Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

The tattooist with the bolt through his ear had taken Will into the next room
and, with my tattooist’s help, laid him down on a special table so that all I could
see through the open door were his lower legs. I could hear the two men
murmuring and laughing over the buzz of the tattooing needle, the smell of
antiseptic sharp in my nostrils.
When the needle first bit into my skin, I chewed my lip, determined not to let
Will hear me squeal. I kept my mind on what he was doing next door, trying to
eavesdrop on his conversation, wondering what it was he was having done.
When he finally emerged, after my own had been finished, he refused to let me
see. I suspected it might be something to do with Alicia.
‘You’re a bad bloody influence on me, Will Traynor,’ I said, opening the car
door and lowering the ramp. I couldn’t stop grinning.
‘Show me.’
I glanced down the street, then turned and peeled a little of the dressing down
from my hip.
‘It’s great. I like your little bee. Really.’
‘I’m going to have to wear high-waisted trousers around my parents for the
rest of my life.’ I helped him steer his chair on to the ramp and raised it. ‘Mind
you, if your mum gets to hear you’ve had one too … ’
‘I’m going to tell her the girl from the council estate led me astray.’
‘Okay then, Traynor, you show me yours.’
He gazed at me steadily, half smiling. ‘You’ll have to put a new dressing on it
when we get home.’
‘Yeah. Like that never happens. Go on. I’m not driving off until you do.’
‘Lift my shirt, then. To the right. Your right.’
I leant through the front seats, and tugged at his shirt, peeling back the piece
of gauze beneath. There, dark against his pale skin was a black and white striped
ink rectangle, small enough that I had to look twice before I realized what it said.
Best before: 19 March 2007
I stared at it. I half laughed, and then my eyes filled with tears. ‘Is that the –’
‘Date of my accident. Yes.’ He raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Oh, for Christ’s
sake, don’t get maudlin, Clark. It was meant to be funny.’
‘It is funny. In a crappy sort of way.’