Page 64 of The Edge of Always

It’s almost fully dark by the time we make our way over to a patch of grass by the boat pond. The night is clear and the moon is bright, and I do my best to ground myself in the moment. To live for now, not some unpredictable future.

‘Do you think that Earl wanted to remind us that life can be fun?’ Emmett asked.

‘I’m sure he did.’

‘I don’t have a lot of fun.’

‘Me neither.’

We don’t go into it any more than that.

I think about how it’s just par for the course that Emmett looks impossibly even more attractive in the moonlight. Moonlight makes everything just a fraction more beautiful. Throw in the stars and it’s practically obscene.

Emmett looks at me when he thinks I don’t notice. I feel the same way, as if this can’t quite be real, but I keep my peace until he finally breaks the silence.

‘Would you consider staying with me?’ he asks, not meeting my eye.

‘What like, in your hotel?’

He nods. ‘It’s a suite. There’s plenty of room for us both. It has a spare bed.’

This feels like a bad idea, the latest in a long stretch of bad ideas regarding Emmett.

‘I don’t know…’

‘Think about it. You don’t need to decide now.’

‘Okay, thanks. And thank you for the offer.’

Emmett nods. Once.

After that, we just talk. I tell Emmett about how my blog started, an abridged version. ‘I guess I just finally accepted that I’m drawn to the darkness.’

‘Earl would have said you can’t have one without the other.’

He means dark and light. And Earl did think that. That the light only shines so bright in contrast with the dark. But that’s not what I feel. I’m not drawn to the dark to make the light ever more stark. Sometimes the dark isn’t special, it isn’t poetic. It’s just dark.

Emmett disappears for fifteen minutes and reappears with a bottle of red wine. I take a sip straight from the bottle.

‘I didn’t really expect it to take off. The blog, I mean.’

‘That’s brilliant, Luna. I’d have a look, you know, if friends and family and ex-boyfriends weren’t banned.’

He’s smirking.

‘It’s important that we follow the rules, Emmett,’ I say, even though I don’t know what the rules are. I’m certain that Emmett and I are not following them at the moment though.

I messed up a couple of months ago and posted a link to The Art of Dying on my personal Instagram. I realised after half a day and deleted it straight away. It’s easier to bare your soul to strangers.

The Deathers know I’m dying. Like I said, some of them are dying too (not in the way that we’re all dying, which, by the way, is one of the worst things you can say to someone who is actually dying).

‘Why did you stop drawing, Luna?’

‘Lots of reasons, they aren’t important.’

I think he’s about to say more. To push me on this. I didn’t want to answer him yesterday and I can’t answer him now.

He doesn’t though, so we drop it.