The Fault in Our Stars(38)

“It’s not my funeral suit,” he said after a while. “When I first found out I was sick—I mean, they told me I had like an eighty-five percent chance of cure. I know those are great odds, but I kept thinking it was a game of Russian roulette. I mean, I was going to have to go through hell for six months or a year and lose my leg and then at the end, it still might not work, you know?”

“I know,” I said, although I didn’t, not really. I’d never been anything but terminal; all my treatment had been in pursuit of extending my life, not curing my cancer. Phalanxifor had introduced a measure of ambiguity to my cancer story, but I was different from Augustus: My final chapter was written upon diagnosis. Gus, like most cancer survivors, lived with uncertainty.

“Right,” he said. “So I went through this whole thing about wanting to be ready. We bought a plot in Crown Hill, and I walked around with my dad one day and picked out a spot. And I had my whole funeral planned out and everything, and then right before the surgery, I asked my parents if I could buy a suit, like a really nice suit, just in case I bit it. Anyway, I’ve never had occasion to wear it. Until tonight.”

“So it’s your death suit.”

“Correct. Don’t you have a death outfit?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a dress I bought for my fifteenth birthday party. But I don’t wear it on dates.”

His eyes lit up. “We’re on a date?” he asked.

I looked down, feeling bashful. “Don’t push it.”



We were both really full, but dessert—a succulently rich crémeux surrounded by passion fruit—was too good not to at least nibble, so we lingered for a while over dessert, trying to get hungry again. The sun was a toddler insistently refusing to go to bed: It was past eight thirty and still light.

Out of nowhere, Augustus asked, “Do you believe in an afterlife?”

“I think forever is an incorrect concept,” I answered.

He smirked. “You’re an incorrect concept.”

“I know. That’s why I’m being taken out of the rotation.”

“That’s not funny,” he said, looking at the street. Two girls passed on a bike, one riding sidesaddle over the back wheel.

“Come on,” I said. “That was a joke.”

“The thought of you being removed from the rotation is not funny to me,” he said. “Seriously, though: afterlife?”

“No,” I said, and then revised. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t go so far as no. You?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice full of confidence. “Yes, absolutely. Not like a heaven where you ride unicorns, play harps, and live in a mansion made of clouds. But yes. I believe in Something with a capital S. Always have.”

“Really?” I asked. I was surprised. I’d always associated belief in heaven with, frankly, a kind of intellectual disengagement. But Gus wasn’t dumb.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I believe in that line from An Imperial Affliction. ‘The risen sun too bright in her losing eyes.’ That’s God, I think, the rising sun, and the light is too bright and her eyes are losing but they aren’t lost. I don’t believe we return to haunt or comfort the living or anything, but I think something becomes of us.”

“But you fear oblivion.”

“Sure, I fear earthly oblivion. But, I mean, not to sound like my parents, but I believe humans have souls, and I believe in the conservation of souls. The oblivion fear is something else, fear that I won’t be able to give anything in exchange for my life. If you don’t live a life in service of a greater good, you’ve gotta at least die a death in service of a greater good, you know? And I fear that I won’t get either a life or a death that means anything.”

I just shook my head.

“What?” he asked.

“Your obsession with, like, dying for something or leaving behind some great sign of your heroism or whatever. It’s just weird.”

“Everyone wants to lead an extraordinary life.”

“Not everyone,” I said, unable to disguise my annoyance.

“Are you mad?”

“It’s just,” I said, and then couldn’t finish my sentence. “Just,” I said again. Between us flickered the candle. “It’s really mean of you to say that the only lives that matter are the ones that are lived for something or die for something. That’s a really mean thing to say to me.”

I felt like a little kid for some reason, and I took a bite of dessert to make it appear like it was not that big of a deal to me. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just thinking about myself.”

“Yeah, you were,” I said. I was too full to finish. I worried I might puke, actually, because I often puked after eating. (Not bulimia, just cancer.) I pushed my dessert plate toward Gus, but he shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, reaching across the table for my hand. I let him take it. “I could be worse, you know.”

“How?” I asked, teasing.

“I mean, I have a work of calligraphy over my toilet that reads, ‘Bathe Yourself Daily in the Comfort of God’s Words,’ Hazel. I could be way worse.”

“Sounds unsanitary,” I said.