BooksBarbecue
Back Afterlove Save as PDF
Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

Me, I almost say, then stop myself because it feels like something has caught light in my chest.

I’m burning with it.

It was me. I saw my body on the road outside the mini-mart.

‘What else do you remember, Ash? Dev tells me that you saw—’

‘Yes,’ I interrupt, crossing my arms. ‘I saw. I saw it.’

I say it because I can’t say me because that can’t have been me in the street. I’m here.

I’m here.

‘Do you understand what that means, Ash?’

Of course I don’t! I want to yell, but the words get burned up in the fire in my chest.

‘Do you understand that you were hit by that car outside the mini-mart tonight?’

I wasn’t.

I jumped out of the way.

‘Ash, I need you to tell me that you understand that you were hit by that car.’

I wasn’t. I jumped out of the way.

Deborah doesn’t say anything, just looks at me and waits as I buckle under the weight of what she’s saying. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing myself to wake up, but when I open them again, I’m still there, on the sofa, the tartan blanket in my lap, the three of them watching me.

I feel the slow creep of dread, starting in my hands then up my arms, each hair rising – slowly, slowly – one by one at first then all at once. I’m suddenly very, very cold, yet I can feel my top lip sweating as I lift my chin to look her in the eye for the first time. I lick the sweat away, trying to swallow back the words I can feel lining up on my tongue. But they’re there, I can feel them, pushing against the back of my teeth.

Don’t say it.

But I do.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask, immediately wishing I hadn’t because I don’t want to know.

I don’t want to know.

‘Ash, you’re dead,’ Deborah says, making no attempt to sugar-coat it. ‘You died tonight.’

Two

images

TWO

OK. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting that.

How can I be dead? I don’t feel dead. I can’t be. I dig my nails into the flesh of my palm, so hard I’m sure the bones in my fingers are going to snap, and wait. It takes a moment too long, but at last, there it is. Pain, bright and fierce. The relief brings tears to my eyes. I look down at my hand, smoothing over the crescent-shaped dents with the pad of my finger as I watch them disappear.