the fault in my veins,

submission from dearskye:

This is my response to reading TFIOS. I just really want to share it with everyone who loves TFIOS because… well read it, and you’ll understand why only TFIOS readers will get it. Somehow I hope that John Green will read it. My friend says I should send it to him, but I don’t know. 

Dear John Green,

            You are no Van Houten (which is why I address this letter with a Dearinstead of a rude insertion of just your last name), but you are the writer whose sentiments concerning the earth and humanity have organized this letter I am writing. In light of Augustus’ recent death (for me) this letter is to you, because you (and the nerdfighter community, really) understand the context and subtext of this language (and hopefully find it earnest and honest, not dramatic or creepy).

            There’s basically a lot of buried words that have been huddled up inside me since I’ve started to get to know him. (And it’s unfair for me to unload all of these feelings on unsuspecting him, so I write with the mind that he understands me as much as he’s portrayed himself to have accepted me.) And I know this is coming late, random, and sudden: A confession of realization with graduation coming a month too soon, but I like him – a lot. I know, I know. It’s basically a cry into a void, a shout into oblivion (because everything ends, and this experience can be easily catalogued into shelved memories that are only retrieved in dreams, but that can easily backfire: like how I thought I’d forget how much I liked him over winter break, only to find, as a result, myself wishing that he was there to share these experiences with me, to notice how standing on a cliff could lead to death but also give access to the distant sea where the waves crash grey and white). 

           The thing is: you’ve taught me that some infinities are bigger than others, and that this last month is very much an infinity between end of March to early May. It’s an infinity that I want to spend with him because I understand that at some point the world will shift the scales from 0 to 1 and started counting the spaces between 1 to 2. So if this end of March to early May is the counting before the shift, then I acknowledgeablely want to spend it with him. I want to spend this month the way a person wants to spend it with someone who makes them happy enough that death is not a frightful coming, but a satisfactory ending.

           But it’s unfair that, yeah, I guess I’m making this difficult by giving him the choice (or perhaps I should not give him a choice at all and no longer contact him) but I think with recent knowledge from Hank’s advice about being friend-zoned, I know I’m not able to make the choice of staying his friend. If what we (he and I, not you and I) are is composed of me longing to see him and waiting to see when I fit in his schedule, then I know I do not want to spend this infinity doing so.

           I want to put the ball in his court, so to speak, but I’m guessing that this last desire of infinity is not an option. So, I want to share how it was always his existence that made me smile, and when I make this decision (today, possibly, after spending time with him for the last time) to no longer be his friend (by no longer initiating or speaking with him), I will thank him for his time and that infinity. I’m happy with the past choices and I will survive this next one. This letter will probably remain unsent to the source of this sadness.

           Although I hope, John Green, that you read this because your novel is beautiful and reading it has been very much an unfolding infinite moment which has now been forcibly moved to the next stage of infinities. 

           However: Thank you for filling the void with a story that makes me appreciate the simpler pleasures of existence.