Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

‘I know.’
And there it was. He knew it, and I knew it. There was nothing left for me to
do.
Do you know how hard it is to say nothing? When every atom of you strains
to do the opposite? I had practised not saying anything the whole way from the
airport, and it was still nearly killing me. I nodded. When I finally spoke, my
voice was a small, broken thing. What emerged was the only thing I could safely
say.
‘I missed you.’
He seemed to relax then. ‘Come over here.’ And then, when I hesitated.
‘Please. Come on. Right here, on the bed. Right next to me.’
I realized then that there was actual relief in his expression. That he was
pleased to see me in a way he wasn’t actually going to be able to say. And I told
myself that it was going to have to be enough. I would do the thing he had asked
for. That would have to be enough.
I lay down on the bed beside him and I placed my arm across him. I rested my
head on his chest, letting my body absorb the gentle rise and fall of it. I could
feel the faint pressure of Will’s fingertips on my back, his warm breath in my
hair. I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of him, still the same expensive
cedar-wood smell, despite the bland freshness of the room, the slightly
disturbing scent of disinfectant underneath. I tried not to think of anything at all.
I just tried to be, tried to absorb the man I loved through osmosis, tried to imprint
what I had left of him on myself. I did not speak. And then I heard his voice. I
was so close to him that when he spoke it seemed to vibrate gently through me.
‘Hey, Clark,’ he said. ‘Tell me something good.’
I stared out of the window at the bright-blue Swiss sky and I told him a story
of two people. Two people who shouldn’t have met, and who didn’t like each
other much when they did, but who found they were the only two people in the
world who could possibly have understood each other. And I told him of the
adventures they had, the places they had gone, and the things I had seen that I
had never expected to. I conjured for him electric skies and iridescent seas and
evenings full of laughter and silly jokes. I drew a world for him, a world far from
a Swiss industrial estate, a world in which he was still somehow the person he
had wanted to be. I drew the world he had created for me, full of wonder and