Love is Blind (A Tfios Fanfiction)

Love is Blind Chapter 1

  A few days after Augustus' funeral, I was lying on the sofa, thinking about why Gus had to die, and not me. He didn't deserve it. He had people who loved him. He had Hazel.
Mom had just taken Graham to see some stupid kid's movie, based on retro video games.
"Everyone knows movies about video games suck", I tried to tell my Mom. In all honesty, I think I just wanted someone to keep me company.
Fortunately, someone knocked on my door a little after Mom and Graham had left. I could sense it was Hazel; the sound of her oxygen machine and rattled breathing, the smell of her coconut shampoo.
"My Mom took Graham to a movie", I said.
"We should do something".
"Can the something be play blind guy video games while sitting on the couch?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's just the kind of something I have in mind."
We sat and played counterinsurgence for next two hours, trying to navigate the labyrinth. But it wasn't the same without Gus, sacrificing himself, dying in heroic, romantic ways. I could tell Hazel was thinking the same thing, so we tried to amuse ourselves.

Hazel: "Touch the cave wall."
Computer: "You touch the cave wall. It is moist."
Me: "Lick the cave wall."
Computer: "I do not understand. Repeat?"
Hazel: "Hump the moist cave wall."
Computer: "You attempt to jump. You hit your head."
Me: "Not jump. HUMP."
Computer: "I don't understand."
Me: "Dude, I've been alone in the dark in this cave for weeks and I need some relief. HUMP THE CAVE WALL."
Computer: "You attempt to ju-"
Hazel: "Thrust pelvis against the cave wall."
Computer: "I do not-"
Me: "Make sweet love to the cave."
Computer: I do not-"
Hazel: "FINE. Follow left branch."
Computer: "You follow left branch. The passage narrows."
Hazel: "Crawl."
Computer: "You crawl for One hundred yards. The passage narrows."
Hazel: "Snake Crawl."
Computer: "You snake crawl for thirty yards. A trickle of water runs down your body. You reach a mound of small rocks blocking the passage way."
Hazel: "Can I hump the cave now?"
Computer: "You cannot jump without standing."
Me: "I dislike living in a world without Augustus Waters."
Computer: "I don't understand-"
Me: "Me neither. Pause."

I dropped the remote onto the couch between Hazel and I. I was silent before a moment, before asking, "Do you know if it hurt or whatever?"
I was worried about what the answer was going to be. Hazel knows what it's like to be dying, unlike me. My cancer was never really life threatening.
"He was really fighting for breath, I guess." She said. "He eventually went unconscious, but it sounds like, yeah, it wasn't great or anything. Dying sucks."
"Yeah," I said. Not that I really knew. I knew all to well what it was like to be in pain and feel like you're dying, but not to actually know I'm going to die for ages beforehand. I sighed. "It just seems so impossible."
"Happens all the time," She said, as if I didn't know.
"You seem angry," I observed.
"Yeah." I listened to the sound her breathing. I wished I could see her eyes, which I assumed were hazel. It must've been why Mr and Mrs Lancaster named her Hazel. I could just tell from the tension in the air, she was thinking about Gus. I knew Gus would be thinking of her from heaven, or wherever he was.
"Gus really loved you, you know," I told her.
"I know."
"He wouldn't shut up about it," I smiled.
"I know."
"It was annoying," I said, breaking into a grin, remembering the good times.
"I didn't find it that annoying," She said.
"Did he ever give you that thing he was writing?"
"What thing?"
"That sequel or whatever to that book you liked."
She shuffled in her seat, most likely turning to face me. Her voice was full of hope and excitement.
"What?"
"He was working on something for you but he wasn't that good of writer."
"When did he say this?"
I sighed. "I don't know. Like, after he got back from Amsterdam at some point."
"At which point?" She pressed. I had no idea, but I could tell it meant a lot to her.
"Um... Um, I don't know. We talked about it over here, like, uh, we played with my email machine, I'd just got an email from my Grandmother. (We made her have a sexy Latin man's voice. It was hilarious.) I can check the machine if you-" She agreed straight away, but there was nothing there, so she left for the Waters' house.
I listened in her direction as she walked off to her parents' minivan,I could hear her open the door and climb in. Just as I was about to turn around and close the door, I heard a blaring sound, a rap music in a foreign language. I didn't think Hazel or her parents had that taste in music, but how was I to know, so I shook it off.
Mom came back with Graham not long after, and made me dinner. Nowadays, I can barely make myself toast, or put a ready-meal in the microwave. To be honest, I wasn't the greatest chef in the old days.
I remembered receiving a D in my last Home Ec class. I mixed the sugar with salt one to many times.
I last went to school 6 months before. I didn't have the best of vision back then, seeing as I only had one eye, but at least I could see.
Senior year was to begin in a month, it was July 12th.
I decided to speak to my Mom about this matter.
"I want to go to school," I announced to my Mom over dinner. I could hear Graham snicker, and Mom sigh.
"We've been over this, Isaac. It's going to be very hard for you back at IBHS-" began Mom.
"Well, I'll go to Redwood!" Redwood was the other high school in the area, a 5 minutes walk away from Memorial.
The kids there weren't really friends with the IBHS kids, but at that point I didn't really care.
"Why can't you just wait til College?" Mom asked. "You've already been accepted to Lincoln."
"I want to go to school," I whined.
Mom sighed. "If that's really what you want..."

Three days later, Eleven days after Gus died, I got a phone call.
I was in the kitchen with a tutor from Redwood at the time.
I hurried around trying to find my cell phone.
"Where is it?" I cried. The tutor handed it to me.
"This is the type of thing we have to work on," she said.
I shook my head and answered the phone.
"Hi, Isaac here, speaking?"
"Support group Hazel not Monica," a voice said. "I'm coming to pick you up in 5 minutes."
I quickly agreed and put on some cologne. There was a new girl in support group who had a very attractive voice, and I wanted to impress her. I think I went a little overboard with the perfume because Graham kindly pointed out that I stunk.
"Screw off," I told him, then my Mom took me out to the minivan.
The Hectic Glow's new album, which was leaked 3 weeks early was playing at full volume. If I had eyes, I think I would've be crying. Gus would never be able to hear it.
Hazel told me that Mr and Mrs Waters had found a notebook with missing pages in the magazine rack beside Gus' hospital bed. She thought it might be at the Literal Heart of Jesus, maybe left there on the day of the Pre-Funeral.
We took the elevator. Hazel guided me towards a seat it The Circle of Trust. I didn't resist, as much as I wanted to.
For Twenty minutes, I sat in silence, listening to Hazel's struggled breathing and cursing when she didn't find any evidence of the sequel.
She sat down next to me, clearly out of breath, when the teenagers of varied stages of illness began to file in. I could hear the Attractive Voiced Girl talking to Lida, whose voiced I recognized.
Patrick recounted his tale of ballessness for the thousandth time, before talking about Gus.
"I'm sorry to inform you that our dear friend Augustus Waters died after a lengthy battle with cancer just over a week ago." No, I thought,, he died after a lengthy battle with human consciousness. I laughed a little. That was something Gus himself had said, not that I really understood.
Patrick then began talking to Hazel, asking how she was doing.
"I wish I would just die, Patrick. Do you ever wish you could just die?" Asked Hazel.
I thought about how Hazel was going to die, in the near future, and when her lungs did, inevitably stop working, I would, as selfish as it sounds, have no friends.
Suddenly, Hazel asked me to talk. I stood up and began talking about True Love. I have no idea why, maybe because of Hazel and Gus, maybe because of Mom and Dad, maybe because of Monica and I.
"I believe what Hazel and Gus had was love. Not lust, or fancy, but true, pure, love. And I thought, a few months ago, that I was in love. But then I was a part of Hazel and Gus' love story and knew, whatever I had with Mon-Monica was not true love. It's pretty difficult when two of your best friends are in love. Thank God I was blind and didn't have to witness it." That earned a nervous laugh. I heard Attractive Voiced Girl's laugh, not at all how I thought it would sound. It was loud and happy, like Father Christmas' or something.
"But, no, I do believe in true love. But I don't want to fall in love without Gus. Because I want to annoy the hell out of him he did to me about Hazel."
I sat down then, letting someone else speak. Nor I or Hazel spoke for the rest of the session, until she took me to the car.
The rest of the month was a flurry of getting me nicer clothes, notebooks, pens, and these terrible pair of shoes and learning to be blind. I couldn't see then, of course, but I could feel the awful shape of them.
Sometimes I'm glad I'm blind, but then I remember how hard the rest of my life is going to be, then go back to wishing I could see again.