Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

things being better for him, then I guess the best thing you can do is just be there. You don’t have to
think he’s right. But you do have to be there.
I realized I was holding my breath.
Good luck, Bee. And come see me after. Things may get a little bumpy for you afterwards. Either
way, I could do with a friend like you.
My fingers stilled on the keyboard. I typed:
I will.
And then the receptionist told me that my car had arrived outside.
I don’t know what I expected – maybe some white building next to a lake, or
snow-capped mountains. Perhaps some medical-looking marble frontage with a
gold-plated plaque on the wall. What I didn’t expect was to be driven through an
industrial estate until I arrived at what looked remarkably like an ordinary house,
surrounded by factories and, weirdly, a football pitch. I walked across decking,
past a goldfish pond, and then I was in.
The woman who opened the door knew immediately who I was looking for.
‘He is here. Would you like me to show you?’
I stalled then. I stared at the closed door, oddly similar to the one I had stood
outside in Will’s annexe all those months ago, and I took a breath. And nodded.
I saw the bed before I saw him; it dominated the room with its mahogany
wood, its quaintly flowered quilt and pillows weirdly out of place in that setting.
Mr Traynor sat on one side of it, Mrs Traynor on the other.
She looked ghostly pale, and stood up when she saw me. ‘Louisa.’
Georgina was seated on a wooden chair in the corner, bent over her knees, her
hands pressed together as if in prayer. She lifted her gaze as I walked in,
revealing shadowed eyes, reddened with grief, and I felt a brief spasm of
sympathy for her.
What would I have done if Katrina had insisted on her right to do the same?
The room itself was light and airy, like an upmarket holiday home. There was
a tiled floor and expensive rugs, and a sofa at the end that looked out on to a
little garden. I didn’t know what to say. It was such a ridiculous, mundane sight,
the three of them sitting there, as if they were a family trying to work out where
to go sightseeing that day.