Page 78 of The Edge of Always

Mae: Fine. I suppose that is quite zesty. Love you. See you Friday xx

Me: Love you too. See you soon xxx

I send a Care Bear GIF with a beating heart that’s kind of freaky, to reassure Mae that it’s all okay. I’m worried about how badly she’s coping with this. It’s not like it’s new information, and the good thing is that so far, she’s showing no signs of the myocardiopathy that killed Dad. She’s older than I was when the ultrasound first showed that my heart was beginning to struggle. It’s a shit choice, but I’d rather this happen to me than her.

So it’s not new new. Being added to the transplant list is new-ish, I suppose. It’s just another step towards the inevitable. If I think too much about Mae, after, I lose it. Mostly, I try to do what Earl suggested once, in a conversation I’ll never forget. Ground myself in the moment and live it. That’s what Dr Dave advocates, too. People have gone mad from the waiting.

There’s no way I’m bringing all this misery to Emmett’s door. He had his fair share of that as a kid. I need to protect him.

But as I drift off to sleep, I remember that I’d had the same thought twenty years ago. Right before it all went wrong.

The next morning I’m a heady mixture of depressed and excited. Excited to see The Edge of Always again, excited to see Emmett, but depressed that it all has to end soon. This is why neutrality is by far the better option; it’s much less exhausting than quite so much feeling.

I pull on some leggings and an oversized shift dress with squirrels all over it. I genuinely wonder if I’ll have to leave some of my stuff here when it comes to getting my suitcase shut again. I’m taking it with me since I’m going straight to Emmett’s hotel after MAM. And fuck, there’s a reality I never thought would happen. I’m kneeling on top of the case, winded and gasping when there’s a knock at my hotel room door.

‘Hello?’ I call, assuming it’ll be the eager beaver receptionist.

‘Luna.’ Fuck, it’s Emmett. Look at the state of my case! I bet he packs like he’s in the Marines.

I quickly chuck my medicine bottles in my bag and then fling open the door, hearing my case spring back open on the floor behind me.

‘Emmett,’ I smile, blowing some hair off my face. ‘What’re you doing here?’

He’s holding a bag stained with grease, so you know it contains something good. And two coffees. If it was a thing that we still did, I’d kiss him.

‘Just thought I’d bring you breakfast.’ He peers behind me into the room.

I make little grabby hands towards the coffee.

‘Okay, thank you. Ignore the mess. I don’t know how I seem to have more stuff than when I arrived.’

It is, I think, good that I didn’t heed Mae’s advice to bring a menagerie of vibrators. The only thing that could make the mess more embarrassing is a rogue vibrator amidst the chaos.

Emmett’s wearing a dark green T-shirt today that sets off his eyes. It’s only a T-shirt, I’ve seen him in a ton of T-shirts, but it’s… distracting.

‘Shall we have these on the balcony? We’ve a few minutes before we need to set off?’ he says, holding up the pastry bag.

‘Yes, definitely.’

We sit outside and watch Paris below us. It’s warm, the pastry and the weather, and I think that the loveliness of it all is actually making me more, not less, depressed. Imagine one week you’re sitting on a balcony in Paris with the sun on your face, a busy, bustling avenue below you, and the next, you’re running an art class in a hospice for people who are dying, knowing that one day, probably soon, you’ll die there too.

‘Are you okay, Luna?’ Emmett asks.

Maybe my misery is written all over my face.

‘What? Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, just got lost in my thoughts there for a second. I thought I’d be desperate to get home, but now I don’t want to go back.’

‘I thought you loved Northumberland?’ he asks, taking a bite of his croissant.

‘I do. It’s just… tricky to explain.’

‘Try me.’

And if I was going to tell him, now would be a really great time to. But I’m not. Once people know that about you, they act different. Not that I think that Emmett would behave like everyone else and assume that death is catching; he’s a doctor; he’ll know that it isn’t. But people see you differently, and there’s no taking it back once it’s out there.

‘I guess, sometimes I’m just a bit lonely there. But it’s nothing, and I have my Deathers. Hey, I posted last night asking them to look into where that blue door from The Rubicon might be. It was Mae’s idea.’

I’d checked this morning and there were a couple of comments saying that they were on it. God bless the internet.