Me Before You 2 - After You by Jojo Moyes

Author:Jojo Moyes [Moyes, Jojo]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9781432834227
Published: 2015-09-24T06:58:16+00:00

16

I messed it all up, Will.

I hauled my knees up to my chest. I tried to imagine what he would have said if he could see me then, but I could no longer hear his voice in my head and that small fact made me even sadder.

What do I do now?

I understood I could not stay in the flat that Will’s legacy had bought me. It felt as if it were steeped in my failures, a bonus prize I had failed to earn. How could you make a home in a place that had come to you for all the wrong reasons? I would sell it and invest the money somewhere. But where would I go instead?

I thought of my job, the reflexive way my stomach now clenched when I heard Celtic panpipes, even on television, the way Richard made me feel useless, worthless.

I thought of Lily, noting the peculiar weight of the silence that resulted when you knew without doubt that nobody but you would be in your home. I wondered where she was, and pushed the thought away.

• • •

The rain eased off in the morning, slowing and ceasing almost apologetically, as if the weather were admitting it hadn’t really known what had got into it. I pulled on some clothes, vacuumed the flat, and put out the bags of party-related rubbish. I walked to the flower market, mostly to give myself something to do. Always better to get out and about, Marc said. I decided I might feel better being in the thick of Columbia Road, with its gaudy displays of blooms and its slow-moving crowds of shoppers. Marc told us repeatedly that it was important to go through the motions of being happy. I fixed my face into a smile, frightened Samir when I bought myself an apple (“Are you on drugs, man?”), and headed off into a sea of flowers.

I bought myself a coffee at a little coffee shop and watched the market through its steamed window, ignoring the fact that I was the only person in there on my own. I walked the length of the sodden market, breathed in the damp and heady scents of the lilies, admired the folded secrets of the peonies and roses, glass beads of rain still dotting their surfaces, and bought myself a bunch of dahlias, and the whole time I felt as if I were acting, a figure in an advert: Single city girl living the London dream.

I walked home, cradling my dahlias in one arm, doing my best not to limp, all the while trying to stop the words Oh, who do you think you’re kidding? that popped repeatedly into my head.

• • •

The evening stretched and sagged, as lonely evenings do. I finished cleaning the flat, pulled cigarette butts out of the toilet cistern, watched some television, washed my uniform. I ran a bath full of bubbles and climbed out of it after five minutes, afraid to be alone with my thoughts. I

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