My (extra)Ordinary Life

Acknowledgements I love reading other people’s acknowledgements (maybe I’m just nosy), and being able to write my own was something that I dreamed of doing for a long time. Thank you, so much, to anyone who has read this book. Emily’s story has lived in my head since I was a teenager. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. My first proper thanks has to go to my lovely editor Molly. You always say that I can disagree with you and yet I never want to. Thank you for championing Emily’s story from the start and for never tiring of bolstering my ever-shakeable confidence. Thank you for the pasta, the cake and for that weird foamy dessert. And for introducing me to Oliver Bonas. But more than anything, thank you for your feedback and guidance. This book is infinitely better because of your involvement in it. To my agent Hannah, I always think that if this (my writing career) were a duck you would be the serene head guiding us in the right direction and I’d be the webbed feet just flapping about. Thank you for helping me to figure out what I was meant to write, and for patiently answering all of my many, many questions. I will never forget your Friday phone call (even if I did cry through most of it). Thank you so much. I really lucked out in the friend stakes. But special thanks go to Laura, Amy, and Anwen, Evelyn and Penny. All of whom read very tentative early drafts and encouraged me to keep going. Laura, there’s no one I’d rather have existential crises over text with. No one talks wedding chair like you do. To my lovely colleagues at TSS. I’d like to go on record as saying this isn’t about you! To Mark, Gill and all the Keighly writing gang. You were the first people I read any of Emily to and the book is definitely better for your careful guidance and feedback. Thank you for not mentioning the fact that I became strangely breathless every time it was my turn to read. Hayley, if I’m even close to capturing the essence of About the Author Rebecca Ryan lives in Bradford with her husband and three young children. Although she always loved writing, it hadn’t really occurred to her that she could do it professionally. She recently left her job as a teacher to pursue writing full-time. She enjoys walking in the countryside and takeaways (if that counts as a hobby). www.SimonandSchuster.co.uk/Authors/Rebecca-Ryan Chapter One Apparently, wondering when and how you’ll die is an integral part of the human condition. Unless you’re me, that is. I already know I’ve got exactly fifty-four years left to live. It’ll most likely be heart disease that sees me off in the end. And if the sheer averageness of my existence is to be believed, I’ll be kicking the bucket in a hospital. Seeing out my last mortal moments down some random corridor in Huddersfield General. ‘And that’s it. Death. The only certainty in this, The Human Life.’ The not-quite-David-Attenborough presenter delivers his final line as the credits roll on the BBC2 programme. I feel like I’ve been punched. Not that I’ve ever been punched, mind, I’m not that sort of a girl. (Woman. God, that makes me sound old.) So, I imagine that’s what it would feel like. Being hit in the face. I’m wobbly. Disorientated. I clutch the edge of the couch for support, except it was so cheap it offers little resistance and I sink to the floor. It was a documentary. One that made out that human habits are just as interesting as animals’, when really no one knows or cares that the average human blinks 28,800 times a day. (Note to self, must blink less.) All in all, the programme was pretty dull. What’s left me stricken on the rug in the front room is the stuff Mr not-quite-David-Attenborough said. ‘The average human this…’ and ‘the average human that…’, and every single average life event he mentioned seemed to apply to my own mediocre existence. For goodness’ sake, both my names were in the top five most common names. Emily Turner. Dull as dishwater. I’m off the floor now, relieved Kaz isn’t here to bear witness to my demented pacing. Don’t get me wrong.