Page 51 of The Love of Our Lives
My phone buzzes and I know it will be Adam before I’ve even looked.
Is everything OK? Was that your mum earlier?
What do I say to him? No, everything is not OK, and even though we’ve started to fall for each other, I will have to go soon. I will have to leave you. And so will she.
But how the hell can I do that to him?
How the hell can I do that to me? Because I know deep inside of myself that I will be leaving this life and going back to my old one seven months from now. There is only one heart between us, after all, and it’s transferred to me in the future. And if I’m the one here now – walking, talking and moving as Emily – that must mean she’s well and truly gone. Fate is fate, like it was for Cat, like it is for anyone, and whatever cosmic glitch has happened between us, I can’t start playing God here. No, it’s certain in my mind: this body I’m currently in will die regardless of what I do on 25July this year – the day of the heart transplant – and I will go back to the small, limited space that I came from.
Lying back against the hard wooden floor, I stare up at my technicolour wall, at the swirls and loops and splatters of life and light, and I try to work out what to do; what to say to someone I can never have.
In a life I can never keep.
Time passes, Christmas evening rolls on, and I’m still lying on the floor; still trying to ground myself to something solid. Eventually I hear noises across the hallway, Sven and Charlie and William all talking away. There is laughter and chatting, calls of Merry Christmas as the snow starts outside my window. The noise rises up, lowers again as they all head downstairs, and then a moment later, the inevitable knock comes on my door.
For a moment, I think about not answering it, but I know I owe him more than that.
Pulling myself off the cold wood, I walk slowly to the door and it sort of reminds me of that very first night he came over, when I was so scared and alone, but hopeful too; curious about what else might lie out there in this new world. And I just wish I could take myself back, have it all stretching out before me like that.
Opening the door, I find him standing there like always, his forest-green eyes on mine.
‘Are you OK?’ he says, then pauses. ‘You didn’t reply.’
His voice is full of concern.
‘I’m sorry,’ I start, stop. Because I still don’t know what to say, where to go from here.
‘Is your mum still around?’ he asks hopefully, as though that might explain my radio silence.
I shake my head. ‘No, she left a while ago.’
‘I see,’ he says, a crease forming on his brow.
‘Adam,’ I start finally, unsure how to word this exactly, ‘I . . . have to go back home.’
He looks worried. ‘For how long? Is everyone OK?’
‘Yes, everyone’s OK,’ I say slowly, ‘and I’ll be here for a while longer yet, but I just can’t stay here, long-term, I mean.’
‘Why not? I don’t understand?’
When I don’t say anything back, he reaches for my hand, that crease on his forehead melting again.
‘Look,’ he says, ‘I don’t know exactly what happened with your mum, Emily, and I can’t even begin to pretend to understand your experiences. But all I do know is that in the past five months, I’ve been happy in a way that even I wasn’t sure was possible. I’ve felt things I’ve never truthfully felt before . . . and I think I’m in love with you.’
My heart is beating so fast at his words, as other words, my words, chime from just before Emily’s mum came over – that these past five months with Adam have been the most perfect of my life. They’ve been all I’ve ever wanted, and it’s because I stopped being so afraid all the time. And in the time I’ve got left – in the seven months I’ve got left – I know already that I have to fit in as much as I possibly can. Not for me, but for Emily. Because I can feel it in my bones – her bones – that this isn’t an alternate reality. It’s there in the trees and the grass and the air around me.
This is it.
And even though she’s gone, what I do will affect Emily’s legacy forever.
‘Say something, Emily,’ he says, his eyes trained on mine, his hand gripping mine too. ‘Just please don’t do anything we’ll regret later . . . I can’t lose you now.’
And while all I want to do is throw myself into his arms, and never leave his side ever again, I pull my fingers from his.
Because I can’t drag Adam into this; won’t drag him into this.
It was different when I thought I could stay, that perhaps I could keep living this life as my own, but there is no doubt now about who it belongs to.
