Page 29 of The Art of Loving You

Don’t faint.

It was a few minutes more before I was composed enough to go into the chemist. Again, I had the light-headed feeling. I was in the same shop Jack had stood in on Thursday. His shoes had trodden where my shoes were treading. What had he been thinking about? Me? The house? Alice’s news? He wouldn’t have been thinking he might be stabbed as he headed home.

I threw things onto the counter, extra soft tissues, lip balm, vapour rub, and asked for paracetamol and Lemsip, impatiently telling the pharmacist that yes, I was aware you couldn’t take them together. I knew it could be dangerous.

Everythingcould be dangerous.

Thoughts of the flowers taped to the lamp-post caused me to shake again.

Kenny.

Once in my car, I locked the doors. All the way home I repeated ‘I am okay, I am okay’ as a mantra.

At home I burst through the front door, pounded up the stairs, desperate to hug Jack.

I am okay.

‘Jack?’ I pelted into the bedroom. Not caring if I woke him. He needed to be up soon anyway for Maggie.

He didn’t move. Didn’t answer.

‘Jack?’ I was cautious now as I approached him. Some sixth sense whispering that something was wrong. Tentatively I touched his shoulder. ‘Wake up.’ He didn’t move. I pressed my hand against his cheek, whereas earlier it had been burning, now it was cool.

‘Jack?’ There was an hysterical twinge to my voice. My brain was telling me he had to be all right. He was young, he was fit, but my eyes were telling me a different story. He wasn’t moving but he had moved over the opposite side of the bed – my side – nearest the door.

‘Jack!’ I screamed, shaking him hard. Had he tried to get up? Call for help? I still had his mobile and wallet in my bag. ‘Wake up. Please wake up.’

But he didn’t.

I had left him this morning without access to a phone and now …

And now … this.

I would never, ever forgive myself.

It could have been seconds, minutes, an hour later when Maggie arrived.

I was still shaking Jack.

Still screaming.

Chapter Ten

Iwish I could say the days that followed passed in a blur but they didn’t. Every second was sharp and painful.

Jack was gone.

I wandered around the house like a ghost, touching the things that he had touched. We hadn’t been here long enough to make memories but still I saw him everywhere. Not the life we had but the life we could have had. Sprawled on the mustard velour sofa in the snug, sketchbook on his knee. Standing at the window in the dining room, head bobbing to the beat while The Beatles crackled and hissed from the turntable. In the kitchen, cream crackers snapping under the weight of his peanut butter laden knife, mashing banana with a fork to heap on the top. In bed – the bed we hadn’t yet made love in – patting the space beside him, his eyes an invitation.

He was everywhere and nowhere.

Gone.

Sometimes I just sat. Still and silent.

Alice floated around, giving me space, urging me to eat. Drink. Leanne, the owner of the café where Alice was a supervisor, had been understanding about letting her take some unpaid leave. Sometimes I was grateful for her company, sometimes I just wanted her to go away.

‘Tell me what you need, Libby,’ she’d ask, her eyes mirroring mine, filling with tears that she wouldn’t allow herself to release either, knowing that she couldn’t give me what I needed. Theonlything I needed.

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