Page 21 of The Edge of Always

Emmett just laughed and put his arm around Cadence. It was meant to be Luna, wasn’t it? She was the one who was meant to make him all happy. What would she do? Without that purpose, she was adrift.

Luna watched Emmett kiss the top of Cadence’s nose. She really did not feel fine about this. That hope, that lovely light and bright hope, had gone.

Why was that? Why did she feel so sad and heavy?

And why was Luna imagining, like shoving Cadence? Pulling her hair?

All she knew was this. Seeing Cadence and Emmett together made Luna feel broken. So broken that she wondered if she’d ever feel whole again.

‘And they just kept kissing, over and over. It was… I couldn’t stop looking, Mae. Am I a pervert now? Does that make me a pervert?’

Mae and Luna were lying in bed in the dark. With only a little thin white curtain across the window, everything was silver from the moon.

‘No, it doesn’t make you a pervert. Cadence is hot. Emmett is hot, in a sort of brooding bad boy type of way.’

‘He’s not a bad boy.’ Luna jumped to his defence. They were having to whisper since the wall behind them led right to their mum and dad’s room. Mae said it’s a really good job that they didn’t have sex anymore, since they’d undoubtedly hear them if they did.

‘I mean, I saw him smoking earlier but whatever. I just meant that objectively, if I didn’t feel all, like, brotherly towards him, I’d find him hot. But more importantly, Luna, how do you feel about Emmett?’

Mae turned onto her side to look right at Luna.

Emmett’s my best friend. That’s what Luna thought. As Mae had said, he was like a brother to them. But Luna hadn’t felt very brotherly towards him earlier. Earlier she’d realised that she desperately, more than anything else in the whole world, wanted Emmett to be kissing her.

‘Do you think I fancy Emmett?’ she asked her sister.

Mae let out a too-loud laugh at the same time a loud cough came from their parent’s bedroom.

‘Thank fuck we got there eventually.’

Mae had only just started swearing. But now, whenever she wasn’t around Mum, she swore as much as she could.

‘What do you mean?’ Luna’s heart was beating really fast, and she was warm and stuffy. Was this what liking someone entailed? Being all hot and sweaty and weirded out the whole time?

‘You’ve liked Emmett for ages. It’s good you’ve finally realised it.’

‘I have not!’ Now it was Luna’s turn to be too loud. Another cough. ‘I haven’t. I think I’d know if I fancied someone.’

‘No, you’re completely immature on that front, unfortunately. A late bloomer. Plus, you spend all your time studying.’

‘That’s because school is really hard for me. But that doesn’t mean… Do you think I really do fancy him?’

‘Head over heels, I reckon.’

Luna had twisted round to face Mae but now flopped back down on her pillow.

‘But what do I do? He’s with Cadence.’ A picture of Cadence, all cherub-like, popped into her head. She was so perfect. If Luna were to draw her, she’d add wings and little chubby cherub cheeks to her face. She’d put her in a loin cloth.

‘Cadence looks like her and I look like me,’ she finished miserably.

‘You and Emmett have a connection that goes beyond looks,’ Mae said, pretending to be an expert on romantic connections, when Luna had never even heard her talking about connections before. ‘Not that there is anything at all wrong with how you look, Luna. You let Mum get into your head too much. You need to block her out, with like, mental shields.’

‘She’s right though, I am horrible to look at. Why did I have to get Dad’s genes?’

‘You are not horrible. Stop that right now. You’re iridescent. That’s mainly the eyeshadow, mind.’ Luna threw a pillow at her. ‘You’re perfect, Luna. Don’t worry about Cadence and Emmett, they’re what, fourteen? No relationship lasts longer than a few weeks at this age. I give it two weeks tops, and then they’ll be sick of each other. You wait and see.’

But as the summer passed, Emmett and Cadence didn’t seem to get sick of each other; if anything, they grew more attached. Literally.

Luna hardly ever saw Emmett’s face, aside from when it was glued to Cadence’s. And when Emmett got into a fight again, with one of the men who came to his caravan to see his mum, it was Cadence who used a tea towel to clean his eyebrow cut, not Luna. Luna was over here, getting taller and taller. Broader too.