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But Augustus didn’t notice He was too busy watching the shadows move Finally, he said, "I could look at this all day, but we should go to the hotel"

"Do we have time?" I asked

He s?" I asked

He nodded back in the direction of the hotel

We walked in silence, Augustus a half step in front of me I was too scared to ask if I had reason to be scared

So there is this thing called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Basically, this guy Abraham Maslow became famous for his theory that certain needs must be met before you can even have other kinds of needs It looks like this:

Once your needs for food and water are fulfilled, you move up to the next set of needs, security, and then the next and the next, but the i to Maslow, until your physiological needs are satisfied, you can’t even worry about security or social needs, let alone "self-actualization," which is when you start to, like, make art and think aboutto Masloas stuck on the second level of the pyramid, unable to feel secure in my health and therefore unable to reach for love and respect and art and whatever else, which is, of course, utter horseshit: The urge to o ahen you are sick Those urges just becoured by illness

Maslow’s pyramid seemed to imply that I was less huree with hiht he could love me because he’d once been sick Only now did it occur to me that aard I sat down on the bed expecting him to join me, but he hunkered down in the dusty paisley chair That chair How old was it? Fifty years?

I felt the ball in the base of arette from his pack and stick it between his lips He leaned back and sighed "Just before you went into the ICU, I started to feel this ache in my hip"

"No," I said Panic rolled in, pulled me under

He nodded "So I went in for a PET scan" He stopped He yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and clenched his teeth

Much ofnot to cry in front of people who lovedYou clench your teeth You look up You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt the but A Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you s even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile

He flashed his crooked smile, then said, "I lit up like a Christ of my chest, my left hip,in the air awhile We both knehat itustus would ever be, and I knelt at the base of the chair and put ed hi my hair "I’m so sorry," I said

"I’m sorry I didn’t tell you," he said, his voice calm "Your mom must know The way she looked atI should’ve told you It was stupid Selfish"

I knehy he hadn’t said anything, of course: the same reason I hadn’t wanted him to see me in the ICU I couldn’t be renade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others froustus Waters And I didn’t want to

"It’s not fair," I said "It’s just so godda factory," and then he broke down, just for onei, the terrible ferocity that aht mistake for weakness Then he pulled ht it I’ll fight it for you Don’t you worry aboutaround and annoy you for a long ti ht so that I could see the sinewy muscles of his arms wrapped around me as he said, "I’m sorry You’ll be okay It’ll be okay I promise," and smiled his crooked smile

He kissed my forehead, and then I felt his powerful chest deflate just a little "I guess I had a hamartia after all"

After a while, I pulled hiether as he told o to Ah his parents were furious They’d tried to stop hi that his body belonged to him "We could have rescheduled," I said

"No, we couldn’t have," he answered "Anyway, it wasn’t working I could tell it wasn’t working, you know?"

I nodded "It’s just bullshit, the whole thing," I said

"They’ll try soot a new idea"

"Yeah," I said, having been the experimental pincushionyou were falling in love with a healthy person," he said

I shrugged "I’d have done the same to you"

"No, you wouldn’t’ve, but we can’t all be as awesorimaced

"Does it hurt?" I asked

"No Just" He stared at the ceiling for a long tine I like not s Dutch And nowI don’t even get a battle I don’t get a fight"

"You get to battle cancer," I said "That is your battle And you’ll keep fighting," I told him I hated it when people tried to build me up to prepare for battle, but I did it to him, anyway "You’llyou’lllive your best life today This is your war now" I despised myself for the cheesy sentiment, but what else did I have?

"Some war," he said dismissively "What am I at ith? My cancer And what is my cancer? My cancer is me The tumors are made of me They’re made of me as surely as my brain and my heart are made of me It is a civil war, Hazel Grace, with a predeter else He was too smart for the kinds of solace I could offer

"Okay," he said But it wasn’t After a o to the Rijks, neither of us can walk through a museum But anyway, I looked at the collection online before we left If you were to go, and hopefully sos of dead people You’d see Jesus on the cross, and you’d see a dude getting stabbed in the neck, and you’d see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade ofit froue or slory in illness There is noof"