Page 83 of The Love of Our Lives
‘I love you too, Emily.’ He says, as though this is what he still truly wants.
And it doesn’t feel scary anymore – it feels good and right and amazing and I wonder why I’ve never allowed myself to get here before. It is the best part of my trip, and I start to realise that nothing about my old, seemingly limited body, was actually stopping me having moments like this – going to new places and experiencing new things. Because the cooking classes with Charlie and the dancing with William and the slow walks I took in the hills with Adam were some of the fullest moments of this past year, even if they did seem small at the time.
I was lucky to be in my old life as Maggie; to have the potential to meet amazing people like Adam.
And it was only my heart I was scared of risking.
Eventually though, as with everything in life, it must come to an end – Adam has to get back for his work in the UK, and I need to get back too – for different reasons. I have to try somehow to come to a decision – let Emily die however she did that day in Edinburgh, or not. I’m fully aware that maybe I’ve got this all wrong and I’ll automatically go back to my old life regardless of what I do, which would also be a privilege, I’m realising now. But even as I think it, a sensation in my stomach tells me that that is absolutely not why I’m here, and there’s a reason why all this happened; a reason I was brought here in the first place. Emily died, yet somehow the universe brought me back to her life. Which means she wasn’t done with it. There was something, or someone, holding her here – Adam perhaps? And if I stop her dying on the day of the transplant, she’ll return to however I leave it, and I – Maggie – will die in hospital instead.
I can change the outcome for her, just like I did for Charlie.
But frustration slams me again now, because the truth is, I’m not done with life either and I don’t want to go at all. I want to live and breathe and experience everything I can, for as long as I possibly can.
I’m so desperate for it, it hurts, and as much as I want Emily to finish whatever she was trying to do, I don’t want to give my life up for her.
I’m pretty quiet on the way back to Scotland, and I feel Adam keep looking across at me, in the taxi to the airport, in the coffee shop at departures. It’s like we’ve been in this bubble the past week together and suddenly reality is hitting hard.
I have a choice to make and I don’t know how to make it.
As Adam sleeps on the plane beside me on the way back, I find myself tracing the shape of his forehead, his nose, the swollen pout of his lips, which I have kissed so many times now, and I wonder – did Emily love Adam as much as I do? Did she cherish him like this? Because she actually had a properrelationship before, one that spanned years, and there was real love there, once. Whereas I’m only just finding this; I’m only just experiencing this incredible sensation for the very first time in my life. What I had with Nick didn’t come close. And though I know I’d go back to my old life if I got the heart, I can’t help wondering if I could find Adam again, somehow; this person who means so much to me. Whether it could be the same.
But as I rest my head against his shoulder, I know instinctively that Adam meant so much to her too. She loved him, just as much as me. And those amazing feelings whenever I’m around Adam were hers also.
A jolting sensation.
‘We’re here,’ a gentle voice says.
Opening my eyes, I blink around to see we’ve landed, and the plane is taxiing along the runway to a halt.
I look around to see Adam just above me, a soft expression in his eyes.
‘You slept the entire flight.’ He says, kissing me lightly on the forehead, and I smile faintly back at him. Because a knot of reality has been growing in me since we left Canada, and I’m not sure what I’m thinking; what I’m feeling right now. Immediately I see the worry in his eyes, and I feel like the worst person in the world for causing that, so I try to act like everything is OK. I’ve already put him through enough, after all, and I just try to remember William’s words again – that I need to make each day count.
Walking out of Edinburgh Airport a little while later, Adam reaches for me again in the evening air, and holding his hand tightly, I go with him to the taxi rank.
Twenty minutes later and we pull up outside our building, a sight so very joyous for me, with our two flats side by side at the top, dear William downstairs, and Ferris padding softly aroundsomewhere. It’s only as we’re stepping out of the taxi that I see her, standing outside the building in fitted jeans and a white shirt.
‘Fran,’ I say, my heart immediately racing.
I haven’t spoken to her since the wedding, of course, despite her emailing and calling several times during her honeymoon. I felt bad for the stress she must have been under during what should have been the most relaxed time with Toby, and then I got mad at myself for feeling bad about it. Because this was all of her own making. And after the years of friendship she and Emily shared, and how close I felt to her too, I just couldn’t bring myself to speak to her.
Yet, seeing her standing right here outside the building, with those wide remorseful eyes, I can’t helping feeling some of that same pull I’ve always had to her.
‘E,’ she says, taking a small step towards me. But I don’t go to hug her. I don’t try to make this easy for her.
‘I’m sorry I’ve come with no warning, but I really needed to speak to you. . .’
Her eyes flit nervously to Adam, who offers her a polite smile, and a ‘hello’ as he would for anyone. Then he turns to me. ‘I’ll just take the bags up, all right?’
‘Thanks,’ I say, all the while wishing he wouldn’t leave me. But he knows what happened, and he knows that I have to deal with this alone.
When he’s gone inside, I turn to Fran again.
‘How did you know I’d be back today?’ I say flatly.
She pauses. ‘I contacted that friend of yours at the dance school.’
I frown. ‘Charlie?’
