Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

‘What if I should have gone with him?’
‘But … you said you couldn’t.’
Outside, the skies were grey. She stared through our immaculate windows at
the miserable day beyond.
‘I know what I said. But I just can’t bear not knowing what’s happening.’ Her
face crumpled a little. ‘I can’t bear not knowing how he’s feeling. I can’t bear the
fact that I never even got to say goodbye.’
‘Couldn’t you go now? Maybe try and get a flight?’
‘It’s too late,’ she said. And then she closed her eyes. ‘I’d never get there in
time. There’s only two hours left until … until it stops for the day. I looked it up.
On the internet.’
I waited.
‘They don’t … do … it … after five thirty.’ She shook her head in
bemusement. ‘Something to do with the Swiss officials who have to be there.
They don’t like … certifying … things outside office hours.’
I almost laughed. But I didn’t know what to say to her. I couldn’t imagine
having to wait, as she was waiting, knowing what might be happening in some
far-off place. I had never loved a man like she seemed to love Will. I had liked
men, sure, and wanted to sleep with them, but sometimes I wondered if I was
missing some sensitivity chip. I couldn’t imagine crying over anyone I’d been
with. The only equivalent was if I thought about Thomas, waiting to die in some
strange country, and as soon as that thought came to mind it made something
inside me actually flip over, it was so hideous. So I stuck that in the back of my
mental filing cabinet too, under the drawer labelled: Unthinkable.
I sat down beside my sister on the sofa and we stared in silence at the three
thirty Maiden Stakes, then the four o’clock handicap stakes, and the four races
that followed it, with the fixed intensity of people who might actually have all
the money in the world on the winner.
And then the doorbell rang.
Louisa was off the sofa and in the hallway in seconds. She opened the door
and the way she wrenched it open made even my heart stop.
But it wasn’t Will there on the doorstep. It was a young woman, her make-up
thick and perfectly applied, her hair cut in a neat bob around her chin. She folded