Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

I managed to make myself busy for the entire wait at the airport. I found a
thousand small tasks to do – busying myself with luggage labels, buying coffee,
perusing newspapers, going to the loo – all of which meant that I didn’t have to
look at him. I didn’t have to talk to him. But every now and then Nathan would
disappear and we were left alone, sitting beside each other, the short distance
between us jangling with unspoken recriminations.
‘Clark –’ he would begin.
‘Don’t,’ I would cut him off. ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
I surprised myself with how cold I could be. I certainly surprised the air
stewardesses. I saw them on the flight, muttering between themselves at the way
I turned rigidly away from Will, plugging my earphones in or resolutely staring
out of the window.
For once, he didn’t get angry. That was almost the worst of it. He didn’t get
angry, and he didn’t get sarcastic, and he simply grew quieter until he barely
spoke. It was left to poor Nathan to bounce the conversation along, to ask
questions about tea or coffee or spare packets of dry-roasted peanuts or whether
anyone minded if he climbed past us to go to the loo.
It probably sounds childish now, but it was not just a matter of pride. I
couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear the thought that I would lose him, that he was so
stubborn, and determined not to see what was good, what could be good, that he
would not change his mind. I couldn’t believe that he would stick to that one
date, as if it were cast in stone. A million silent arguments rattled around my
head. Why is this not enough for you? Why am I not enough for you? Why could
you not have confided in me? If we’d had more time, would this have been
different? Every now and then I would catch myself staring down at his tanned
hands, those squared-off fingers, just inches from my own, and I would
remember how our fingers felt entwined – the warmth of him, the illusion, even
in stillness, of a kind of strength – and a lump would rise in my throat until I
thought I could barely breathe and I had to retreat to the WC where I would lean
over the sink and sob silently under the strip lighting. There were a few
occasions, when I thought about what Will still intended to do, where I actually
had to fight the urge to scream; I felt overcome by a kind of madness and
thought I might just sit down in the aisle and howl and howl until someone else
stepped in. Until someone else made sure he couldn’t do it.