An empathy passage through Hazel Grace’s(Character in ‘The Fault In our Stars’) mind after she reads Augustus Water’s letter:
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I know he can’t hear me but there was a comfort in saying those words that made it seem like I was next to him. Like we were in that third space no one else could get to.
I was relieved to finally read it, I couldn’t tell if I was mad at him for sending it to Van Houten and not me or if I found it strangely romantic and poetic that he did.
I read it over again, he really would have been a spectacular writer, the way he described me as if i was an angel or something, saying I ‘walked lightly on the earth’. It was fascinating to see how much he seemed to know about me. Like Gus could could see through me like glass.
Like Augustus Waters could see through me like glass. Oh there it is. What has been bugging me for the past few months. Augustus or Gus? I didn’t know what to call him anymore. Augustus Waters was my charming and handsome hero and Gus was… well Augustus deep down. His true self. In a way his more vulnerable and weak side the one he liked to keep to himself. My mind raced with indecisiveness. I wanted to call him Gus, since that would mean I could see through him like glass but I know he would prefer to leave his mark on the world as the mysterious, charming and alluring, Augustus Waters rather than Gus. There we go then. Augustus could see through me like glass.
Was that the eighth time I read the letter? It could have even been my twelve. I read it over again and over again. It’s not like I had anything better to do. Every time I read it, I came to a new understanding. This wasn’t a love letter declaring how he felt, it was in it’s own special way; a eulogy. A way of saying goodbye to me rather than a letter about admiration.
It didn’t make me particularly sad, it didn’t make me happy either. In fact it just filled up a small pit of emptiness inside of me that was there since I realized papers were missing from his notebook. I guess you could say that i felt ‘fulfilled’. Kind of like I had no fears. no regrets, no passion , no love, no pain. I just fully accepted whatever was out there, whatever I am. I felt everything yet nothing.
A small longing to call him crept up on me. I wanted hear him on his voicemail but I wasn’t in the mood to cry. I ended up just listening to The Hectic Glow’s album for an hour while reading the letter over again.
After losing count of the multiple times I read it, I’m pretty sure I could recite it like a poem. So I did, and every sentence that left my mouth awakened a part of my mind that seem to know everything.
I suddenly knew the answers to everything. Even the ending to An Imperial Affliction and I accepted it. I was okay with not knowing the ending to it. To me.To my life. I was okay with all of it.
I was Okay.
