“And is that what happened this time?”
“Yes, more or less. I was organising the house and then I woke up on the twenty-eighth and I felt as if I could barely get out of bed. As if there was no point in living.”
Olivia caught her breath at the pain in his voice, a pain she felt in herself. This man she loved was hurting so very much. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. If it’s anyone’s, it’s—”
“No, Simon, it’s not yours,” Olivia said fiercely. “I may not know a lot about depression, but at least I know that.” She stroked his hair, and he closed his eyes.
“What did Bella tell you?”
“Only that you suffered from depression.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her directly. “Did she tell you I was hospitalised?”
“After your brother’s death, yes.”
“Does that scare you off?”
“No,” Olivia answered honestly, “but it scares me a little. Because…because I want to be able to help you, and I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing where I can.”
“You have helped me, Olivia. Being with you…these last few weeks…it made me feel as if I’ve finally beaten this thing…which is why having it come at me again is so…so bloody difficult.” He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “I know depression doesn’t work that way, that it doesn’t follow a course, and sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason, but I still convince myself that there is. That things will change.”
“I don’t know too much about depression,” Olivia said slowly, “but I do know it’s real, not something you can just make yourself get over, or slap a smile on like a plaster. Be kind to yourself, Simon. Be forgiving.”
“Even though I watched my brother die?” He let out a shuddering sigh. “Sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry about this. Ever.” Olivia spoke the words fiercely, and Simon gave her the barest flicker of a smile.
“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said in a low voice. “Truly.”
“And you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. This doesn’t change that at all. What kind of person would I be, to only take the good days and not the bad? That’s not…that’s not what love is.”
He turned to look at her, his eyes huge and dark. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her heart beating hard. “I really do.”
“Because I think I love you, Olivia.”
“You only think?” she dared to tease.
“I know, and maybe that’s part of it all. Of this. I’m scared to let you in, to let you see my darkness, especially when we’ve only known each other a short while.”
“And I’ve been scared to let you in,” Olivia admitted with a wobbly laugh. “Because I haven’t let many people into my life. Maybe it has to do with my dad walking out, or maybe it’s just the way I’m wired. But it’s the truth. This is just as scary for me as it is for you, Simon.”
“I’m glad, in a way. I wouldn’t want to be the only one who is struggling, the dead weight in the relationship.”
“You aren’t, I promise.”
He was silent, his gaze seeming to turn inward. Olivia stayed where she sat, waiting. Knowing none of this was easy, and Simon could hardly snap out of whatever he was feeling, no matter what he wished for.
He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the bedstead as he let out a long, low breath. “How was your mum’s appointment?” he asked after a long, silent moment.
“It was okay.” Olivia knew how much it cost him, to ask about her mum when he was hurting so much himself, and she loved him all the more for it. “We’ll get there,” she said, and Simon opened his eyes to give her a long, meaningful look.
“Yes,” he agreed. “We will. But it won’t be easy.”
“The best things in life aren’t.”
He shook his head, his expression closing up once again. “You don’t even know what you’re agreeing to, Olivia. What you’re letting yourself in for.”
“No,” Olivia agreed steadily, more sure of this than anything she’d been sure of in her life, “but then neither do you. No one does. This isn’t some social contract, Simon, weighing the pros and the cons. This is me, all in for you, and you all in for me. That’s the kind of relationship I want, not some balancing of the scales.”
He stared at her for another long moment, his eyes full of both torment and hope. “I don’t think I love you,” he finally said hoarsely. “I know I do.”
Olivia gazed down at this man who had come so suddenly and wonderfully into her life, this man who loved her. “And I know I love you,” she said, meaning it utterly.
Outside, the church bells began to ring in the new year.
Epilogue
Three months later
“Who is that?”
Olivia peered outside the window of Number Four, Willoughby Close, as a navy-blue sports convertible sped into the courtyard and parked in front of the first cottage in the close.
Simon looked up from his hand of cards. “I believe it’s my new neighbour. Tina, it’s your bid.”
Olivia watched as a slim young woman with glossy chestnut hair marched up to number one and unlocked the door with brisk efficiency, a posh-looking leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder.
“She looks very Londonish,” Olivia remarked, and Simon raised his eyebrows.
“Perhaps that’s because she comes from London. She’s Henry Trent’s executive assistant.”
“Is she! Alice never said anything about it.” But then Alice had been busy lately, managing the charitable foundation she and Henry had started. And Olivia had been busy, as well…
She turned away from the window to smile at Simon and Tina, both seated at the kitchen table for their weekly Sunday afternoon game of bridge. The consultant at the memory clinic had encouraged Tina to keep
