Page 14 of The Edge of Always

Not that Luna wanted to be cut off from everyone. Not Emmett, or Mae. Earl too. They could come and visit her on her island anytime they wanted.

So no, Luna didn’t think that she was desperate. Except this one time, when she was looking at The Kiss by Gustav Klimt in an art book that Earl had given her, the way he was sort of leaning over her, cradling her a little bit… Luna thought you called it yearning, that look you get when you want to kiss someone but aren’t kissing them yet. Well, the yearning in The Kiss made Luna feel all warm in the bottom of her stomach.

Mae had taken this as confirmation that Luna needed to get kissing people stat. Any people, according to Mae.

‘That’s what I did,’ she’d said. ‘You need to practise so that when you get to kiss someone that you really like, you’re already decent. It’s all in the tongue action. You don’t want to be slobbering all over your one true love.’

Luna definitely didn’t want to kiss just anyone. She had thought a lot about Emmett this year, but that was normal. She always missed him when they were apart.

Their mum had overheard the conversation and grounded them. She had left a book about puberty on Luna’s bed, about three years too late in Luna’s mind. Plus, Luna’s boobs didn’t look anything like the cartoon ones, neither of them. And she was sure she’d grown hair EVERYWHERE, not just in the places the book said that they were meant to. Basically, between her muscles and her hair, Luna felt like Sasquatch.

And being Sasquatch, she felt it would be nothing short of a miracle to find anyone who wanted to kiss her.

Plus, she had ginger hair.

Luna’s mum was still talking.

‘And I don’t want you spending all of your time at The Edge this summer. There’s so much to see and do, I imagine you’ll be plenty occupied.’ Her mum hated The Edge as much as scruffiness, maybe. A couple of years ago, Emmett had got into a fight. Emmett got into fights quite a lot, but Luna’s mum had found out about this one and turned him into public enemy number one.

Luna had absolutely zero intention of staying away from The Edge, the caravan park where Emmett and Earl lived (next door to each other).

She shook her head at Mae, a warning not to argue with Mum. There was no point. After a few days, their mum always got too preoccupied with Eyebrow Clive – their neighbour who spent all of his time in Northumberland, not just the summers – to really care what Mae and Luna were up to.

‘Why do we need to stay away from The Edge?’ Mae asked as Luna sank further into her seat.

‘It’s just not good for you. For your future.’

Luna’s mum meant because the people there were poor.

‘Poverty isn’t contagious, Mum.’

‘I never said it was, Mae.’

A red stress rash began to work its way up Luna’s neck. She never knew what to do in these situations. She wanted to stick up for Earl and Emmett, of course she did, since she cared about them. Sometimes, Luna thought she cared so much about them that it physically hurt. Like a band around her chest being wound tighter and tighter.

But she didn’t want to argue with her mum either. Luna began to sketch, only in her head. She pictured the pencil, the way it slid across paper, almost effortless and smooth. Luna didn’t know if this was the best coping mechanism, but it was the only one that she had.

‘Plus, the caravans there are super clean. I only saw like three heroin needles tops last year. Isn’t that right, Luna?’

Luna had actually seen needles on the ground at The Edge, but she didn’t want to tell her mum this.

So she just laughed really loudly and tucked her hands even further beneath her legs.

Finally, finally the car turned into the cobbled path that led to their holiday home.

Luna’s mum described it as the ‘holiday place’.

That’s what she said when she told people what their summer plans were. ‘Oh, we’re off to the holiday place,’ she’d say.

Mae had once mentioned how much of the holiday place Mum had paid for since Dad was the only one of them with a job. She’d been grounded again after that. Mae spent a lot of time grounded.

Luna wasn’t thinking about any of that now, though. She wasn’t even thinking how relieved she was that the journey was over, since that was always by far the worst part of the holiday. Her family didn’t do well in confined spaces. No, instead, Luna’s brain couldn’t think of anything other than the fact that Emmett was right here.

Emmett, as usual, was waiting on the front step, reading a battered old National Geographic magazine.

Luna’s seatbelt was unbuckled before they’d even rolled to a stop.

‘Luna, we’re still moving!’