The Last Kiss: A Standalone Romance Novel (The Notting Hill Sisterhood Book 1)

by Anna Bloom

  The end seemed so very far away, funny that it’s so quickly here.

  I wake again to the shift of air next to the bed. Please let it be him. Please let it be him.

  Turning, I open my eyes, only to find anger and betrayal staring right back at me. “Henri,” I sigh his name, a wish on my lips.

  My fingers stretch automatically waiting for a connection with him. It doesn’t come, so instead I pull the oxygen tube from under my nose, attempting to make myself half normal. “I’m so sorry I got angry. It came as a massive shock, but I shouldn’t have overreacted. I guess I was jealous. She’s so beautiful. When I arrived and saw you together in town, I figured you’d upgraded. It made perfect sense to me, you looked like you fitted together.” My words are running into one another, exhaustion, sleep, and dying making them string with breathless little pauses.

  “A massive shock, Julianna?” His words are moderated, even. The depths of his eyes hold shadows I don’t want to fall into. “Imagine watching the woman you love with all your soul crumple to the ground with no warning, almost, almost…”

  I shake my head, but the tears start. “It was so hard to tell you. I planned to, today.” Oh, that’s not right. “Yesterday,” I amend. “I wanted to tell you, because I wanted to stay with you. I knew there was only one thing that would take me away from you.” I don’t say it.

  “I never told you, but my father dropped down dead in front of me. Just like that.” Henri snaps his fingers, and a little bit of hope leaves my body with a gasp of air. “We were out on the fields, just the two of us, where we most liked to be, and he fell. I had to carry him all the way home knowing it was too late to save him, that he was already dead in my arms.”

  “Henri, I’m sorry.” I hitch my breath as it combines with a sob. “You saved me though, Henri, Liv told me. I’d be gone now if it wasn’t for you.”

  Slowly he shakes his head, dropping his stormy gaze.

  “Henri, please.”

  When he raises them to meet my face there’s a sea of defeat staring right back at me.

  “I should have told you I was married. It was a silly secret to keep. Silly, because I haven’t been in love with Odile for years, a fact we both knew. Our relationship had become one of business and ease.”

  “I’m sorry, I get that.”

  He holds up his hand.

  “But dying? Julianna,” he whispers my name.

  “I’m so sorry. Just the faster I fell for you, the more I never wanted it to end. I met you the day I found out, and you gave me this little spark of life right when I thought it was over.”

  “And you realised you still had things you needed to do.” His face pinches, skin tightening around his eyes.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. A tightening band grips my chest as he pulls my peacock book from behind his back.

  “Oh, Henri,” I whisper, shrinking back against the pillow.

  He flicks to the page with dreams and aspiration.

  “It seems you planned to have a busy few remaining months.” He skims my stupid words. “It also seems you found someone to help you with your plans.”

  “It’s not what it looks like.” I lift my hand from the bed and hold it out for him to give it back.

  “You were never going to tell me about your illness, were you? I was just a means to an end. You planned to leave at the end of your week here and not even tell me. I would have come to London, knocked on your door only to find someone else living in your grey cube. Or even worse, you would have left it for Olivia to tell me.”

  He watches me with splintering brutality. “No?”

  “No!” But my lie stains my cheeks pink. “I so wanted to see you one more time, but I didn’t know how to tell you. When the doctor told me this was it, all I could think of was you. That you hadn’t been back, that I might never…” I run out of steam, my heart is giving warning pulses in my chest, sharp shooting pains run down my arms.

  “Ah yes.” His gaze drops to the open pages. “You needed sex in the sea, correct?”

  “No. That’s not true. Everything on that list I’ve written since we’ve done it. In hindsight, not as a wish.”

  He stares at me and it’s like we are planets operating from different sides of the universe.

  “Come back to London with me, Henri. It’s not going to be long. Please. For me. That diary.” I stab my finger at it, but it’s a pathetic effort. I’m pathetic. Broken, useless. “Everything in there is the highlight of my life.” I can’t say anything more, my throat tightens, eyesight flickering with my familiar black spots.

  “I can’t watch you die, Julianna.” I can only just hear him around the whooshing in my ears. With all my effort, I lift my hand and reposition the oxygen under my nostrils, inhaling greedily at the cold shoot of air. “I just can’t.”

  I nod, no effort left. “I understand.”

  On fluid and strong legs, he gets up and slides my book under my hand before bending and kissing my forehead. “Goodbye, Julianna Brown.”

  I can’t say goodbye. Just won’t.

  I watch him leave and just hope to hell the end comes quick, because life now really doesn’t seem worth existing in at all.

  29

  London Calling

  The trip back is numb. Empty. A private ambulance speeding the superior French roads, taking the Eurostar. There’s been much discussion about what was the quickest and safest way. Discussion I’d tried to doze through, torn between no longer caring, but also petrified of what might happen if I did fall asleep.

  What if the black and endless depth of sleep never ended?

  Liv squeezes my hand. Face pale and drawn. I’m hurting people left, right, and centre without even trying. “Not long now.”

  I shrug. Tout français.

  This was for the best. What was I thinking? Did I really want Henri to see me like this? No, I didn’t. I must have been high on that hospital bed to even consider it.

  I need to find a way to get Liv to leave my side when the end comes. I don’t want her to forever see that either. If she’s a pain, I’ll have to send her for a bag of Maltesers or something.

  Just like that I’m making an evil master plan for dying. Keeps a girl busy, I guess.

  “I’m assuming Dickweed Darren has the kids?” I murmur, rousing myself from my drowsy fog.

  “He says he can have them as long as I need.”

  “No need at all. You can tell him you’ll have them back today.”

  “Jules!”

  “No, really, you won’t be able to stay at the hospital anyway.”

  Through the pained fog I see her bite her lip. “I’ve been looking at hospices. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Whatever,” I grumble.

  “Julia.” Liv squeezes my hand. “Henri loves you. I think he loves you so much he can’t bear to watch you go through this. You should have seen him when I got to the hospital. He was destroyed. He looked like a madman, hair all wild, face savaged with worry.”

  A little sigh escapes my lips. “Can we not talk about him again?”

  The squeeze turns into a pat. “Sure.”

  “I mean, if he really loved me, he would have been brave enough to face this with me. He’s probably with Odile right now, making his mother happy.”

  “Jules, I don’t think—”

  “Let’s not mention him again. He doesn’t exist anymore, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean, it’s not like I’m planning on dropping down dead to the floor like his dad did. I’m planning for this to be a civilised affair. I’ll just eek out like a ghost in the night.”

  “Julia, you did drop down on the floor in front of him. How the hell did you keep your tablets a secret while living in the same room as him?”

  “Let’s not…”

  “I know. Let’s not talk about him anymore.”

  I’m aware of Liv turning and speaking to the faceless nurse who’s riding with us. I’ve no idea who they are, apart from the od
d blur of white. A true professional. A cool rush spreads up my arm from the cannula at my elbow.

  ‘Jules, you have to sleep.”

  “No. I don’t want to sleep.”

  It’s too late though, darkness is edging in, walking spindly fingers into my consciousness. No. Please don’t make it dark. I clutch her hand, fighting against it.

  “Liv, how did you pay for the ambulance?” It’s the last thought I can round up before a void of black steals me away. She’s going to kill me for not having travel insurance.

  I know we are in London before I’ve opened my eyes. The air is different, cool on my face. May in London is worlds apart from May in the South of France.

  Bollocks. I block thoughts of honeysuckle and marigolds.

  “Julianna Brown. What have you been doing?”

  I groan at Dr Francis.

  “Just catching some sun.” I try to smile but my mouth won’t move.

  “I said a relaxed break, not having major heart attacks. I don’t know how you survived.”

  Henri.

  His name whispers through my brain like wisteria in a breeze.

  “Sorry,” I grumble. I’m vaguely aware of some shifting of the bed, a heave and a ho, and then I’m planted back down again, opening my eyes to the London hospital I spent so much time in two years ago.

  “Right then, obs, rest, and I’ll be back shortly to chat.”

  I roll my eyes. What are we chatting about? “We don’t need to spin this out. You can just tell me how long right now.”

  Dr Francis wiggles his grey brows. “How can I do that without your obs? You’re feisty this morning, Julianna.”

  It’s childish but I pull a face.

  “Jules!” Liv chides so I pull a face at her too.

  “Good luck,” he tells her before leaving the room, a nurse bustling in shortly to disturb the dark silence Liv and I are embroiled in. Her phone pings as I’m being hooked up to various beeping machines and she glances down at me, sighing out a deep breath before her eyes find mine.

  “Don’t kill me.”

  I give her a weak smile. “Well now I probably will.”

  “Mum’s here,” she blurts.

  “What the actual fuck, Liv? You can’t be for real.” It clicks a switch inside my head. “That’s how we got home isn’t it? Mum and Dad paid for that private ambulance.”

  She doesn’t get a chance to say anything more because the door reopens and a woman, who’s vaguely familiar looking, walks through.

  “Julia,” the stranger in a floral skirt and home knitted jumper steps up for the bed and grasps my hand. “Oh, my goodness. Look at you. My baby.”

  I want to huff a breath but that would mean me having a breath to spare.

  She leans in, Lily of the Valley sparking locked memories. “Is that sunburn on your nose?”

  And that’s my mother.

  “Snow burn.”

  “Oh, Julia. When Liv called I didn’t quite believe it. I never thought this would happen.”

  I shift on the plastic mattress. If I could gain an inch away from her this situation would feel a whole lot better.

  I open my mouth, but I haven’t got a word to say. Not one single word.

  “I’m so very sorry, so sorry. I’ve been so foolish.” It’s okay. Apparently Mum is going to talk for both of us. “I tried so hard to protect you.”

  “Listen,” Liv cuts in. “I’m going to go and get a coffee.”

  Mum nods while I send Liv a stink eye.

  After she’s left, Mum spends some time faffing, tucking in my blankets, fluffing the edges of the pillows, smoothing the ends of my tangled hair. I wonder if I’ve still got bed hair from my last night with… Stop it, Julia.

  Sleep edges its way back in, crawling in with a stealth like steal.

  Mum’s waffling on, talking as she titivates around me, always busy. The woman never ever stopped. Always wringing her hands, always looking like the world might end at any moment now.

  “Do you need a drink, baby?”

  I try to laugh, lips dry though, cracking with the effort. I’m her baby now?

  It’s a long time since I’ve been this woman’s baby.

  “Mum, stop.” I summon the words. “I don’t need you here. I don’t know why you’re here.”

  “This is all my fault.” More hand wringing. The woman is a master at saintly supplication.

  “It’s not.” For fuck’s sake why is talking so hard? “You didn’t give me meningitis, and contrary to what you and dad once thought about me, I didn’t catch it from anyone else either.”

  “We just wanted to keep you safe. That’s all we ever wanted, for you and Liv to be nice sensible girls, safe, protected.”

  “You did that job real good, Mum. Two years ago, you didn’t even come to see me. I didn’t do things the way you wanted, and you cut me off. Disappointed in the failure I was.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  Okay, this is boring. I don’t want to listen to this during my final moments. And it is. There is no avoiding it now.

  “Can you get Liv back for me please?” I shudder in a breath. “And thanks for getting me home. One decent thing you’ve done for me in the last fifteen years.”

  “Jules, I need to speak.”

  “It’s too late. The only thing you can do for me now is look after Liv. Please.” My eyes burn. “Get out. Get out.”

  “Julia, please.”

  “No. Get out.” I’m struggling to sit, pulling at wires. I’m in an all-out sweat, but I don’t care. “I’ll get Liv to pay you back for the ambulance. I don’t want anything from you.”

  “What are you talking about, what ambulance? Jules, please, calm down.” A machine starts to beep, and Mom’s eyes fly to it. “Please calm down.”

  “Calm down.” I nod, pulling at the wire under my nose. “Calm down, Julia. Don’t be so aggressive, Julia. No, you aren’t going to the park, Julia. Stay in your room, Julia. Stay safe, Julia. Don’t trust anyone, Julia. You,” I stab my finger at her, it’s shaking, not quite on target, “failed at parenting. You failed both me and Liv and I hope this moment haunts you forever. You scared me out of living, and I can’t ever get that back now.”

  The door flies open and Liv streams through. “Oh my god, what is happening?” A nurse is not far behind, pushing me back down on the bed despite my last power surge. Like an outage about to darken a city I flicker with strength once more, twice more, three, and then I’m spent.

  Done.

  “What have I done? Just go, Mum,” Liv is whispering. At least I think she’s whispering, but I’m no longer sure.

  My room is rather like Waterloo with people coming and going. Nurses are fiddling with my machines, setting up drips. They should probably just take it all out now.

  “Stop,” my call is feeble. “Just stop.”

  A nurse pats my hand. “Just try to keep calm while we make you more comfortable.”

  “No. I want to see Dr Francis.”

  “I’m here.” There’s a gentle pat of my toes while Liv settles back up in the chair by my head.

  “It’s over, isn’t it?” I heave in my words, sucking them in because pushing them out seems one feat too far.

  “I don’t think we can move you to a hospice now, Julia.” His words are laced with kindness and I’m so grateful to him. So grateful, but also so damn gutted. This is it, and I have one thought in my head. Just. One.

  Henri.

  God, it’s torture knowing I won’t see his face again.

  “We’ll make you comfortable, Julianna, okay?”

  “Call me Jules.” I smile faintly. “It’s probably about time.”

  After he’s left, we lapse into silence other than a steady beeping and the sound of my oxygen machine.

  “He showed me how it’s happening,” Liv whispers. “Do you want me to tell you?”

  I shake my head. “I can live without the CliffsNotes.” She chuckles but then starts to cry, her tears splattering my skin
.

  “I’m sorry I ruined everything by going to France.”

  “You didn’t. I’m glad you went.”

  “Liv. I want you to go home now.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Please.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me how you paid for the ambulance?”

  There’s a stretch of silence and I find her fingers, giving a squeeze.

  “Just please tell me it’s not Dickweed.”

  She laughs a snotty sound. “No. Henri.”

  Her admission strikes a final blow. “God, he really didn’t want me to stay in France, did he?”

  I turn my face away and stare at nothing. “Liv, please go home. If I’m here tomorrow, I’ll let you come back.”

  “Who put you in charge?”

  “Me. I’m the eldest, I’ve always been in charge, I just like you to think otherwise.”

  “Let me stay?”

  “No. Go get those kids and give them the biggest hug you possibly can for me. I’ll be okay. I’m going to sleep.”

  I. Am. Not. Going. To. Sleep.

  “Jules, please.”

  I turn my face away. “I’m scared, Liv.”

  “So am I. That’s why I have to stay.”

  “That’s why you have to go. Anyway.” Breath. “Barney will be wanting his dinner.” Breath. “You don’t want to know what he’ll do to your sofa.” Breath. “If you don’t feed him on time.” Breath.

  “That cat is a pain in the backside, Jules.”

  I almost turn. “Look after him.” Breath.

  “I will.” There’s silence filled with her sobs, but I refuse to turn around. I can’t do a goodbye, don’t want to.

  “I s-uppose.” Breath. “Y-you could s-swing by tomorrow and s-see if I’m still k-kicking.” Talking is hard. Trying to keep breathing even harder.

  A watery kiss lands on my forehead. “You stupid mare. Where else would I be? By—”

  “Don’t. Just don’t.”

  It hurts. I know I’m hurting her by not turning to face her. This could be it, and for that exact reason I can’t make myself do it. How do you say goodbye to your sister?

  No. I’ll face this alone. It’s better that way.

  What would it have been like to have Henri hold my hand, help me be brave?