When an accident send Jen into a coma, she's able to see what her life could have been had she made different choices. But getting the answers to life's "what ifs" might leave her with more questions than ever…
Jennifer Wright is pretty sure her husband doesn't love her anymore. She and Max used to be the perfect couple, but the pressure of work and kids have pulled them in opposite directions. Now, Jen is full of "what if" questions about whether her bland, suburban existence is all she was ever destined for.
What if she'd run off to Australia with the handsome, dangerous man she met on vacation in her twenties? What if she'd stayed with her workaholic college boyfriend? Would she ever have loved another child as much as she loves her daughters? Could she have become rich?
More than anything, Jen wants to do the right thing for her family. But what she discovers may leave her with no easy answers about what to do next.
When an accident send Jen into a coma, she's able to see what her life could have been had she made different choices. But getting the answers to life's "what ifs" might leave her with more questions than ever…
Jennifer Wright is pretty sure her husband doesn't love her anymore. She and Max used to be the perfect couple, but the pressure of work and kids have pulled them in opposite directions. Now, Jen is full of "what if" questions about whether her bland, suburban existence is all she was ever destined for.
What if she'd run off to Australia with the handsome, dangerous man she met on vacation in her twenties? What if she'd stayed with her workaholic college boyfriend? Would she ever have loved another child as much as she loves her daughters? Could she have become rich?
More than anything, Jen wants to do the right thing for her family. But what she discovers may leave her with no easy answers about what to do next.
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Overview
When an accident send Jen into a coma, she's able to see what her life could have been had she made different choices. But getting the answers to life's "what ifs" might leave her with more questions than ever…
Jennifer Wright is pretty sure her husband doesn't love her anymore. She and Max used to be the perfect couple, but the pressure of work and kids have pulled them in opposite directions. Now, Jen is full of "what if" questions about whether her bland, suburban existence is all she was ever destined for.
What if she'd run off to Australia with the handsome, dangerous man she met on vacation in her twenties? What if she'd stayed with her workaholic college boyfriend? Would she ever have loved another child as much as she loves her daughters? Could she have become rich?
More than anything, Jen wants to do the right thing for her family. But what she discovers may leave her with no easy answers about what to do next.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781492607908 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Sourcebooks |
| Publication date: | 06/02/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 384 |
| File size: | 866 KB |
About the Author
Jemma Forte was a Disney Channel host in the UK for five years, and has gone on to host shows for ITV, BBC1, BBC2, and other channels in the UK. She lives in London with her family.
Read an Excerpt
If You're Not the One
By Jemma Forte
Sourcebooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2015 Jemma ForteAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4926-0790-8
CHAPTER 1
Friday
Seven Days Before the Accident
Jennifer Wright hadn't been sure for a while if she really liked her husband anymore. As a result, she'd been suffering from a sort of creeping, low-lying anxiety for months. The thought of living out the remainder of her days in the suburbs with him terrified her, and she'd lost count of how many times she'd been struck by one solitary thought: Is this it?
To some degree, it was less a thought, more a feeling. She was only thirty-eight but felt like she was hurtling in slow motion toward middle age and decrepitude while swept up in an unstoppable snowball of routine, malaise, and domesticity. Lately, she could be in the middle of any number of mundane tasks when, from nowhere, she'd be hit by a strong urge to run barefoot through long grass, dance till dawn (preferably on some form of narcotic), sleep in a yurt, or, failing that, have the sort of passionate, filthy sex with a stranger that would leave her panting and covered in a film of sweat.
But Jennifer was a married mother of two with a slightly boring part-time job who was fully aware not only of how wildly inappropriate these yearnings were, but also how ... impractical. There'd be consequences, ones she didn't have the heart to deal with, and besides, these days, if she danced till dawn, it would take her at least a week to recover, and, quite frankly, they couldn't afford the child care.
Is this it? whispered her subconscious again. That it might be freaked her out, to say the least, and often kept her awake at night as her mind swirled.
In a bid to make sense of what she was feeling, she'd even started seeing a therapist from time to time, but so far the sessions had only deepened her confusion. In the end, she'd decided that all she could do was wait things out, try to remain positive, keep taking the Prozac, and not jump out of a window.
Until one Friday evening in May, that is, when Jennifer decided it was time to take matters into her own hands.
All relationships go through patches, she thought determinedly, clipping on her garter belt and manhandling her breasts into her new black-and-red bra. She owed it to herself and to her children to try to make things better. Although she'd been hovering around the notion of what might happen were she and Max to split up, it was too terrifying a prospect to face head-on as an actual possibility. And besides, after eleven years together, she still loved Max. It was a shame it was such a familiar, unexciting version of love, which occasionally had the tendency to veer off into violent hatred territory. The fact that they hadn't had sex for over four months wasn't helping matters either.
Feeling surprisingly nervous, Jennifer pulled open her wardrobe door so she could appraise herself in the full-length mirror that hung behind it.
Wow. She hadn't looked this tarty in a long time. The evening sunlight poured through her bedroom window, bathing the entire room in a golden glow, highlighting her cellulite and the fact that they desperately needed a new rug.
At first, Jennifer felt incredibly self-conscious, standing there all trussed up. Eventually she grudgingly admitted that she kind of got away with it. She'd always had an hourglass figure, and these days it was covered by less flesh than it had been even prechildren. In her twenties, she'd taken her figure for granted. Postpartum, however, not only had she realized that she wasn't immortal, but she had also worked out that she was standing at a fairly major crossroads. One way led to elasticized waists, one-piece swimsuits, and never being able to reveal her upper arms again; the other, to still being able to look good in the odd bit from Top Shop, skinny jeans, and the vaguely hateful yet better than frumpy "yummy mummy" moniker. Terrified by the prospect of turning into her mother, Jennifer had jogged purposefully in one direction, started doing yoga, and stopped eating cake.
She peered at her face, wondering vaguely how old a complete stranger would guess she was. There was no denying she was in her fourth decade, yet it was hard to pinpoint exactly what was different about her face now from how it had been in her twenties. Yet that difference was there. She still had friendly, warm brown eyes, but nowadays, when she applied eye shadow, much of it disappeared into a crease she was pretty sure hadn't been there before. Due to her weight loss, she had good cheekbones and her thighs looked good, yet she had to make sure she didn't lose too much weight or her face might start to look gaunt. She had faint crow's feet around her eyes and a bit of a frown line that had deepened visibly around the time her babies had become toddlers, at which point there had suddenly been more to frown about. But she had a pretty face and, on a good day, could still scrub up well. She still had sex appeal, could turn a head and be whistled at by a builder, and her wide smile, good, orthodontically treated teeth (thank you, Mum), and long, thick head of (dyed) brown hair counted for a lot. But for how much longer was anyone's guess.
Turning around so she could glance back over her shoulder and examine what her bottom looked like in her new, very uncomfortable G-string, she decided that if she squinted, she didn't look that far off the girl she'd been when she'd first met Max. Screw it, she thought, fired up by a growing sense of confidence. She was old enough and wise enough to know that any normal red-blooded man wouldn't care anyway. Rather than scrutinizing her for imperfections, surely he'd only see the naughty underwear, the effort she was making, the invitation.
She drew the curtains. Better. Direct sunlight and partial nudity were best kept apart. Across the room, her phone was vibrating. She tottered over to it in her heels. The display showed it was Karen, likely phoning to check up on her.
"I feel like a call girl."
"Well," said Karen, "there are probably worse ways to feel when you're about to seduce your husband."
"Oh God," groaned Jennifer, returning to the mirror to examine herself from all angles again. "I'm not sure I can do this. I'm not sure I want to do it, truth be told. I've still got this week's episode of The Apprentice to watch."
"You have to," Karen said frankly. "Not see The Apprentice — though at some point do; it's hilarious — but have sex first. If you don't do it soon, he'll start looking elsewhere."
Jennifer wasn't so sure. Karen had been flabbergasted when she'd admitted how long their dry spell had been and was clearly working on the proviso that no man could live without sex, but then again, Karen was married to a man who woke her up most mornings with something hard jabbing into her back. Whereas these days, Max seemed to have lost his sex drive completely.
"Still on for a drink next Tuesday?" Jennifer asked, changing the subject. It felt weird making small talk while dressed like a sex worker.
"Definitely. I'll try to leave work a bit early, and I think Lucy's coming, but Esther still hasn't gotten a babysitter."
Just then, Jennifer heard the sound of Max's key in the lock. "Ooh, he's back. I'll call you tomorrow."
"Good luck."
Jennifer put her phone on silent, then raced over to the bed and got herself into position. As she did, it suddenly occurred to her that instead of being consumed by lust, Max might find the sight of her trying to seduce him wildly funny. Oh my God, what if he laughs at me?
She quickly swerved her mind back to the task ahead, acknowledging along the way that it was probably as much her fault as it was her husband's that they hadn't done it for so long. She was usually exhausted by the time he got home, busy trying to get the kids to bed and looking forward to nothing wilder than a glass of wine and watching some TV. Tonight, however, with the girls at a rare sleepover at their grandparents' house, there was no excuse. They would have sex. Being physically close was what was required to lessen the emotional distance between them. She felt quite militant about it.
She could hear Max taking his shoes off downstairs. She waited for him to call to her, but it sounded like he was heading straight for the kitchen. Still, he'd come looking for her soon enough.
Minutes passed. There was no sign of him. Then she heard him leave the kitchen and go into the den. Damn. This wasn't the plan. He was supposed to come upstairs and find her leaning back across the bed like a wanton sex goddess. Then, filled with raging desire caused by her wearing a bra that wasn't flesh-colored and underwear that wasn't from a Target pack of three, he was supposed to leap on her and ravish his way back into an intimate relationship.
Still nothing. Feeling irritated beyond belief, she felt like she had no choice other than to heave herself back up and reach for the house phone, the garter belt cutting into the crevice of her belly. She called his cell phone.
"Hello?"
"What are you doing?" she asked, making a monumental effort to sound less irritated than she felt.
"Nothing. Got myself a beer and I'm watching sports. Why, what are you doing? What are we having for dinner?"
As Jennifer was treated to a crystal clear image in her head of her husband in his usual position — lying on the sofa, caressing his nuts, "relaxing" with the TV on, while waiting for dinner to magically appear in front of him — any vague urge she might have had to sleep with him evaporated. She was a woman on a mission, though. The bra alone had cost forty pounds. She wasn't giving up that easily.
"Come upstairs."
"Do I have to?"
"Please, Max?" begged Jennifer, feeling the last vestiges of sex goddess slip away from her like smoke.
"Can't you come here?"
"Just come for a second, please? I'd really appreciate it."
"Bloody hell, Jen. I've had a long day, and I've only just sat down. Oof, great goal."
Jennifer quietly put the phone down and stared into the distance for a while before slowly peeling off her temptress outfit. Once she had, she shoved it all into the back of her drawer and replaced the expensive underwear with a pair of pajamas before heading downstairs to cook lamb chops, baked potatoes, and green beans, served on a bed of deep resentment.
Later, as she and Max sat chewing on their overcooked chops in front of The Apprentice, Jennifer wondered if Max would ever desire or appreciate her body again.
Is this it?
"Good day?" she inquired feebly.
"Er, would be if I could hear what was being said. Why would you speak right over the crucial bit?" He leaned over to get the remote so he could rewind.
Jennifer stared at her husband blankly, watching him ignore her.
In that moment, it hit her that she couldn't bear for things to continue as they were. She was physically and mentally frustrated, unfulfilled by her job, and sad, all of which she might have been able to accept. But she'd also been reduced to one half of a couple who sat next to each other on a sofa, bodies present but souls millions of miles away. And that she couldn't cope with.
Max continued to stare at the TV, oblivious to the maelstrom of potentially life-changing thoughts swirling around in his wife's head, unaware his other half was questioning how all the decisions she'd made in life had led to this bitterly disappointing moment in time.
Meanwhile, Jennifer began plundering the reserves of her memory, something else she'd been doing a lot lately, searching for feelings she longed to relive, for there was enormous comfort to be taken from the fact that, of course, things hadn't always been this way.
CHAPTER 2The Past
Summer 1994
Aidan
The alarm beeped, penetrating the deepest of sleeps.
"Jen, wake up. It's already nine o'clock. We've got to get ready, and if you want a shower, you need to hurry. I said I'd meet Mark at the Pink Flamingo."
"Five minutes," Jennifer answered drowsily, idly scratching a mosquito bite on her leg. The whirring of the ceiling fan was in danger of lulling her back to sleep again, so she forced herself to open one eye, enjoying the gurgle of anticipation that was already building in her stomach, despite her groggy state.
They'd arrived on the island of Kos five nights ago after a fortnight of taking it relatively easy on the quieter Greek island of Santorini. Before that, they'd been to Mykonos and Rhodes. There had been the odd moment of tension, but overall, she and her friends had managed five weeks of traveling with no major disagreements and were having the time of their lives. They'd originally planned on visiting a few more islands before heading home, but Jennifer had a strong feeling they'd probably spend the remainder of their trip here, until either their money ran out or their livers packed up, whichever came first. Kos had proved too fun to leave, what with Bar Street (self-explanatory), the outdoor clubs that stayed open till the sun was starting to rise in the sky, the sandy beaches, and the biggest appeal of all — tons of gorgeous men.
They'd all slept with someone, but Jennifer rather regretted her liaison at the beach with a handsome Greek guy on their second night. She knew she'd lived up to the reputation English girls seemed to have, of being easy. By the same token, she'd decided not to lose any sleep over it. She wasn't proud of how little it had meant but still didn't see why girls should feel any worse than guys did about what amounted to nothing more than a consensual exchange of bodily fluids. The only thing that had been slightly awkward was bumping into him from time to time afterward. Neither of them could be bothered to keep up the pretense of interest once the act had been done.
"Can I borrow your red dress, Jen?" asked Esther, emerging from the bathroom in a towel, strawberry-blond hair hanging in damp tendrils around her face.
Since arriving on Kos, the four of them had eased into a routine that consisted of sleeping until midday, at which point they'd force themselves to get up, no matter how much their heads were splitting, for tanning purposes. Then, after an afternoon of roasting themselves at the beach, they'd return to the apartment, shower, slather themselves in more after-sun lotion than was probably necessary, and take a nap — making sure first, of course, that they'd set the alarm so there was no danger of missing out on another night of partying.
Without waiting for a response, Esther bent down to extract the dress, which was rolled in a ball and stuffed in Jennifer's rucksack. But the minute she did, the red dress became exactly what Jennifer wanted to wear that night. Esther borrowing her clothes was starting to get on her nerves, partly because with her long, freckled limbs, Esther looked amazing in all of them.
Esther was the rare sort of girl who actually looked better with no makeup on at all. She wasn't overtly sexy and yet was the most naturally pretty of the group. Back home in London, it was usually Jennifer's more obvious sex appeal or Karen's big breasts that guys noticed. However, while it might have taken their fellow students at college a few glances before they worked out how attractive Esther really was, on vacation, her tall physique and barefaced beauty made her the instant star of the beach.
"Um, sorry, babe, I think I'm going to wear it," Jennifer said sleepily.
Esther tutted. "Shit, what am I going to wear then?"
"Don't know, but hurry up," said Karen, who drew deeply on one of the two hundred Merit cigarettes she'd bought at Kos airport before adjusting her dress straps to heave her considerable cleavage up as much as possible. "I am so up for it tonight."
"Makes a change," teased Jennifer.
"Shut up," said Karen, grinning, teeth white against her brown face.
Normally her deep tan would have suited her, but on this trip, the browner she got, the more alarming she looked. Not for the first time, Jennifer visibly balked at the sight of Karen's hair. When they'd first arrived in Greece, Karen had announced her intentions to go blond with the help of a bottle of Sun-In. As usual, she'd ignored all her friends' protestations, despite that Sun-In was never designed to be used on dark hair. Her reward for being so pigheaded was patches of dodgy orange hair that looked like straw and were brittle and coarse to the touch. It looked horrendous.
Luckily for Karen, her attitude was in her favor. She'd always had incredibly thick skin, meaning it would take more than orange hair to ruin her vacation.
Tonight she'd tried to mitigate the hair disaster by gelling it all back off her face. It looked bizarre, but as ever preferring to concentrate on the positive, she was reeking of confidence due to how good her breasts looked in her minidress. Jennifer admired her for it.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from If You're Not the One by Jemma Forte. Copyright © 2015 Jemma Forte. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Front Cover,Title Page,
Copyright,
Prologue: Friday, May 18th,
Friday: Seven Days Before the Accident,
The Past: Summer 1994,
Present Day,
Saturday: Six Days Before the Accident,
The Past: Summer 1994,
Present Day,
Tunnel Number One: What Could Have Been — Aidan,
Present Day,
Sunday: Five Days Before the Accident,
The Past: April 1997,
Present Day,
Tunnel Number One: What Could Have Been — Aidan,
Tunnel Number One: What Could Have Been — Aidan,
The Past: June 2004,
The Past: August 1997,
The Past: 2006,
Monday: Four Days Before the Accident,
Tuesday: Three Days Before the Accident,
Present Day,
Tunnel Number Two: What Could Have Been — Tim,
Present Day,
Tunnel Number Two: What Could Have Been — Tim,
Wednesday: Two Days Before the Accident,
The Past: 2008,
Wednesday Continued: Two Days Before the Accident,
The Past: January 2000,
Present Day,
Tunnel Number One: What Could Have Been — Aidan,
Thursday: One Day Before the Accident,
The Past: January 2000,
Present Day,
Tunnel Number Two: What Could Have Been — Tim,
Tunnel Number Two: What Could Have Been — Tim,
Tunnel Number Two: What Could Have Been — Tim,
Present Day,
The Past: 2009,
Friday Morning: The Day of the Accident,
Present Day,
The Past: April 2001,
The Past,
Present Day,
Tunnel Number Three: What Could Have Been — Steve,
Tunnel Number Three: What Could Have Been — Steve,
Present Day,
Tunnel Number Three: What Could Have Been — Steve,
Friday: The Day of the Accident,
Present Day,
Epilogue: Six Months Later,
Reading Group Guide,
A Conversation with the Author,
Acknowledgments,
About the Author,
Back Cover,