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“When you’re ninety-two and your bladder is about as taut as a dead duck’s arse, you’ll be pissing constantly too.”
“Fake it till you make it, honey,” his mum had always told him. “Trust me, during the dark days, it was the only thing that got me through. I’d put a smile on my face and force a couple of laughs, and then one day, I didn’t have to pretend anymore. If you believe something enough, if you tell yourself it every moment of every day, then soon enough it will come to be.”
“Really? They said you weren’t talking, but you won’t even speak to your own mother now? Did the fire take your voice as well as your looks?”
He opened the book to page 136. Alfie couldn’t stop the laughter erupting out of him. On his dot-to-dot, she’d carefully and very artistically joined the dots to spell the word ARSEHOLE. “Oh, I see. Well yes, of course, when it’s right in front of you like that, it suddenly becomes very obvious.” “Good-bye, Alfie.”
“Can you tell her to stop talking so much please, she’s been nonstop!” came Alfie’s voice from next door. “Some of us are trying to rest.” The nurse rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to change his dressing very vigorously today.” She winked at Alice as she turned to leave. “Right, Alfred Mack, I hope you’re ready for a cold, firm hand.” “Oh well, your husband is a very lucky man. I’m surprised he lets you out the house in the morning with that bedside manner.”
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what other people think of you if you’re cut up and bleeding on the inside.”
I’m just telling you that there’s always a way out. Even when you’re in so deep you can’t see anything but the darkness. Alfie, there’s a whole life out there waiting for you. It might not be the life you had before or the life you dreamed of having, but it’s there.
I didn’t even care that they took my leg. They could have taken all of me. I just needed to not be the only one to survive. Seeing the resentment in their families’ faces became unbearable. They loved me like a son but wanted me to be the one they were grieving for. I suppose that in the end the only way I could get through it was to bury it. Shut all the pain off. But the honest truth is that sometimes I wish I were the one they put in the ground.”
He was born with a congenital heart defect—it’s not uncommon in twins, sharing the same placenta there is always a risk that one baby doesn’t receive as much oxygen as the other. Unfortunately, I took the lion’s share and left him without.”
It was nice to be relied on again. He’d forgotten how great a responsibility it was to take care of another person’s loved one. That was one of the parts of his teaching job that he loved the most. You were in possession of someone’s greatest gift, and it was your duty to look after them.
“You’re going to read me Harry Potter?” “Correct. Have you read it before?” “No, because I’m not seven years old.” She smiled, feeling pretty smug about that comeback. “Well, you’re about to experience one of the greatest works of fiction ever written, then. And you can thank me later. Imagination doesn’t have to stop at seven, you know. Grown-ups can be fun too.”
“And just so you know… I love being stuck in the bed next to you.” Her breath caught in her throat, and for one glorious moment she felt her heart flutter. “I love you being stuck in the bed next to me too, Alfie.”
“You know that not everyone is going to hurt you, right?”
Not all of us are going to leave you. You don’t have to push us all away.”
When Alfie looked over at Mr. Peterson’s cubicle at the end of the day, he was stunned. There was no evidence that the man had existed at all. Everything had returned to its original sterile state. How quickly every trace of a person could disappear, wiped away and collected up to be replaced with fresh bedsheets and a brand-new resident. Before his own accident, Alfie could never really understand why people got so worried about forgetting their loved ones when they passed. Surely you could never erase those memories or moments from your mind? How could you ever forget a person who had meant
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you can feel things about people without relying on your eyes to tell you who they are or what they’re about. When I close my eyes and I picture you, I see someone so strong. I see someone who’s so brave. Someone whose life has forced her to become so fiercely independent that she shuts out pretty much everyone who wants to get close to her. I see someone who behind all those walls and façades is filled with so much kindness and love that it’s breathtaking. I feel someone who radiates the most amazing, electric energy that she lights up this very cold, very lonely, and very empty room every
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Our scars are simply the marks of our stories. They show we’ve lived a great life, and most of all that we have survived it. Don’t hide your story away in the shadows.”
