To the Moon and Back Read Online Free

how long had it been on?
    Then Jamie came into the living room and joined her on the sofa. He was wearing his old jeans and the pink shirt he’d refused to put on for his school reunion. He wore it a lot these days. Ellie loved to see him in it and she’d been right about the color; it was great on him. She knew what suited Jamie better than he did.
    â€˜Great job with the wallpapering.’ He grinned at her, sitting sideways with one leg hooked beneath the other and his bare foot inches from her knee.
    â€˜I know. I’m brilliant.’ Ellie took in every detail of his face, the sparkling blue eyes, the sun-streaked blond hair, the golden tan.
    â€˜You should turn professional. People would pay a lot of money to have their homes decorated like this. You know what this is, don’t you?’ Jamie nodded seriously, indicating the bare walls, the crumpled, fallen-down paper. ‘It’s postmodern shabby chic.’
    â€˜If you’d bothered to give me a hand I might have had more luck,’ said Ellie.
    â€˜Ah, but it’s so much more fun watching you try to do it yourself.’
    â€˜You mean you’re too lazy to help.’
    He smiled sadly at her. ‘Oh, sweetheart, I would if I could. You know that.’
    Ellie felt the familiar prickle of heat behind her eyes. Of course she knew that. They’d worked so hard together to make this flat their own. And she wasn’t going to cry. ‘OK, that’s enough, you can go now. I’m going to watch this film.’
    He turned his head, gazed at the TV screen with suspicion. As well he might. ‘Is it a slushy girlie film?’
    He knew her so well. Ellie nodded. ‘Oh yes.’
    Jamie held up his hands in horror; sci-fi and war movies were more his thing. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Bye, gorgeous.’
    â€˜Bye.’
    But the film wasn’t able to hold her attention tonight. After ten minutes, unable to settle into it, Ellie switched off the TV. She could get Jamie back, but she wouldn’t. It was starting to concern her, just slightly, that it wasn’t quite normal to be doing what she’d been doing for the last year. Because Jamie wasn’t here anymore. And he wasn’t a ghost either. All she did was conjure up a mental image of him in her mind, talk to him, and have him talk back as if he were real. At school, her teachers had forever been telling her that she had a vivid imagination. Well, they’d been right. And now she was putting it to good use. Because imagining that Jamie was still around, she had discovered, was actually a really comforting thing to do. Like thumb-sucking or clutching a manky old security blanket, it just made her feel… better . At least, it did while she was actually doing it. Sometimes, afterwards, it made her feel worse, bereft and alone and sadder than ever. But most of the time it was good. If Jamie could appear as a real ghost… well, obviously that would be fantastic, but so far it hadn’t happened; he hadn’t obliged in that respect and she didn’t believe in ghosts anyway. Besides, this way she could be in charge of his clothes. If she wanted Jamie to wear a dinner jacket or a tutu there wasn’t a thing he could do about it besides complain bitterly.
    Ellie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand; sometimes she didn’t realize she’d been crying until the tears slid off her chin and dripped down her neck. She missed Jamie so much she sometimes wondered how she’d managed to carry on, but it had been fifteen months now, and one way or another she had. Maybe she was going a bit batty, conjuring Jamie up and having imaginary conversations with him, but it was her coping mechanism and she wasn’t ready to give it up yet.
    ***
    Ellie always looked forward to her lunches with Jamie’s dad when he came over to England. They had each lost the most important person in their lives and their meetings could so easily