Page 27 of The Edge of Always

‘Fine, Fine. Emmett just dropped into my DMs to ask if you were going to the new exhibit, which obviously neither of us knew about. I told him that you might be there today. I gave him a piece of my mind, though, too, don’t worry about that. There were paragraphs in my rant, that’s how long it was. I made it very clear that I didn’t forgive or condone what he did back then.’

‘Mae, I can’t believe you’ve done this to me. It’s so… so…’ I can’t even find the words to explain how betrayed I feel right now. Mae is the last person I expected to lie to me like this.

‘You said you wouldn’t get mad!’

‘I lied. Just like you did. This is already a lot for me, how can’t you see that? Throw Emmett into the mix and it’s… it’s… too much.’

‘I called him pond scum, if that helps?’

‘What? No, of course it doesn’t. Why would you…? Never mind.’

I’m so angry at Mae that I start pacing up and down a little patch of path in the park.

‘It wasn’t your call to make. I’ve told you already: stop trying to turn my life into a bucket list.’

‘It was one sky dive! One. And you didn’t even go, even though it cost me a fucking fortune. I’m trying to help you.’

‘I don’t need your help.’

‘Fine. Come home then and be miserable here. Never speak to Emmett again. Never find out why Earl painted you in his last-ever painting. Never see any bit of the world outside Bamburgh. Just come and hide here for the rest of your life.’

I gnaw on my lip as my anger subsides. Replaced instead by regret – or what might become regret. I’m well acquainted with regret. Regret for me has always felt like an absence of colour. It’s not even dark, it’s not dull, it’s just nothing. An empty space even, less than nothing.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ I tell Mae honestly.

I hear, rather than see, her breathe out.

‘Think of it this way: if you don’t listen to what he has to say tonight, how will you feel?’

Regretful, empty.

I don’t answer.

‘All I’d say is this,’ Mae carries on, and I think, really, she’s said an awful lot in the last five minutes. I’m exhausted, though, drained by everything that’s happened. ‘When it comes to Emmett, it’s always been about him. I know you stalk his socials and think about him more often than you should be doing. You need to remember that you’re not as good a liar as you think you are.’

‘I don’t think I’m a good liar.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, you’re doing a good job of pretending to wonder whether to go to that restaurant tonight when we both know you’re already there.’

‘It just… maybe this is my last chance.’

‘Don’t talk like that.’ Mae’s tone is sharp all of a sudden.

I roll my eyes. ‘I just mean because it’s not like we live in the same country.’

I can hear shouting in the background.

‘I’d better go – a hen party has just ordered fifteen scones. But what I was going to say is that it’s always been about him, what he needs. I typed a whole paragraph to him about it. It wasn’t your fault, what happened. He made you feel guilty, but it was not your fault. So this is your chance to get some closure for you. Because it’s what you need. I think it’ll be good for you. I wouldn’t have agreed to tell you about the exhibition if I didn’t think that.’

I’m wound so tight I’m starting to ache all over. I make an effort to relax my shoulders.

‘Go back to work, Mae.’

‘You’ll let me know how it goes with Emmett?’

‘Course.’

More shouting in the background.