Page 32 of The Art of Loving You

At home, I put the medication in the bathroom cabinet alongside Jack’s razor which was clogged with shaving foam. On the shelf above lay his comb, strands of brown hair still entwined around the teeth. His toothbrush was dry and I dampened it under the tap before placing it back in the glass next to mine. I closed the cabinet, the mirror tarnished, the reflection of my pale face patchy through the dark spots. It was such a contrast to the light, bright bathroom in our old flat. The way Jack would slip his arms around my waist and nuzzle into my neck as I tried to do my make-up.

‘You don’t need all that stuff, Elizabeth Emerson. You’re beautiful just as you are.’

Days passed without me resorting to the tablets I had been prescribed. I would fall into brief snatches of sleep only to wake again, drenched in sweat, ribcage heaving, convinced hours had passed but at the most it was twenty minutes. Always twenty minutes. Not long enough to forget. There weren’t those few moments of oblivion I’d heard about from others. The ‘I’d forgotten they were gone when I first woke’. I knew. For every single excruciating second, I knew and it was agonising. And I welcomed the agony, felt that I deserved it. I didn’t take the tablets because I didn’t want to be medicated, placated. I wanted to feel.

I wanted to feel it all.

The ‘if-onlys’ were tangled threads I couldn’t help pulling at, despite knowing that they would be my unravelling.

IfI hadn’t let Alice come round and share her news, Jack wouldn’t have gone out for prosecco.

IfI hadn’t had the flu, Jack wouldn’t have been near the chemist buying Lemsip.

IfI hadn’t let Jack tell Maggie he didn’t need her to come, she might have spotted early signs and been able to save him.

IfI hadn’t kept Jack’s phone, he might have been able to call for help.

If. If. If.

The road of guilt stretched out before me and I studied each alternative fork I could have taken, despairing that I could have made a difference.Ifwe hadn’t have moved to this house.

Ifwe’d never met.

The last one was my undoing. The realisation that if Jack hadn’t asked me out that day after the life class, if I hadn’t agreed to have dinner with him, he might still be alive. Happy. In someone else’s arms, in someone else’s bed. His pulse beating strong and steady.

That was what I fixated on. How different it could all have been. The butterfly effect. The delicate flutter of wings. The tiniest change leading to chaos, catastrophe, an ordered life falling apart.

My crying bout left me weak but I had to pull myself together.

Today, I had to fight for Jack.

Chapter Eleven

Jack’s body had been released after nine harrowing days of waiting for the post-mortem and today I was meeting the vicar –wewere meeting the vicar – Rhonda and Bryan, Jack’s parents were coming too. A churchyard wasn’t where Jack would have wanted to be laid to rest and I was nervous as I dressed, hoping they’d let me have some say in the service at least. They hadn’t listened to me on the phone when I’d said that Jack wanted to be cremated, scattered.

‘It must be a burial,’ his mum had said. ‘We have a family plot. It’s near you so you can still visit him.’

‘But Jack wasn’t religious.’ I had gripped my mobile tightly. ‘He didn’t want—’

‘He’s our son.’ Rhonda’s voice had been steel. ‘And this is what Bryan and I want.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Life isn’t fair.’ She had softened her voice. ‘Look, Libby, I appreciate you loved him—’

‘Love him.’ I couldn’t think of him in the past tense.

‘We’re happy … not happy, bad choice of words. We’re …’ She had gathered her composure. ‘You can come and meet the vicar with us but the arrangements are our choice. Bryan and I are next of kin. It’s not as though you were married is it?’

The phone had dropped heavily from my hand. Alice had picked it up and finished the conversation but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. The poisonous truth of Rhonda’s words still filled my ears.

It’s not as though you were married.

My future had been yanked from under me and I wanted to tell her that wewouldhave been married.

‘I was waiting until our anniversary but … will you—’ Jack had begun at the hospital.

Will you …

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