Me Before You: A Novel

remembered to watch it.
    The next two answers were from a Seventh-day Adventist, and a man whose suggested ways in which I could cheer Will up were certainly not covered by my working contract. I flushed and hurriedly scrolled down, afraid that someone might glance at the screen from behind me. And then I hesitated on the next reply.
Hi Busy Bee,
    Why do you think your friend/charge/whatever needs his mind changing? If I could work out a way of dying with dignity, and if I didn’t know it would devastate my family, I would take it. I have been stuck in this chair eight years now, and my life is a constant round of humiliations and frustrations. Can you really put yourself in his shoes? Do you know how it feels to not even be able to empty your bowels without help? To know that forever after you are going to be stuck in your bed/unable to eat, dress, communicate with the outside world without someone to help you? To never have sex again? To face the prospect of sores, and ill health and even ventilators? You sound like a nice person, and I’m sure you mean well. But it may not be you looking after him next week. It may be someone who depresses him, or even doesn’t like him very much. That, like everything else, is out of his control. We SCIs know that
very little is under our control – who feeds us, dresses us, washes us, dictates our medication. Living with that knowledge is very hard.
    So I think you are asking the wrong question. Who are the AB todecide what our lives should be? If this is the wrong life for your friend, shouldn’t the question be: How do I help him to end it?
    Best wishes,
    Gforce, Missouri, US
    I stared at the message, my fingers briefly stilled on the keyboard. Then I scrolled down. The next few were from other quadriplegics, criticizing Gforce for his bleak words, protesting that they had found a way forward, that theirs was a life worth living. There was a brief argument going on that seemed to have little to do with Will at all.
    And then the thread dragged itself back to my request. There were suggestions of antidepressants, massage, miracle recoveries, stories of how members’ own lives had been given new value. There were a few practical suggestions: wine tasting, music, art, specially adapted keyboards.
    ‘A partner,’ said Grace31 from Birmingham. ‘If he has love, he will feel he can go on. Without it, I would have sunk many times over.’
    That phrase echoed in my head long after I had left the library.
    Will came out of hospital on Thursday. I picked him up in the adapted car, and brought him home. He was pale and exhausted, and stared out of the window listlessly for the whole journey.
    ‘No sleep in these places,’ he explained, when I asked him if he was okay. ‘There’s always someone moaning in the next bed.’
    I told him he would have the weekend to recover, but after that I had a series of outings planned. I told him I was taking his advice and trying new things, and he wouldhave to come with me. It was a subtle change in emphasis, but I knew that was the only way I could get him to accompany me.
    In fact, I had devised a detailed schedule for the next couple of weeks. Each event was carefully marked on my calendar in black, with red pen outlining the precautions I should take, and green for the accessories I would need. Every time I looked at the back of my door I felt a little glimmer of excitement, both that I had been so organized, but also that one of these events might actually be the thing that changed Will’s view of the world.
    As my Dad always says, my sister is the brains of our family.
    The art gallery trip lasted a shade under twenty minutes. And that included driving round the block three times in search of a suitable parking space. We got there, and almost before I had closed the door behind him he said all the work was terrible. I asked him why and he said if I couldn’t see it he couldn’t explain it. The cinema had to be abandoned after the staff told us, apologetically, that their lift was out of order. Others, such as the failed attempt to go swimming, required more time and organization – the ringing of the swimming pool beforehand, the booking of Nathan for overtime, and then, when we got there, the flask of hot chocolate drunk in silence in the leisure centre car park when Will resolutely refused to go in.
    The following Wednesday evening, we went to hear a singer he had once seen live in New York. That was a good trip. When he