epilogue - the fault in our stars

The metaphorical footprint Gus left me when he inevitably disappeared like the rest of them was something that I had already set to be read at my funeral. My mom and dad did not encourage the idea of me planning my funeral early when I knew that it was coming upon me sooner than when my parents wanted me to go, when they were the ones buried under six-feet of soil under the soles of my shoes. I was written to die before them, it was forged into my DNA from the time I was thirteen and found out that I had cancer. My life is nothing but terminal. It ended in diagnosis and nothing else. Augustus was just someone who had tumbled upon my existence and marveled at it as if it was worthy of his observation, like I was the, or at least his, universe.

But I always knew as well that I would never grow old with Gus, even from the first 'Okay'. Don't misunderstand me, I still missed him and I still love him. I miss his stupid smile that was too big for his face and metaphorical actions that made me so tingly. But I shall reunited with Gus in quite a while, I can already feel the cancer ridiculing me after the deterioration of my health that had everything to do with Gus. I was so lucky, so goddamn lucky to have met him and love him and have him love me back the way he did. Sometimes I even still picture those water-blue eyes that stared at me in Support Group. Isaac had been doing okay, still no Monica, though. He didn't exactly care though, we played Counterinsurgence 2 everyday after classes.

Mom had forced me to eat but I would only hover over my plate and try to nibble something. Dad bought me movies and tried to watch America's Next Top Model with me but I would lock myself in and ignore them. I knew that it frustrated them, we lived in a thin walled home and their whispered conversations were easily heard. But grief, especially this kind, was something I had to deal with on my own. That sounded very teenager-y but it was a truth I stood by. I wanted to do something on my own. And this was the perfect opportunity.

I would sometimes just dial his number and hear the catharic voice I fell in love with and just listen to the empty silence that ensued after his recorded message telling whoever bothered to call him that he was not available. It struck me one day that he would never be available again. And that gutted me pretty badly.

You would probably say that I'm that unlucky girl whose boyfriend died of a cancer that ate at his heart and contaminated his bloodstream and bones but I am so much the opposite. I was so fortunate to have met him, gotten to know him, and love him. Yes, he was as broken as me and yes, we were wrote to die. But we didn't care and he made me forget, even if it was just for a few moments, that I was a whole.

I still carried the evidence of my sickness and it made me sort of think of how Gus looked like in capital S, Somewhere. But it was an imposibilty.

Thinking of that made me think of the preacher in Gus' funeral and how he said that Gus was now whole; as if he wasn't in the first place, as if a missing limb was a distinction of abnormality and inhumaness. They say that star crossed lovers were such an exciting prospect, but let me tell you, it sucked when the stars that ought to have aligned for you crossed instead. But it is in the nature of stars to cross. Ours crossed so badly. So so badly.

I bought the new album of The Hectic Glow and usually played it whenever I felt like disturbing the peace of Indiana. His parents gave me the Smits jersey he wore to Funky Bones and I could catch his smell in weird bursts but never quite inhaled it as if he were actually here.

But like what my mother said, it was still possible to live with pain. So I did.

"...I've been poked and stabbed and poisoned for years and yet I still trod on. But make no mistake; in that moment, I would have been very happy to die."