Elizabeth: hope you'll be running with the pack tonight!! We miss you:(
Me: Not likely.
"What is it?" I was staring at my phone but I look up to meet his sparkly green eyes. I shake my head and slip my phone back into my sweater pocket.
"This is my first full moon without my pack, I'm not sure if I should be excited or terrified," I say honestly and stare at the floor.
"You won't be alone, I'll stay with you all night to make sure your okay," he said it as he grabbed one of my hands. I flinch and pulled away, I don't do well with physical contact.
"You'd do that?" I asked him curiously and furrowed my eyebrows. Why would he go out of his way to do that for me?
He nods simply and says, "It's my job," like he rehearsed saying that to dozens of other people.
Why the hell does he do that? It really pisses me off. At one point it seems like he cares about me and the next, I feel like he's only pretending because it's his job. Dammit why do I even care? It's not like he does.
"Well then, come back at 8 tonight since it's only your job you don't need to be here right now. I think I'll take a nap anyways to recharge," I say harshly with a cold expression. I walk over to the coat rack and grab his already dry jean jacket and toss it on his lap.
"Thanks but I'd rather watch over you while you sleep, it is my job to protect you, you know." Oh my God, like I need protecting, I'm a freaking Werewolf for God's sake.
"Firstly I don't need protecting and secondly, it's super creepy if you watch me sleep," I hold up fingers to count down as I say my points.
He's not even a full vampire yet so he's not technically strong enough to protect me, there's no point.
"I'm not gonna watch you jeez, I'm not a stalker. I'll sit out here while you nap in your room, duh," he points out matter of factly.
"Whatever," I mutter and wave him off as I stand up and head to my bedroom.
I lay on my four poster bed looking at my string lights strung around my room. I couldn't sleep, not when Leo was practically right outside my room. It made me uncomfortable, I shifted my weight.
I glance at the ring on my middle finger and watch as the red gemstone sparkles. I loved the ring believe me I do, but I don't want it. I want to be in control by myself, without his help. It's why I left to be on my own in the first place, I want to be independent.
I took off the ring and put it on my bedside table feeling the familiar whoosh of air hit me. Except this time, a weight was put back on my shoulders. I sit up and brush the fallen curls from my messy bun out of my eyes.
I look around my room and spot my favorite book among a pile of discarded school textbooks in front of my closet. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, It's my favorite book because of how truthful it is to real life. Loved ones die, people get Cancer, Cancer goes away, and then Cancer comes back ten times worse. I grab it off the floor and open up to the last couple pages which are my favorite.
"I'm a good person but a shitty writer. You're a shitty 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 shitty 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 piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing 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, 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."
The Fault in Our Stars.
I sigh happily and close my book in content. I roll over onto my side, and soon my eyelids become heavy, then I fall asleep peacefully without any interruption.
How I wake up although, was not peaceful.