Page 74 of The Edge of Always

‘You cannot make people happy, Luna.’

Luna knew this, she did. But she was still going to try.

Earl sighed. ‘As a young child, Emmett learned that the world is not a good or a safe place to be. That is what he knows. It will take some time for him to see that the world is beautiful too, I think. Until then, we can just be with him, yes? That is enough, I think.’

‘You’re right. I’m glad he has you when I’m not here.’

Earl waved a hand away. ‘He is company to me. I am the lucky one.’

Luna didn’t reply. Instead, she continued to sketch Emmett’s eye, and quietly marvelled at the tiny universe within it.

It was the last night of the summer and they were at the beach.

‘You know, I think I might just wear some shorts,’ Luna told Mae. They’d packed their things, and Luna’s scruffy denim shorts were on the top of the pile. ‘I think I’m done with the Beauty Bible since it’s been such an epic fail.’

‘Yeah, fair play.’ Mae was wearing cycling shorts and a crop top. ‘It was rubbish advice anyway. I feel like my eyebrows will never grow back.’

‘Same.’

‘You should go for it with Ahmed tonight. Because if something doesn’t happen soon, I’m going to walk into the sea. There’s too much tension.’

Mae was a big fan of Ahmed’s idea. She was annoyed, actually, that she hadn’t come up with it herself. ‘This sort of thing never fails,’ she told Luna.

Her mum, dad, and Eyebrow Clive were in the back garden together. Ever since Dad had come to pick them up a couple of days ago, things had been super polite between them all. Like they were all walking around on eggshells the whole time. It half freaked Luna out. But also, it made a nice change from all the yelling.

Their mum made the girls promise that they wouldn’t be back later than ten, and recounted for posterity the story of their being missing persons for eighteen minutes to people who were all there for that eighteen minutes. After this, they were free to go to the beach.

Everyone was there. Earl, Zadie, Emmett, Ahmed. Ahmed. He gave Luna a look that said it’s now or never, and whatever she thought about the merits of the plan, if they were going to do it, it had to be tonight.

She shuffled over to where Ahmed was sat reading.

‘Okay, I’m in,’ she told him. He put his book, War and Peace, in the sand and sat up straighter.

‘Excellent. We need to lay some groundwork. Put your head on my shoulder. Then we can strategise.’

Luna did as she was told. It was quite nice, actually, having someone tell her how to behave. Except, almost immediately, she got a neckache from resting her head on his bony shoulder.

Mae urged Luna on from across the fire. Emmet either hadn’t seen them or purposely wasn’t looking.

Ahmed picked up Luna’s hand and laced her fingers with his as the others talked and laughed. He dropped his voice to a whisper.

‘We need to make this count, Luna,’ he told her. She swallowed. She had virtually no experience at kissing, which was tragic, she knew. ‘We need them to see us as sexual beings.’

‘But, I mean, we aren’t, are we?’ Ahmed was a bookworm through and through, and Luna had no experience at all, bar what she’d imagined.

‘Speak for yourself. I’ve been reading the complete works of Jilly Cooper.’

Luna’s mum loved Jilly Cooper’s novels.

‘It’s confidence, that’s what women like.’

Luna wanted to answer that she thought that women looked for a lot more than just confidence, but she was distracted by the way Ahmed was running his fingers up and down her arm. It felt nice. How much nicer would it feel if it was Emmett doing that? she wondered.

‘Take a walk with me.’ Ahmed stood up and pulled Luna up too. ‘We’re going to the water,’ he told the others.

‘I’ll come,’ Emmett said.

‘Sorry, Emmett man, we want some alone time, don’t we, Luna?’