Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

whole night, and how they had laughed at me and made fun of how drunk and
stoned I was, and how I had passed out and later my sister had said it might
actually be a good thing, the not remembering all of what they had done, but
how that half-hour of not knowing had haunted me ever since. I filled it, you see.
I filled it with their laughter, their bodies and their words. I filled it with my own
humiliation. I told him how I saw their faces every time I went anywhere beyond
the town, and how Patrick and Mum and Dad and my small life had been just
fine for me, with all their problems and limitations. They had let me feel safe.
By the time we finished talking the sky had grown dark, and there were
fourteen messages on my mobile phone wondering where we were.
‘You don’t need me to tell you it wasn’t your fault,’ he said, quietly.
Above us the sky had become endless and infinite.
I twisted the handkerchief in my hand. ‘Yes. Well. I still feel … responsible. I
drank too much to show off. I was a terrible flirt. I was –’
‘No. They were responsible.’
Nobody had ever said those words aloud to me. Even Treena’s look of
sympathy had held some mute accusation. Well, if you will get drunk and silly
with men you don’t know …
His fingers squeezed mine. A faint movement, but there it was.
‘Louisa. It wasn’t your fault.’
I cried then. Not sobbing, this time. The tears left me silently, and told me
something else was leaving me. Guilt. Fear. A few other things I hadn’t yet
found words for. I leant my head gently on his shoulder and he tilted his head
until it rested against mine.
‘Right. Are you listening to me?’
I murmured a yes.
‘Then I’ll tell you something good,’ he said, and then he waited, as if he
wanted to be sure he had my attention. ‘Some mistakes … just have greater
consequences than others. But you don’t have to let that night be the thing that
defines you.’
I felt his head tilt against mine.
‘You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.’
The sigh that left me then was long, and shuddering. We sat there in silence,
letting his words sink in. I could have stayed there all night, above the rest of the