Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

I stared at the message, my fingers briefly stilled on the keyboard. Then I
scrolled down. The next few were from other quadriplegics, criticizing Gforce
for his bleak words, protesting that they had found a way forward, that theirs was
a life worth living. There was a brief argument going on that seemed to have
little to do with Will at all.
And then the thread dragged itself back to my request. There were suggestions
of antidepressants, massage, miracle recoveries, stories of how members’ own
lives had been given new value. There were a few practical suggestions: wine
tasting, music, art, specially adapted keyboards.
‘A partner,’ said Grace31 from Birmingham. ‘If he has love, he will feel he
can go on. Without it, I would have sunk many times over.’
That phrase echoed in my head long after I had left the library.
Will came out of hospital on Thursday. I picked him up in the adapted car, and
brought him home. He was pale and exhausted, and stared out of the window
listlessly for the whole journey.
‘No sleep in these places,’ he explained, when I asked him if he was okay.
‘There’s always someone moaning in the next bed.’
I told him he would have the weekend to recover, but after that I had a series
of outings planned. I told him I was taking his advice and trying new things, and
he would have to come with me. It was a subtle change in emphasis, but I knew
that was the only way I could get him to accompany me.
In fact, I had devised a detailed schedule for the next couple of weeks. Each
event was carefully marked on my calendar in black, with red pen outlining the
precautions I should take, and green for the accessories I would need. Every time
I looked at the back of my door I felt a little glimmer of excitement, both that I
had been so organized, but also that one of these events might actually be the
thing that changed Will’s view of the world.
As my Dad always says, my sister is the brains of our family.
The art gallery trip lasted a shade under twenty minutes. And that included
driving round the block three times in search of a suitable parking space. We got
there, and almost before I had closed the door behind him he said all the work
was terrible. I asked him why and he said if I couldn’t see it he couldn’t explain
it. The cinema had to be abandoned after the staff told us, apologetically, that