Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

12
I can tell you the exact day I stopped being fearless.
It was almost seven years ago, in the last lazy, heat-slurred days of July, when
the narrow streets around the castle were thick with tourists, and the air filled
with the sound of their meandering footsteps and the chimes of the ever-present
ice cream vans that lined the top of the hill.
My grandmother had died a month previously after a long illness, and that
summer was veiled in a thin layer of sadness; it gently smothered everything we
did, muting mine and my sister’s tendencies to the dramatic, and cancelling our
usual summer routines of brief holidays and days out. My mother stood most
days at her washing-up bowl, her back rigid with the effort of trying to suppress
her tears, while Dad disappeared to work each morning with a grimly
determined expression, returning hours later shiny-faced from the heat and
unable to speak before he had cracked open a beer. My sister was home from her
first year at university, her head already somewhere far from our small town. I
was twenty and would meet Patrick in less than three months. We were enjoying
one of those rare summers of utter freedom – no financial responsibility, no
debts, no time owing to anybody. I had a seasonal job and all the hours in the
world to practise my make-up, put on heels that made my father wince, and just
generally work out who I was.
I dressed normally, in those days. Or, I should say, I dressed like the other
girls in town – long hair, flicked over the shoulder, indigo jeans, T-shirts tight
enough to show off our tiny waists and high breasts. We spent hours perfecting
our lipgloss, and the exact shade of a smokey eye. We looked good in anything,
but spent hours complaining about non-existent cellulite and invisible flaws in
our skin.