Page 34 of The Edge of Always

‘Luna, he had a great love story in Paris. You know he did. I don’t know, it’s just an Earl thing to do. He loved helping people.’

I think of all the painstaking hours that Earl spent with me as I learned to draw, of all the support he gave Tanya and Emmett. Emmett’s right: it would be just like Earl to try and help us from beyond the grave.

‘What are you suggesting here, Emmett?’

‘Come with me. Let’s go and see the places he painted. It could be like, in his honour. We never did say goodbye to him properly.’

I mean, I did. I did say goodbye to Earl. But thinking about his funeral makes it very hard to remain neutral about almost anything at all.

‘I don’t know about you,’ he says with an air of finality, ‘but I could do with some answers right now.’

I mean, fuck yes. I would love answers. And if life were a question that could be solved, I’d be all over it.

‘So we what? Spend tomorrow traipsing around all the places that Earl painted hoping that some magical answer to a question we don’t even know appears before us. That’s insane behaviour.’ I try to ignore the fact that I’d had that exact thought, the moment I’d walked into the exhibit.

Emmett shakes his head. ‘I’m not saying we do it in a day. It’ll take the rest of the week. Luna, say you’ll do it. Spend the week in Paris with me?’

There was a time when I’d have done anything that Emmett asked of me. I’ve come to see it as a weakness, the way I was back then, giving him the power to make me miserable, just handing my happiness over on a plate. I don’t do that anymore. No one gets that power.

I’m no longer the person that I was in The Time Before.