Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

I was walking past the living room when I heard the sound – a muffled cough,
or perhaps an exclamation. I stopped, retraced my steps and stood in the
doorway. I pushed gently at the door. On the living-room floor, the sofa cushions
arranged into a sort of haphazard bed, lay my parents, under the guest quilt, their
heads level with the gas fire. We stared at each other for a moment in the halflight,
my glass motionless in my hand.
‘What – what are you doing there?’
My mother pushed herself up on to her elbow. ‘Ssh. Don’t raise your voice.
We …’ she looked at my father. ‘We fancied a change.’
‘What?’
‘We fancied a change.’ My mother glanced at my father for backup.
‘We’ve given Treena our bed,’ Dad said. He was wearing an old blue T-shirt
with a rip in the shoulder, and his hair stuck up on one side. ‘She and Thomas,
they weren’t getting on too well in the box room. We said they could have ours.’
‘But you can’t sleep down here! You can’t be comfortable like this.’
‘We’re fine, love,’ Dad said. ‘Really.’
And then, as I stood, dumbly struggling to comprehend, he added, ‘It’s only at
weekends. And you can’t sleep in that box room. You need your sleep, what
with … ’ He swallowed. ‘What with you being the only one of us at work and
all.’
My father, the great lump, couldn’t meet my eye.
‘Go on back to bed now, Lou. Go on. We’re fine.’ Mum practically shooed me
away.
I walked back up the stairs, my bare feet silent on the carpet, dimly aware of
the brief murmured conversation below.
I hesitated outside Mum and Dad’s room, now hearing what I had not heard
before – Thomas’s muffled snoring within. Then I walked slowly back across the
landing to my own room, and I closed the door carefully behind me. I lay in my
oversized bed and stared out of the window at the sodium lights of the street,
until dawn – finally, thankfully – brought me a few precious hours of sleep.
There were seventy-nine days left on my calendar. I started to feel anxious again.
And I wasn’t alone.