Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

‘You look absolutely beautiful.’
‘Funny.’
‘Come here,’ he said. ‘Right up close to me.’
I lay down again, facing him. I saw the clock above the door and had a sudden
sense of time running out. I took his arm and wrapped it tightly around me,
threading my own arms and legs around him so that we were tightly entwined. I
took his hand – the good one – and wrapped my fingers in his, kissing the
knuckles as I felt him squeeze mine. His body was so familiar to me now. I knew
it in a way I had never known Patrick’s – its strengths and vulnerabilities, its
scars and scents. I placed my face so close to his that his features became
indistinct, and I began to lose myself in them. I stroked his hair, his skin, his
brow, with my fingertips, tears sliding unchecked down my cheeks, my nose
against his, and all the time he watched me silently, studying me intently as if he
were storing each molecule of me away. He was already retreating, withdrawing
to somewhere I couldn’t reach him.
I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against
his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his
skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny
particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual. I wanted to press every bit
of me against him. I wanted to will something into him. I wanted to give him
every bit of life I felt and force him to live.
I realized I was afraid of living without him. How is it you have the right to
destroy my life, I wanted to demand of him, but I’m not allowed a say in yours?
But I had promised.
So I held him, Will Traynor, ex-City whiz kid, ex-stunt diver, sportsman,
traveller, lover. I held him close and said nothing, all the while telling him
silently that he was loved. Oh, but he was loved.
I couldn’t say how long we stayed like that. I was dimly aware of soft
conversation outside, of the shuffle of shoes, a distant church bell ringing in
some far-off place. Finally, I felt him loosen a great breath, almost a shudder,
and he drew his head back just an inch so that we could see each other clearly.
I blinked at him.
He gave me a small smile, almost an apology.
‘Clark,’ he said, quietly. ‘Can you call my parents in?’