Page 12 of The Edge of Always

I’m so completely lost to my thoughts that I don’t notice a person sitting down next to me on the concrete bench.

I try to focus on the painting as the man beside me shifts a little.

I feel light-headed all of a sudden.

I can’t look, but I have to. Earl, the painting, me, Emmett, it’s all too much.

It can’t be. Surely not. Not when I’ve imagined him next to me so many times over the years. Yet, in all my imaginings, it’s never, ever been real.

‘Luna,’ he says. And when did my face become so wet?

I turn to him – how can I not? His face is the same, just a little more worn. There was a time when I knew his face better than my own.

‘Luna,’ he says, and it is him, not some figment of my imagination, but the real thing. How can he be here now, not all the times I needed him, but now, when I want time with Earl and this painting?

Emmett is here, though, and I am crying.

I thought I’d feel sad. Or happy, even. I thought I’d be overcome with guilt. After all, it’s the guilt that has plagued me for all these years. Weighed me down and broke me before I understood how broken I really was. It’s none of those things that I feel. I’m angry. I’m so angry that it lights me up from the inside out, all this anger. I’m surprised at the depth of my own feeling. I didn’t think I was capable of that anymore.

‘Emmett,’ I answer, trying to inject some coldness into my voice. He leans back, just a touch. Good. He should feel bad.

I recall all the other instances when I first saw him. How long I waited for him. How I was always, always happy to see him at the start of each summer. I try to push the memories away, but they assail me, they rain down on me. And no matter how hard I try to fight them, they won’t let me go.