The Fault in Our Stars Read Online Free PDF

“Cold,” he said, pressing a finger to my pale wrist.
    “Not cold so much as underoxygenated,” I said.
    “I love it when you talk medical to me,” he said. He stood, and pulled me up with him, and did not let go of my hand until we reached the stairs.
    *  *  *
    We watched the movie with several inches of couch between us. I did the totally middle-schooly thing wherein I put my hand on the couch about halfway between us to let him know that it was okay to hold it, but he didn’t try. An hour into the movie, Augustus’s parents came in and served us the enchiladas, which we ate on the couch, and they were pretty delicious.
    The movie was about this heroic guy in a mask who died heroically for Natalie Portman, who’s pretty badass and very hot and does not have anything approaching my puffy steroid face.
    As the credits rolled, he said, “Pretty great, huh?”
    “Pretty great,” I agreed, although it wasn’t, really. It was kind of a boy movie. I don’t know why boys expect us to like boy movies. We don’t expect them to like girl movies. “I should get home. Class in the morning,” I said.
    I sat on the couch for a while as Augustus searched for his keys. His mom sat down next to me and said, “I just love this one, don’t you?” I guess I had been looking toward the Encouragement above the TV, a drawing of an angel with the caption
Without Pain, How Could We Know Joy?
    (This is an old argument in the field of Thinking About Suffering, and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries, but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate.) “Yes,” I said. “A lovely thought.”
    I drove Augustus’s car home with Augustus riding shotgun. He played me a couple songs he liked by a band called The Hectic Glow, and they were good songs, but because I didn’t know them already, they weren’t as good to me as they were to him. I kept glancing over at his leg, or the place where his leg had been, trying to imagine what the fake leg looked like. I didn’t want to care about it, but I did a little. He probably cared about my oxygen. Illness repulses. I’d learned that a long time ago, and I suspected Augustus had, too.
    As I pulled up outside of my house, Augustus clicked the radio off. The air thickened. He was probably thinking about kissing me, and I was definitely thinking about kissing him. Wondering if I wanted to. I’d kissed boys, but it had been a while. Pre-Miracle.
    I put the car in park and looked over at him. He really was beautiful. I know boys aren’t supposed to be, but he was.
    “Hazel Grace,” he said, my name new and better in his voice. “It has been a real pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
    “Ditto, Mr. Waters,” I said. I felt shy looking at him. I could not match the intensity of his waterblue eyes.
    “May I see you again?” he asked. There was an endearing nervousness in his voice.
    I smiled. “Sure.”
    “Tomorrow?” he asked.
    “Patience, grasshopper,” I counseled. “You don’t want to seem overeager.”
    “Right, that’s why I said tomorrow,” he said. “I want to see you again tonight. But I’m willing to wait
all night and much of tomorrow
.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m
serious
,” he said.
    “You don’t even know me,” I said. I grabbed the book from the center console. “How about I call you when I finish this?”
    “But you don’t even have my phone number,” he said.
    “I strongly suspect you wrote it in the book.”
    He broke out into that goofy smile. “And you say we don’t know each other.”

CHAPTER THREE
    I stayed up pretty late that night reading
The Price of Dawn
. (Spoiler alert: The price of dawn is blood.) It wasn’t
An Imperial Affliction
, but the protagonist, Staff Sergeant Max Mayhem, was vaguely likable despite killing, by my count, no fewer than 118 individuals in 284 pages.
    So I got up late the next morning, a Thursday. Mom’s policy was