Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

After Nathan left, Will found me in the kitchen. I was sitting at the small table,
peeling potatoes for his evening meal, and didn’t look up when he positioned his
wheelchair in the doorway. He watched me long enough for my ears to turn pink
with the scrutiny.
‘You know,’ I said, finally, ‘I could have been horrible to you back there. I
could have pointed out that you do nothing either.’
‘I’m not sure Nathan would have offered particularly good odds on me going
out dancing,’ Will said.
‘I know it’s a joke,’ I continued, discarding a long piece of potato peel. ‘But
you just made me feel really crap. If you were going to bet on my boring life, did
you have to make me aware of it? Couldn’t you and Nathan just have had it as
some kind of private joke?’
He didn’t say anything for a bit. When I finally looked up, he was watching
me. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘You don’t look sorry.’
‘Well … okay … maybe I wanted you to hear it. I wanted you to think about
what you’re doing.’
‘What, how I’m letting my life slip by … ?’
‘Yes, actually.’
‘God, Will. I wish you’d stop telling me what to do. What if I like watching
television? What if I don’t want to do much else other than read a book?’ My
voice had become shrill. ‘What if I’m tired when I get home? What if I don’t
need to fill my days with frenetic activity?’
‘But one day you might wish you had,’ he said, quietly. ‘Do you know what I
would do if I were you?’
I put down my peeler. ‘I suspect you’re going to tell me.’
‘Yes. And I’m completely unembarrassed about telling you. I’d be doing night
school. I’d be training as a seamstress or a fashion designer or whatever it is that
taps into what you really love.’ He gestured at my minidress, a Sixties-inspired
Pucci-type dress, made with fabric that had once been a pair of Granddad’s
curtains.
The first time Dad had seen it he had pointed at me and yelled, ‘Hey, Lou, pull
yourself together!’ It had taken him a full five minutes to stop laughing.