The Fault in Our Stars.
Chapter twenty-one (Augustus’s death) rewritten/Edited.
Eight days later, after Augustus’s prefuneral I got a phone call. It was at three thirty in the morning. My eyes fling open, and went wide. Every single time my phone went off I was terrified that it was the bad news. That the cancer that made up Gus’s body had finally stopped his heart. My eye lids were still heavy. I could feel some sleep in my tear ducts. The phone buzzed on, vibrating on the table. I could feel my hand shaking. Fear and anxiety had taken over my body. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to hear that one of the most important things in my world was gone. Gone forever. But I had to be because that was the cruel reality of it all. Reality was that Gus and I were going to die very very young.
I finally lifted my hand up. I turned the front up so I could see the screen. Like always, the light of the phone burnt my eyes at night so I had to squint to see the caller I.D It was Gus’s mom. At that moment, everything inside of me collapsed. My worst nightmare had come true. I knew what this meant and there was no telling myself that it wasn’t it. If it was Gus he would have rang me himself. But it wasn’t. It was his mom. With a trembling bottom lip I pressed the answer button.
She was just crying on the other end of the line, she told me she was sorry and I told her that I was sorry too, and she told me that he was unconscious for a couple of hours before he died. The cancer which was made up of him, finally stopped his heart, which was also made of him.
At that point, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but rethink every single last moment I’ve had with Gus. The majority of them were happy. And happy is word that a cancer patient would use sparingly. Gus and I were different. We didn’t delve and linger in our sickness. We knew the odds but we never dared to embrace them. Not that much. But of course there were times. Life was so hard. I could feel the tears trickling down my face then. Pictures pushed themselves and released themselves from my mind. When I caught that boy staring at me in support group. When we went to his place to watch that movie together. When Isaac went bananas at Gus’s place over Monica and Gus just encouraged him to break his things to let his anger out. The laid-backness of it all. Then my thoughts went deeper. To when he brought me to the park behind the museum where we met the skeleton Funky Bones he told me he was using his wish to go Amsterdam. That little speech he gave replayed in my mind. As did the build up to the trip. I spent a while thinking about when he first said the three words to me. “I love you” How he held me when we got rejected by Peter Van Houten. How we just sat on the bench overlooking the beauty of Amsterdam. How I told him I had loved him too... and how we had made love in the hotel room that night. It made me smile a bit how it wasn’t awkward after that. I even felt witty enough to leave that Venn diagram for him. It was stupid to think of all these things, but my mind forced it. My stupid mind forced me to think of the build up to his death. How sick he was and how terrible he looked. How he was in the car when he rang me, covered in his own vomit. I hated this fact. But at the same time I loved it. The fact that my short bitter sweet life with Augustus Waters would replay in my mind as much as it wanted to until I died.
My own feelings and thoughts had washed over me so much that I didn’t even notice mom and dad standing in my doorway looking expectant. I knew that I didn’t even have to tell them. I was in a state. My hair was everywhere from just being asleep but my eyes were red and poufy, my cheeks tear stained. More tears kept trickling down my face and I didn’t even bother to wipe them off. I just let them drip off my chin and onto the bed clothes below. Both sets of eyes were on me. I could feel them. So I just gave a small nod. They fell into each other. Dads strong arms wrapped around moms small crying form. I could hear mom sobbing. She was quite fond of Augustus. I knew that. Dad just held his love and in that moment, it was like nothing could realize mom from dad’s mighty embrace of love. I knew Gus didn’t want to let go. He wanted to hold onto all the things he loved for as long as he could. But cancer had stomped on his fingers as he dangled from the cliff. It stomped on his fingers until they were purple and bleeding, and Gus had to let go.
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