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He laughed it off "The thing about dead people," he said, and then stopped hi is you sound like a bastard if you don’t rouess Like, you are familiar with the trope of the stoic and deterhts her cancer with inhu even at the very end, etcetera?"

"Indeed," I said "They are kindhearted and generous souls whose every breath is an Inspiration to Us All They’re so strong! We adht, but really, I mean aside from us obviously, cancer kids are not statistically more likely to be awesome or compassionate or perseverant or whatever Caroline was alwaysas if she had chosen me as the only person in the world not to hate, and so we spent all this ti on the nurses and the other kids and our families and whatever else But I don’t know if that was her or the tumor I mean, one of her nurses toldmedical types as the Asshole Tumor, because it just turns you into aa fifth of her brain who’s just had a recurrence of the Asshole Tuon of stoic cancer-kid heroism She wasI mean, to be honest, she was a bitch But you can’t say that, because she had this tumor, and also she’s, I mean, she’s dead And she had plenty of reason to be unpleasant, you know?"

I knew

"You know that part in An I across the football field to go to PE or whatever and she falls and goes face-first into the grass and that’s when she knows that the cancer is back and in her nervous systeet up and her face is like an inch fro at this grass up close, noticing the way the light hits it andI don’t re the Whitmanesque revelation that the definition of humanness is the opportunity to marvel at the majesty of creation or whatever You know that part?"

"I know that part," I said

"So afterward, while I was getting eviscerated by chemo, for some reason I decided to feel really hopeful Not about survival specifically, but I felt like Anna does in the book, that feeling of excite able to ot worse every day She went hoht we could have, like, a regular relationship, but we couldn’t, really, because she had no filter between her thoughts and her speech, which was sad and unpleasant and frequently hurtful But, I irl with a brain tumor And her parents liked me, and she has this little brother who is a really cool kid I

"It took forever It took alirl ould, like, just start laughing out of nowhere and point at my prosthetic and call me Stumpy"

"No," I said

"Yeah I mean, it was the tumor It ate her brain, you know? Or it wasn’t the tu, because they were inseparable, she and the tuot sicker, I h at her own co a hundred tiain for weeks: ‘Gus has great legs I h like a maniac"

"Oh, Gus," I said "That’s" I didn’t knohat to say He wasn’t looking at me, and it felt invasive of arette out of hisit between his thuer, then put it back

"Well," he said, "to be fair, I do have great leg"

"I’ood, Hazel Grace But just to be clear, when I thought I saw Caroline Mathers’s ghost in Support Group, I was not entirely happy I was staring, but I wasn’t yearning, if you knohat I arette back in it

"I’ain

"Me too," he said

"I don’t ever want to do that to you," I told hie to have my heart broken by you"

CHAPTER TWELVE

I woke up at four in the Dutch o back to sleep failed, so I lay there with the BiPAP puon sounds but wishing I could choose my breaths

I reread An Imperial Affliction until Mom woke up and rolled over toward ainst ustinian

The hotel brought a breakfast to our roo many other denials of American breakfast constructions The dress I’d planned to wear to meet Peter Van Houten had been moved up in the rotation for the Oranjee dinner, so after I showered and got my hair to lie halfway flat, I spent like thirtywith Mom the various benefits and drawbacks of the available outfits before deciding to dress as much like Anna in AIA as possible: Chuck Taylors and dark jeans like she alore, and a light blue T-shirt

The shirt was a screen print of a faritte in which he drew a pipe and then beneath it wrote in cursive Ceci n’est pas une pipe ("This is not a pipe")

"I just don’t get that shirt," Moet it, trust ritte references in An Imperial Affliction"

"But it is a pipe"

"No, it’s not," I said "It’s a drawing of a pipe Get it? All representations of a thing are inherently abstract It’s very clever"

"How did you get so grown up that you understand things that confuse your ancient mother?" Mo seven-year-old Hazel why the sky was blue You thought I was a genius back then"

"Why is the sky blue?" I asked

"Cuz," she answered I laughed

As it got closer to ten, I grew ustus; nervous to ood outfit; nervous that ouldn’t find the right house since all the houses in Aet lost and never make it back to the Filosoof; nervous nervous nervous Mo to talk to o upstairs and ustus was up when he knocked

I opened the door He looked down at the shirt and smiled "Funny," he said

"Don’t call ht here," Moustus blush and put hiame that I could finally bear to look up at hioing to the Rijksmuseuet his book No offense Thank hied Mom, and she kissed my head just above my ear

Peter Van Houten’s white row house was just around the corner fro the park Nuen cart with the other, and alked up the three steps to the lacquered blue-black front door My heart pounded One closed door away from the answers I’d dreae

Inside, I could hear a bass beat thuh to rattle the sills I wondered whether Peter Van Houten had a kid who liked rap rabbed the lion’s-head door knocker and knocked tentatively The beat continued "Maybe he can’t hear over the rabbed the lion’s head and knocked much louder