Chapter Twenty-Two #2
‘Why do you think that he wanted us to come here though – if that’s what he even wanted?’
‘I don’t know,’ Emmett shrugs. ‘Maybe he wanted to remind us that life does end.’
Oh Earl, I didn’t need reminding of that.
I look between the grave and Emmett. The life that’s in the painting isn’t the greenery like I’ve always assumed – the trees and flowers and moss that butt against the graves here – it’s the love between Earl and Sebastian.
‘I think it’s the fact that love means death.
Like they’re two sides of the same coin.
It’s what he suggested to me about beauty and decay too.
You can’t have life and love without death since death is what makes it all so special.
’ It’s been so long since I felt that life was special; it is really, though, if you think about it.
‘I think he was telling us to take the risk.’
‘Luna.’ Emmett has turned to face me. ‘I know you want to be friends, and I understand. I never did deserve you, even back then, but if you could find a way… I don’t want us to spend the next twenty years not knowing each other. I want more, but if you want to be friends, then, please…’
Emmett is visibly suffering when I reach up and plant a gentle kiss on his lips.
I don’t know what makes me do it. There are so many reasons I shouldn’t be doing it.
But being here, and thinking how one summer of love sustained Earl for a whole lifetime, it makes me realise that it doesn’t matter if my life is short, we only ever have this very moment anyway.
And in this moment, I want to kiss Emmett.
He’s momentarily stunned and I think for a second I’ve made a terrible miscalculation but then he’s pressing his lips to mine, firmer and more insistent.
And maybe it’s a weird thing to be kissing so passionately in a cemetery, possibly in whatever afterlife might exist we’re going straight to hell, but I’m breathing hard and feel light-headed when we pull apart.
‘Luna,’ Emmett is close to tears, ‘I thought I’d lost you.’
‘I can’t promise you a future,’ I tell him, meaning something different from what he thinks. Maybe we’ll only have these two days, and so be it. Two days is better than nothing.
‘I understand.’ He doesn’t, but at least I’ve given him some fragment of truth.
We walk back to the hotel slowly, pressing close on the metro and holding hands along the boulevard towards Emmett’s hotel.
Holding Emmett’s hand is like trying on an old worn jumper that you lost for years and then rediscover.
It just fits so well. We haven’t agreed to come back here, we’ve hardly agreed anything, but I notice that I’m the one leading the way.
If I only have two days, I want to press as close to Emmett as I can.
We pass through the lobby of the hotel in a daze. I don’t know how we get to our room.
I do know that I go and stand in front of the mirror, the full-length mirror. A part of me wants to check that I’m still really here. That I’m whole, since I feel so otherworldly all of a sudden.
Emmett appears behind me. An apparition in pale blue.
‘Luna,’ he says and standing behind me like that, we just fit together. I see that. I’ve always seen that. We shouldn’t. It shouldn’t work. He’s preppy and I’m not. He’s disciplined and I’m chaos. He’s tight and sinewy and I’m soft and small. We shouldn’t fit together. But we do.
I feel my heart in my chest and I think come on, please don’t give out on me now. Please give me this time, as Emmett brushes hair from my shoulder and trails a finger slowly up the side of my neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he says again. I shouldn’t let him believe that he can have me. For so many reasons, all of which are escaping me right about now. Especially when he leans down to kiss the path his fingers just took.
Suddenly, I’m desperate, I make a desperate sound, but Emmett seems determined to go slow. He’s torturing me basically, and I’m letting him.
His eyes meet mine in the mirror.
Yes, okay, I’m letting him.
He eases the strap of my dress down on one side while he continues to trail kisses wherever he wants. I’m light-headed with lust, dizzy with desire. Apparently, I turn into a poet when I’m turned on.
The other side of my strap comes down, and my top just gives up any pretence of staying up and flops down at the front. I clench and unclench my hands, itching to cover myself up, but Emmett is making soothing noises and so I give in to it all.
The edges of my vision go dark again.
I’m literally going to die from lust. Mum will disown me. Nope, not the time to think about Mum right now, not when Emmett’s hands are working their way down my chest and I’m just watching them in the mirror.
There’s a thin sheen of sweat on my skin as Emmett’s hands continue their torture; he’s back to kissing my neck and I think, you know what, if this is how I go, then so be it. What a way to die.
I can’t take it anymore. I need to turn around to kiss him properly. I want to press myself so close to him that I’m impossible to dislodge.
I can feel my pulse, it’s erratic. Just give me a little more time, I think.
Let me have this day, this night. But then Emmett is on his knees in front of me, and I’m watching him in the mirror.
It’s illicit and gentle and so stupidly sexy all at the same time.
And for the first time in a very, very long time, I give over my body, willingly, trusting it, tentatively at first and then with more conviction. I give over my body to Emmett.