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Twenty-Seven

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty-One

       Chapter Thirty-Two

       Chapter Thirty-Three

       Chapter Thirty-Four

       Chapter Thirty-Five

       Chapter Thirty-Six

       Chapter Thirty-Seven

       Chapter Thirty-Eight

       Chapter Thirty-Nine

       Chapter Forty

       Chapter Forty-One

       Chapter Forty-Two

       Chapter Forty-Three

       Chapter Forty-Four

       Chapter Forty-Five

       Chapter Forty-Six

       Chapter Forty-Seven

       Chapter Forty-Eight

       Chapter Forty-Nine

       Chapter Fifty

       Chapter Fifty-One

       Chapter Fifty-Two

       Chapter Fifty-Three

       Chapter Fifty-Four

       Chapter Fifty-Five

       Chapter Fifty-Six

       Chapter Fifty-Seven

       Chapter Fifty-Eight

       Chapter Fifty-Nine

       Chapter Sixty

       Chapter Sixty-One

       Chapter Sixty-Two

       Chapter Sixty-Three

       Chapter Sixty-Four

       Chapter Sixty-Five

       Chapter Sixty-Six

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgements

       Excerpt

       Endpages

       About the Publisher

Prologue

      Daniel

      Sheringham

      5th January 2018

      Breathe.

      Just breathe.

      That was all I had to do. And yet it was impossible. Lying on the ground, the cold seeping through to my back and chest, I stared up at the sky. Unblinking. A sheet of nothingness stretching in all directions. Flat and smooth and devoid of anything I could identify with, devoid of anything I could latch hope onto. Just grey. I looked anyway, for something, anything that meant there was more. My eyes stung, I needed to blink. But I didn’t dare. I knew if I did, my eyes might not open again. And grey was better than the black of what was surely to come.

      Ironically, grey was the colour that made up my past, made up who I was, made up my memories. I had fought against it, now, it was all I had left. The only thing to hold on to. Grey was a friend all along.

      Breathe.

      Just breathe.

      The pain was too much, the knowledge of what was coming next too constricting. I knew I would pass out soon. I could feel it creeping up my arms and legs. A stillness as my extremities conceded defeat. The blood flowing from my body was unstoppable, it came from too many places. My life was leaking out, a millilitre at a time, forming a pool in which I lay. It warmed the concrete around me, inviting me to relax, to accept. And it didn’t hurt, it didn’t matter.

      I wasn’t scared of what was next, part of me knew it was inevitable. It didn’t even matter where I went once I died, all that mattered was that life would continue. The storm would end, spring would come. Summer would burn and then winter would return. It would do so for many, many years. There would be laughter and love. There would be success and change. There would be children growing to become adults who would have their own children one day. Then there would be peace as it came to an end, only to be replaced with another winter, another summer for ever and ever.

      I was just a very small part of a much bigger picture.

      I was just a single paint brush stroke on a canvas that was the entire world. A single small stroke of paint. One that was never very vibrant or colourful. More shading than subject.

      Just before I closed my eyes for the final time there was a small gap in the grey, just enough for me to see beyond it. A small space of the brightest blue I had ever seen. Pure. Untouched by the past five days.

      And that bit of blue, it told me everything would be okay, for the one person that it was all for.

      And that was what mattered.

       One week earlier

Chapter 1

      Daniel

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