CHAPTER SIX
When Mark and I finally confessed our feelings for each other on the night of the graduation ball, it felt so right.
Whenever I’d dreamed of it happening – and I’d imagined it a lot – I’d always thought it would be a bit awkward because we’d been ‘just good friends’ for so very long.
But in the end, making the transition from friends to lovers turned out to be perfectly seamless.
Mark told me he’d liked me for a long time but had been afraid he’d destroy our friendship and split the group if he declared his feelings for me. I’d been feeling exactly the same, of course, and we’d laughed at the irony of it.
We’d wasted a great deal of time but we had a whole lot of fun making up for it!
We rented a cute little house a mile or so from the centre of Brighton, and when I found out I was pregnant with Amelie, we were over the moon with joy.
Little did we know back then that the strange pins-and-needles sensation in his foot that Mark sometimes experienced was an early sign of illness.
It was only when he woke one morning with a totally numb foot and the numbness spread up through his whole leg that we realised something was really wrong and I drove him to A&E.
Mark was diagnosed with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis and the prognosis was terrifying. I was angry at the world. It felt so unfair. Mark was such a good person and he’d had everything to live for, but he was going to be denied the chance of seeing the daughter he loved grow up.
Amelie was going to grow up without the daddy she adored in her life.
Mark was so brave. He was determined to make every single moment count while he could.
It was on the day before Amelie’s third birthday that my wonderful soulmate finally lost his fight...