The Fault in Our Stars: Epilouge

Chapter Six

The doctors give me sympathetic looks but they don't know how it feels to feel so useless. It's embarrassing that I can't eat, speak, or even go to the bathroom on my own.

I used to always say that it wouldn't get this bad, that I would never end up like this. When I was thirteen and beginning my first stages of cancer I used to believe that I would get better in a couple years at the absolute maximum. In fact, I didn't even tell anyone right away at school, not even who I thought were my closest friends--who ditched me when they found out I was "different"--because I was so confident that it was just going to 'blow over' and I would be "normal" again. And yet here I am laying in this hospital bed three years later, worse than before, and trying not to think of all the people that died in this bed before me. Would I soon add to this list of casualties?

The drugs that the doctors provide seem to not be working as well as before, almost like I'm developing a resistance. I can't imagine how it can get any worse. I find myself forgetting how my own voice sounds, and even what I look like. Are these normal side effects for someone who's dying?

Slowly my memories are getting fuzzier and fuzzier, memories that used to be so clear now have parts missing to them. Even my best memories, with Augustus. I break down thinking about this, crying seems like the only thing left that I can do. Please, please don't let me forget Augustus. Then I black out.