thanks to everybody who has read my story. Shout out to CamilleNatacha for being the first to review. Also this one is kinda long so sorry. . .

Chapter 2

She was at a short, wobbly table grabbing an Oreo and pouring herself a glass of cheap Kool Aid brand lemonade. When she turned around, she noticed me staring at her and abruptly looked down at her shoes. A dozen things passed through my head at that moment, everything from does she like me? To does she think me staring her is weird?

After a couple seconds she sat in a chair next to Isaac and I was immediately jealous. Only after thinking this did I realized how absolutely ludicrous that was considering Isaac blinded with his love for Monica, no pun intended.

By this time she was staring fiercely back at me. Her gaze was so intense I had to look away. Within a few seconds my eyes flitted back as if hers had some profound magnetic pull to which I was unaware. When my eyes returned, her eyebrows darted upward as if to say 'I win' and although she didn't say a thing, I got her message loud and clear. I love people you can have silent conversations with.

I shrugged and looked away. I really hope I didn't look like I cared too much. By this time Patrick was trying to start. He called on Isaac to start the introductions. Maybe this was Patrick's way of saying he cared. Making as in forcing people to tell people they really don't know their extraordinarily awful life story. That's what he did to start the group. To be fair, I was only paying any attention to her.

"Yeah," Isaac said. "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 nodded toward me. I smiled in return. "So, yeah," Isaac continued. He was looking at his hands, which he'd folded into a weird shape. He did that when he was nervous, or in a difficult position. "There's nothing you can do about it," he said with a sense of formality. I guess the prospect of blindness does that to a person.

"We're here for you, Isaac," Patrick said. "Let Isaac hear it, guys." And then we all, in unison, said, "We're here for you, Isaac."

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes and laugh. Bye the end I was extremely bored when I realized they did that for every person in attendance.

When they got to me, I realized was staring at her. Then it dawned on me. She is Caroline. She had to be. They were near identical. Only the girl in front of was much prettier, in my opinion. Then I spoke

"My name is Augustus Waters," I said. "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."

"And how are you feeling?" asked Patrick.

I answered with an engrained message.

"Oh, I'm grand." "I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend."

I said this every time some asked if I was okay, or how I felt.

Next Caroline's counterpart spoke. Then I realized i didn't know her name and I became intrigued and held on to her every word. Was she very sick? Did she have long? And if so, how long?

"My name is Hazel. I'm sixteen. Thyroid with mets in my lungs. I'm okay."

She didn't look okay. She didn't sound okay. Her little green wheeling contraption was proof of not okayness. But still she said she was. So I believed her.

Everyone in the room participated except for me and Hazel. I liked that name. It suited her. I made a mental note to ask her for her full name.

It soon came about that Patrick asked me what I was afraid of.

"Augustus, perhaps you'd like to share your fears with the group."

"My fears?" I inquired.

"Yes."

"I fear oblivion." I said trying to be quick. "I fear it like the proverbial blind man who's afraid of the dark."I said,thinking of Isaac.

"Too soon," He said, cracking a smile.

"Was that insensitive?" I grinned.

"I can be pretty blind to other people's feelings." Isaac and I were both laughing at this point, but I got the impression that Patrick disapproved of our behavior.

"Augustus, please. Let's return to you and your struggles. You said you fear oblivion?"

"I did," I answered.

Patrick seemed confused. "Would, uh, would anyone like to speak to that?"

No one raised their hands. I thought I had them beat, until she lifted her hand. Patrick excitedly pointed at her. I assume she speaks here minimally.

"Hazel!" He said in his upbeat tone. I was wonder how on earth could anyone contradict the fear of oblivion. I mean think about it. But she managed it. Of course she did. She can and does everything minus any flaw.

"There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that's what everyone else does."

She did it flawlessly just as expected. Perfectly. I want to get to know her. Maybe I should invite her over. "I will", I thought.

"Goddamn. Aren't you something else", I said. I swear I saw her blush a little. And swear my beating heart was visible from a mile away.

Soon support group was over. I pushed my weight of the unstable plastic chair and walked over by Isaac and Hazel.

"What's your name"? I asked her.

"Hazel" she replied.

"No, your full name"

"Um, Hazel Grace Lancaster." She spoke with uncertainty mixed with curiosity. I guess boys whom she doesn't know don't very often ask for her full name. I was just about to say how we are literally in the heart of Jesus, when Isaac walked up.

I raised my finger as a pause for Hazel.

"Hold on." Hazel waited with a amused expression.

"That was actually worse than you made it out to be."

"I told you it was bleak."

"Why do you bother with it?"

"I don't know. It kind of helps?"

I leaned in, hoping Hazel couldn't hear.

"She's a regular?"

"Yep. Looks like Caroline, right?"

"I'll say." Realizing I wasn't exactly including Hazel, I improvised telling Isaac to talk about his doctor who lacks intellect comically.

"Tell Hazel about clinic." I said.

"Okay, so I went into clinic this morning, and I was telling my surgeon that I'd rather be deaf than blind. And he said, 'It doesn't work that way,' and I was, like, 'Yeah, I realize it doesn't work that way; I'm just saying I'd rather be deaf than blind if I had the choice, which I realize I don't have,' and he said, 'Well, the good news is that you won't be deaf,' and I was like, 'Thank you for explaining that my eye cancer isn't going to make me deaf. I feel so fortunate that an intellectual giant like yourself would deign to operate on me.'"

"He sounds like a winner," She said. "I'm gonna try to get me some eye cancer just so I can make this guy's acquaintance."

"Good luck with that. All right, I should go. Monica's waiting for me. I gotta look at her a lot while I can."

"Counterinsurgence tomorrow?" I asked.

"Definitely." Isaac turned and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

"Literally," I said, turning to Hazel.

"Literally?" She asked.

"We are literally in the heart of Jesus I thought we were in a church basement, but we are literally in the heart of Jesus," I explained

"Someone should tell Jesus,"she said. "I mean, it's gotta be dangerous, storing children with cancer in your heart."

"I would tell Him myself but unfortunately I am literally stuck inside of His heart, so He won't be able to hear me." She laughed. I shook my head, just looking at her. She was so so pretty. I like her. I really like her. Hazel.

"What?" She asked. I realized I was staring at her.

"Nothing," I said.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because you're beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence. I mean, particularly given that, as you so deliciously pointed out, all of this will end in oblivion and everything."

I smirked as she let out a sort of grunt.

"I'm not beau—"

"You're like a millennial Natalie Portman. Like V for Vendetta Natalie Portman."

"Never seen it."

"Really?" I asked. "Pixie-haired gorgeous girl dislikes authority and can't help but fall for a boy she knows is trouble. It's your autobiography, so far as I can tell."I said, trying to sound flirtatious.

A girl I knew from my hospital walked past us. "How's it going, Alisa?" I asked. She smiled and mumbled, "Hi, Augustus." "Memorial people," I explained. Memorial was the big research hospital. "Where do you go?"

"Children's," She said, in a voice smaller than expected. I nodded vaguely. The conversation seemed over.

"Well,"she said, and started walking. I limped up the stairs with her.

"So, see you next time, maybe?" She asked.

"You should see it," I said. "V for Vendetta, I mean."

"Okay," She said. "I'll look it up."

"No. With me. At my house," I said impulsively. "Now."

She stopped walking. Great job Augustus, you just scared her away, I thought to myself. Great.

"I hardly know you, Augustus Waters. You could be an ax murderer." Yep I was right.

"True enough, Hazel Grace." I said walking past her, trying to be confident. For the first time in a while I wasn't follow people up the stairs. She followed me.

One up the stairs me and Hazel Grace saw Isaac and Monica kissing rather aggressively. Suddenly I saw me and Hazel Grace in their place. Although I pushed the image from my mind immediately, I did realize I wanted that. Really badly.

I leaned over to Hazel Grace and whispered, "They're big believers in PDA."

"What's with the 'always'?" She asked.

"Always is their 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 last year."

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

"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 said.

"Yes, it's difficult to ascertain whether he is trying to arouse her or perform a breast exam." I said smirking. I grabbed my pack of cigarettes and put one in my mouth.

"Are you serious?"You think that's cool? Oh, my God, you just ruined the whole thing."

"Which whole thing?" I asked, curious. The cigarette dangled unlit from the corner of my mouth.

"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 literality 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. Oh, my God. Let me just assure you that not being able to breathe? SUCKS. Totally disappointing. Totally."

She thinks I'm attractive? And smart. I'm liking her more by the minute.

"A hamartia?"I asked, the cigarette still in my mouth.

"A fatal flaw," She explained, turning away from me.

She walked toward the street. Her converse right on the edge of the curb. I grabbed her hand, but she yanked it away. That hurt more at the time than I would like to admit.

"They don't kill you unless you light them," I said as a women I assumed was her mother arrived at the curb. "And I've never lit one. It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."

"It's a metaphor," She said, dubious, the car idling near.

"It's a metaphor," I assured her.

"You choose your behaviors based on their metaphorical resonances . . ." I said.

"Oh, yes. I'm a big believer in metaphor, Hazel Grace."

She turned to the car. Tapped the window. It rolled down. "I'm going to a movie with Augustus Waters," She said. "Please record the next several episodes of the ANTM marathon for me."

I bit back a smirk.