Mending the Broken Stars

Mending the Broken Stars

by Sydney Theodakis and Lania Thanasiki

Chapter 1

Since Gus's death four months ago nothing is the same. Some might think that since we were only together three months, why not just move on? Get back to live as you knew it? Well the answer to that is simple. Gus and I didn't break up. He died. This wasn't a choice, or a decision. What we had was completely total and inevitable love and I believe we would have been together for a long time if life hadn't gotten in the way. Now no matter what I do, I imagine how much better it would be if Gus were here doing it with me. I'm okay. Maybe I'm not.

I'm lying on the couch in the TV room when I hear a knock on the door. "I'll get it!" my mother shouts from the kitchen. I crane my neck around the wall to see who it is, and I smile when I discover its Isaac. My mom exchanges a quick greeting with him, then guides him to where I lie on the murky brown couch that my parents have had since they bought their first apartment. "Hey Isaac." I say sitting up to leave room next to me. "Hey" For a few minutes we sit there in silence, listening to my mom bustle around in the kitchen. "Do you want to watch...listen to a movie?" I sense him tense beside me and immediately feel bad for making him feel like a minority. "Sorry." The corners of his mouth go up and I look at him quizzically. "It's fine. That's just what Gus would always say. Not let's watch a movie, but let's listen to a movie. Every time when the movie was over, he told me he closed his eyes because we were listening to a movie, not watching one." I laugh, and allow myself to remember that first day I ever saw Gus, when he asked me to watch, not listen, to a movie at his house. It was V for Vendetta. He said I reminded him of a millennial Natalie Portman. Although I'm really not pretty enough for that kind of comparison, I was flattered. I walk over to the movie cabinet and select the Matrix from our collection, remembering that it was Isaac's favorite movie. My mom brings us popcorn and I guide Isaac's hand into the bowl. "Isaac?" I say leaning my head against his shoulder. "What's up?" A single tear slides down my cheek. "I'm sorry about Gus." He puts his arm around me and we just sit there eating popcorn and listening to the movie(Me with my eyes closed) after a while he whispers. "Me too."

Chapter 2:

During the movie, I feel asleep in Isaac's arms. I've been constantly exhausted lately; it's been hard to keep my eyes open. In some ways, I'm afraid. Afraid that I'm going to die, that all these little aches, and pains and fatigues are all leading up to the bigger picture. I mean, I know I'm going to die someday, someday in the near future. I've accepted the fact that I'm terminal, that I can't be cured, but sometimes I just wish I could go back, and I just think why me?, what did I do to deserve all this pain. It got worse after Gus left. Before him, I was that girl who had to drop out of school because of her terminal cancer that would kill her eventually. I was the girl who had to breathe through a freaking tube and carry around an oxygen tank. Everyone pitied me and thought of me not as who I am, what I liked, what I cared about, but as the girl who's dying. Then Gus came along. And I was still all those things, but Gus didn't think as me as dying. He thought I was beautiful, and smart, and he cared about my hobbies, my passions, my weird fetishes. He loved me for who I was. Not my cancer. I was finally understood. Now I'm back to that sad cancer girl, but now I get to tack on Gus dying to the end of the list.

I sit up on the couch and smile apologetically at Isaac before remembering that he can't see me.

"Sorry, you could have woken me up you know." He rearranges himself on the couch.

"I wouldn't do that Hazel, you need sleep, and I can see it every day." I choke back a breath.

"Yeah, I feel it." And in that moment I realize how truly alone Isaac will be when I'm gone. Not that I'm great company, but it was Gus and him, then I got added to the picture, then Gus got taken away and now... It's not something I like thinking about. "Hey Isaac" I say taking his hand in mine. "When I'm gone..." He looks at where he knows I'm sitting and shakes his head.