Me Before You recap

After losing her café job, cautious and unconventional Louisa Clark becomes companion to Will Traynor, a wealthy former adventurer left quadriplegic by an accident. Their hostile beginning becomes friendship as Lou learns to see Will rather than only his disability. She then discovers that he intends to die at a Swiss assisted-suicide clinic and has promised his parents only six more months. Determined to change his mind, Lou plans outings and travel; Will in turn challenges her limited ambitions and helps her confront an old trauma. They fall in love, but on holiday in Mauritius Will says that love has not made his restricted, painful life acceptable to him. Lou eventually joins him and his family in Switzerland, where he dies. Afterward, Will's letter and financial gift send her to Paris and toward education, travel, and a larger life, fulfilling the change he hoped to make in her even though she could not change his final decision.

Louisa Clark has built a safe, local life around her job at a café, her crowded family home, and her long relationship with fitness-obsessed Patrick. When the café closes, the family's precarious finances force her into the job market. She is hired for six months by Camilla Traynor as a companion to Camilla's adult son Will. Before a road accident, Will was a wealthy executive who pursued travel, sport, and risk; now he is quadriplegic and lives in a converted annex under constant care. Nurse Nathan handles his medical needs, while Lou is expected to keep him company and prevent him from being left alone. Will greets her efforts with sarcasm and hostility, and Lou considers quitting, but her wages are too important at home.

Louisa continues despite Will's attempts to drive her away. She learns the details of his daily dependence, the danger of infections and temperature changes, and the difference between helping him and denying him control. Her refusal to be intimidated gradually breaks through his contempt. They begin talking honestly, teasing each other, and watching films together. Lou realizes that much of Will's anger is directed not at her but at a life reduced from intense physical freedom to pain, medical routines, and decisions made by his family. Will in turn notices that Lou has little experience beyond their town and pushes her to explain why she has accepted such a narrow future. Their relationship shifts from guarded employment toward genuine companionship.

Louisa learns the condition attached to her six-month contract. Will previously tried to kill himself, and afterward he told his parents that he wanted to go to Dignitas in Switzerland for an assisted death. Camilla secured a six-month delay in the hope that he might reconsider; Lou was hired as part of that effort without being told. Horrified, Lou wants to resign, but Treena helps her turn the remaining time into a campaign. Lou begins researching activities, support groups, and travel accessible to a quadriplegic person. Her goal is not simply to distract Will but to show him that his life can still contain pleasure and purpose. The plan places a burden on Lou that Will has not asked her to carry.

Louisa tries a succession of outings with uneven results. A trip to the horse races exposes poor access, public awkwardness, and the exhaustion of moving Will through spaces designed without him in mind. Other experiences succeed: at a classical concert they share an evening that is neither medical nor childish, and their growing ease allows Lou to see how much intimacy remains possible. Will attends Alicia's wedding and faces the social world he once expected to inhabit. He also takes Lou's ambitions seriously, encouraging her to study and travel instead of treating her present limits as permanent. Their connection deepens while the deadline remains. Patrick resents the time Lou gives Will, and the difference between her old routine and the person she is becoming grows harder to ignore.

Louisa's plans expand toward an overseas holiday that might give Will a final reason to choose life. Practical setbacks and Will's fragile health repeatedly threaten the trip, while Patrick's jealousy helps end Louisa's long relationship with him. Will also draws out the reason Lou has avoided risk since adolescence: she was sexually assaulted by a group of men in the castle maze and has quietly organized her life around never feeling so exposed again. With Will's support, she returns to the maze and reclaims the place from that memory. Their care for each other is now unmistakable. After Will recovers sufficiently from another illness, Louisa, Will, and Nathan leave for Mauritius, with Lou placing her hope in the freedom and closeness the journey offers.

In Mauritius, away from both families and the annex, Louisa and Will experience their closest and happiest time together. Louisa tells Will that she loves him and asks him to abandon the plan for Switzerland so that they can build a life around what remains possible. Will says that loving her has not restored the independence, physical intensity, or control he considers essential to being himself. He does not want Lou to make her future smaller in order to care for him, and his decision to die has not changed. Louisa feels that the entire six-month effort has failed and returns home furious and heartbroken. When the Traynors prepare to accompany Will to Dignitas, she initially refuses to go, unable to reconcile her love with participation in his choice.

Will asks for Louisa, and she travels to Switzerland before his scheduled death. She joins him at the clinic and remains beside him during his final hours, giving him comfort even though she still wishes he had chosen differently. Will dies with Lou and his family present. The aftermath leaves grief, anger, and disagreement in both households, but it also ends the suspended state that has governed their six months together. Later, Louisa goes to Paris and follows instructions in a letter Will arranged for her. He has left her money to continue her education and establish a life beyond her home town. From a café he once knew, she reads his request that she live boldly and make use of her freedom. Louisa cannot turn their love into the future she wanted, but she begins the wider life he believed she could have.

On the Mauritius holiday, Louisa tells Will that she loves him and proposes a future they could build together. Will tells her that their relationship has made his remaining time richer but has not changed his decision to end his life. Louisa returns devastated and initially refuses to take part in the journey to Switzerland. After Will asks for her, she changes her mind and joins his family at the Dignitas clinic. She stays with him during his final hours, offering intimacy and reassurance without pretending to accept the choice. Will dies as planned. His decision divides both families, and Louisa grieves while recognizing how profoundly knowing him has altered her. In an epilogue set in Paris, she reads a letter Will arranged for her to receive. He has left her enough money to study and establish an independent life, asking her to move beyond the fears and habits that kept her close to home. Louisa sits at a café he remembered and prepares to follow that challenge, carrying both his encouragement and the pain of his death.