I sit at my bed looking at an old photo album. I look at the pictures of my parents wedding. They look so young, so happy. In the next page I see baby pictures of Cade and I. The next was of Cade and I when we were teens. The following page was a family photo of us teens sitting on the trunk of our car and our parents right beside us smiling. I thought those days were never going to end. The ending page has only Mom and I sitting at the front steps of our door. We didn't smile much that year. And I obviously don't anymore.
In the morning I walk to the mall and read in the small café. The book that girl gave me was called An Imperial Affliction. It is one of the saddest books I have ever read. While I am half way done with the third chapter some random person in a hood sits in the chair across from me. But it is not a random person. It is the girl from the hospital. She pulls down her hood. "So how's the book I gave you?"
"Good," I reply. "It's so sad!"
"Yeah. I really liked the author, Peter VanHouten, cuz he knows how dying feels but he hasn't actually died."
I glance at her oxygen tank. "So, I never got your name. All I got was initials."
"My name is Hazel Grace Lancaster. My boyfriends name was Augustus Waters."
"I'm Casey. Casey Johansen."
"So how is your Dad taking your family's loss?"
I sigh while laughing quietly. "My dad has been dead for about four years. And my brother, well, he's in prison."
"Oh my God! I am so sorry!"
"Well things do happen," I say looking down at my feet,"even if you don't want it to."
She stares at her fingers, tapping them on the cold, wood table.
"Would you like to come to my mom's funeral?" I ask. "Not many people will be there. I don't even know if anyone is coming so I was just wondering-."
"Yes Casey. I will definitely be there for you." I smile. No one has been there for me. Not since Mom died.
I tell her all the details; where it is, what time. Just that normal stuff. After, we go to my house and watch a movie. I feel different. I don't feel alone anymore. Hazel has led me out of the darkness.
YOU ARE READING
At Your Bedside
General Fiction(DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE FAULT IN OUR STARS! MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!) • I did not create the characters Hazel Grace Lancaster, Isaac, or Augustus Waters, neither made up the book An Imperial Affliction (found in the novel The Fault In Our...
