Page 53 of The Art of Loving You

Again we fell silent. We’d used all the words. It was exhausting, his grief, my grief. It might have been selfish but I couldn’t help him deal with his loss when I hadn’t even begun to process my own.

‘I need to go.’ I didn’t want to be here any more.

‘Can I give you a lift?’

‘No. Thanks for the drink and these.’ I tried to push the paracetamol back into his hand but he shook his head.

‘Keep them.’

I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away, or perhaps it was just the burning sun.

Halfway home the sky darkened, lightning cracked and thunder rumbled. Rain pelted down, bouncing out of the potholes, turning the countryside a deep moss green. It took an age before I was trudging up our lane. I was soaked, my limbs heavy, my head light. I had thought going out was hard but coming home was harder. Putting my key into the lock, knowing there wasn’t anybody waiting the other side of the door. Perhaps I should have let Noah drive me. I would be dry now and I could have invited him into this cold empty space where Jack should be but wasn’t.

But I didn’t want Noah here. He might have understood that grief is a thief. It steals your rational thoughts, your words, your feelings. Your peace of mind. It robs your contentment, leaving in its place a constant unease. What will happen next? Who will leave me next? It’s exhausting. But Noah was still a stranger and it was cutting hearing him refer to loss as something you get used to. I didn’t want to get used to it and the thought that I one day might was devastating. I climbed upstairs to fetch a towel and change my clothes. On the first-floor landing droplets of water were splashing onto the stairs, coming from the floor above. I checked it out. There was a pool of water on the floorboards. The builder had been right. The roof was leaking.

It was all too much.

I didn’t know how to do this without Jack: the house; be happy; live – any of it. It was inconceivable that it had even crossed my mind that I perhaps could.

Without conscious thinking I found myself heading back to the bathroom, opening the cabinet and staring at the box of sleeping tablets.

I could make it all stop.

Everything.

It was wrong, I knew it was wrong but still my trembling fingers curled around the packet, the prick of a thousand needles jabbing against my skull.

It was wrong, but still I lifted the box from the shelf, closed the cabinet door. My wide scared eyes stared back at me from the mirror.

I dropped my gaze to the box in my hand.

It was wrong.

Drip-drip-drip, the rain pattered in.

It was overwhelming.

I could make it all stop.

Sleep.

Restful.

Eternal.

Life without Jack was too hard. Too colourless. Too painful.

You get used to it.

I hadn’t.

I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t.

One square at a time, Sid had said but even that seemed too much. Every time I tried to pick myself up I was knocked back down. The headstone was the tipping point.

I couldn’t get up again. I just … couldn’t.

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