Page 91 of The Love of My Afterlife
Mr. Yoon types again. “Long story. Another time. When you came to me at the hospital, I knew how to finish it.”
“He forced me to sneak in his violin,” Cooper says, appearing at my side. He fiddles with his phone, jazz tinkling out into the room once more.
“May I…may I hug you, Mr. Yoon?” I ask.
He shrugs and then smiles and nods.
We hold each other in the middle of the Tyburnia Library music room, and he smells just like his house. Like cigarette smoke and coffee and woolly jumpers, even though it’s summer and he’s wearing a shirt.
“May I cut in?” Cooper says after a few moments.
Mr. Yoon nods before picking up the VOCA machine and wandering over to where Jan and Leanne are chatting to Deli Dan.
Cooper shoves his phone in his pocket. “At the gala, you know, before you…”
“Threw champagne in someone’s face and then accosted an innocent man in front of everyone?”
“Yes. Before that. I wanted so much to dance with you.”
“Why didn’t you ask?” I murmur.
“You would have said no.”
He’s right. I would have. How have things changed so much in just a few days?
“Ask me now.”
“Would you dance with me, Delphie?”
I take his hand in mine. He puts his other hand on the small of my back and presses me to him, guiding me in time with the music, the beat of which I can’t quite grasp hold of but he seems to know by heart.
Beside us Frida and Aled also start to dance, Frida’s cheeks pink with joy, Aled swaying awkwardly from side to side.
Cooper leans his head back, eyes travelling across my face. “Honey,” he says, “you really do sparkle and shine.”
I can’t help but laugh as Cooper raises an eyebrow cornily, referring to the slogan on my terrible nightie. He grins and pulls me even closer.
I think about his mum’s excited words. Cooper is in love with me. He is in love. With me? How can that be when we don’t even really know each other yet? It can’t be. I don’t know about love, but I get the sense that the way I feel right now, dancing with him, is the way humans are supposed to feel. Anticipation. Hope. An excitement about the days to come. And if I disappear back to Evermore, the emotional fallout for a man in love would be…it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Behind me Jan and Leanne laugh out loud at something Mr.Yoon has typed into the machine. Aled has just kissed Frida on the cheek. She gives me a thumbs-up behind his back. Shelley from the corner shop and her sister are chugging champagne in the corner, and Flashy Tom from The Orchestra Pit is talking to Mrs. Ernestine, his mouth full of a Baba sandwich from Deli Dan.
My heart lifts and my stomach churns.
How am I supposed to leave this? This…life. Because what I was living ten days ago wasn’t a life at all. But this? This noise and laughter and mess and fear and…people. Friends. Possible love.
I can’t lose this.
There are people in this room who wouldn’t want to lose me either. I make a difference to them.
I can’t leave. Evermore is too far away. I don’t want to die.
Fuck.
I want to live.
I glance up at the clock on the wall.
I have two hours until Merritt takes me.
