The Fault in Our Stars

CHAPTER NINE
T
he day before we left for Amsterdam, I went back to Support Group for the first time
since meeting Augustus. The cast had rotated a bit down there in the Literal Heart of
Jesus. I arrived early, enough time for perennially strong appendiceal cancer survivor Lida
to bring me up-to-date on everyone as I ate a grocery-store chocolate chip cookie while
leaning against the dessert table.
Twelve-year-old leukemic Michael had passed away. He’d fought hard, Lida told me,
as if there were another way to fight. Everyone else was still around. Ken was NEC after
radiation. Lucas had relapsed, and she said it with a sad smile and a little shrug, the way
you might say an alcoholic had relapsed.
A cute, chubby girl walked over to the table and said hi to Lida, then introduced
herself to me as Susan. I didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she had a scar
extending from the side of her nose down her lip and across her cheek. She had put
makeup over the scar, which only served to emphasize it. I was feeling a little out of
breath from all the standing, so I said, “I’m gonna go sit,” and then the elevator opened,
revealing Isaac and his mom. He wore sunglasses and clung to his mom’s arm with one
hand, a cane in the other.
“Support Group Hazel not Monica,” I said when he got close enough, and he smiled
and said, “Hey, Hazel. How’s it going?”
“Good. I’ve gotten really hot since you went blind.”
“I bet,” he said. His mom led him to a chair, kissed the top of his head, and shuffled
back toward the elevator. He felt around beneath him and then sat. I sat down in the chair
next to him. “So how’s it going?”
“Okay. Glad to be home, I guess. Gus told me you were in the ICU?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Sucks,” he said.
“I’m a lot better now,” I said. “I’m going to Amsterdam tomorrow with Gus.”
“I know. I’m pretty well up-to-date on your life, because Gus never. Talks. About.
Anything. Else.”
I smiled. Patrick cleared his throat and said, “If we could all take a seat?” He caught
my eye. “Hazel!” he said. “I’m so glad to see you!”
Everyone sat and Patrick began his retelling of his ball-lessness, and I fell into the
routine of Support Group: communicating through sighs with Isaac, feeling sorry for
everyone in the room and also everyone outside of it, zoning out of the conversation to
focus on my breathlessness and the aching. The world went on, as it does, without my full