#my sequel

It started with a common winter cold. One morning I woke up, sinuses blocked with a pulsating head to compliment. At first, I thought it was because I had been crying all night, which was something that had become common to my life now. But these tears were not only for the owner of my agonising 10, but for Isaac. - “God I miss him.” Isaac’s voice broke the silence, his voice catching on his words. My eyes grew heavy as I tucked my feet into my thighs and used my free hand to hug my knees together. “I do to.” I managed to get out of my closing throat, but I knew Isaac would hear me as we fell back into a silence. We’d been here barely 10 minutes and 8 of those had been taken up by inevitable silence we shared. I couldn’t take my eyes of Gus, which only caused my agonising 10 was pushing through my ribs and twist my stomach, in past, present and future tense, he was always going to by the boy who stole my heart and he will always be the boy to keep it. And I was okay with that, because it was an honour to have my heart broken by Augustus Waters, it was a mnemonic way of remembering him. Speaking the words to him, the way he had once spoke them to me. As we sat there, on the damp grass that was slowly but surely dampening my worn jeans, staring at the grave people come to grieve a friend, a brother, a son at, I couldn’t help but sit there and imagine that he was right there next to me. His arm slung over my left shoulder lazily, his cigarette hanging from this lips on the right of his face, and his smile. “Mum’s moving to Cincinnati.” Isaac finally told me, he’d rung me last night wanting to meet up so he could tell me something, and all night my chest was aching at the thought of him telling me his cancer was back. I breathed a sigh of relief for a moment, knowing his news wasn’t that C related word. The same word that has ruined my parents lives and torn my heart to shreds and my lungs from my body, literally. Isaac and I would meet frequently, but this was only the second time since Gus’ departure that we had met here. Most of the time I listened to Isaac talk to us about a new high score in his video game, or how there was a new person at support group, smiling and imagining the way Augustus would mimic him or counter his argument with ‘I bet she looks a treat’, knowing Isaac lacks the sense of vision. It was the one thing I miss most about their friendship, how happy they both were when in each-others presence. “She told me she can’t live in the house anymore, or even Indianapolis and with Cincinnati only being a few hours away, Dad agreed to let her take us there.” Looking at Isaac, I noticed his hands were shaking and his face was tight and panicked. Whilst his voice told me he was fine about the decision, his body language told me otherwise. “I’m sure a new start is just what you need.” I finally spoke, letting his fingers wrap around mine and squeeze my hand tightly. “I don’t want to leave you.” He said quietly, “both of you.” Squeezing my eyes closed, I let my forehead fall into my bend knees. For two kids that had been surrounded by death and disease for all our lives, it had never made goodbyes any easier. When people say that it gets easier, that the pain of losing someone slowly subsides from your being, they are wrong. Just because someone dies, doesn’t mean they are gone. Their physical being is gone, but their memory lives on, the memory you have of their will continue to live within you until the day you stop breathing. So sometimes, early goodbyes are better than the late ones. “I’d much rather watch you leave to start afresh, than the last time you see me is like we saw Gus.” “I wouldn’t be able to see you, Hazel.” Isaac said, a bored tone flickering through his words, and whilst I meant nothing by the statement to offend him, I knew he was offended. “You don’t have to see someone to picture how to remember them, Isaac. You’ve known since the day we met that I was terminal, everyone has. I’m a ticking time bomb and I’ve running out of time and for you to start afresh before that happens makes me so happy! You deserve to be happy and to find someone that you can love and make a family with. Hell, you deserve a life full of email-reader porn and video games, Isaac!” When he didn’t reply to my rant and I felt his fingers slip from my hold, I felt my chest twist and knot, I thought I had lost him, before he gave me a chance to leave him. “God you’re just like he was.” Isaac laughed, and when I turned my head to look at him he was shaking from the force of his laugh, shoulders bouncing with a smile stretched across his face. “That is literally exactly what he would say, god damn Hazel, you two really were perfect for each other.” “Something like that.” I smiled at him, resting my head on his shoulder as the silence consumed him once more. When our hour was up I saw mums car roll into the car park. With Isaac still having a few errands to run before they were to leave later this afternoon, he forgot to mention he was leaving two weeks ago when he found out; we’d been given a strict time frame of one hour. “Are you going to be okay?” Isaac asked me, once I had helped him get to his feet. “Walking downhill is much easier than uphill, Isaac.” I told him, smiling as he rested his hand on the tombstone for a second before straightening himself out. “I wasn’t talking about walking to the car, Hazel.” “Nor was I.” I replied as I collected my oxygen tank and water bottle. It would have been naïve of us to believe that we were going to see each other again. With the threat of cancer returning to Isaac’s body at any moment, and the threat of cancer stopping mine, our futures were sporadic and held in the hands of faith. By the time we made it to the bottom of the hill, Isaac only tripping on his shoes twice and I only having to take one pit stop to catch my breath, Mum was leaning against the side of the car with a worried look on her face. Our goodbye was a quick hug, a hug that I was held so tight in for such a brief moment that I felt myself being glued back together. We exchanged little words between us, and after my lips met his cheek once, and my mum wishing Isaac luck at the eye clinic that he had also forgot to mention to me about, our hands detached. “I’ll see you soon.” Isaac promised. “And I hope you get those bionic eyes, Isaac.” I spoke back to him, “because that new girl in support group has big tits.” I added, even though we both knew I hadn’t been to support group in over a month. His snort was enough for me in that moment as he shook his head at me, “You’re truly something Hazel Lancaster.” I watched Isaac, the one last person who knew Gus, who really knew how he actually hated basketball or the thought of oblivion, slowly fade from my life, my 10 was back stronger than ever, twisting and stabbing into my stomach as I made my way over to the car. “C’mon sweetheart, Dad’s got America’s Next Top Model on waiting for us.” - When you first get diagnosed with cancer, doctors and nurses tell you that washing your hands and not associating around those who are sick, are the golden rule of survival. Because if you get sick, it compromises your strength and immune system, it would cause a setback in treatment plans or scheduled operations. And if there is one thing I’ve learnt about having cancer, it’s that everyone has a schedule and it’s purely revolved around the patient and their health. The morning I woke up, or really got out of bed as I had spent most of the night crying into my worn and torn pillow or calling Gus’ mobile which was still connected, just so I could listen to the same 8 words I’d been hearing him speak for the last 3 months. My chest had held an ache in it, the same ache I felt when I lost my Augustus or when I thought about leaving my parents behind. It was the same ache I’d been carrying since the day I was diagnosed, however it had been very dull and easy to ignore up until Amsterdam. With mum having left a note saying she had gone out to get a few books she needed for her last year of course work and groceries, and that she loved me, I grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch with an Imperial Affliction tucked under my arm, and pulled my run down body outside. Nesting myself in on the grass, I let the morning sun bathe against my pale skin for a while before pulling the book to the chest and opening it. Flicking through the books worn pages, that were slowly tearing at the binding due to its overuse, I found my favourite passage I had highlighted just days before loaning the book to Augustus for the first time. Mr. Water had come to visit me a few weeks ago. He’d held a box in his hands and a sad smile on his face as I welcomed him into our house, however he declined my offer. “We finally went through Gus’ stuff.” I remember him telling me, the dark bags under his puffy eyes hold me he wasn’t coping well. “There were a few things we wanted you to have.” After he gave me the box, and asked how I was, he had disappeared down the driveway as quickly as he had arrived. Not once glancing back at me. The box held two objects. I picture frame of Augustus and I in the photo, smiling at each other before we left for dinner in Amsterdam, and his book. His favourite book. When I opened the front cover to breath in the scent his touch left on the pages, I noticed writing embedded in the cover with a black pen. Hazel Grace, I told my parents that this book was to go to you. Not because I want you to have something to remember me by, because we both know you’re too smart to forget me. I want you to have this book so you don’t forget how important, zombies, blood and guns are in the world of literature. You’re so beautiful I’ll never get tired of looking at you. Augustus. The day after I saw Mr. Waters, Dad told me they had left town. With no desire to return, and that they were moving up north to be with more of their family. I guess everyone was now moving on, trying to start a new life. It was about time I did. - About a week after Isaac’s departure, they found more Mets in my lungs and my existing ones had grown. The Phalanxifor had come to its end in working as my miracle and doctors had told me, told us, to prepare. That night, as I lay in bed listening to the cries of my parents from the bedroom across from mine, I pulled out my phone and called Augustus’ number. ‘Hey its Gus, tell me the low down.’ It took 5 more calls to his phone before I spoke it him. Or more like cried to him. Most of the time I called him I never spoke a word, I just listened to those 8 words and told myself that I was okay, that I was going to be okay. But when I did speak, it was to tell him that I loved him, or to cry to him. It seemed like forever ago that we had had our brief but still small infinite, when he gave me an infinite of days in our numbered ones. I felt like I was suffocating without him, that I couldn’t breathe. But really, that was my lungs sucking at being lungs. Augustus Waters was the last thing on my mind that night before I was finally overcome by sleep. A sleep that I would never truly wake up from again.