Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

‘But I –’
‘Nearly seven years, we’ve been together. And you’ve known this man, had
this job, for five months. Five months. If you go with him now, you’re telling me
something about our relationship. About how you feel about us.’
‘That’s not fair. It doesn’t have to say anything about us,’ I protested.
‘It does if I can say all this and you’re still going to go.’
The little flat seemed so still around us. He was looking at me with an
expression I had never seen before.
When my voice emerged, it did so as a whisper. ‘But he needs me.’
I realized almost as soon as I said it, heard the words and how they twisted
and regrouped in the air, knew already how I would have felt if he had said the
same to me.
He swallowed, shook his head a little as if he were having trouble taking in
what I said. His hand came to rest on the side of the worktop, and then he looked
up at me.
‘Whatever I say isn’t going to make a difference, is it?’
That was the thing about Patrick. He always was smarter than I gave him
credit for.
‘Patrick, I –’
He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and then he turned and walked out of
the living room, leaving the last of the empty dishes on the sideboard.