biting it from the plague or smallpox or yellow fever or whatever, because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of."

I'm frustrated. Why? Because I'm going to be Augustus Waters. The kid who tried to beat cancer but failed. My cancer, which is made of me, will be the cause of my death. Hazel Grace was just looking at me.

"What?"

"Nothing... I'm just... I'm just very, very fond of you." I leaned forwards a bit, our noses almost touching and I smiled at her. There was pain in my chest and my hip but I ignored it.

"The feeling is mutual. I don't suppose you can forget about it and treat me like I'm not dying."

"I don't think you're dying," Hazel Grace said. "I think you've just got a touch of cancer." I smiled again. I love her so much and I am so lucky to love her.

"I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up."

"And it is my privilege and my responsibility to ride all the way up with you."

"Would it be absolutely ludicrous to try and make out?"

"There is no try," she said. "only do." God I love her.