Page 110 of The Last Kiss

“What?!”

“Jules, I need to try to find a way to get you home.”

“No, Liv, wait. I need to speak to Henri.”

“Julia! What about Paige, Lenny? Don’t you want to see them?”

“Yes, yes of course I do, but… I was really mean, stupid really.”

Death it seems paints life in different shades of white. You realise that nothing is pure, nothing is untainted. I realise now my stupidity to believe otherwise.

I was wrong. Dying trumps marriage.

“Can you try to get Henri back for me?” Streaks of tears slip down my face.

Liv bites her lower lip and then clutches my hand. “Jules.” She gives my fingers a tight squeeze. “This is it; you do know that? I’ve spoken to Dr Francis. He’s making arrangements for you to go straight onto his ward when we get back, but he says we should have looked at hospices.”

Turning my face, I stare at the wall. “Please get Henri.”

She waits a beat, but I don’t turn back, and eventually she pats my hand again and leaves. I cry, staring at cream walls.

The end seemed so very far away, funny that it’s so quickly here.

I wake again to the shift of air next to the bed. Please let it be him. Please let it be him.

Turning, I open my eyes, only to find anger and betrayal staring right back at me. “Henri,” I sigh his name, a wish on my lips.

My fingers stretch automatically waiting for a connection with him. It doesn’t come, so instead I pull the oxygen tube from under my nose, attempting to make myself half normal. “I’m so sorry I got angry. It came as a massive shock, but I shouldn’t have overreacted. I guess I was jealous. She’s so beautiful. When I arrived and saw you together in town, I figured you’d upgraded. It made perfect sense to me, you looked like you fitted together.” My words are running into one another, exhaustion, sleep, and dying making them string with breathless little pauses.

“A massive shock, Julianna?” His words are moderated, even. The depths of his eyes hold shadows I don’t want to fall into. “Imagine watching the woman you love with all your soul crumple to the ground with no warning, almost, almost…”

I shake my head, but the tears start. “It was so hard to tell you. I planned to, today.” Oh, that’s not right. “Yesterday,” I amend. “I wanted to tell you, because I wanted to stay with you. I knew there was only one thing that would take me away from you.” I don’t say it.

“I never told you, but my father dropped down dead in front of me. Just like that.” Henri snaps his fingers, and a little bit of hope leaves my body with a gasp of air. “We were out on the fields, just the two of us, where we most liked to be, and he fell. I had to carry him all the way home knowing it was too late to save him, that he was already dead in my arms.”

“Henri, I’m sorry.” I hitch my breath as it combines with a sob. “You saved me though, Henri, Liv told me. I’d be gone now if it wasn’t for you.”

Slowly he shakes his head, dropping his stormy gaze.

“Henri, please.”

When he raises them to meet my face there’s a sea of defeat staring right back at me.

“I should have told you I was married. It was a silly secret to keep. Silly, because I haven’t been in love with Odile for years, a fact we both knew. Our relationship had become one of business and ease.”

“I’m sorry, I get that.”

He holds up his hand.

“But dying? Julianna,” he whispers my name.

“I’m so sorry. Just the faster I fell for you, the more I never wanted it to end. I met you the day I found out, and you gave me this little spark of life right when I thought it was over.”

“And you realised you still had things you needed to do.” His face pinches, skin tightening around his eyes.

“What do you mean?” I ask. A tightening band grips my chest as he pulls my peacock book from behind his back.

“Oh, Henri,” I whisper, shrinking back against the pillow.