Three Amazing Things About You
Read Three Amazing Things About You Online
Authors: Jill Mansell
Copyright © 2015 Jill Mansell
The right of Jill Mansell to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published in Great Britain as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2015
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 1 4722 0884 2
Cover illustration © Heather Gatley
Author photograph © Paul Burns
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Contents
About THREE AMAZING THINGS ABOUT YOU
Hallie has a secret. She’s in love. He’s perfect for her in every way, but he’s seriously out of bounds. And her friends aren’t going to help her because what they
do
know is that Hallie doesn’t have long to live. Time is running out . . .
Flo has a dilemma. She really likes Zander. But his scary sister won’t be even faintly amused if she thinks Zander and Flo are becoming friends – let alone anything more.
Tasha has a problem. It’s not being nicknamed ‘Bin Girl’ because of an embarrassing incident with a credit card. It’s that her new boyfriend is the adventurous type. And she’s afraid one of his adventures will go badly wrong.
THREE AMAZING THINGS ABOUT YOU begins as Hallie goes on a journey. A donor has been found and she's about to be given new lungs. But whose?
Jill Mansell’s enchanting new novel will drive readers to seize life with both hands and make the most of every minute . . .
Jill Mansell lives with her family in Bristol. She used to work in the field of Clinical Neurophysiology but now writes full time. She watches far too much TV and would love to be one of those super-sporty types but basically can’t be bothered. Nor can she cook – having once attempted to bake a cake for the hospital’s Christmas Fair, she was forced to watch while her co-workers played frisbee with it.
But she’s good at Twitter!
Three Amazing Things About You
The Unpredictable Consequences Of Love
Don’t Want To Miss A Thing
A Walk In The Park
To The Moon And Back
Take A Chance On Me
Rumour Has It
An Offer You Can’t Refuse
Thinking Of You
Making Your Mind Up
The One You Really Want
Falling For You
Nadia Knows Best
Staying At Daisy’s
Millie’s Fling
Good At Games
Miranda’s Big Mistake
Head Over Heels
Mixed Doubles
Perfect Timing
Fast Friends
Solo
Kiss
Sheer Mischief
Open House
Two’s Company
‘Bursting with humour, brimming with intrigue and full of characters you’ll adore – we can’t think of a better literary remedy for the gloomy last days of winter’
*****
Heat
‘A heart-warming read which deals with loss, love and change’
Essentials
‘This is a warm, witty and romantic read that you won’t be able to put down’
Daily Mail
‘Mansell’s fiction is a happy leap away from the troubles of today’
Sunday Express
‘Slick, sexy, funny stories’
Daily Telegraph
‘Fast, furious and fabulous fun. To read it is to devour it’
Company
I am hugely grateful to Dr Joanna Cannon for reading this book while it was still in manuscript form, in order to reassure me that I hadn’t made any embarrassing medical errors. Thanks are also due to Dr Keir Shiels, who generously answered medical questions, and to Helen Davies for her advice on inheritance issues.
Finally, I would like to thank the inspirational Oli Lewington whose autobiography
Smile Through It
, about living with cystic fibrosis, was invaluable while I was writing this book. Any mistakes, needless to say, are mine alone.
Now
OK, this is it, confession time. For the last two years I’ve asked all of you to tell me three things about you. And in return I’ve never told you anything about me. Which probably hasn’t seemed very fair, has it?
But it’s currently one o’clock in the morning, I’m in the back of a car being driven down to London and I’ve decided to come clean.
So here we go:
- I’m twenty-eight, I have cystic fibrosis and I never actually expected to live this long.
- The hospital transplant coordinator called two hours ago – they have a new pair of lungs for me.
- I’ve never been so scared in my life. Also, excited. But mainly scared. Because this is a big thing that’s about to happen and since I’m a coward I can’t help picturing the worst-case scenario.
So now you know the reason for the full disclosure. Basically, if this turns out to be the final entry on the website, you’ll understand why. Needless to say, I really hope it won’t be.
One more thing. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to the wonderful family of the donor for giving me this gift, this incredible chance. I’ll be grateful until the day I die and
Hallie paused, reread what she’d written and deleted the last sentence. In its place she typed: I hope you know how amazing you are. Your courage, kindness and generosity will always be remembered.
Droplets of light summer rain speckled the windscreen of the car. Hallie gazed out into the warm night as a sign saying
London 25 miles
loomed out of the darkness towards them and slid past. Street lamps glowed amber and houses showed only occasional lights in their windows; almost everyone at this time was asleep. Soon, though, dawn would lighten the sky, alarm clocks would wake them and they’d carry on living their normal lives without even pausing to think how miraculous their normal lives were.
Just being able to breathe in and out, that was pretty miraculous . . .
The finality of it all hit her afresh. There was still a chance, of course, that the tissue match would turn out not to be good enough and the transplant wouldn’t go ahead. Which was why she wasn’t uploading her post to the website just yet. But a few short hours from now, she could be in the operating theatre receiving another person’s lungs. And who knew what might happen after that?
How many people would read what she’d written? What would they think?
Sitting back, Hallie thought of the line she’d deleted and wished she could as easily erase the song now playing in her head. It was a great song, one that people loved to sing during karaoke sessions. Everyone always joined in enthusiastically with the chorus.
She wasn’t sure of the exact lyrics, but the last line of the chorus went something like:
This could be the day that I die . . . this could be the day that I die
. . .
Oh well. Seemed like her brain still had a sense of humour, at least.
‘Hey, hi, how’s things? What are you up to?’
Hallie brightened at the sound of Bea’s voice. ‘You really want to know? OK, I’ll tell you. But I’m warning you now, you’re going to be
so
jealous.’
‘Fire away.’
‘I’m in Venice, sitting at a table outside Caffè Florian in St Mark’s Square. The sun is shining, church bells are ringing and the waiter’s just opened a bottle of ice-cold prosecco.’
‘Is the waiter handsome?’
‘What do you think? This is Venice! Of course he’s handsome. He’s giving me one of those handsome-waiter looks,’ said Hallie. ‘With his
eyes.
’
‘Hmm, and is he listening to you saying this?’
‘It’s fine, he doesn’t speak a word of English. I may seduce him later. He has a look of Bradley Cooper about him.’