With or Without You

by Shari Low

  A question had been on my mind all day, a decision that I wasn’t sure I could have made.

  ‘Why did you let her come?’ I asked.

  Without explanation, Sasha knew what I was talking about.

  ‘Because I’m grateful to her,’ she said quietly. ‘If I hadn’t known about her, if she hadn’t told me the truth, then I’d still be wondering if I could have done something different, loved him more, saved him from himself. Now I know that he made the choices. So I won’t mourn what we had, because it was never true. Instead, I can say goodbye, and I can move forward. I can finally live my life the way I want to, with no guilt or regret. She gave me that.’

  In front of us, the guys had stopped to wait for us. As we got closer, Nate turned, held out his hand to Sasha.

  Move forward with no guilt.

  I saw now what she meant by that.

  And I hoped that she never looked back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nate & Sasha’s Wedding

  January 2016

  The guests were all gone, Finn was sound asleep in a family room with his granny and George, and the rest of us were back in the same room the bridal party had used to get ready that morning.

  ‘Can I burn this dress now?’ Sasha asked.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Chloe said. ‘You should preserve it and wear it every year on your anniversary, just to remind yourself of today.’

  ‘I’d rather just burn it and look at photos,’ Sasha drawled.

  Nate, sitting next to his wife, his arm casually round her shoulders, shook his head in mock exasperation. ‘Don’t listen to her. I’m going to get it mounted in a glass display case and put it in our front room.’

  ‘This is going to be the shortest marriage in history,’ Sasha sighed.

  It should be strange, this scene in front of me, but it wasn’t in the least. In fact, there was a deep feeling that everyone was exactly where they should be. It had taken Nate and Sasha many months to acknowledge their feelings for each other. After Justin’s death, they’d been an inseparable force, sticking together as they both found a new way to live. Turns out it was together, and I was delighted for them. We all were.

  I felt Richard’s hand stroke the back of my neck and I had an almost irresistible urge to kiss his face off. That happened a lot. The first time we’d hung out after I’d split with Nate, he told me he’d been in love with me for years. So I hadn’t imagined it. We’d been together since that moment. I knew the honeymoon phase would subside eventually, but it was showing no signs of it yet.

  On the other sofa, Chloe and Connor were sprawled out, shoes kicked off, Connor’s tie and jacket long abandoned.

  ‘What time do you need to leave for the airport in the morning?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘About six,’ Nate answered, ‘Which is about…. Oh, four hours from now.’

  Sasha rolled her eyes. ‘We can sleep on the plane. Otherwise I’ll just get relentlessly bored and force you to talk to me.’

  ‘Sleep sounds good,’ Nate quipped. ‘I love you, but I can’t have a seven-hour conversation all the way to New York. I’ll be out of interesting chat by the time the plane leaves the landing strip at Glasgow airport.’

  I laughed, my delight for my ex-husband’s happiness brimming over.

  Behind me, I felt Richard’s breathing change and I realised he was falling asleep. He’d worked through the night last night on an emergency admission and I knew he was exhausted. I was just glad he had some time off now, deliberately planned so we could spend the rest of the week doing fun things with Finn before he went back to school.

  ‘So I’ve been thinking,’ Sasha said, and the rest of us groaned.

  ‘Will this end up with any of us being publicly humiliated or jailed?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably both,’ she confirmed, laughing, before returning to her announcement. ‘I’ve been thinking that obviously the next few months are out, because he’s made me do this whole wedding thing and now he’s forcing me to go on a honeymoon…’

  Nate didn’t rise to it.

  ‘But maybe later in the year we could all go on that group holiday we’ve talked about for ever. I mean, I know it’ll be totally weird, because you used to be married to him…’ that one was directed at Nate and me, ‘and we always thought you’d end up hooking up with him…’ that one was for Chloe and my sleeping fiancé. He’d asked me to marry him while we stood on the side-line at one of Finn’s football games, in minus degree temperatures in the drizzling rain, with feet so cold I could barely feel them. I’d snuggled into him for a heat. ‘Marry me’, he’d said suddenly, no fuss, no frills, no grand gestures. It was perfect. ‘Only if you buy me better wellies,’ I’d replied. He’d grinned that gorgeous grin of his. ‘Deal.’

  We’d decided to slip off to the registry office sometime soon and just do it with no fuss.

  Sasha’s voice snapped me back to the moment, ‘But still, I think it’ll be great. Who’s in?’

  My hand shot into the air. Right then I couldn’t think of anything I’d love more than a foreign jolly with two best friends, a soon-to-be husband, an ex-husband and his best mate, who’d disappeared to America for ten years then came back after he poked my pal.

  Like synchronised swimmers, Sasha and I realised at exactly the same moment that Chloe and Connor hadn’t answered and both our heads swivelled to stare at them with blatant hostility.

  ‘Oh, come on – you must be past all that romantic solitude rubbish by now,’ Sasha said, words dipped in disapproval. ‘I was over it by the time dinner was served today.’

  A glance shot between Chloe and Connor, before her mouth broke into the giddiest of smiles.

  ‘What? What is it? What are we missing?’ I asked, my grin already replicating Chloe’s even though I had no idea what was going on.

  ‘I can’t tell you…’

  ‘Oh yes you bloody can. It’s my wedding day – that makes me the boss all day. Now tell us what’s going on?’ Sasha said.

  Chloe glanced at Connor again, and a silent question was asked and answered.

  ‘Aaaaargh, okay then,’ Chloe gushed, before pulling her clutch bag off the table in front of her and taking a piece of paper about 10cm square from it. ‘I didn’t want to say anything before now because your wedding was coming and this time should be all about you…’

  She took a deep breath and I could see her eyes were glistening as she turned the piece of paper around and held it up so we could see it.

  ‘Meet the Smith twins. Coming July 2016.’

  My eyes narrowed in on the image and there they were, two tiny little people wrapped in each other in their mother’s womb.

  I squealed so loudly I woke up Richard, before I jumped from the couch and gently landed on my pregnant pal.

  Sasha was right behind me, slowed down by the satin princess skirt.

  ‘Congratulations, you two. Connor, this is amazing…’

  ‘It is indeed,’ he agreed as I hugged him tightly. ‘Oh Chloe, I’m so happy for you. I can’t believe it!’

  ‘Neither can I,’ Sasha screeched. ‘Because you’re forty bloody five!’

  Chloe nearly choked with laughter. ‘I know! I still can’t believe it. I honestly thought our time had passed, and then… well, blue line on a stick. The doctor told me the chances of this happening naturally at my age are tiny. How lucky are we?’

  Over the last twenty years we’d all been through heartache and hurt, through times when we’d never felt happier, to periods where we were in so much pain we felt broken. And it had all brought us to today.

  A wonderful wedding. Two babies on the way. My gorgeous son. And me, lying here in the arms of a man who had finally made me feel everything I’d been missing for so many years.

  As days went, it didn’t get much better than this.

  2017

  With Or Without Him

  Epilogue

  Saying Goodbye

  August 2017

  It was the kind of scene t
hat was usually only seen in movies.

  The burnt orange sun was setting on the horizon, its fading rays sending shards of red across the surface of the sparkling blue ocean.

  Behind us, on the beach, there was a long line of houses, some of them on stilts, all of them designed to capture one of the most beautiful views on earth.

  No matter what direction we looked in, there was no one else to be seen. It was just pure peace, beauty, perfection.

  ‘I wish we were staying in one of those,’ Sasha piped up, ignoring the view in favour of eyeing up the multi-million-pound houses behind us.

  We were in Malibu Colony, one of the most expensive and exclusive strips of real estate in the world.

  ‘Unfortunately, we didn’t have fifty grand a week to spare,’ I told her. ‘Besides, we’re not exactly slumming it.’ I’d found an Airbnb in one of the condo communities a mile or so along the coast, and it was perfect for us. Three bedrooms, with a one-bedroom apartment next door that was also available. We’d snapped them up and relocated the whole lot of us here for a fortnight. Richard, Finn and I were sharing the larger apartment with Chloe, Connor and the twins, while Nate and Sasha were enjoying the child-free peace of the flat next door.

  Ida and George had chosen not to stay with us – I think it was below my lovely-but-rich stepfather’s normal holiday standards, and they’d ensconced themselves in a stunning hotel in Santa Monica called Shutters on the Beach.

  Ida said it was so glorious they were never leaving.

  She did, however, keep her promise to sit with the kids for this one day, while the rest of us came to the beach to bring closure to an unfulfilled dream.

  Richard held my hand as we walked towards the shoreline, all of us barefoot and carrying our shoes. We’d chosen here because we knew it would be peaceful and the perfect place to pay tribute to our friend. There was also a fairly good chance that one of the homeowners would take issue with the fact we’d sneaked on to their beach, and attempt to have us removed, which Justin would have found hilarious.

  We stopped a few feet back from the water and sat down on the sands, all facing into the candle that Chloe had bought that morning in Walmart.

  ‘A candle?’ Sasha blurted incredulously, before loud, uncontrollable guffaws took over. ‘A candle?’ she repeated, trying to speak through peals of laughter. ‘I thought we were going to light a fire?’

  Chloe didn’t find Sasha’s reaction quite so hilarious. ‘I was going to make a bonfire, but then someone told me it was against the law to make a fire on this beach, so I changed my mind. I’ve no idea if it’s true, but I can’t risk getting arrested – the twins would starve.’

  ‘So you got a…’ Sasha held it up so she could read the front, ‘strawberry cheesecake flavoured candle.’ That set her off again, and it was a few seconds before she could add, ‘Fuck, Justin would love this.’

  We all knew she was right. He’d find it hysterical.

  We’d all had tasks to fulfil for this outing, and mine was next. I opened the cool bag, pulled out six bottles of beer and handed them out. This was a celebration of the best of Justin’s life, of his happiest times, and they never came without a beer in his hand.

  Sasha was next. She opened the bag she’d been carrying and took out a beautiful bronze urn and placed it next to the strawberry cheesecake candle. We weren’t scattering his ashes – Sasha said she didn’t want to leave him behind somewhere he didn’t know anyone. We’d just brought him to the place he’d always dreamt of coming to and then we’d take him home again.

  Sasha raised her bottle up into the centre of the circle and the rest of us followed.

  ‘To Justin Donnelly,’ she said. ‘Since he passed I’ve done a lot of thinking and I want to remember him as the guy he really was, the one before his demons got a grip of him. So here’s to the real Justin - the most infuriating, but utterly lovable man there ever was. The guy who started every party and finished most of them days later. Who loved us all and was loved right back, even when he was driving us crazy.’

  She cleared her throat, determined to keep it together.

  ‘The man who took it too far every time… even when there was no coming back from it. Justin, you’ll never be forgotten by any of us. You’ll live with us always. And baby…’ she stopped, breathed, gathered. ‘You made it to Malibu. To Justin…’ she finished.

  We clinked out bottles together and echoed the toast. ‘To Justin.’

  ‘Right, I believe I’m up next,’ Richard said, reaching over to switch on the boom box he’d been tasked with lugging all the way from the UK. It had been Justin’s favourite thing all through university and Sasha had found it, still working perfectly, in the loft.

  Richard slipped a cassette into the slot, turned up the volume, and one of Justin’s favourite songs back then, House Of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’, blasted from the speakers.

  ‘Right you two, you’re next,’ Sasha bellowed to Nate and Connor, who immediately jumped to their feet and grabbed either end of the long pole they’d had to stick out of the sunroof on the way here.

  Suddenly, Sasha reached over and turned the music down so she could be heard.

  ‘Hang on, before we do this can I just check everyone is wearing swimwear under their clothes, because too many of us have seen each other’s naked bits in this group already.’

  There was a chorus of exclamations to the affirmative.

  ‘Excellent,’ she chirped. ‘Then, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get on with a solemn tribute to our long-lost friend. I give you… strip limbo.’

  I’ve no idea if spirits exist, if they can see the loved ones they leave behind, but I’ll always choose to believe that as we limboed, danced, and sang long into the night, Justin was sitting up there watching, laughing his head off, joining the party, and I know he’d have loved every wild, crazy minute of it…

  Especially the bit where the cops came and asked us to leave.

  After The Last Word Was Written…

  Writing this book made me sit down and think about all the crossroads I’ve encountered over the years. I still don’t have the answers to what would have happened if I’d made different choices.

  What I do know for sure is that family doesn’t need to be related by blood. It’s the friends you choose to go through life with, the ones that surround you and walk beside you every day.

  But as for the other stuff?

  I’m choosing to believe that no matter what path we take, what decisions we make along the way, we still end up exactly where we were meant to be, with the people we’re supposed to be with.

  That’s why, at the end of both storylines, Liv goes home to Richard and Finn.

  Chloe and Connor got together at different times, but the outcomes in both worlds were the same – they found their way back to each other, and their twins, no matter what year they were born in, completed their family.

  Sasha and Nate were in touching distance for half of their lives, but only came together when it was right.

  Justin’s life was a troubled one, but in both stories he found a group of people who would sacrifice so much to take care of him.

  And Ida… well, she never did become a singing superstar, but if she’d found fame and fortune, then perhaps she wouldn’t have met the man who would make her happy until the last chorus had been sung.

  But then, what about Francine? What about the lives she went on to save? Would those souls have survived anyway? Or did her passing cost the lives of others?

  Who knows?

  Back in the real world, I find it reassuring to go with the belief that it’s all predetermined, that we’ll somehow find the people whose lives we’re destined to share – our soulmates, our lovers, our friends, our children – no matter what we do, where we go or what choices we make.

  There’s no right or wrong move.

  No mistakes. No missed chances or regrets.

  Just different roads that take us to where we’re meant to be.

 
All we have to do is keep walking towards the happy ever after.

  We hope you enjoyed this book.

  Shari Low’s next book is coming in autumn 2018

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  Acknowledgements

  About Shari Low

  A Letter from the Author

  Also by Shari Low

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  Acknowledgements

  Thanks as always to the wonderful, inspiring and endlessly supportive Caroline Ridding, and to Melanie Price and the fabulous team at Aria.

  Thanks too, to my lovely friends, Kirstine and Lyndsay, two endlessly patient nurses who answered all my medical questions. They’re both brilliant, so any mistakes are mine.

  Thanks to Jan, who always gives me her honest opinion. To my godmother, Rosina, who is endlessly supportive. And Gemma, who I met at a crossroads and I’ll always be glad I took the path she was on.

  And finally, to my guys, J, C & B. I never forget how lucky I am.

  Love,

  Shari xx

  About Shari Low

  SHARI LOW has published twenty novels over the last two decades. She also writes for newspapers, magazines and television. Once upon a time, she got engaged to a guy she’d known for a week, and twenty-something years later, they live in Glasgow with their two teenage sons and a labradoodle.

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