Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

13
Patrick stood on the edge of the track, jogging on the spot, his new Nike T-shirt
and shorts sticking slightly to his damp limbs. I had stopped by to say hello and
to tell him that I wouldn’t be at the Triathlon Terrors meeting at the pub that
evening. Nathan was off, and I had stepped in to take over the evening routine.
‘That’s three meetings you’ve missed.’
‘Is it?’ I counted back on my fingers. ‘I suppose it is.’
‘You’ll have to come next week. It’s all the travel plans for the Xtreme Viking.
And you haven’t told me what you want to do for your birthday.’ He began to do
his stretches, lifting his leg high and pressing his chest to his knee. ‘I thought
maybe the cinema? I don’t want to do a big meal, not while I’m training.’
‘Ah. Mum and Dad are planning a special dinner.’
He grabbed at his heel, pointing his knee to the ground.
I couldn’t help but notice that his leg was becoming weirdly sinewy.
‘It’s not exactly a night out, is it?’
‘Well, nor is the multiplex. Anyway, I feel like I should, Patrick. Mum’s been
a bit down.’
Treena had moved out the previous weekend (minus my lemons washbag – I
retrieved that the night before she went). Mum was devastated; it was actually
worse than when Treena had gone to university the first time around. She missed
Thomas like an amputated limb. His toys, which had littered the living-room
floor since babyhood, were boxed up and put away. There were no chocolate
fingers or small cartons of drink in the cupboard. She no longer had a reason to
walk to the school at 3.15pm, nobody to chat to on the short walk home. It had
been the only time Mum ever really spent outside the house. Now she went
nowhere at all, apart from the weekly supermarket shop with Dad.