Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

Diet Cokes. When they, finally, ordered food there wouldn’t be a salad that was
allowed to brush a leaf against a full-fat dressing, or a piece of chicken that still
sported its skin. I often ordered chips, just so that I could watch them all pretend
they didn’t want one.
‘Phil hit the wall about forty miles in. He said he actually heard voices. Feet
like lead. He had that zombie face, you know?’
‘I got some of those new Japanese balancing trainers fitted. Shaved fifteen
minutes off my ten-mile timings.’
‘Don’t travel with a soft bike bag. Nigel arrived at tricamp with it looking like
a ruddy coat hanger.’
I couldn’t say I enjoyed the Triathlon Terrors’ gatherings, but what with my
increased hours and Patrick’s training timetable it was one of the few times I
could be guaranteed to see him. He sat beside me, muscular thighs clad in shorts
despite the extreme cold outside. It was a badge of honour among the members
of the club to wear as few clothes as possible. The men were wiry, brandishing
obscure and expensive sports layers that boasted extra ‘wicking’ properties, or
lighter-than-air bodyweights. They were called Scud or Trig, and flexed bits of
body at each other, displaying injuries or alleged muscle growth. The girls wore
no make-up, and had the ruddy complexions of those who thought nothing of
jogging for miles through icy conditions. They looked at me with faint distaste –
or perhaps even incomprehension – no doubt weighing up my fat to muscle ratio
and finding it wanting.
‘It was awful,’ I told Patrick, wondering whether I could order cheesecake
without them all giving me the Death Stare. ‘His girlfriend and his best friend.’
‘You can’t blame her,’ he said. ‘Are you really telling me you’d stick around if
I was paralysed from the neck down?’
‘Of course I would.’
‘No, you wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t expect you to.’
‘Well, I would.’
‘But I wouldn’t want you there. I wouldn’t want someone staying with me out
of pity.’
‘Who says it would be pity? You’d still be the same person underneath.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be anything like the same person.’ He wrinkled his
nose. ‘I wouldn’t want to live. Relying on other people for every little thing.