Page 20 of The Edge of Always
Chapter Six
Luna wished she didn’t feel so much.
It would be much easier to watch things unfold with Tanya and Emmett if she didn’t feel so much. She wanted to wrestle her feelings into order and tuck them neatly into a box.
Luna nudged her hand against Emmett’s. ‘Best summer ever?’ she said. It was a promise that they made every year. Luna wanted it for Emmett more than herself.
He smiled back, but Luna could see that it was a weak smile, one that he didn’t really feel. ‘Best summer ever.’ He linked his little finger around hers as they walked and there was no wrestling with the feeling which overtook her then, like being dunked under water, fully submerged in it. It was so intense; hot, powerful too, like a volcano about to erupt. Luna didn’t have to grapple around to figure out what this feeling was, not like she normally did.
Oh no.
‘I did, er… I did have something to tell you, Luna,’ Emmett said, but Luna was distracted with trying to process what this feeling meant, what it could possibly mean. She already knew that it had the potential to change everything, forever.
In the distance, she could see the playground, and a couple of people hanging around it.
‘Luna?’
‘You do? I mean, you have something to tell me?’
Maybe Emmett had realised it too. How perfect it would be if they’d realised at the same time.
‘Yeah.’ He smiled a new smile, one that Luna hadn’t seen before. A bit sly, almost.
And if the other feeling, the one she’d just discovered, was red-hot and powerful; this feeling, hope, was light and bright. The sort of feeling that swept you up and carried you forward.
Luna couldn’t bear to wait anymore.
Up ahead, she could see the others coming closer now, coming to meet them on the path. Zadie and Ahmed, Emmett’s other best friends, and someone else too.
‘See, the thing is Luna, I didn’t want to tell you in a letter.’
‘Tell me what?’ she asked. Why was that girl running towards them? Luna recognised her. She was called Cadence and she sometimes, but not very often, hung out with Zadie.
‘It’s just that, well…’
But Emmett didn’t need to explain anymore. Not when it was clear as day what was happening. Cadence finished her run towards them and launched herself at Emmett. They were kissing. Like proper kissing, with tongues and everything. Luna had seen people kiss before, she wasn’t a total loser, but it looked to her like Cadence was trying to swallow Emmett whole like a snake.
Luna couldn’t help the stupid little giggle that escaped her, but her brain was struggling to compute. Emmett and Cadence. Cadence and Emmett.
But Emmett is mine. The thought hit her so hard, like a truck barrelling into her. Or that massive dog her neighbours had back home that charged at you and knocked you off your feet.
She watched as Emmett and Cadence devoured each other in a shockingly graphic manner.
Luna just stood there with her mouth gaping open. Catching flies, as her mum would say. She knew that she needed to say something, anything. Cadence was beautiful. So, of course, Cadence and Emmett were in love as Emmett was also beautiful. That was the way the world worked.
Oh no, Luna was going to cry.
She wiped her forearm over her face. ‘Sorry, wind,’ she said to no one even though it was as still as a mill pond.
‘Are you okay, Luna?’ Cadence asked, all sweet pastel colours with her bouncy blonde hair.
Luna sniffed. Already, she had a sense that she was being left behind somehow, as if Emmett and Cadence were sailing out to sea, leaving Luna on the edge of the cliff all alone. But she couldn’t admit that, could she? She was sure that she was the only person alive who thought like that. ‘I’m fine, totally fine. I just have a bit of a cold. But that’s great, so you guys are together, right?’
‘What gave them away?’ Zadie asked, as she and Ahmed made their way towards them. Luna loved Zadie. She wasn’t all bouncy like Cadence. She was cool, without even trying to be cool. Like Mae, and unlike Luna.
‘Yeah, they’re really subtle about their relationship normally,’ Ahmed said. ‘Hi Luna.’
‘Hi Ahmed.’
