Chapter Seventeen #2
Zadie’s eyes flicked towards them from where she was sitting with Earl and Mae, and she frowned.
‘Yes,’ Luna agreed, having essentially lost control of her faculties at this point.
‘Come on.’ Ahmed pulled her away. ‘Laugh,’ he ordered her as they ran, and Luna let out a shriek of delight that was too loud. She was a puppet now, just doing as she was instructed.
‘This should do it.’ They were still holding hands, at the water’s edge, the waves lapping at their feet. The others could still clearly see them. It was late summer, and the beach was pretty empty.
‘We need to frolic a bit. Otherwise it’ll look staged.’
Luna didn’t know how to frolic, but she jumped some waves. And when Ahmed put his arm around her shoulders as they looked out to sea, Luna thought that the whole thing was… awkward as hell.
‘You really like her then, huh?’ she asked him.
Luna knew her motivation for doing this, but she didn’t know if it had ever occurred to her that Ahmed might be quite so hopelessly in love with Zadie.
‘With all my heart. She’s my soulmate, Luna. My muse.’ What a pair of hapless romantics they were.
They’d been down by the water’s edge for some time, and Luna had thought about backing out every other minute when Ahmed said, ‘It’s show time, if you’re ready?’
Luna reckoned that Ahmed would make a brilliant novelist one day. He had an eye for this sort of thing, since the sun had gone soft and hazy and they probably looked as good as they were going to look at this point.
For some reason, Luna hadn’t given too much thought to the idea of kissing Ahmed. She didn’t want to, not really, but she wasn’t appalled by the idea. It would be an awful lot easier if she did want to kiss him, an awful lot easier.
‘Is he looking?’ she asked Ahmed, pretending to laugh again as he fake-splashed her with a wave. Peak frolic.
‘He’s never not been looking. Come here.’ Luna let Ahmed pull her close to him, their feet still in the water, the sun behind them.
Imagine he’s Emmett, she thought, as he ran a hand up the side of her face and wrapped it into her hair. ‘You have gorgeous hair, Luna.’ He didn’t mean it. Luna hated her hair. Who wanted ginger hair? But she understood that he was trying to put her at ease, so she rolled with it.
‘Thanks, so do you.’ She was lame, undoubtedly, but this wasn’t real, so it didn’t matter.
Ahmed just huffed out a laugh and then his lips were on hers.
They were cool, cooler than she expected them to be, and for a second, she froze, thinking about all the reasons that this was wrong, but then Ahmed muttered, ‘You’re fine,’ and Luna decided to just go for it.
She flung her arms around his neck and opened her mouth to let his tongue in. She was a bit grossed out since it was wetter and colder than she expected. But it was okay. It was just a kiss.
She pulled away. ‘Sorry, no more.’
‘That’s fine, Luna. I think it worked anyway.’
Luna wasn’t sure what he meant until she looked up the beach. Emmett was storming towards them.
‘I’ll give you two some space,’ Ahmed said, kissing her on the edge of her nose. They were back to being friends.
‘Hey, Zadie!’ he called, starting back up across the beach. Luna just waited, feeling like a duck out of water as Emmett got closer to her.
‘What the hell is going on, Luna?’ he asked. No hello, no how’s it going, just straight in there. For the first time ever, Luna felt angry at Emmett. Surely he didn’t just get to come here and question her, did he?
‘Well, I just kissed Ahmed,’ she said, turning her back to him.
‘I know, I saw. Half the beach saw. Earl had to take Mae to the caravan for an emergency macaroon.’
Luna laughed. Trust Mae.
‘You didn’t mind if half the beach saw you kissing Cadence,’ she fired back. Maybe it was the sunset. Or the kiss. Or the fact that Emmett was acting so pissed when he had no right, none at all. Luna felt some of what she kept buried inside her bubbling up. Fighting to be released.
‘What has that got to do with anything?’
‘Only that it’s one rule for you and another for me.’
They were shouting at each other now, stomping about in the sea in a fit of dramatics.
‘Or is that how you like it, Emmett? Do you want me to just pine for you the whole time while you give me weird looks and say I’m beautiful one time and then barely speak to me another? Because it’s messed up.’
Emmett looked like Luna had hit him.
‘No, Luna. I don’t… I didn’t.’ He must have understood her then, because he said, ‘You are beautiful, but our friendship is the most important thing to me ever. I’d never want to… you know…’
He couldn’t get the words out. However, Luna seemed to have plenty of them, all ready to go. Possibly, years of angst were just pouring right out of her right now.
‘That’s chicken, Emmett, and you know it. What about what I want?’ She kept shouting.
‘What is it that you want, Luna?’
This is it, she thought. Emmett couldn’t say it. He wasn’t capable of saying it. It would always have to be her.
Luna took a deep breath. She’d been so brave on this day. Braver than she’d ever been, perhaps.
But she couldn’t say it either.
And wasn’t that tragic, she thought, that the pair of them were so messed up that neither of them were willing to take the chance? Emmett might have been running away from his feelings, but Luna hadn’t exactly been putting it all out there.
‘I just want to be honest.’ She told him the only words that she could find. And anyway, it was the truth. ‘I don’t want to spend the rest of my life burying everything I feel. I want to be honest with myself. And with you. It’s just… hard.’
He was closer to her now, looking right at her. The sun was behind him, giving him a halo.
‘You’re really important to me, Luna,’ he said.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
‘You’re important to me too, Emmett.’
‘I’d hate to ever lose you.’
‘You won’t. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘You’re leaving in the morning,’ he smiled.
‘I know, but aside from that. You’ll always have me.’
‘Good, I couldn’t bear it.’ He pulled her towards him, and she went, hugging him hard. She felt the warm press of his body, and she knew that he was crying by the way his ribs shook.
‘It’s okay,’ she told him. ‘Things will always be okay.’
The sea tried to move them, dragging them with the tide, and Luna thought that that was how things were with her and Emmett. They were buffeted by the waves, clinging to each other, trying to stay together when there was so much pushing against them.
‘I’ll be back next summer,’ she told him. ‘And I’ll write.’
He pulled back, his eyes red. ‘You promise?’
Luna tried to find a smile for him. ‘I promise.’