Page 60 of The Edge of Always
‘We should go back down.’ He looks worried. It goes without saying that while Emmett, who is probably naturally fit from dodging land mines, sails up the steps, I am, quite literally, dying.
My face is red. I’m gasping for breath; I can feel my puffy ankles throbbing. Emmett looks concerned.
‘We definitely should just go back down.’ he says, frowning from a few steps above me.
I wave him off. ‘Sorry, I’m just really unfit. I’ll be fine. I just need to go slow.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Just. Need. To. Go. Slow,’ I pant, entirely winded.
He nods and mutters something that sounds exactly like ‘stubborn’. ‘We can rest on the first viewing platform.’
‘Great,’ I wheeze, giving him a thumbs up. My other hand is clinging to the handrail. I really am unfit.
And go slow I do. I lose track of how many people pass me, zipping up the steps. Emmett doesn’t know it, but I’ve entered my own personal battle of the wills. I will climb these steps. It might kill me. But I’ll climb them.
Someone passes me, carrying a small child on their shoulders. Well, they’re just showing off.
A family, too, jostle past us, all joking. The grandma, an old lady with a grey perm and a cigarette hanging out of the side of her mouth, snaps something in a language I don’t recognise and takes off ahead of me.
Dr Dave, Mum, Mae, so many people would be annoyed if they could see me now. I should tell Emmett the truth, I know I should, I just… don’t want to. Mae was wrong – this isn’t the same as before. This time, the decision to lie to him is mine and mine alone.
Still, there’s a very good chance that all will be revealed when I die here on these steps and they autopsy my poor little wrecked heart.
Maybe I’ll get a plaque at the point where I expire on the climb. Even though if I look down, we don’t seem quite so far away from the bottom. There’s more tower above than below us.
But finally, miraculously, I see the first floor ahead. I’ve made it. I’m a mess, but I’m here.
‘I’m going to get back to the gym when I go home,’ I tell a now very concerned-looking Emmett. I catch a bit of my own reflection in some glass and almost scream. I look like I crawled out of the catacombs.
‘Okay, let’s go and sit down.’
Emmett was right. There’s a café on the first floor. I don’t want to sit down, though. I want to look at the view, fat ankles be damned. ‘Could you maybe just get me some water? I’ll be fine. I want to look out for a bit.’
‘Course, if you’re sure?’ Obviously, I look like I’m about to drop dead.
‘Sure. Thanks.’
I move to look out at the view. It’s expansive. I don’t know if I ever realised that Paris was quite so vast. I guess that some people might have something of an existential crisis in the face of so much vastness, the realisation that they’re just one of billions of people. But I like it. I like thinking that I don’t matter, that I’m unimportant. It makes it all so much more bearable somehow. Pondering the meaninglessness of my existence while I die a third of the way up the Eiffel Tower is comforting if you think very hard about it.
‘Here you go.’
Emmett, thankfully, has opened the water. I don’t think I have the strength of bicep, and my arms are shaking. I drink, feeling like it’s restoring some of what I sweated out on the walk. I’m all gross and sticky.
‘You look deep in thought,’ he says and I suppose I must be, since it takes me a moment to respond.
‘Just thinking about how big it all is.’ I look out some more.
He nods. ‘It reminds me of Northumberland. The beaches and the sea. I never liked how big they were. I was worried that I’d get lost.’
It’s not the same landscape, not by half, but I see what he means.
‘Whereas I always liked that about it there, I think.’ It’s true. I just want to pass through, unnoticed. Causing as little turbulence as possible.
‘You never did realise how important you are.’
Emmett, I’m sure, is standing closer than he was a few moments ago. And oh no, he can’t say things like that to me. I’m not important, I’m not. I can’t be. It’s all so much worse if I’m important.
