💛 Me Before You – Jojo Moyes

Caleb had made peace with the silence.

After the accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down, life slowed to a crawl. No more hiking. No more motorcycle rides along the cliffs. No more spontaneous road trips or late-night basketball games with his brothers. What remained was the steady hum of his wheelchair motor, scheduled nurse visits, and an endless loop of Netflix shows he no longer cared about.

Most days, he stared out the window of his apartment, watching the world move on without him. Pedestrians laughing, couples holding hands, kids racing to catch a school bus—all on legs that worked.

Then she walked in.

Her name was Nora, and she was a whirlwind of mismatched socks, coffee breath, and the kind of laugh that made you forget the sky was gray.

She arrived on a Monday morning, sent by a local care agency. “Just here for the basics,” she said. “Meals, meds, and mild sarcasm.”

Caleb didn’t smile. Not at first.

He wasn’t unkind—just... distant. He had learned how to keep people out, how to protect what was left of himself. Most caregivers came and went, treating him with mechanical pity. He expected the same from her.

But Nora was different.

She talked to him like he wasn’t broken. Like he was still a person with opinions and bad puns and a taste in music that, in her words, “desperately needed saving.”

“You listen to this?” she asked, holding up his playlist. “No wonder your plants are dying.”

“You water the plants,” he replied, deadpan.

“Exactly,” she shot back.

Over the weeks, their banter became routine. She brought him books with messy annotations in the margins. He challenged her to chess and lost every time. She told him about her dreams of becoming a children’s book illustrator. He told her about the mountain he once climbed in Oregon, and how the stars looked closer at the top.

He watched her sketch at the kitchen table while humming under her breath, sleeves pushed up, eyes glowing with focus.

“Why are you here?” he asked one afternoon.

She looked up, startled. “I work here?”

“No, I mean—you’re too... alive for this place.”

She gave him a small, quiet smile. “Maybe I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

The seasons shifted. Leaves turned red. Then fell. Snow powdered the streets.

With every month, Caleb felt something unfreeze inside him. He started asking her to stay after her shift. They’d play board games, argue about plot twists in their latest book club read, or just sit in silence.

He caught himself smiling again. Laughing. Thinking about tomorrow.

One day, he found a sketch on his desk: a boy in a wheelchair reaching for a star, a girl holding a lantern beside him.

The title?

“The Day She Walked In.”

But life has a cruel sense of timing.

One cold evening, he overheard a phone call from her in the kitchen. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop—but the words stuck like frost on glass.

“I can’t keep pretending I’m not falling in love with him.”

Caleb froze.

He wasn’t supposed to be someone people fell for. Not anymore. Not like this.

The next morning, he pulled away.

He went quiet. Detached. Cold.

Nora noticed. “What happened?” she asked.

“You need to find someone whole,” he said.

She stared at him like he’d slapped her.

“You think love depends on your legs?” she said, voice breaking. “You think your worth disappeared because of a chair?”

He couldn’t meet her eyes.

She left without another word.

Weeks passed. Nora didn’t return. A new nurse came instead—efficient, quiet, forgettable. Caleb felt the silence again. But this time, it didn’t comfort him. It pressed on his chest like a weight.

Then, one morning, he found another sketch in the mail.

It was the same boy and girl—but now the star was in his hand.

On the back, just three words:

“You were enough.”

Caleb stared at the drawing until tears blurred the lines.

That afternoon, he called her.

“Is it too late?” he asked softly.

Nora’s voice cracked on the other end. “Only if you stop believing you can be loved.”

They met for coffee the next day. She wore bright yellow socks and brought him a sketchbook with his name on the cover.

Inside: dozens of drawings.

Of him. Of them. Of a life that might still have magic.

💬 She gave him a reason to live.

💫 He gave her the courage to chase her dream.

And together, they wrote a new story—one not defined by limits, but by love.