Page 119 of The Art of Loving You

‘Let there be light.’ Jack produced a torch.

‘You’ve thought of everything. Have you got the kitchen sink in there?’

‘I do have something else.’ He reached into the side pocket. ‘Libby, this is the place I first told you I loved you. Here, I gave you the key to my heart. Today the key to the bunker.’ He toed the crowbar on the floor. ‘And now I want to give you the key to my home.’ He opened a small jewellery box. On scarlet velvet nestled a shiny silver Yale key.

‘But …’ I was confused. ‘I’ve already got a key to your flat. You’ve got one to mine.’

‘Umm yes. I wastryingto create a moment. It’s a gesture.’

I looked at him helplessly.

‘I want you to move in with me, Libby. I want you to bring your jumpers and clean knickers and never have to worry about running out of stuff again.’

‘I … Move in together?’ I was stunned.

‘Yes. It’ll be an adventure. Just like when we go down there.’ He glanced at the bunker. ‘You said it yourself. There’s an entire world waiting to be discovered.’

Our eyes met; I hope mine reflected the love that I saw in his own.

‘What do you say?’ he asked, shyer than I had ever seen him before.

‘But … I’m grumpy in the mornings and I always forget to take the rubbish out and—’

‘I know.’ Jack traced my lips with his fingertips. ‘I know all of those things, the good and the bad. I’ll be the one to deal with the bins, I won’t talk to you before you’ve drunk your morning coffee. There’s an art to loving you, Libby, and I think I’m rather good at it. Don’t overthink it.’

We both watched a butterfly flit, a carefree dance before alighting on a nearby shrub.

‘What if—’

‘That’s a sign,’ Jack cut in.

‘The butterfly?’

‘He has a heart-achingly short lifespan but he doesn’t live his life in fear, worrying about the what-ifs and the buts. Instead he sees a landscape brimming with possibilities as he flies across the limitless sky. Don’t live in fear, Libby, it’s only a half life.’

The butterfly dipped and hovered in front of us before soaring off to pastures new, making a leap into the unknown.

‘Yes,’ I said, a smile spreading over my face. ‘Yes!’ Jack lifted me into his arms and I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist.Unlike in the movies where the boy twirls the girl around giving the impression she weighs virtually nothing, his knees buckled and we tumbled onto the sand. ‘Yes.’ I pressed my lips against his over and over again.

‘Elizabeth Emerson, I promise you this,’ he said once we had finally stopped kissing. He looked at me with such intensity as he ran his fingertips tenderly down my cheek. ‘I will love you for the rest of my life.’

The memory was bittersweet.

‘And I did,’ Jack says now. ‘I made you that promise, Libs, and I kept it. I loved you for every single second of my life, still love you now. Will always …’ He is crying too. I want to wipe away his tears but know that I can’t. It’s agony. More than anything I long to feel his skin one last time. ‘I’m going to make you another promise now. Youwillbe fine.’

‘You can’t know—’

‘I can’t be here and yet somehow I am. Libby, all you have to do is believe it. Want it. You can be happy and that is my wish for you. I want you to remember that.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘I’ll leave you a reminder,’ he says but before I can ask him what he means a nurse waves at me from the end of the corridor.

‘Libby. We’re ready for you now.’

I turn to my left. Jack has gone. But hurtling up the corridor in his place is Mum pushing Alice in a wheelchair.

‘We’ve come to say good—’

---