Chapter Twelve #2
She thought about how they skimmed over the worst parts of the way that Emmett lived – flattening the edges like a rough stone made smooth by water.
But sometimes there was no getting away from it, like how he always ate really quickly, and how he let Mae cut his hair because he couldn’t afford a barber.
This was far from the first time he’d had a black eye.
Luna didn’t even talk, she just plonked herself on the sand, graceful as a hippo, and took hold of his hand, lacing his fingers between her own. Earl arrived with a tea towel wrapped around some ice, and Luna pressed it gingerly to the side of Emmett’s eye, watching as he winced.
‘Me and Cadence broke up,’ he said eventually.
Luna found that she didn’t feel any sort of a way about this news, actually. It was hard to feel anything but worry with Emmett like this.
‘Never mind,’ Mae patted his knee, still sat on his other side. ‘She was a bit annoying, to be honest.’
That at least made them laugh. ‘She just didn’t get it, about Mum. She doesn’t understand. It wasn’t right for ages before, though. I’m not even sad. Or not about that anyway.’
Luna hated any insinuation that Emmett could be sad about anything. Hated it.
They didn’t talk any more about Cadence or Emmett’s mum for a while. They were all strangely polite, in fact, while they built a fire. They kept it up, the politeness, as the sun began to set and the temperature dropped. Emmett gave Luna his jumper. It had holes in the cuffs.
Zadie sat close to Ahmed around the fire, and Luna wondered if maybe, finally, his persistence was wearing her down. Or perhaps it was just that on the other side of Emmett getting hurt, they all felt soft and malleable.
It was late, almost fully dark now, and Luna knew that they couldn’t stay much longer. Her mum would realise they weren’t back at the cottage at some point.
‘Fancy a walk to the water’s edge?’ Emmett asked, stretching out a hand to pull her up from the sand. She went willingly, all thoughts of mum and Eyebrow Clive forgotten.
‘I can’t believe that it’s our last night,’ she told him as the moon appeared hazy in the sky.
‘Every summer goes too quickly.’
‘It does.’
Luna had a sense that they were on the edge of something. She didn’t know what. There was a tension in the air, like Emmett was holding back. His black eye looked darker still in the dark.
‘Do you think your mum will be okay?’ she asked and he smiled, finally. Luna felt something loosen within her. Like a tight screw that had finally given. ‘What?’
‘I like that you care about her, that’s all.’
‘Course I do, she’s your mum.’
‘Not everyone is like you, Luna.’
She didn’t know how to respond.
‘I’ve missed you this summer,’ Emmett said suddenly. They were at the edge of the sea now, dipping their toes in the freezing water. ‘I don’t think I realised…’ He paused and Luna was sure the world held its breath. ‘How much I would until you weren’t there.’
‘I’ve been right here,’ she told him, half laughing, half worried that she might cry.
‘I know, it’s just, I don’t know. It felt different.’
Oh god, she thought. He knows, he knows it all.
‘Not bad different.’ Something in her face must have given away. ‘Just different.’
‘I suppose we’re both growing up,’ Luna tried.
‘Yeah, it’s probably that.’
They kept walking, skirting the edge of the water.
‘But promise me,’ he said, stopping to turn to her, ‘promise you’ll never leave me, Luna.’
‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’ Luna felt urgent, for what she wasn’t exactly sure.
‘Not in that way. Promise me I’ll never lose you.’ She saw his desperation in the white of his eyes.
‘You won’t,’ she told him, meaning it but not asking for the same from him.
They walked some more. Emmett was calmer, now that he’d extracted the promise from Luna.
‘Earl said your drawings this summer have been amazing,’ he said. ‘You’re so talented. He said you could be a prodigy.’
A red flush hidden by the darkness appeared over Luna’s face. ‘I’m definitely not. I’ve been frustrated all summer, trying to capture the uncapturable.’
‘And what’s that then?’
Obviously, she wasn’t going to tell him about drawing dismembered body parts and what that may or may not have to do with unrequited love so instead she said, ‘I’ve just got really interested in anatomy.
It started last year, with hearts, I suppose.
Thinking about how intricate they are but also how we give them so much power, on lots of different levels.
Like emotional, biological. I don’t know, I’m not making much sense.
But yeah, hearts, I think I like drawing them.
I even painted some. And eyes. Ears even.
I drew a single finger last week. It’s a bit weird. I liked the hearts the best.’
‘Not weird,’ he said. ‘Awesome.’
Growing up where she did and with whom she did, Luna wasn’t quite sure what to do with such a persistent stream of compliments.
‘Thank you.’ She was stiff and awkward as she stopped walking. They were facing each other now. Emmett’s eye looks so sore, it made Luna want to weep, or else break something.
There was a pause.
‘I’m worried that my brain is broken,’ Emmett admitted. ‘Sometimes I just think what’s the point, things will never be good.’
‘You can’t think like that,’ Luna rushed out. ‘It’s just a bad patch now but you’ll get away, like you want to. You’ll have a good life, Emmett.’ Emmett having a good life, Luna realised, was what she wished for more than anything else in the world.
‘Do you think I should feel broken-hearted about Cadence?’ he asked.
And still, they were on the edge of… something?
‘Only you can know that, Emmett.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t. I don’t even care. I don’t like the thought that someone could ever break my heart in that way.’
‘That’s sad.’ The moonlight was making Luna truthful. More truthful than she should be.
‘Luna, look,’ he started and she wondered for the briefest flicker of a second whether he felt it too. That growing bundle of feelings, like the rise of dawn ready to break. Emmett reached for her hand, taking the edge of her fingers in his. ‘You know you’re my best friend, right?’
‘Right.’ She dragged the word out. She wanted more, she knew she did. But she always wanted to be his best friend.
‘And I couldn’t ever lose you.’
This was it. Surely this was it. The sea, the sand, the freaking mood. This. Was. It.
‘Yes.’
‘Emmett, Luna. LUNA!’
Mae.
Luna thought, not even apologetically, that she could kill her sister right now. She was running down the beach towards them, panting. ‘Mum called the police because we weren’t home! She’s gone batshit. Properly batshit! Earl is talking to them now.’
‘Fuck.’ Luna looked back at the fire and beyond, the flashing lights of the police car parked right on the edge of the cliff by the caravan park. She couldn’t help it – she started to laugh.
‘Why are you laughing, you lunatic? She’s going to ground us for a year.’
They were so close. So close.
‘I’d better go,’ Luna told Emmett, moving to take his jumper off.
‘Keep it,’ he told her.
‘See you next summer, Emmett dude. If any of us survive that long.’ Mae hugged him hard.
‘Yeah, see you next year. I’ll write,’ Luna promised. She hugged him too, trying to squeeze every last drop of this evening out of him.
They started to run up the beach.
‘See you next year!’ he called after them. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
‘I’ll wait too!’ It was a pointless thing to say. After all, Luna was never not waiting for Emmett. She might always be the one who leaves, but when she looked back to see him smiling, his black eye half swollen shut, she knew that she would wait for him always.