Me Before You: A Novel

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.
    I turned towards the bed. ‘So,’ I said, my bag over my shoulder, ‘I’m guessing the room service isn’t up to much?’
    Will’s eyes locked on to mine and despite everything, despite all my fears, the fact that I had thrown up twice, that I felt like I hadn’t slept for a year, I was suddenly gladI had come. Not glad, relieved. Like I had excised some painful, nagging part of myself, and given it over.
    And then he smiled. It was lovely, his smile – a slow thing, full of recognition.
    Weirdly, I found myself smiling back. ‘Nice room,’ I said, and immediately realized the idiocy of the remark. I saw Georgina Traynor close her eyes, and I blushed.
    Will turned towards his mother. ‘I want to talk to Lou. Is that okay?’
    She tried to smile. I saw a million things in the way she looked at me then – relief, gratitude, a faint resentment at being shut out of these few minutes, perhaps even a distant hope that my appearance meant something, that this fate might yet be twisted from its tracks.
    ‘Of course.’
    She moved past me into the corridor, and as I stood back from the doorway to let her pass, she reached out a hand and touched my upper arm, just lightly. Our eyes met, and hers softened, so that briefly she looked like someone else entirely, and then she turned away from me.
    ‘Come, Georgina,’ she said, when her daughter made no attempt to move.
    Georgina stood slowly and walked out silently, her very back broadcasting her reluctance.
    And then it was just us.
    Will was half propped up in the bed, able to see out of the window to his left, where the water feature in the little garden merrily trickled a thin stream of clear water below the decking. On the wall was a badly framed print picture of dahlias. I remember thinking that was a really crummy print to have to look at in your last hours.
    ‘So … ’
    ‘You’re not going to –’
    ‘I’m not going to try and change your mind.’
    ‘If you’re here, you accept it’s my choice. This is the first thing I’ve been in control of since the accident.’
    ‘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