The Fault in Our Stars

Hazel wakes up to a call from Augustus at 2:30 in the morning. He’s stranded at the gas station and needs her help, something is wrong with his feeding tube, and he’s crying and begging her not to call 9-1-1. She leaves a note for her parents and rushes to the gas station. She finds him in his car; his feeding tube has dislodged and looks infected, and he’s covered in vomit. He came to the gas station in the middle of the night because he lost his pack of cigarettes, and even though his parents promised to get him another one, he wanted to do one little thing by himself. Hazel calls an ambulance. Overcome with shame and anger, he cries, “‘I hate this I hate this I disgust myself I hate it I hate it I hate it just let me fucking die’” (244).

Hazel reflects on the conventional cancer story that would have the patient remain dignified and good-humored to the end, never showing the kind of fear and abject bodily suffering that real cancer patients endure. In the ambulance, Augustus asks her to recite him a poem, and she recites “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams (a poem written by Williams, a doctor, at the bedside of a dying child).