Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

ground. Across the road from us in the field, people were climbing out of huge,
Germanic cars, women in fuchsia dresses muttering to their husbands as their
heels sank into the grass. They were all leggy and streamlined in pale muted
colours. I fiddled with my hair, wondering if I had put on too much lipstick. I
suspected I looked like one of those plastic tomatoes you squeeze ketchup out of.
‘So … how are we playing today?’
Will followed my line of vision. ‘Honestly?’
‘Yup. I need to know. And please don’t say Shock and Awe. Are you planning
something terrible?’
Will’s eyes met mine. Blue, unfathomable. A small cloud of butterflies landed
in my stomach.
‘We’re going to be incredibly well behaved, Clark.’
The butterflies’ wings began to beat wildly, as if trapped against my ribcage. I
began to speak, but he interrupted me.
‘Look, we’ll just do whatever it takes to make it fun,’ he said.
Fun. Like going to an ex’s wedding could ever be less painful than root canal
surgery. But it was Will’s choice. Will’s day. I took a breath, trying to pull
myself together.
‘One exception,’ I said, adjusting the wrap around my shoulders for the
fourteenth time.
‘What?’
‘You’re not to do the Christy Brown. If you do the Christy Brown I will drive
home and leave you stuck here with the pointy-heads.’
As Will turned and began making his way towards the church, I thought I
heard him murmur, ‘Spoilsport.’
We sat through the ceremony without incident. Alicia looked as ridiculously
beautiful as I had known she would, her skin polished a pale caramel, the biascut
off-white silk skimming her slim figure as if it wouldn’t dare rest there
without permission. I stared at her as she floated down the aisle, wondering how
it would feel to be tall and long-legged and look like something most of us only
saw in airbrushed posters. I wondered if a team of professionals had done her
hair and make-up. I wondered if she was wearing control pants. Of course not.
She would be wearing pale wisps of something lacy – underwear for women