With david levithan dutton books

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
O
n the flight home, twenty thousand feet above clouds that were ten thousand feet above the 
ground, Gus said, “I used to think it would be fun to live on a cloud.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like it would be like one of those inflatable moonwalk machines, except
for always.”
“But then in middle school science, Mr. Martinez asked who among us had ever
fantasized about living in the clouds, and everyone raised their hand. Then Mr. Martinez told 
us that up in the clouds the wind blew one hundred and fifty miles an hour and the temperature 
was thirty below zero and there was no oxygen and we’d all die within seconds.”
“Sounds like a nice guy.”
“He specialized in the murder of dreams, Hazel Grace, let me tell you. You think
volcanoes are awesome? Tell that to the ten thousand screaming corpses at Pompeii. You still 
secretly believe that there is an element of magic to this world? It’s all just soulless molecules
bouncing against each other randomly. Do you worry about who will take care of you if your 
parents die? As well you should, 
because they will be worm food in the fullness of time.”
“Ignorance is bliss,” I said.
A flight attendant walked through the aisle with a beverage cart, half whispering, 
“Drinks? Drinks? Drinks? Drinks?” Gus leaned over me, raising his hand. “Could we hav
e 
some champagne, please?”
“You’re twenty
-
one?” she asked dubiously. I conspicuously rearranged the nubbins in my
nose. The stewardess smiled, then glanced down at my sleeping mother. “She won’t mind?”
she asked of Mom. 
“Nah,” I said.
So she poured champagne into two plastic cups. Cancer Perks. 
Gus and I toasted. “To you,” he said.
“To you,” I said, touching my cup to his.
We sipped. Dimmer stars than we’d had at Oranjee, but still good enough to drink.
“You know,” Gus said to me, “everything Van Houten said was true.”
“Maybe, but he didn’t have to be such a douche about it. I can’t believe he imagined a
future for Sisyphus the Hamster but not for Anna’s mom.”
Augustus shrugged. He seemed to zone out all of a sudden. “Okay?” I asked.

---

He shook his head micros
copically. “Hurts,” he said.
“Chest?”
He nodded. Fists clenched. Later, he would describe it as a one-legged fat man wearing a 
stiletto heel standing on the middle of his chest. I returned my seat-back tray to its upright and 
locked position and bent forward to dig pills out of his backpack. He swallowed one with 
champagne. “Okay?” I asked again.
Gus sat there, pumping his fist, waiting for the medicine to work, the medicine that did 
not kill the pain so much as distance him from it (and from me).
“It was like it was personal,” Gus said quietly. “Like he was mad at us for some reason.
Van Houten, I mean.” He drank the rest of his champagne in a quick series of gulps and soon
fell asleep. 
My dad was waiting for us in baggage claim, standing amid all the limo drivers in suits holding 
signs printed with the last names of their passengers: 
JOHNSON, BARRINGTON, CARMICHAEL
. Dad 
had a sign of his own. 
MY BEAUTIFUL FAMILY
, it read, and then underneath that (
AND GUS
). 
I hugged him, and he started crying (of course). As we drove home, Gus and I told Dad 
stories of Amsterdam, but it wasn’t until I was home and hooked up to Philip watching good
ol’ American television with Dad and eating American pizza off napkins on our laps that I told
him about Gus. 
“Gus had a recurrence,” I said.
“I know,” he said. He scooted over toward me, and then added, “His mom told us before
the trip. I’m sorry he kept it from you. I’m
. . 
. I’m sorry, Hazel.” I didn’t say anything for a
long time. The show we were watching was about people who are trying to pick which house 
they are going to buy. “So I read