The Fault In Our Stars Sequel

Chapter Twelve

I eye Van Houten as I absently stir the ice around in my cup with my straw. The restaurant he has chosen is dim-lighted, almost seeming like a bar, which isn't surprising. It smells of coffee and cigarettes, which is odd, considering I thought I saw a NO SMOKING sign upon entering.

Van Houten nibbles at a chicken sandwich, and I sip my soda, neither of us saying anything.

It feels incredibly wrong. The entire thing.

Being here with this phony of an author, in my hometown, discussing life and death and everything else. It's strange, and not in a good way. It makes my stomach swirl around and form a tight, uncomfortable knot in the pit. It makes my knee bounce with anxiety under the table.

"Not hungry?" Van Houten asks, peering at me over his rectangular glasses, his mouth full of poultry that I try my best to ignore.

I shake my head no.

"Suit yourself," Peter shrugs. "The food here is divine. By American standards."

My eyes hover over anything and everything but Van Houten as I wait for him to finish eating, the sound of my ice hitting the side of the cup the only sound in the otherwise vacant restaurant.

Peter dabs at his mouth with his napkin, then crumples it into a crinkled ball and lays it on his discarded plate, where it slowly unfurls itself. I keep my eyes on it as I speak.

"So you're here to tell me that I need to stop being selfish?"

Van Houten lets a mildly irritated sigh through his nostrils as he leans back in his seat, the wooden restraints groaning in an almost silent protest. "Hazel, dear. Can't we just have a nice dinner without any accusations?"

My hands form fists underneath the table as he calls me 'dear.' Always chastising me.

"What I want is for you to explain your purpose and then leave. You don't belong here."

"Funny how time and a bit of knowledge can change a mind," Van Houten muses, taking a sip of his champagne. "Months ago you would have sold your soul to have the opportunity to sit across from none other than myself." he gestures to himself grandly.

His cockiness is aggravating.

"Right," I mutter. "But now here we are. So let's get talking, please?" I fight to keep my time even, trying to recompose myself and not come off as a complete bitch, although it's what he deserves.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Tell me why you're here. Why you care about my well-being."

Van Houten seems to think for an eternity, taking long drinks of his alcohol I beverage and even pausing to chat with a passing by waitress. I am about to get up and leave when he begins speaking.

"I understand that Augustus was your boyfriend, someone you cared about deeply," he begins, testing each word on his tongue, as if he actually cares. "And I'm sure your parents have been nagging at you to get back into the swing of things, and live. Live to whatever potential your cancer-filled body can, correct?"

I nod wordlessly, folding my hands under my chin as I listen.

"And I would assume that you aren't moping around for the hell of it. You don't seem as though you're a woe-is-me kind of girl." Van Houten continues. "When I lost Anna, I felt the same. People were of course a little more gentle when they urged me to move on from my grief, because she was family, one of my own. And I wanted, still want, to be able to live at least a fraction of how I used to. A manageable happiness, even if it's a little forced."

He gives me a sad smile. "I think we're on the same boat, Hazel. We desperately want to move on, emerge new from our grief, but something tells us we can't. Not because we have any hope of getting the ones we've lost back, but because once we can go on without them, the pain ceases to exist, it gets easier to manage. You begin to store it in a little box inside your mind, locking it in so it can't pop up on you. Something to pull out on death anniversaries and smile sadly at. You do not want to move on because it means forgetting, it means going on without someone."

I don't realize a tear has escaped my eye until I feel it on the back of my hand. I furiously swipe at my face to diminish it. "I don't think the pain just goes away." I say quietly.

"That's what you tell yourself." His voice is softer, and that almost makes it worse. "That's what you tell yourself because I'm some sadistic way you want to feel it. You want to feel it because it's a reminder that anything happened at all."

"Stop acting as though you're in my mind and know all my thoughts." I snap, although the more I dwell on his words, the more I realize I can relate to them. It makes me more upset than anything to know that this man has figured me out before I had even done so myself.

"So Hazel, I guess that leave why I'm here, why I care," he leans back further yet in his chair, this time it letting out a scream as if in agony, although he doesn't lessen his weight on it. "You do not want to live like me, I can imagine. I guess what I'm saying is, Anna didn't get the life you have received. She had much less years, much less happiness than you have had. I am asking you to not throw it away because you are afraid of forgetting Mr. Waters. He has ceased to exist on planet earth, and there isn't anything in this God-forsaken universe that you can do about it. Yku needn't forget about him, but let go of the grief. Yes, it'll make it easier to think about him, which means it'll seem like you miss him less. But I'm going to go with the cliche line here and say that Augustus Waters would have wanted you to be happy."

"No he wouldn't," I sniffle, defeated. "He was a self-conceited bastard." I can't help but laugh.

Even Van Houten gets the faintest of smirks on his face. "That I can believe."

We sit in silence for a while, lost in out own thoughts. I wonder if I can let myself get over Gus. Not forget him, or what we had, or stop missing him, but maybe be happy again. Love the time I had with him, be thankful for what I did get. Because like Peter said, some people don't even get that much.

"Are you going to try to do the same thing?" I murmur after a long time.

Van Houten's eyes are glassy when he meets gazes with me. "I think so."

***

A/N: Sorry for the hiatus, let me know your thoughts! Thank you for the votes and reads! They mean the world :)