Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

lucky. And she said from the day she brought them home I refused to take them
off. I wore them to bed, in the bath, to nursery all through the summer. My
favourite outfit was those glitter boots and my bumblebee tights.’
‘Bumblebee tights?’
‘Black and yellow stripes.’
‘Gorgeous.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘Well, it’s true. They sound revolting.’
‘They might sound revolting to you, but astonishingly, Will Traynor, not all
girls get dressed just to please men.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Everything women do is with men in mind. Everything anyone does is with
sex in mind. Haven’t you read The Red Queen?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I can assure you I’m not sitting
on your bed singing the “Molahonkey Song” because I’m trying to get my leg
over. And when I was three, I just really, really liked having stripy legs.’
I realized that the anxiety that had held me in its grip all day was slowly
ebbing away with every one of Will’s comments. I was no longer in sole charge
of a poorly quadriplegic. It was just me, sitting next to a particularly sarcastic
bloke, having a chat.
‘So come on, then, what happened to these gorgeous glittery wellies?’
‘She had to throw them away. I got terrible athlete’s foot.’
‘Delightful.’
‘And she threw the tights away too.’
‘Why?’
‘I never found out. But it broke my heart. I have never found a pair of tights I
loved like that again. They don’t do them any more. Or if they do, they don’t
make them for grown women.’
‘Strange, that.’
‘Oh, you can mock. Didn’t you ever love anything that much?’
I could barely see him now, the room shrouded in the near dark. I could have
turned the overhead light on, but something stopped me. And almost as soon as I
realized what I had said, I wished I hadn’t.