The Fault In Our Stars: Alternate Ending

 ****Please enjoy the alternate ending. First written in Hazel's point of view.  Then written in Augustus's point of veiw

The Fault In Our Stars

Hazel

I couldn’t understand why Peter Van Houten could be such a fraud.  In his letters he sounded so distinguished, but instead he was a filthy alcoholic who moved to Amsterdam after writing his one and only book.  I had written and rewritten letters until finally he reply’s to invite me to visit him in Amsterdam so I can learn the unheard ending to AIA.  So Augustus and I choose to go, then coming back to finding myself in a hospital bed once again.

As I thought before, I am a grenade.  I will go off and crush Gus’s heart along with his feelings.  I am stuck in this hospital bed with a tube in my chest that is trying to suck out the endless flood of cancer water in my lungs.  It is hard to breath and I am sick of the pain.  God hasn’t decided weather he should put me out of my misery or not.

I awkwardly shift so I can see Gus behind my mother’s shoulder.  He is sitting in the hospital room chair with an unlit cigarette in between his teeth.  I smile the best I can.  He replies with my favorite crooked grin and tears in his eyes.

I feel an extremely sharp ache of pain by my heart.  I start to feel over exhausted.  I struggle to keep my eyes open.  I can faintly feel the outline of the tube in my chest.  I sense my lungs searching for the oxygen I can’t find.  I quickly sit up in a jerk, hyperventilating as I do.  Dad and Augustus both stride over towards the bed.  A doctor joins my family in the room and tells me to lay down.  I do.  My lungs continue searching for air, pulling me in.

The beeping of the heart monitor slowly gets longer.  I close my eyes feeling some relief.

“Thank you, for every thing.”  I say looking at Augustus with squinted eyes.

The high pitch whir goes into an almost continuos harmony, getting interrupted by small pauses of silence.  All of my pain leaves.

Augustus

I stand up seeing there are multiple eyes staring at me.  I walk to the front of the church ready to read my prewritten epilogue.  I stand at the elevated pedestal and read,

“‘Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death.  We all want to be remembered. I do, too.  That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.

I want to leave a mark.

But the marks humans leave are too often scars.  You build a hideous mini mall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, ‘They’ll remember me now,’ but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars.

Hazel walks lightly upon the earth.  She knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, we’re not likely to do either.

People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely.  But it’s not sad. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism?

The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.

What else?  She is beautiful. You never get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is.  She is humorous without ever being mean (Green 310).’

I hope she knows her mom is a wonderful ‘Patrick’ (support group leader) and in AIA Anna’s mom does end up marrying the Dutch tulip man, but he isn’t a fake.  She probably is currently in heaven hoping she could have said good bye to all of you. Thank You.”  I step down from the pedestal after noticing everyone in the church is weeping.  I still can’t believe I am at Hazel Grace’s funeral.