Chapter Eleven
Everyone was in the sea. Everyone apart from Luna. She sat on the dunes, sketching. It was a beautiful scene, the way the sun light reflected on the water like that. It was a beautiful scene and yet Luna wasn’t drawing it. No, she was drawing a discarded can of coke half poking out of the sand.
Still, she felt happier since she’d made up with Emmett. Happy, but still drained.
Along the beach, she saw a figure walking towards them, wearing a top hat with feathers.
‘Earl!’ Luna shouted. ‘Earl!’
Earl spotted her and began to make his way up the beach. He had a dog with him. A scraggy-looking Labrador.
‘Luna, hello!’
‘Hi Earl, what are you doing here?’ The dog had charged at Luna and almost knocked her over. It started to run in excited circles around her.
‘Walking Fred’s dog. He can’t get out so much since he had his hip operation. He’s quite excited, aren’t you, Scout?’
In reply, Scout began to wag his tail so forcefully that Luna was at risk of getting a mouthful of sand. Fred was a man with a horse who lived at The Edge.
Earl lowered himself next to Luna on the sand dune. He threw a ball for Scout, who charged off for it.
‘He has a lot of energy. We’ve been walking all morning.’
They sat for a while, as Luna sketched and Earl continued to throw the ball for Scout. Whatever the weather, Earl had a little grey beard and long hair that he wore in a ponytail.
‘You’d be drawing the waves,’ she said, not looking up. She couldn’t get the dimensions right on her can.
‘I don’t know for sure. The waves can be really challenging. Movement. Water. I was friends with David Hockney when he went through his water phase, trying to capture the uncapturable.’
‘Still, it would look better than a drawing of trash.’
Whatever Earl had said last year, it still bugged Luna that she wanted to draw rubbish more than she wanted to draw the beautiful scene in front of her. She wanted to be like Earl.
‘I disagree. Try adding more shading along the line where the can meets the sand. The contrast is not quite right, I think.’ Luna nodded and start shading with a vengeance.
Earl watched her as she shaded. His eyes were somewhere between green and yellow, but they were bright. Mae said that it made him look like a wise old owl.
‘There, much better, I think.’ Earl went to stand up. Luna looked at her can of coke – it was better. ‘I’ll go and say hello to the others before I get back.’
Luna nodded. She squinted at her drawing some more.
‘It is very beautiful, Luna. I hope you can see that.’
‘What topics in maths are you struggling with?’
They were in her room, sitting next to each other on her bed, maths textbooks spread between them.
Luna loved how close together they were. The only downside was Mae, sprawled out on her own bed.
‘Pretend I’m not here,’ she’d said, plugging her headphones into the iPod to play music loudly. She had one leg crossed over the other. They could hear the beat of When the Sun Goes Down coming through them.
‘Er, all of them,’ Luna admitted, trying not to recall the trauma of her school maths lessons. ‘I don’t know how I managed to get a D, honestly.’
‘Right, well, let’s start with trigonometry. It’s really tricky, loads of people find it hard.’
‘But not you, right?’
She nudged his shoulder with her own. ‘No, but I find other things more difficult.’
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.
Emmett nodded. ‘Right, more maths.’
Somehow, Luna seemed to be getting worse at the triangles.
Emmett was very patient though, and never laughed at her, even when she couldn’t manage to add three to four successfully.
Luna reckoned that her brain just didn’t work in that way.
(She also reckoned that she’d have been better off with one of the dusty old teachers.
Maths was hard anyway, but maths with Emmett next to her was pure torture).
‘Five more, done.’ At this point, Luna would normally reward herself with a biscuit, a chocolate hobnob for something as soul-destroying as maths. But settling for one of Emmett’s sad secrets would have to do.
Emmett coughed and shuffled on the bed some more. Mae had moved onto Celine Dion, ‘My Heart Will Go On’ – she had her eyes shut and was conducting an imaginary orchestra.
‘Another thing that I find hard is with Cadence, right?’ Emmett shuffled again, immediately uncomfortable while every cell in Luna’s body felt like it was standing to attention.
‘Er, I’m not sure I want to hear about your love life,’ she said, even though she did, she absolutely did.
Tell me, tell me it all, Emmett, she thought.
He laughed. ‘No, it’s not that. It’s just the fact that sometimes, she like wants me to be happy all the time. But I don’t think I’m built for that. And she wants to stay here, after school and stuff. I can’t wait to leave.’
Luna had mixed feelings about this revelation.
Emmett wanted to leave. She knew this and that hurt, since Luna couldn’t imagine Emmett in any place other than this.
But also, with a bit of luck, bouncy Cadence would be the architect of her own downfall.
Emmett twisted his fingers together. Luna felt that the air of the room had become thick.
‘Well, I mean, I don’t really know about this sort of thing.’
‘Sounds like you have plenty of experience to me.’ Emmett frowned. Luna wondered if she’d ever recover from the Man Plan.
‘Yes, about that,’ she said, wondering why she sounded so breathless all of a sudden.
His leg was practically touching Luna’s on the bed.
His bare leg (he was in shorts) and her bare leg (also in shorts).
Bigger than his but still, naked skin, it was basically pornographic at this point.
Luna couldn’t think of a way to confess at this exact moment that Mae made the whole thing up with regards to The Man Plan.
She would have to scrape her self-esteem off the floor.
‘Well in my experience, I think you should be able to be yourself, in a relationship. Like, you don’t have to be happy if you’re not feeling it. ’
Emmett looked, for a fraction of a second, as if he was studying her face, looking at her so intently. He was closer than he was a few minutes ago, she was sure.
They heard Luna’s mum laughing with Eyebrow Clive and while Luna knew logically that she could hear them because Mum was in the back garden, to Luna it felt like they were in a different galaxy, a different universe perhaps.
She was almost certain that the way Emmett was looking at her meant something.
And Emmett looking at her like that made her feel like they were the only two people alive.
‘I don’t know how to do it. Act happy if I feel depressed.’
‘Are you depressed?’ Luna asked. ‘It’s okay if you are.’
‘Sometimes I think I am. I feel angry all the time. Do you think that’s okay?’
Luna shrugged. She really didn’t know. ‘I don’t know. Honestly. My mum and dad are angry with each other a lot.’
Emmett laughed a soft laugh. ‘My mum doesn’t know who my dad is.’
‘I wish we’d known Earl and Sebastian when they were together.’
Emmett was closer still, so close that Luna could see the few freckles on the bridge of his nose that he said go away when it wasn’t summer.
Was he, was he leaning forward? Like as if he might kiss Luna?
Luna tilted her head forward, heady with anticipation.
They didn’t kiss, but he rested his forehead against hers.
This was the closest they’d ever been. Luna had a slightly strange, vaguely dark thought that if she could, she would fuse their brains together like this.
Then all of his thoughts would be hers too.
Teenage love is an unwieldy creature, but she could feel his breath, and she loved it, so who cared?
‘It’s just so much easier with you.’
So love me instead! Love me most of all! Luna thought. End it with Cadence, and let’s live happily ever after already. The thought made her pull back from Emmett. They were still close, though, so close that she could see the light flecks in his eyes.
It was obvious that Emmett just didn’t like Luna in that way. Otherwise, he’d be with her. She was sure it was because she was so big. Who wanted to kiss someone who could pass for a teenage wrestler if they were all oiled up.
She gazed with longing into his face.
‘Don’t mind me.’ Mae cut through Luna’s frantic, desperate thoughts, talking in an exaggerated whisper and rolling off her bed.
Emmett whipped his head away from Luna’s so fast, she jolted forward from the lack of support.
‘You two look to be having a moment, so I’m just going to… ’ She pointed at the door.
Whatever moment they were having was ruined. Chances were that what Luna thought (hoped?) might be a moment was actually just Emmett confirming that even though it would be easier to go out with her, he still didn’t want to do that.
‘Sorry,’ Emmett said, looking at the newly vacated space on Mae’s bed. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I forgot she was there.’
‘That doesn’t often happen with Mae.’ Luna wasn’t sure where to look or what to say. ‘Anyway, should we get on with some more maths?’ It was the best she could come up with, and possibly the only time in her life when she’d realised that more maths might be a solution as opposed to a problem.
Emmett agreed. They slowly and painstakingly worked their way through the rest of the little triangles. Both careful not to say anything untoward, both careful to stay focused on the problem at hand.
‘Hopefully, there’ll be no cause for maths when I’m a lawyer,’ she told him.
‘Nah, you’ll need it to work out all the money people owe you.’ He closed the textbooks and got up to put them on the dresser. Luna could sense his mood shifting, like the rolling of dark thunder clouds across the sea.
‘They have calculators for that.’
He laughed, a sad laugh, and Luna thought, for the hundredth time, how it would be so much easier not to feel like she did.
‘Are you coming to The Edge later? Earl said something about a fire,’ he said.
‘Definitely. Mum and Dad are having Eyebrow Clive over for dinner so we might be a bit late, but we’ll be there.’
‘Cool, see you later, Luna.’
It could be so much easier than it was.
‘Yeah, see you, Emmett.’