Chapter Nineteen #2
Emmett’s gaze is intense. Maybe I preferred it when he couldn’t communicate, when he didn’t know how, when neither of us did. Now it’s all so overwhelming. When really, what’s the point? None of it matters. I’m not doing that again, falling in love. Not with Emmett, not with anyone.
It’s okay for Earl. From beyond the grave, he can order us to mix with people if he wants, but in my case, it just wouldn’t be fair. I gave up that part of my life, which had been pretty underwhelming anyway, once the symptoms of heart failure started. Mae had called me a noble imbecile.
‘Why did you stop drawing, Luna?’
I’m looking off in the distance, at the bustling boulevards. It’s like he expects that I’ll answer, if he just springs the question on me.
‘Please don’t make me say it,’ I half beg.
He looks at me for a moment, no, two, before he nods once and begins to eat.
And watching Emmett tuck into his lunch, in a place that Earl once was, in a place that Earl painted… well, it makes me so sad that falling overwhelmingly, terrifyingly in love is off the cards. Falling in love, I think, would be very easy indeed.
I wonder at what point I’ll stop being tested. It feels as if my life is one long test, that I’m mostly failing. Because looking at Emmett in the spa, I might not fall in love with him, but falling in lust seems like a distinct possibility.
I found a bikini. I’m only small now. I didn’t fall out of love with chocolate or crisps; they’re as important to me as ever.
But I just can’t eat much – it’s a part of my condition.
It’s stupid really, all those years I wasted worrying about not being soft and small, because now all I want is to be healthy and strong.
So I picked up a small bikini, declining to try it on because who wants to get naked in a changing room with their ex-boyfriend three feet away?
And plus, I hadn’t been sure that I’d get my boots off and on again.
Stupid ankles. But since emerging into the spa I’ve discovered two things.
One, that UK size small and Paris size small are two very different things entirely.
And two, somehow I find semi-naked Emmett even more attractive than I did all those years ago.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always found him attractive. When he was long and thin and gangly when we were teenagers, I drove myself mad with horniness before I even realised what it was.
And he’s only improved in the past twenty-years. It’s offensive.
He ducks under the water. I’m lying on a lounger on the proviso that I don’t want to get my hair wet when in reality I need to keep my ankles up.
I know that I should be more worried about how unwell I feel.
I know that. But I’m distracted. I was right, it is dark in here.
All navy blue and gold with moody lighting, and actually, it’s awkward as hell being here with him.
We’d both emerged from the changing room, me clutching my robe like it was the giver of life around my super tiny, string bikini. Emmett had just shrugged his robe off and put it on a lounger. He took one look at me and dived into the pool.
‘I’ll just chill here then, shall I?’ I’d said, propping myself back on the lounger.
And now I have to watch him swim. It’s like I said, I’m being tested.
I close my eyes. Emmett had said something about resting.
I should rest. It’s late afternoon and I haven’t rested all day.
I should close my eyes and rest since my chest is feeling so tight.
But it’s like I can’t make myself look away.
Emmett swimming is the sun, and I’m a dumb little moth pulled towards its brightness.
‘Excuse me, miss, is this lounger taken?’ a man asks with a French accent, but not in French, which makes me think that I don’t look French enough for someone to speak French to me.
‘Yes, sorry, it’s my friend’s.’ I smile and look over to see Emmett half hidden under the water. Only his eyes are above it, watching us like a crocodile.
Rest goddamit! I tell myself.
I don’t rest. Emmett comes to lie next to me, and we whisper about how amazing the spa is.
I’m possibly talking to his pecs. He looks like a runner to me.
He’s not stacked or anything, he’s still on the lean side.
He’s pale and there’s a small patch of dark hair on his chest. Whatever he’s got going on, it does it for me.
Part of me wonders if my heart is struggling so much because it’s preoccupied with diverting blood supply elsewhere.
A woman in a spa uniform comes to tell us that we can have our treatments now. Emmett just smiles and says, ‘my treat,’ but then I think he dies a bit because they show us into a couples’ treatment room.
He starts rabbiting in French, and the woman in the uniform looks horrified and leaves.
‘She’s checking whether they have two rooms.’ Emmett looks self-consciously at the two massage beds.
‘It’s fine,’ I tell him.
‘I didn’t mean to book a couple’s massage. I’m not that much of a cliché.’
I laugh a nervous titter but mostly I’m thinking cliché me Emmett, cliché me away!
‘Honestly, it’s fine. It’s a friendly thing to do, right?’ I think I’ll look back and wonder whether I’m being tortured or treated on this day. Possibly a bit of both.
The woman who looks like she should be on a runway somewhere is back, clipboard in hand, and tells us there is no other room.
Emmett, who appears to be suffering some exquisite pain right now, tells me as much and I reassure him that it’s fine. I’ll just be over here, half naked with my puffy ankles, literally dying, a couple of inches away from Emmett and his regular ankles.
Two more spa workers appear, armed with towels. This shit is getting serious then. I quickly fill out a questionnaire about my health. I’m not exactly honest. I just assume that if aromatherapy oils finish me off, I was probably a goner anyway.