Page 4 of The Edge of Always

‘I’m here!’

The door to our cottage bursts open with so much force that it whacks the wall behind it.

It’s a tiny cottage, just five rooms. To one side of the main door, there’s a small kitchen with the same round dining table we’ve always had, the only bit of furniture we kept. On the other, the living area. Then there are two bedrooms and a bathroom.

We’ve never needed anything bigger as it’s not like we have people over very much. Zadie sometimes comes, and Ahmed the couple of times he’s been back to visit. Mum has come for dinner precisely once, when Mae took the opportunity to announce that she was in a throuple, and Mum had broken into a literal, visible sweat at this and had never come back. She’d tried to remove Mae from the family WhatsApp.

‘You didn’t need to come home,’ I tell my sister.

‘What? And let you see that alone, without support? And oh my god, you have cut your fringe some more.’

‘I like it short.’

‘It’s two inches long.’

‘I think it makes me look interesting.’

‘You’re wearing a waistcoat – you are interesting.’

Truth be told, my fringe is a bit shorter than I’d hoped it would be. I was going for edgy. I’m guessing, however, that edgy is rarely achieved on a steroid high, armed with a pair of blunt scissors late one Thursday night.

Edgy people have a team. I don’t have a team; I barely have an anyone. I have a Mae, some vaguely peripheral friendships that are hanging on by a thread, and a couple of hundred strangers, known as Deathers, who subscribe to my blog about death. And it’s the way I like it.

Mae flops down on our charity shop acid green couch; a little plume of flour puffs into the air as she does so since she’s still in her white uniform.

She works in the local café as a baker. I swear she could bake sawdust into a cake and it would still taste great. ‘I can’t believe that Earl had another painting.’

‘I know.’ My mind is racing now. Earl. Even just hearing his name brings back so many memories from then.

The time before.

Mae is still talking. Like me, her hair is red. Strawberry blonde in summer, more rust-like in winter. She absentmindedly blows a strand that’s escaped her hairnet. I’ve tried to capture it so many times, the colour of her hair. There’s a whole wall in the living room of the cottage that’s red, different shades and textures too. Sometimes I feel this overwhelming urge to commit it so deeply into my memory that nothing could ever dislodge it.

Those are the days I have to adjust my meds.

‘Have you seen the painting?’ she asks.

I shake my head. ‘It won’t load.’

‘Well, you just wait till you see it. The Edge of Always. Great title. He was always good at coming up with titles, wasn’t he? Fucking smashed it out of the park Earl, my man.’ She looks up at the (also painted) ceiling as she says the last part.

‘Yep.’

I’m only half in the conversation. Less than that, even. A part of me is looking to the past, remembering. You’d think that so long ago, it’d be like looking through a murky window, but it isn’t. Looking back is like seeing the person I was in the time before under a spotlight. Everything is in technicolour.

‘Obviously, you need to go and see it,’ Mae says.

That makes me laugh.

‘Of course, I’m not going.’ It’s such a ridiculous notion and it makes my heart rate pick up even more. I don’t want to overwhelm myself; I’m not meant to. So, I steady my breathing, count to four over and over to match my inhale and exhale, and once I’m done, I answer Mae. ‘You know that I can’t.’

Mae completely ignores me. ‘Do you think Emmett knows? I wonder where he ended up. I still can’t believe he dumped you. What a dick move.’

I tell Mae everything, but I’ve never told her that I know something about Emmett’s life. I know he trained to be a doctor and works abroad in places that look dangerous, and only very occasionally updates his social media. It’s a tragedy of the highest order to admit to still keeping tabs on your boyfriend from two decades ago.

‘No idea,’ I tell her. ‘But did you hear me? I said I’m not going to go to Paris.’

Mae twists her head to look at me dead on and laughs. Her face is so similar to mine; everyone has always said that we could be twins. She’s only thirteen months younger than me, but if people looked closely, they’d see that her face is fuller, more joyful. Her features are arranged in a way that’s just a bit nicer than mine. I’ve always thought I was too symmetrical, too ordered. It annoys me, but then like I said already, what doesn’t.