Still Me (Me Before You #3) - Jojo Moyes Page 0,170

I could keep a look out.

I ran upstairs, gave Dean Martin a drink, then sat down to open it. The handwriting was unfamiliar so I flicked the letter over. It was written on cheap copier paper, in black ink, and there were a couple of crossings-out, as if the writer had struggled with what he wanted to say.

Sam.

30

Dear Lou,

I wasn’t entirely truthful when we last met. So I’m writing to you now, not because I think it will change anything but because I deceived you once and it’s important to me that you know I will never mislead or deceive you again.

I’m not with Katie. I wasn’t when I last saw you. I don’t want to say too much but it became clear pretty quickly that we are very different people, and that I had made a huge mistake. If I’m honest, I think I knew it from the start. She has put in for a transfer and although they don’t like it much at head office it looks like they’ll go ahead with it.

I’m left feeling like a fool, and rightly so. Not a day goes by when I don’t wish I’d just written you a few lines every day, like you asked, or sent the odd postcard. I should have hung on tighter. I should have told you what I felt when I felt it. I should have just tried a bit harder instead of throwing myself a pity party at the thought of all the people who had left me behind.

Like I said, I’m not writing to change your mind. I know you’ve moved on. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry, and that I’ll always regret what happened, and that I really hope you’re happy (it’s kind of hard to tell at a funeral).

Take care of yourself, Louisa.

Love always,

Sam

I felt giddy. Then I felt a bit sick. And then I gulped, swallowing a huge sob of an emotion I couldn’t quite identify. And then I screwed the letter up in a ball and, with a roar, hurled it with force into the bin.

I sent Margot a picture of Dean Martin and wrote her a short letter updating her on his wellbeing, just to calm my nerves. I walked up and down the empty apartment and swore a bit. I poured myself a sherry from Margot’s dusty drinks cabinet and drank it in three gulps, although it wasn’t even lunchtime. And then I pulled the letter out of the bin, opened my laptop, sat on the hall floor with my back to Margot’s front door so that I could use the Gopniks’ WiFi, and emailed Sam.

What kind of bullshit letter is that? Why would you send me that now? After all this time?

The answer came back within minutes, as if he had been sitting waiting at his computer.

I get your anger. I’d probably be angry too. But Lily said you were thinking of getting married and the whole looking at apartments in Little Italy thing just made me think if I didn’t tell you now it was going to be too late.

I stared at my screen, frowning. I reread what he’d written, twice. Then I typed:

Lily told you that?

Yes. And the thing about you thinking it was a bit soon and not wanting him to think you were doing it for the residency. But how his proposal made it impossible for you to say no.

I waited a few minutes, then I typed, carefully:

Sam, what did she tell you about the proposal?

That Josh had gone down on one knee at the top of the Empire State Building? And about the opera singer he hired? Lou, don’t be angry with her. I know I shouldn’t have made her tell me. I know it’s none of my business. But I just asked her how you were the other day. I wanted to know what was going on in your life. And then she kind of knocked me sideways with all this stuff. I told myself to just be glad you were happy. But I kept thinking: What if I had been that guy? What if I had – I don’t know – seized the moment?

I closed my eyes.

So you wrote to me because Lily told you I was about to get married?

No. I wanted to write to you anyway. Have done since I saw you in Stortfold. I just didn’t know what to say. But then I figured once you were married – especially if you were getting married