Page 35 of You Can't Hurt Me

“The more the media reported on it, the more she shrank away from it. I guess I felt guilty because I had courted the publicity. But I told her that the research I was doing was a stepping stone, and once we found the part of her brain responsible for turning pain on and off, we could help her too. If we could switch it one way, why not the other?”

“Is that true?”

“It could be, but no one would really bother trying.”

“Why not?”

“Well, who’s going to fund research into curing a condition that affects less than twenty people a year? No point. Drug companies are only interested in chronic conditions that impacts millions of us. One-off treatments aren’t profitable; a lifetime of medication is what they like best. A condition like Eva’s? No chance. But I didn’t spell that out to her back then.”

“And that fact didn’t really bother you?” I can’t help wondering how much he viewed Eva as a necessary sacrifice, a guinea pig to help in the pain race that he hoped to win.

“I thought about it a lot,” he says, sharply, looking up at me. “But I didn’t want to hurt her. Never tell someone everything they want to hear, only what they can bear.” He stops himself. “On second thought, I’m not sure I want that in either. None of it makes me sound good.”

“You’re not meant to sound good. Good is bland. This—” I nod at my screen “—makes you sound authentic. You felt for her.”

“Yes. I emailed her after that night. I was concerned, maybe guilty, that I hadn’t been as helpful as I could. I mentioned a few colleagues she should make contact with who could offer advice. She got back to me and after that we began to email each other a lot. We wrote letters.”

“Letters. Really? How romantic. Her idea, not yours, I’m guessing?”

“Obviously.” He smiles.

“Well, maybe we should take our cue from that. A series of reflections, like the letters you used to write. As I see it, this memoir is a love story above all else. Wouldn’t you say so?”

I begin to type. Rather than answer me, he turns his face away instead, and for the briefest moment I think I see him flinch.

Chapter 1

Two years ago, I lost you, in the most upsetting circumstances. And ever since, somehow your story, our story, won’t leave me alone. When I first read newspaper reports about the night you died, I thought this must be happening to someone else. I always assumed tragedy only happened to other people. Until it happened to me.

The only way to make any sense of those early days was to get it down in words. Of course, part of it was a vain hope of somehow writing you back into being; that as long as I tapped away, conjuring you up from the past, it brought you closer to me.

Naturally, as a neuroscientist, I am aware of the challenges—how flawed memory can be, no more concrete than footprints in the sand. Yet putting thoughts down on paper offers a permanence that appeals to me. I have tried to be a reliable narrator. It is so easy to idealize the person we have lost, focus on their perfections and forget their flaws, but I believe placing you on a pedestal, which would be so easy, would really be a cage.

I hope I’ve avoided this and created something that is honest; the essence of you.

This, my love, is what drives me on. Wondering, what would you say now? How would you feel if I told it this way?

13

The morning sun glares a little too harshly as I head for Priya’s office, Grayson Inc., a sleek tower built in a curve of the Thames. Her text yesterday was abrupt, unexpected. She wanted to meet again but didn’t tell me why, although I suspect it’s about the early chapters I emailed her.

It is one of those pellucid days you get in the winter when the air is crystalline, the sky cloudless and sheer. Sharp light cuts across the river like a blade. My eyes ache. It’s as if I have evolved to exist only in the crepuscular gloom of Nate’s basement study, a liminal space where I’m able to keep the glare of the real world at bay.

Each day I sense Nate is a little more relaxed in my company, a little more confessional, exposing his more closely held thoughts. Yet on a relisten of our interviews, his responses are still somehow evading detail, so I’m forced to fill in the gaps. It’s not that I’m making up quotes exactly, but scattering subtle reflection here and there to bring Nate and Eva alive. I convince myself that memoir is the art of persuasion, a magic act of smoke and mirrors, and, really, isn’t that all I’m attempting? Now that his voice has almost become second nature to me, it only takes the subtlest of twists to make him sound more revelatory. I’m doing him a favor, helping him to be a better version of himself in print. But massaging can only get you so far, and the text from Priya gnaws at me.

I take up the elevator to the top floor and catch my reflection in the mirrored doors as they close, the crispness of my outline is reassuring. I’ve erased myself to such a degree in recent weeks I half expect to see a me-shaped hole where I used to be. The elevator shoots up through the bright light, London spread out extravagantly below me. The doors open and there is Priya’s assistant waiting to take me to her corner office.

Priya doesn’t look up or acknowledge me when I’m shown in. Elbows on desk, palms over her ears, she carries on flipping through the pages of a manuscript.

“Gripping read?” I blurt, instantly mortified by my tone. I sit down opposite her and she glances up at me, unsmiling.

“Yes, but it’s not yours.”

She retrieves mine from a pile, lets her hand rest on the opening chapter. Her voice is thin, stripped of the faux interest and sparkle that infused our last chat when Nate was with her. She appraises me properly, a small tight smile coiled on her lips. “So. Anna. How long has this taken so far?”

“Four weeks?” My tone falters.

“And how quickly could you finish by if, say, we needed you to cut all of this?”

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