“There is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars,” - The Fault In Our Stars, now in theatres!

Chapter 4 

Weekend. 

Or on the other hand, a date with Matthew. Where? Of course, as brilliant and as scintillating as my sweet sweet boyfriend is, we’re going to the mall.

I said yes, because there really was nothing better to do. I had zero friends that I could count on to take me out, and it was such a sin to go out on the weekend with your parents when you were 16. I found myself cringing at how bitchy and petty that thought is.

After three cups of double espressos, I was a bit giddy but nevertheless strong enough to mask the lack of sleep last night. Matthew got in and out of the stores, his eyes quick to snap looks at a good set of clothes. For him. Sometimes, for me. His credit card had been swiped a few times, and a couple of times he offered to let me use his card. I never dared take him up on his offer.

But on the third try, Matthew didn’t give me any time to refuse. He saw me looking at a sparkly blue dress, and he immediately brought it to the counter. The clerk clearly thought that I was a lucky girl, and I lost count of how many times she winked at me as she wrapped the dress. But just before we got out of the store, a girl stormed inside and started yelling before she even reached the counter.

“What the hell happened? I just wore this dress once and already it’s torn apart!”

I cringed as I saw the familiar pixie haircut. I looked at her legs. She had muscley calves and perfect golden skin. I immediately held my breath.

Noelle.

My voice was caught at the back of my throat as I frantically reached for Matthew’s elbow, guiding him to get out from the store, but what waited for us was no better than Noelle, because of course her boyfriend would be outside of the store. Of course Kevin would be here, too.

“Hey, man!” Kevin saw Matthew first. Both of them had been the star of our school’s basketball team when Matthew was a senior. The MPV and the prodigy, that was how other boys called them affectionately. And then, behind the lockers, the pussy-whipper for Kevin and the pussy-whipper for Matthew.

Those were the good days. Those were the days when Kevin had been mine and Matthew had just been the really cool senior who would occasionally smile in my direction.

“Kevin, my man!” Matthew responded back and they did their complicated handshake.

“On a date?” Kevin asked as he glanced at me.

“Yeah,” Matthew brought me closer to him. He craned his neck to see inside the store once more. “That chick is your girl?”

“Noelle. You knew her,” Kevin grinned. “Damn, Matt, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. Why didn’t you tell me that you’re in the city?”

“I’ll just be here for a while, and mostly I’m just hanging with Alea, anyway.”

And then Kevin came up with the worst idea of the century. “Why don’t we have a double date, then?”

The highlight of the day: it wasn’t how I had just gotten two hours of good night sleep. It wasn’t how my boyfriend was more enthusiastic about shopping than me. It was a dinner with the two of the worst people in the world, plus my boyfriend. The bitch, the metrosexual, the other bitch, and the athlete.

Fan-friggin-tastic.

-

“So of course I had to return the dress and ask for my money back. I hardly did anything with that thing and as I slipped it off, it started to unsew itself! It’s crazy!” Noelle still hadn’t stopped talking about her ruined dress. Matthew was the only one listening whole-heartedly, nodding and giving out sound-effects at the appropriate moments.

“Good thing you came in just after we bought the dress. I’m really not the kind of person who goes back to a store to yell at people, no offense,” Matthew said.

Noelle glanced at me, there was a zealous gleam glinting in her eyes. She grabbed at Kevin’s arm and scooted closer to him. Meanwhile, he was still chopping up his double steak.

“Nah, it’s just fate. As a friend, I wouldn’t let you buy bad things, right Kev?”

Up until now, twenty minutes after the boys decided that it was a good idea to have a double date, I still hadn’t contributed anything conversation-wise. I didn’t even have the energy to touch my soup.

It was bad enough that I was stuck in dinner with my ex-boyfriend and my boyfriend. Throw in my ex-bestfriend, and it became a nightmare. Plus, the fact that my boyfriend and my ex-boyfriend were so close to each other, that they kept bro-ing it up, made me uncomfortable as hell.

And then there were also these type of questions.

“So how long have you been dating her again?” Kevin asked Matthew.

Those kind of questions.

“Quite long,” Matthew said, although I knew that he just forgot. “I bet your grandmother’s pearl necklace that you regretted your decision to let her go.”

And those kind of answers.

“Hey, not in front of Noelle!” Kevin laughed and they both high-fived, for what purpose I didn’t know. Noelle and I shared a distasteful look, and for a modicum of a second I thought that I had my partner-in-crime-back. And then she flipped me the bird.

“How bout you? I didn’t know that you two were dating, weren’t you like, Alea’s best friend? Isn’t it weird or anything?”

IT IS IT IS IT IS IT IS. And not to mention, it was life-shattering in every literal sense. The moment I knew that Noelle hooked up with Kevin, I lost all control and yelled at both of them in public. I had just broken up with Kevin for about three weeks, and he had had the audacity to kiss Noelle, my best friend. Little did I knew that Noelle would be on Kevin’s side and called me a bitch for slapping him.

Noelle, Kevin, and I avoided eye contact with one another and the three of us just laughed weakly. Matthew finally gave me a bit of peace and let the ‘who dates who’ topic die on its own.

The rest of the dinner, however, wasn’t so peaceful. Kevin was busy gobbling food. I was too busy being miserable, and my boyfriend was too busy talking with my ex-bestfriend. Noelle and Matthew shared a love for movies, something that I wasn’t really passionate about. It became increasingly difficult for me to follow their topics, Collin Farrel, Teal and Orange, anti-heroes, and right now, the new Spiderman film.

“You watched the rebooted Spiderman 2?” Noelle asked Matthew enthusiastically. She was doing this thing where she leaned on her elbow and stuck her chest out. The fact that her boyfriend was so focused on eating made it easier for her to flirt without guilt.

“Of course. The girls kept screaming whenever the shot of Andrew Garfield’s butt came up on the screen,” Matthew laughed. I didn’t find that funny. I just found it very slightly odd, which wasn’t a bad thing. It was just really weird to hear your boyfriend talking about another guy’s butt.

“I thought you’d be used to the screaming, since you know, the girls always screamed whenever you’re on the ring during your MVP days.” Noelle’s smile was tight-lipped and her eyes testing.

“Really? I didn’t notice.”

“I noticed.”

“How come?”

At this point, I could start stabbing my own eyes with the fork and Matthew would still not notice. The distance between Matthew and Noelle’s nose was no more than forty centimeters now.

“Hey, hey,” finally, Kevin showed a side interest other than his red meat. “Matt, come on, flirt with your own girl.”

Matthew and Noelle started laughing. “And you should start paying more attention to yours,” he said. The three of them then proceeded to start joking about the loyalty of each other. I couldn’t fathom why they could find humor at this situation. Noelle, in particular, dominated the conversation, her eyes lit up with every word and her gaze held both guys’s as she refused to let both of them get distracted by anything else, i.e: me.

I closed my eyes, the effect of my caffeine was lessening and I was hit by a sudden impending headache. I was pissed beyond belief and I found myself thinking more and more negative thoughts about them. And about myself.

I got up from my chair, but none of them called me back.

I looked at my reflection at the restroom. Quite a few people had called me pretty and stunning, and I never really disagreed with them. I had known since I was a child that my looks were my biggest asset. My looks, and how influential I was among my friends. I lost my friends, but as I saw the saggy eyebags, scraggly hair, and dry skin, I realized that I was losing my looks, too.

What I saw wasn’t the confident, charming, and a little-cruel-but-in-good-humor Azalea Walters. There was only a depressed little witch there. Nothing more.

I opened the tap and splash some water on my face. My makeup melted and behind it, all the proof of my sleep deprivation was written all over my face. My face was pale and there fine lines started to appear all around my eyes. I didn’t spend much time in front of the mirror anymore, what I saw was too horrifying.

When I got out, I saw that Kevin was entering the men’s room.

“Hey,” he called me first.

I only nodded and tried to get away from him.

“You haven’t said a word.”

“Nobody wants to hear me anyway,” I hated myself more as I finished that tacky, tacky sentence. Now I looked like I was sulking.

Kevin scratched at his head. “Sorry.”

I tried to smile at him, because I could hear the sincerity in his voice, but even as I tried, I couldn’t curve the corners of my mouth. This was beginning to be a very emotionally taxing conversation so I decided to just walk away.

“Anyway, my birthday is in about a week,” he began again. “I’ll be having a house party. Everybody will come. You have to come, too.”

I stopped mid-walking and tilted my head a little bit towards him. “Why do you think I remember where your house is or when your birthday is?”

When I got back to our table, I found Matthew and Noelle with both their phones in their hands. Their body language and open laugh suggested that they had just exchanged numbers.

It really was something to not be getting angry of. After all, it wasn’t like they were going to cheat with each other or something. Matthew was just friendly to girls, and I knew Noelle did that just to piss me off, she was way too deep in love with Kevin to see any other guys.

But then I hadn’t been able to think right for a while, and I had been constantly disappointed today and I needed another shot of caffeine, so I couldn’t inspire any tolerance for this.

Noelle. Noelle. Noelle. Why does it have to be her? She was supposed to be my best friend, my supporter. Dare I say it? My sidekick. She had always been for the last ten years, after all. And then I broke up with my longterm boyfriend and all of a sudden, she was with him and she managed to convince all of our friends that I was the crazy one when I yelled at them for being together.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

Matthew had driven me here, and I was broke as hell. I couldn’t go home without him. But then the Lord of Bad Decision crept up inside me and whispered me something, and as I listened, I searched for my phone and called that number.

He didn’t pick up the first time, nor did he the second time. But I knew better than to stop trying to call him. I hadn’t called him when it was my turn for three days, so he would ignore my call three times before he’d answer.

And I was right. The third time was a charm.

I didn’t beat around the bush. “I’m going to your house because I need a place to take a nap. Don’t let anyone else open the door when I ring the bell.”

There was no reply, and I didn’t really expect anything from him. I inhaled deeply, pushed down the remaining pride I had within me, and started talking again.

“And I’m out of money, so you have to pay for the taxi fare.”

He only let out one word, and it wasn’t a good one, but there was laughter accompanying it so I knew everything was cool with him.

“Bitch.”

As if I didn’t know about that particular trait of mine already.

-

It was raining when the taxi finally stopped in front of the gate of the Hawthorne’s mansion. It was raining hard, and my mind was in shambles. Marcus had already texted me, saying that he was going out to open the door. But then his house was so big that it might took three minutes, and those three minute felt like forever for me.

Why him?

Why did I choose to call him? I could always head home.  My mom wouldn’t mind paying for my taxi, and I could always sleep at my own room. But then why him? Why did my mind itch to hear his voice that time? Why did I want to talk to him and further complete my self-destruction?

“Are you sure this is the house?” the taxi driver asked me. “Coz the meter’s gonna keep rolling.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. I could see the shadow running to the gate. The idiot didn’t bring any umbrella, and he was barefoot. After fumbling a bit with the gate lock, he gave a fifty to the taxi and without any words, pulled me off from the vehicle.

“You didn’t bring any umbrella!” I had to shout so that he could hear my voice through the rain.

“Hello to you too, you fox.”

I smiled weakly, suddenly not minding the trickles of rain running on my cheeks.

“Can you run?” he asked me, his hands firmly squeezed mine. “I’d like you to be wet but not that wet.”

“You’re disgusting,” I pushed him back a little.

He took that as a yes as he pulled me to a sprint. We penetrated through the dense rain, and I had never felt that much freedom until right now.

“You look like a mess!” he shouted. “What? You forgot your make up?”

“The rain washed it away, you idiot!”

As we got onto the porch, we were still laughing. Casual observers might have thought that we were out of our minds, and they might be right. The state of myself, which was soaking, wasn’t something to be lamented, especially since in front of me there was a barefoot guy who looked at me like I was the most beautiful creature in the world.

Inside his house, my skin developed goosebumps because of the perpetual AC that filled the rooms. Once again, I felt intimidated with all the displays of wealth inside his house, but Marcus’s casual t-shirt and shorts calmed me down a little bit.

And then his room felt so… him.

I had imagined how his room must be like, and most of my guesses were right. Lots of books. Lots of magazines. Lots of DVDs, the typical room of someone who couldn’t get any sleep. There was Silence of the Lambs paused on the huge monitor.

A few posters of bands were all over the walls, alongside with pinup girl pictures. He had an attached bathroom and there was even a mini-fridge inside his room. It was like a whole new universe in here.

But then what really surprised me was the huge bookcase on the corner of his room. It dominated the place, and it looked like the only thing that was cleaned regularly.

There were a few photographs on the desk, from when he was a little boy of about six until now. I laughed when I saw his awkward stage, because even though he still was very good looking, he looked scrawny and riddled with acnes and the glasses were a little bit too nerdy to be called hipster.

“Go on, laugh at that photograph,” Marcus encouraged. “The ugliest I’ve ever been was when I was 13.”

“It’s kinda cute,” I said.

There was a bit of red suffused on his cheeks. He looked away from me, and then took a t-shirt from his cupboard. He didn’t meet my eyes when he handed me the t-shirt. “Yours became a bit transparent.”

I never would have pegged him as a gentleman. “Thanks.”

“Finally. A positive word from you! I should have recorded it.”

I changed as he turned his back on me. Now that the euphoria from the running and the rain vaporized, we were just left with a really awkward tension and an immense amount of guilt.

“Don’t you wanna know why I’m here?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I know you miss me. That’s a very normal reaction after not talking to me for three days.”

I took the nearest pillow and was about to throw it at him, but then we heard someone knocking on Marcus’s door.

“Marcus!” it was Matthew.

The first few knocks were completely ignored as both of us only looked at each other. But then Matthew sounded increasingly impatient and Marcus pushed me into the bathroom.

His bathroom was clean, thank God.

And relatively complete, even for a girl’s standard. A bathtub, with rubber duck on the corner. Toilet, cabinet, mirror, shampoo and conditioner. He even had the Body Shop scrubs. The only thing that indicated that this was a boy’s room was the big bowl of condoms under the sink.

The voice of Marcus and Matthew arguing was crystal clear. In fact, I was pretty sure that their voices could still be perfectly heard in a five mile radius. I tried not to listen, and besides, I wasn’t even the topic of their fight. It was something about Matt’s laptop.

Matthew had texted me earlier when I was in the taxi. It was just a simple, ‘R u home?’, and I hadn’t bothered to answer. I didn’t know which hurt more. The fact that I was perpetuating Matthew’s fear of his girlfriend getting it on with his brother, or that he didn’t look like he cared all that much about me.

When the fight was finally over and Matthew slammed the door shut, I got out from the bathroom. Marcus was on the bed, his eyes closed but his nostrils flared.

“When are you going to say that I can sit?” I asked.

He silently raised his hand and patted the place beside him. On the bed. With him. Inside his room. Behind a closed door.

I stood petrified.

“The t-shirt looks good on you, by the way,” he commented casually. “Just sit, I won’t bite or anything.”

I finally caved in and sat on the edge of the bed.

“My brother was really mad y’know. He knows that I read his blog.”

“Mmm.”

“Seems I need more practice in being discreet.”

Was it a double entendree or..?

“And FYI,” he continued, seemed that he couldn’t care less if I was following him or not. “I think he’s also mad because you left him in the middle of a date.”

I didn’t say anything.

“So why are you here?”

It was the question that I still hadn’t found the answer to. Why? I hadn’t even prepared myself to answer this. Because of Matt? No, it wasn’t like that. I knew that he was the best that I could do right now, and I think he knew about it, too. I couldn’t afford to be unfaithful to him, because if I lost him, then what else would I have?

So why did I take a risk and choose to visit his brother, of all people?

“Hey, Azalea?”

I took a look at his face. His light brown eyes were searching mine, and the smirk was perpetual on his lips.

Objectively, Matthew was the better looking one, but Matthew didn’t have the gleam that Marcus had and he never made that expression that Marcus made.

And he never drove me to edge like his brother did.

“I need a bit of your craziness. I need to know more about you.”

Marcus didn’t reply to that. He closed his eyes again and his palm started to tap on his chest rhythmically. Suddenly, however, his other hand found my hair and he pulled my hair so that my face was close to his.

“One condition,” he said huskily. There were only a few centimeters from our noses, and when he blinked, I could feel his long eyelashes sweeping my skin. “I’ll answer anything you ask about me, but you have to answer anything I ask about you.” He paused, as if giving me time to think. “Deal?”

It was the easiest question that I’d ever had to answer my whole life. “Deal.”

He smiled as he opened a tin case of cigarettes. “You mind?”

He didn’t wait for my answer before he started to light the cigarette.

I reached out for it and pressed the burning end to one of his magazines. “So, do I go first or you go first?”

If Marcus was pissed because I had just refused his plea for a cigarette, then he didn’t show it at all. “You first.”

“Why does Matt gives you the nickname Obnoxious Psychopath?”

“I think it’s pretty fucking clear that our relationship isn’t exactly brotherly,” he answered easily. “And from the looks of it, it seems that I go by ‘asshole’ in your phonebook, too.”

“Close. It’s just ‘Ass’.”

“My turn,” he bit on his bottom lip excitedly. “Why did you cut the ‘Za’ from your name? Azalea is a pretty name, and Alea sounds like a plant.”

“Someone close to me used to think that the ‘Za’ makes my name difficult to pronounce, so she started omitting the ‘Za’ and pretty much everybody followed her example. 

“That person is.. Noelle?”

“You’ve run out of your quota. What about your parents?”

“We’re a dysfunctional, dysfunctional family, Azalea,” he answered quickly. “Dad doesn’t like me because he thought I wasted my potential as a scholar and when I got kicked out of Yale, he lost the potential to brag about his ‘scholarly son’. Mom loves me, but only when Matthew isn’t around to hog all of her attention.” 

His last sentence made me rethink what Matthew had said about Marcus competing about everything with him.

Marcus’s face was suddenly inches away from mine. “Was it Noelle? The one who coined ‘Alea’?”

“Yes, we used to be best friends. And then I broke up with my boyfriend and she got together with him. I went a bit crazy after that, and she and the rest of our friends avoided me ever since,” this was the very first time I ever admitted it, and it was such a wonder how much lighter my body felt after the confession. “I heard that you’re smart, bordering on genius even. So why did such a smart person choose to do drugs and ignore school?”

“It’s more exciting that way,” his answer was short. I tried to press him for more, but he seemed tight-lipped about it. “So why did you leave Matthew in the middle of the date?”

“It wasn’t just a date. It’s a double date. With Noelle. And her boyfriend. Which was my ex-boyfriend,” it wasn’t easy to recount the horrible events that had just happened. “Are you still using… ?”

“Just a bit of mj here and there. Why are you always sitting like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like your spine is made of a pole. Very straight.”

Instinctively, I touched my spine. Like he said, it was very straight. I shrugged and told him that no one ever told me to sit like that. It had been my initiative. I was just very obsessed with looking elegant and presentable.

As soon as I was done with my little monologue, Marcus’s face contorted a bit. “Seriously? That’s that?”

“I’m not the kind of person who has a tragic background behind my every habit.”

“Fair enough.”

“Do you have any best friend..? Girlfriend? Anyone of significant importance aside from family?”

“Right now, no,” he stretched a bit and then shot me a small smile. “Why, you interested?”

“Is that really your question?”

“Yes.”

I sighed. “Well. Kind of. Kinda. A little bit. Kind of.”

“Good enough for me,” he said, but unlike what I expected, he didn’t come closer to kiss me or something. He just stayed there and made himself comfortable. “And you had just asked me something, so it’s still my turn to ask.”

I silently cursed him, but nevertheless my heart beat furiously as I waited for him to ask his question.

“Do you love Matthew?”

This question.

“Ah,” I licked my lips repeatedly. The presence of this guy around me made me constantly dizzy. I should pick up a ‘how to not be a cheating idiot’ at the book store or something. “Yes. No. Maybe.”

“That’s not a solid answer.”

“That a perfectly solid answer,” I put on a stern face. “How about you? Do you love your brother?”

He took his sweet time to answer the question the same freaking way I answered it. “Yes. No. Maybe. Are you a virgin?” he asked it like it was an after-thought.

“Yes,” I answered quickly. “Are you…?”

“No,” I could see a bit of change on his face. “Surprised?”

“Processing,” I said. “How old were you…?”

“Just a few months before. It’s with a senior in Yale. She’s pretty ugly if you ask me. How many boyfriends have you had?”

Was it just me, or was the questioning session becoming more and more personal?

“Two. Matthew is the second. How many partners have you had?”

“Two. The first was the ugly girl who took my virginity. Second was much prettier, but then she had a reputation of going around,” he smiled sheepishly. “Not my proudest moment. How many boys have you rejected then?”

“Seventeen, thirty one if you counted some creeps from Tinder,” I answered as quickly as I could so that I could get into the questioning session. “How about me?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“How about you?” Marcus asked me back in confusion, which was expected, because the question felt incomplete.

I scooted myself closer to him until our knees touched. “You claimed that you’re interested in me since the very first day we met. You know that I’m your brother’s girlfriend. What’s your motive?”

His eyes blinked several times. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly. But I wasn’t quite finished yet.

“So that you can win over your brother? So that you can prove to him that you’re better than him? You want to get laid and this is just a game?”

“Is that why you didn’t call me for three days? Because of these stupid-ass assumptions?” he asked me back without answering anything. “I think I’ve told you my reason before. Because you’re goddam interesting. Matthew has nothing to do with it.”

Silence.

“Oh,” was all I could manage.

“How about you?” he was still shooting at me. “I may have made the first move, but you also did some work. You stole Matt’s phone to search for my number. You stayed up till dawn to talk to me. Hell, you left Matthew in the middle of your date to ‘hang out’ in my room!”

“Erm,” it was much harder to form words now. I wasn’t one who was regularly at loss for words. But I wasn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t prepared for this level of brutal honesty. Marcus didn’t make it easier for me to answer, what with him glaring daggers at me.

Why, why him, you stupid bitch? You had a good and nice boyfriend, and even though he might not be perfect, he should be enough. Nobody was giving you attention except for him, and you’re throwing him away just so you can ‘hang out’ with his pothead brother? Please. Marcus was unpredictable. Marcus was a drug user. Marcus looked like the kind of guy who had two girlfriends and was looking for the third. Who knows, maybe tomorrow he’ll grow bored of you and toss you to the side of the street.

“I give up, I don’t know what else to say other than ‘Sorry, yes, you’re right,” I raised both of my hands in defeat.

“Alea,” Marcus began. “When are you going to ask if I’d like to be your other boyfriend?!”

Wait a fucking second.

“What?”

“Isn’t that why you don’t mind me getting so close to you?” Marcus was shaking a bit in amidst of his excitement. “Because you need another boyfriend? Or is there any other motive? To frustrate me, perhaps?”

For a while, all I could think about was how much more idiotic this creature could be.

“You are so confident with your assumptions,” I said. I tried to look at him square in the eyes, but I couldn’t.

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Impossible. I’m Marcus Hawthorne.”

He was becoming as annoying as I remembered him the first time. I was wearing clothes, but under his gaze, I felt naked. He seemed to have a special instinct for guessing things about me, and I hated to let him know that he was right.

“Before everything else, can I ask you something?” I put my hand on the top of his knee, trying my best to ignore all the sensations that were happening inside my chest. Marcus nodded vigorously and I inhaled deeply before I blurted out one of the most absurd requests I’d ever made.

“Don’t you die before me,” I said. “I’m serious.”

Marcus smiled at my request, nothing that suggested that he was jesting at all. He took my hand, squeezed it and kissed it. All gestures were done slowly, carefully, as if he were handling a piece of china. He then started kissing my fingers one by one, sending me waves and waves of euphoric nausea.

It was impossible not to smile at that time.

“Would you like to be my other boyfriend?” I asked.

“You know my answer,” he said as he bit the butt of my index finger.

And then he smiled at me and I knew that this was the most ironic moment that I’d ever felt my whole life: the right kind of wrong.