Page 43 of The Edge of Always

Emmett was taking his teaching role very seriously, and Luna was trying so very hard not to find it hot.

‘Oh really, like what?’

‘You’re not going to distract me from this, Luna.’ He started thumbing through a textbook.

‘I wasn’t trying to. I was just asking what part of school you find hard, looks to me like you’re acing it all.’

He found the trigonometry page, filled with little triangles, and set it across his lap.

‘I find school easy. But not everything else.’

Luna reasoned that Emmett probably meant something to do with his home situation which, when you thought about it, was so much worse than bad maths lessons five times a week.

Mae’s music was still blasting out.

‘I know,’ she told him, hoping that he did know. She was barely managing full sentences; everything was scrambled from such close proximity to Emmett. Unrequited love really was the most torturous thing ever. She thought of the Fisherman and the Syren, a painting she’d seen in a big book of art she’d taken out of the library. How desperate the syren is to get the fisherman’s attention. That’s what it was like. Desperation. She needed to draw it. Get it down on paper. ‘How about then, for every question I get right, you tell me one thing that you find hard. And I’ll see if I can help you. Payback for helping me with the strange triangles.’

‘It’s an isosceles, and I’m already getting paid for this. But if you need an incentive beyond passing your Maths test and not watching your mum have a nervous breakdown about it,’ he knew Luna’s mum well, ‘then for every five questions you get right, I’ll tell you something that I find hard.’

This was possibly the most motivated that Luna had ever been in a maths-based context. Still, it was an incredibly painful process for all concerned as she struggled through trigonometry for the next twenty minutes.

‘When will we ever use SOC A TOAH again?’ she huffed. ‘It’s pointless.’

‘If you want to build a bridge or something, you’d use it then.’

‘Because that’s likely. You know I’m going to law school.’

Emmett sniggered. He’d been perfectly patient this whole time.

The thought of law school and not quite so much time spent drawing made Luna feel queasy. And guilty, since she was so lucky to have parents who encouraged her, wasn’t she? Her mum called law a noble profession. It was more noble than drawing blades of grass.

‘That’s five questions. Fess up, one thing you find hard.’

Emmett wasn’t often in a playful mood and Luna intended to take full advantage of it.

‘One question was technically the example that we did together but alright.’ He drummed his fingers on the edge of his chin. Emmett had a couple of strange straggly hairs there.

‘I could have come up with ten things already,’ Luna said.

‘Mum,’ he answered simply and Luna thought that the game wasn’t particularly fun anymore.

‘Oh.’ Luna feared that she might cry again.

Emmett shrugged. ‘One of her friends died earlier this year, of an overdose. It’s not the first time, you know that. It’s just shit. I always think it’ll make her stop. But it never does.’

Luna couldn’t imagine living a life where these things happened. ‘What can I do to help?’ she asked. ‘I want to help.’

‘Nothing… There’s nothing anyone can do to help. Fuck knows Earl has tried. I don’t want to always be so angry at her, but it’s hard when she picks… that over me. Like every day.’

Luna fiddled with a loose thread on the bed. She hated feeling hopeless when it came to Emmett and Tanya. She wished there was more that she could do.

‘I don’t know that she has much of a choice in the matter,’ she said, after way too long. ‘Parents get caught up in their own stuff too, I guess.’

She meant her own parents, and the fact that their constant arguing was incredibly hard to live with.

‘I guess so. Still shit, though.’

‘Super shit,’ Luna agreed. ‘It’s fine to be angry about things that are hard.’ Luna meant this for Emmett. Her own anger always came laced with a side of guilt.