"The literal heart of Jesus," Augustus said under his breath. I barely heard it, he said it so faint because he knew I was the only one that would listen. Patrick sung yet another corny song he made up about how we were all blessed and that our curing day would come and in old fashion I mocked him from across the room. Issac was there, he sat in his normal spot but due to his blindness he couldn't see and laugh like he always did. It was shorter than I remembered it being. The list hadn't grown but by a few names, and there was only one person that I didn't remember. His name was Stewart. He got up and talked about his diagnosis, his treatments, and explained to everyone the terminality of his stage 3 pancreatic cancer. I felt really bad for him. He had had such an amazing life, was on the pathway to becoming an engineer and owning his own firm, but now he couldn't live his dream because he was projected to die within the next three months.
As we left we helped Issac out of the building. He still wouldn't take the elevator just because he didn't want to jinx himself. I didn't tell the group that this was the last support group meeting that I was ever going to. I did tell them, along with Augustus, that I was cancer free and only had one final check up until I never had to worry about anything but my oxygen tank and Augustus trying to make me play The Price of Dawn with him. We went outside and I didn't recognize Issac's mother's car anywhere. "Is your mom getting you Issac?" I asked as I looked around. "No, my girlfriend is. You missed it. I met her while you and Augustus were in Amsterdam. I was just sitting at the mall because I wanted to be around people instead of sitting in my room all day and she started talking to me. At first she was very annoying, and I was on the brink of telling her to leave, but slowly I started enjoying the conversation and ultimately planned a date. Then after another a few days later we decided to go out. I can hear her now just down the road."
After he said that a car pulled in, music up loud and pulled in right next to us. Augustus helped Issac in and the car sped off. I didn't get a glimpse of her, I was more concentrated on sheltering my ears from the loud music. As it drove out of the parking lot I noticed that the car was familiar. "I've seen that car before. I can't remember where I've seen it but I know that car," I told Augustus. "It's pretty common, the family down the road from me owns one. Probably where you've seen it." I passed it off and Augustus dropped me off at home. "See you tomorrow?" he asked after we kissed for a while in the front seat. "Of course. We have to plan our lives without cancer at some point!" We both laughed and I went inside. Mom and Dad had dinner ready and we all ate. I went up into my room and couldn't let that car out of my mind. I knew I had seen it somewhere, and Augustus' was not where I saw it. Maybe it was one of my friends when that occasionally visited me or something. It was about nine when I decided to get off the couch from my ANTM marathon (we had all of them tapped from when I was in a coma until we got back from Amsterdam so I had a few to watch) and laid down to sleep.
My phone rang about 10:30. I didn't bother looking who it was, I was just happy someone wanted to talk to me. "Hello," I said into the silence that loomed on the other end. It took a few seconds before someone responded. "HAZEL! You didn't tell me you were back from Amsterdam! Or that you were going in the first place!" I knew that complaining voice from anywhere. "Well you never asked Kaitlyn. You never tell me anything so I guess we're even." We laughed and I told her about Amsterdam. I left out the point about what happened after dinner that night, but included every detail before that. I told her about how much of an asshole Van Houten was. "So how is your boy situation going?" I asked her after I was done. "Well. I met th—"