I take the elevator down to the Support Group, feeling a little lost without the towering figure of Augustus beside me. Everything reeked of his presence. I could somehow link each part of my daily life to him which made it difficult to realise that he was gone. On this particular day, I could not stop thinking about Amsterdam and the elevator ride before going to his room; the mirrored elevator where we and the mirrored couples kissed, passionately without regret. We could've easily been any other teenage couple enveloped in red hot love – if you looked past my oxygen tank and Augustus' prostheticleg. I couldn't ignore the pain in my head which set off little alarm bells. That's the thing about pain. It demands to be felt. Oh Augustus how I long to hear you say that one more time.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." Like always, the Support Group started with this spoken by ball-less Patrick. It never meant much to me before, but now I understand. I understand the price of living, I understand the statistics my life is against. Everyone in this room is a statistic, nervously waiting to see which side they will fall upon. There is still that selfish competitive nature within our group; each wanting to outlive the other, I cannot deny I don't feel this way either. But I outlived the one person I did not want to.

Sitting in the heart of Jesus, I could not help but think of my first time seeing Augustus here. The shock he must've received seeing someone who looked like his ex girlfriend walk in. Did he know he was going to fall in love with me? I am nothing like her and maybe that came as a relief to him. If I close my eyes I can almost pretend he is still slouched in a plastic chair across from me. He looked the picture of perfect health when he came here; nothing like the weak Gus in a wheelchair that he became. Watching someone die without being able to help them is the most difficult thing to do and the trickiest to describe unless you have experienced it. I loved him though; to the end I loved him. I watched him grow weak, as the cancer thrived upon him. I watched him battle for his life, using everything he had to stay alive but love is watching someone die.

No, I thought. I didn't want to be sad over Augustus. I wanted to remember his goofy smile reserved only for me and the way he said my name – Hazel Grace. It rolled off his tongue like it was only meant for him to say. I wanted to see a cigarette hanging from his mouth, just one more time. But the world is not a wish-granting factory so I could only hope that he had his cigarettes in the great wide Something. The Support Group was only good in supporting my longing for Augustus – the first place I had laid eyes on him. I can still remember his words to me here; the first time anyone had called me beautiful since the cancer took hold of my body. Augustus was a lot of my 'first times' but after having loved him I don't think anyone else would have been appropriate.

My thoughts were interrupted by Patrick's voice saying Augustus at the end of the prayer. His name did not deserve to be there. Augustus was not meant for death – he was meant for greatness. He always said he was on a roller coaster that only goes up; to where I never thought about but now it's someplace I know I cannot visit until the time is right. But I cannot sit here and mope over my sadness; I have Isaac to guide home. I take him by the arm, gently helping him walk. It must've hit him hard to know that his best friend was dead but he was not able to look at him one last time. Isaac and I only had one another now but we even knew it was not the same without Augustus.

Isaac is quiet throughout the journey home. He requested that I put on The Hectic Glow so that we could appreciate what Augustus could not. We did not know what to talk about now. It seemed like everything revolved around Augustus, and it still did but there were no more memories to be made with him. It was nearly a year since Augustus died but it felt like yesterday. I didn't want to forget him but I didn't want my memory of him to be an injustice of just how incredible he was.

I arrive at Isaac's house and like always I go in to play Counterinsurgence 2: The Price of Dawn. Everything reminded me of Augustus; damn that boy. Isaac and I actually tried to play for a while but we still died time and time again. Not those heroic deaths like Augustus performed, but deaths all the same. I wonder if he thought his actual death was just as heroic. He wasn't dying to save a school full of children, but to me that didn't matter. I wouldn't have wanted him to die, even if it would save me.

Slowly our deaths became more careless and it was clear our passion for the game was lost. Isaac put it on pause and we sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

"Hazel?" Isaac started off quietly.

"Yeah, Isaac; what's up?"

"I always called Augustus a self-aggrandising bastard and it was true. I have never known someone who was so aware of his greatness, but there is no point in denying just how great he was. I loved him, even when he only spoke of you. That's when I knew he truly loved you – the fact that nothing else was on his mind except you: you in your sundress; you and your book; you and your surprising comments. He would've promised you the world and the stars and all the space in between. But sometimes people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them. Yet they keep them anyway; that's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. I have learned to live without my sight but I will never learn how to live without him and I don't think I want to. But don't let the loss of Augustus stop you from seeing that things can and will be okay." He paused, long enough for me to understand.

"If Augustus was here, he would've commented on my use of 'seeing' since I can't see anything." He chuckled, but it quickly faded to silence; it was still too soon to make jokes.