The Fault In Our Stars Part 23

"Sorry, yeah, what?"

"Mom suggested we go see Gus?"

"Oh. Yeah," I said.

So after lunch, we drove down to Crown Hill Cemetery, the last and final resting place of three vice presidents, one president, and Augustus Waters. We drove up the hill and parked. Cars roared by behind us on Thiry-eighth Street. It was easy to find his grave: It was the newest. The earth was still mounded above his coffin. No headstone yet.

I didn't feel like he was there or anything, but I still took one of Mom's dumb little French flags and stuck it in the ground at the foot of his grave. Maybe pa.s.sersby would think he was a member of the French Foreign Legion or some heroic mercenary.

Lidewij finally wrote back just after six P.M. while I was on the couch watching both TV and videos on my laptop. I saw immediately there were four attachments to the email and I wanted to open them first, but I resisted temptation and read the email.

Dear Hazel, Peter was very intoxicated when we arrived at his house this morning, but this made our job somewhat easier. Bas (my boyfriend) distracted him while I searched through the garbage bag Peter keeps with the fan mail in it, but then I realized that Augustus knew Peter's address. There was a large pile of mail on his dining room table, where I found the letter very quickly. I opened it and saw that it was addressed to Peter, so I asked him to read it.

He refused.

At this point, I became very angry, Hazel, but I did not yell at him. Instead, I told him that he owed it to his dead daughter to read this letter from a dead boy, and I gave him the letter and he read the entire thing and said-I quote him directly-"Send it to the girl and tell her I have nothing to add."

I have not read the letter, although my eyes did fall on some phrases while scanning the pages. I have attached them here and then will mail them to you at your home; your address is the same?

May G.o.d bless and keep you, Hazel.

Your friend, Lidewij Vliegenthart I clicked open the four attachments. His handwriting was messy, slanting across the page, the size of the letters varying, the color of the pen changing. He'd written it over many days in varying degrees of consciousness.

Van Houten, I'm a good person but a s.h.i.tty writer. You're a s.h.i.tty person but a good writer. We'd make a good team. I don't want to ask you any favors, but if you have time-and from what I saw, you have plenty-I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I've got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently.

Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.

I want to leave a mark.

But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.

(Okay, maybe I'm not such a s.h.i.tty writer. But I can't pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic p.i.s.s, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop p.i.s.sing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless-epically useless in my current state-but I am an animal like any other.

Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.

People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.

The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox.

After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die before I could tell her that I was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.

A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren't allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, "She's still taking on water." A desert blessing, an ocean curse.

What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.

I do, Augustus.

I do.

Click here for more books from this author.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

The author would like to acknowledge: That disease and its treatment are treated fict.i.tiously in this novel. For example, there is no such thing as Phalanxifor. I made it up, because I would like for it to exist. Anyone seeking an actual history of cancer ought to read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I am also indebted to The Biology of Cancer by Robert A. Weinberg, and to Josh Sundquist, Marshall Urist, and Jonneke Hollanders, who shared their time and expertise with me on medical matters, which I cheerfully ignored when it suited my whims.

Esther Earl, whose life was a gift to me and to many. I am grateful also to the Earl family-Lori, Wayne, Abby, Angie, Grant, and Abe-for their generosity and friendship. Inspired by Esther, the Earls have founded a nonprofit, This Star Won't Go Out, in her memory. You can learn more at tswgo.org.

The Dutch Literature Foundation, for giving me two months in Amsterdam to write. I'm particularly grateful to Fleur van Koppen, Jean Cristophe Boele van Hensbroek, Janetta de With, Carlijn van Ravenstein, Margje Scheepsma, and the Dutch nerdfighter community.

My editor and publisher, Julie Strauss-Gabel, who stuck with this story through many years of twists and turns, as did an extraordinary team at Penguin. Particular thanks to Rosanne Lauer, Deborah Kaplan, Liza Kaplan, Steve Meltzer, Nova Ren Suma, and Irene Vandervoort.

Ilene Cooper, my mentor and fairy G.o.dmother.

My agent, Jodi Reamer, whose sage counsel has saved me from countless disasters.

Nerdfighters, for being awesome.

Cat.i.tude, for wanting nothing more than to make the world suck less.

My brother, Hank, who is my best friend and closest collaborator.

My wife, Sarah, who is not only the great love of my life but also my first and most trusted reader. Also, the baby, Henry, to whom she gave birth. Furthermore, my own parents, Mike and Sydney Green, and parents-in-law, Connie and Marshall Urist.

My friends Chris and Marina Waters, who helped with this story at vital moments, as did Joellen Hosler, Shannon James, Vi Hart, the Venn diagramatically brilliant Karen Kavett, Valerie Barr, Rosianna Halse Rojas, and John Darnielle.

ALSO BY JOHN GREEN.

Looking for Alaska.

An Abundance of Katherines.

Paper Towns.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

WITH DAVID LEVITHAN.