Page 67 of The Life We Almost Had

My mind drifts over my memories, which are both painful and pleasurable to recall. We were blissfully happy until gradually we weren’t. Every cross word, every hard stare, each time we turned our backs on each other in bed, gathered like storm clouds hanging over us,ready to burst, drenching us with doubt and uncertainty until we questioned what we once thought was unquestionable.

Can love really be eternal?

I can answer that now because the inequitable truth is that I am hopelessly, irrevocably, lost without him.

‘Please wake up.’ My mouth brushes against his ear. ‘I want you. I need you.’

But does he feel the same? Oliver could hold the answer to that question if I am brave enough find out. What if Adam doesn’t make it and I am left forever wondering?

I turn over the possibility of life without him but each time I think of me without him, no longer an us, my heart breaks all over again.

If only we hadn’t come here. Stepped on board the yacht.

My chest tightens.

I am back in the water. Current dragging me down. Waves crashing over my head.

Breathe.

I am kneeling on the hot sand beside an unresponsive Adam, begging strangers to save my husband’s life.

Breathe, Anna.

You’re okay.

It’s a lie I tell myself, but gradually the horror of that day begins to dissipate with every slow inhale, with every measured exhale. It takes several minutes to calm myself. My fingers furling and unfurling, my nails biting into the tender skin of my palms until my burning sorrow subsides.

Focus.

I am running out of time.

A 3 per cent chance of survival.

Gently I kiss Adam’s forehead before picking up my pen and pad from his bedside table. I’ve been trying to write a letter to my mum but the words won’t come. If the trial goes ahead, I shall insist on being the one taking part. Oliver has no right to Adam’s thoughts. His emotions. He has no right to any of it.

‘The person who takes part would be taking a risk, albeit small,’ Oliver had said. ‘It’s unprecedented. We’re taking an unknown leap into someone’s – Adam’s – mind without knowing how sharp his memories, his feelings might be. I can imagine it will be draining but I’m hoping tiredness is the only side-effect.’

It’s not only connecting to Adam’s consciousness that carries a risk; there are the stronger magnets in the fMRI machine, the ultra-fast processor, the software, none of which I fully understand. What I do know is that I am putting myself in danger and I need my mum to know why in case something so awful happens I never get to see her again, but my notepaper is still stark white. My pen once again poised, ink waiting to stain the blank page with my tenuous excuses.

My secrets.

But not my lies. There have been enough of those. Too many.

I want her to know everything. How I thought I didn’t love Adam anymore. How I kissed another man. The baby we have lost.

Why I am so desperate to see him once more and make it right.

All of it.

I’m almost certain now Ishoulddo the trial, but I wish I knew what Adam wanted; a glance towards his impassive face gives me no clues. My eyes flutter closed. I try to conjure his voice. Imagining he might tell me what to do. Past conversations echo in my mind as I search for a clue.

If you love someone, set them free, he had once told me but I brush the thought of this away. I don’t think it can apply to this awful situation we have found ourselves in. Instead I recall the feel of his body spooned around mine, warm breath on the back of my neck, promises drifting into my ear.

Forever.

I cling on to that one word as tightly as I’d clung on to his hand.

I loved him completely. I still do. Whatever happens now, and after, my heart will still belong to him.

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