Page 9 of The Love of Our Lives

I sit on my rock, watching people come and go, dogs running, parents chasing kids, and I think about what Mum said – about Cat loving to dance.

I think about the last summer she did.

It was a few months after my nineteenth birthday, and for one small moment, I was stable.

I was still living at home, but I’d been accepted into art school up in Aberdeen for the forthcoming autumn.

It had taken a little longer after several missed years of school, but with an extra year at college, and a lot of encouragement from Cat, I’d done it – and I was going.

My artist sister , she liked to call me proudly.

Mum tried to stop me, of course. Told me it was fine to want to go to art school, but it should be here in Edinburgh, where she could keep an eye on me, where I’d be close to doctors who knew me.

And I felt bad about it, I did. Because as my prognosis reduced what I could do, it made Cat determined to do as much as possible – for both of us, she always said – climbing, diving off bridges, raves, you name it, she did it.

The more extreme the better. The arguments between Mum and Cat naturally increased, so they were always at each other’s throats, with Mum repeatedly telling her she was being reckless, and Cat repeatedly refusing to listen.

There just wasn’t the space for another daughter to act out.

So, each time she stepped forward, I took a step back.

For everyone’s sake. But she would always make sure to introduce me to new friends passing through Edinburgh and bring me back little tokens from her adventures – ticket stubs from festivals and postcards from sunny Greek islands.

But art school was different – this time it was about something very important to me. I’d be learning to do what I loved.

Cat, on the other hand, had no further education plans and left home as soon as humanly possible, despite how much Mum tried to reason with her.

She moved into a shared flat with two girls she knew from the bar she worked in, and even though I missed her around the house terribly, I could see how happy it made her – living however she wanted.

Plus, I visited all the time, and so in a way, it felt like we were both moving on.

Life was happening, and it felt good.

I suppose I knew somewhere inside me that it couldn’t last like this, that my health would slowly, inevitably, go downhill.

The signs were there already, the shortness of breath, the paleness, the dizzy spells.

But there was just something about having Cat as my sister that made me feel stronger.

Nothing would get me because she wouldn’t let it.

Or so I thought.

Cat met Fraser at the bar a few days into that hot and hazy June, and from the first time she told me about him on the phone, I knew she was gone.

He was a musician from Edinburgh, gigging his way through the summer at various bars, including hers.

He was the same age as her, and just incredible, she said.

He loved animals and the great outdoors, and when the two of them weren’t on shift, they would disappear for camping trips in the Pentlands, or up to the cottage.

And I liked him too – it was hard not to really, despite the creeping jealousy that would sometimes surface.

Because Cat was my other half, my person, and yet here she was spending all her time with someone else.

I can still remember the first time I met him – the long sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail, the glittering blue eyes that barely left my sister.

‘You’re Maggie then,’ he said easily, pulling me into a hug.

‘I’ve heard a fairly insane amount about you – it’s good to put a face to the name.

Shall we all go get some drinks together at Malones? ’

Over the course of that hazy summer, I’d get all these messages and pictures from Cat, of her and Fraser out on bikes together, or off up hills under skies of neon pink and parma violet, him playing his guitar beside a fire they’d built together.

They would head out to his gigs until late, and Cat would get to dance the night away to her new favourite music.

I wanted to go too, of course; was desperate to just let go like Cat did, but my condition always stopped me, even then.

‘Maybe next time,’ I would say each time she asked.

Then, as the summer started to draw to a close, the news came that she and Fraser were moving in together, after only a few short months.

I was happy for her, of course, but I couldn’t help feeling a little jealous too, and it spurred me on with my own packing for art school – the halls of residence was all booked, the future was imminent and, with Cat trail-blazing the way, I had the feeling maybe anything was possible.

It’s funny how life does that, shines light all over you one minute, then takes it away the next.

Now, as the sun sinks down in a final burst of orange and blue ahead of me on the beach, the memories fade back, and I think about the date on the clock in the bedroom again.

‘The twenty-seventh of July,’ I whisper into the salty air.

Two days short of a year before my transplant.

I just wish I could make sense of this all somehow.

I wish I knew what the hell was going on.

Because right now all I know is that I’m in someone else’s body, in someone else’s flat, two years in the past. And somewhere across town is another version of me; a sicker version of me, before I got my new heart.

I am there, and yet I am also here, in the life of someone called Emily.

How can that be happening?

And, more importantly, why is it happening? Why now?