Afterward, in the dark as we lay in our sleeping bags on the lounge floor, we talked about what we’d do in the same situation. Kate and I were adamant we wouldn’t find out, that we’d want to remain oblivious. Amanda was the opposite. She’d want to know, she insisted, so she could make sure she did everything she wanted to do before her time was up. She wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, she said. Drunk, in love, and owing a fortune.

Her words made me wonder whether, given the knowledge they were given, the kids in the film lived life differently from how they would have done if they’d remained blissfully unaware. Whether it influenced the choices they made, and altered their paths.

I torment myself sometimes with thoughts of what my life might now be like had I not been given the initial diagnosis. Would I be married? A mother? A high-flying executive? Maybe I’d have been bitten by the travel bug, and would have been right this minute sipping the froth off a cold beer in an Irish pub somewhere in the middle of nowhere, my filthy, well-used backpack at my feet and joie de vivre in my heart because really, this was the life.

But what really torments me is that really, deep, deep down in my heart, I know that in all probability not much would have changed. I’d probably still have been in the same flat, working the same job, watching the same TV shows, and drinking far more soft drink than health departments currently recommend.

I don’t know the date I will die, or what time of the day it will happen. I don’t know the location, or the exact means (I’m hoping I will be on so much medication I won’t be aware of the end when it comes, because to think otherwise terrifies me).

But this I do know.

I know it will most likely be some time in the next year, more if I’m lucky and the doctor was having an off day with his estimations. I know it won’t be in fifty, or sixty, years’ time, like it should have been.

And I know that I don’t want to just sit around and wait to die, but that is exactly what I have been doing. I don’t know why James has come into my life now, or whether he gets that same fluttery feeling in his stomach that I do when I think about him. But I don’t want to question it. I don’t want to overthink it, or dwell on “what could have been.” I just want to feel it, and never stop feeling it until the moment I cease breathing. And then, well, then I can only hope that it goes on, somewhere, somehow.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

What’s that?”

“What does it look like?”

“A helicopter.”

“Ten points to you.” James slams the boot of his truck shut and grins at me.

We have been on the road for more than an hour, during which James has stubbornly resisted all of my attempts to find out more about our destination.