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again, 
Daddy, again
. 
I pulled into the driveway right next to an old black Toyota sedan I figured was Isaac’s
car. Carting the tank behind me, I walked up to the door. I knocked. Gus’s dad answered.
“Just Hazel,” he
said. “Nice to see you.”
“Augustus said I could come over?”

---

“Yeah, he and Isaac are in the basement.” At which point there was a wail from below.
“That would be Isaac,” Gus’s dad said, and shook his head slowly. “Cindy had to go for a
drive. The sound . . 
.” he said, drifting off. “Anyway, I guess you’re wanted downstairs. Can I
carry your, uh, tank?” he asked.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though, Mr. Waters.”
“Mark,” he said.
I was kind of scared to go down there. Listening to people howl in misery is not among 
my favorite pastimes. But I went. 
“Hazel Grace,” Augustus said as he heard my footsteps. “Isaac, Hazel from Support
Group is coming downstairs. Hazel, a gentle reminder: Isaac is in the midst of a psychotic 
episode.”
Augustus and Isaac were sitting on the floor in gaming chairs shaped like lazy 
L
s, staring 
up at a gargantuan television. The screen was split between Isaac’s point of view on the left,
and Augustus’s on the right. They were soldiers fighting in a bombed
-out modern city. I 
recognized the place from 
The Price of Dawn
. As I approached, I saw nothing unusual: just 
two guys sitting in the lightwash of a huge television pretending to kill people. 
Only when I got parallel to them did I see Isaac’s face. Tears streamed down his reddened
cheeks in a continual flow, his face a taut mask of pain. He stared at the screen, not even 
glancing at me, and howled, all the while pounding away at his controller. “How are you,
Hazel?” asked Augustus.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Isaac?” No response. Not even the slightest
hint that he was aware of 
my existence. Just the tears flowing down his face onto his black T-shirt. 
Augustus glanced away from the screen ever so briefly. “You look nice,” he said. I was
wearing this just-past-the-
knees dress I’d had forever. “Girls think they’re only allowed to
wear dresses on formal occasions, but I like a woman who says, you know, 
I’m going over to
see a boy who is having a nervous breakdown, a boy whose connection to the sense of sight 
itself is tenuous, and gosh dang it, I am going to wear a dress for him
.”
“And yet,” I said, “Isaac won’t so much as glance over at me. Too in love with Monica, I
suppose,” which resulted in a catastrophic sob.
“Bit of a touchy subject,” Augustus explained. “Isaac, I don’t know about you, but I have
the 
vague sense that we are being outflanked.” And then back to me, “Isaac and Monica are no
longer a going concern, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. He just wants to cry and play
Counterinsurgence 2: The Price of Dawn.”
“Fair enough,” I said.

---

“Isaac, I
feel a growing concern about our position. If you agree, head over to that power 
station, and I’ll cover you.” Isaac ran toward a nondescript building while Augustus fired a
machine gun wildly in a series of quick bursts, running behind him. 
“Anyway,” Augustus said to me, “it doesn’t hurt to
talk
to him. If you have any sage 
words of feminine advice.”
“I actually think his response is probably appropriate,” I said as a burst of gunfire from
Isaac killed an enemy who’d peeked his head out from behind the bur
ned-out husk of a pickup 
truck. 
Augustus nodded at the screen. “Pain demands to be felt,” he said, which was a line from