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I drove Augustus’s car home with Augustus riding shotgun. He played me a couple songs he liked by a band called The Hectic Glow, and they were good songs, but because I didn’t know them already, they weren’t as good to me as they were to him. I kept glancing over at his leg, or the place where his leg had been, trying to imagine what the fake leg looked like. I didn’t want to care about it, but I did a little. He probably cared about my oxygen. Illness repulses. I’d learned that a long time ago, and I suspected Augustus had, too.
As I pulled up outside of my house, Augustus clicked the radio off. The air thickened. He was probably thinking about kissing me, and I was definitely thinking about kissing him. Wondering if I wanted to. I’d kissed boys, but it had been a while. Pre-Miracle.
I put the car in park and looked over at him. He really was beautiful. I know boys aren’t supposed to be, but he was.
“Hazel Grace,” he said, my name new and better in his voice. “It has been a real pleasure to make your acquaintance. ”
“Ditto, Mr. Waters,” I said. I felt shy looking at him. I could not match the intensity of his waterblue eyes.
“May I see you again?” he asked. There was an endearing nervousness in his voice.
I smiled. “Sure. ”
“Tomorrow?” he asked.
“Patience, grasshopper,” I counseled. “You don’t want to seem overeager. ”
“Right, that’s why I said tomorrow,” he said. “I want to see you again tonight. But I’m willing to wait all night and much of tomorrow. ” I rolled my eyes. “I’m serious,” he said.
“You don’t even know me,” I said. I grabbed the book from the center console. “How about I call you when I finish this?”
“But you don’t even have my phone number,” he said.
“I strongly suspect you wrote it in the book. ”
He broke out into that goofy smile. “And you say we don’t know each other. ”
CHAPTER THREE
I stayed up pretty late that night reading The Price of Dawn. (Spoiler alert: The price of dawn is blood. ) It wasn’t An Imperial Affliction, but the protagonist, Staff Sergeant Max Mayhem, was vaguely likable despite killing, by my count, no fewer than 118 individuals in 284 pages.
So I got up late the next morning, a Thursday. Mom’s policy was never to wake me up, because one of the job requirements of Professional Sick Person is sleeping a lot, so I was kind of confused at first when I jolted awake with her hands on my shoulders.
“It’s almost ten,” she said.
“Sleep fights cancer,” I said. “I was up late reading. ”
“It must be some book,” she said as she knelt down next to the bed and unscrewed me from my large, rectangular oxygen concentrator, which I called Philip, because it just kind of looked like a Philip.
Mom hooked me up to a portable tank and then reminded me I had class. “Did that boy give it to you?” she asked out of nowhere.
“By it, do you mean herpes?”
“You are too much,” Mom said. “The book, Hazel. I mean the book. ”
“Yeah, he gave me the book. ”
“I can tell you like him,” she said, eyebrows raised, as if this observation required some uniquely maternal instinct. I shrugged. “I told you Support Group would be worth your while. ”
“Did you just wait outside the entire time?”
“Yes. I brought some paperwork. Anyway, time to face the day, young lady. ”
“Mom. Sleep. Cancer. Fighting. ”
“I know, love, but there is class to attend. Also, today is . . . ” The glee in Mom’s voice was evident.
“Thursday?”
