Fic: Breathless, It Starts
Title: Breathless, It Starts
Characters: Naomi/Emily, Naomi/Sophia
Rating: M (for language)
Words: 2767
Summary: Naomi is in deep. Starts after the Love Ball up to 4.02
Disclaimer: Not my characters
A/N: This is unbeta'd so any mistakes are all mine. Contains spoilers for 4.02.
Naomi knows how she should feel when they leave the Love Ball.
She should feel happy, with Emily’s hand in hers. She should feel relieved, that Emily still wants her. She should feel love, for Emily, and from her as well.
And she does. She does feel all of those things, but she feels more as well. She feels things that she doesn’t think she should.
She feels panicked, because this is it now. She’s told Emily, and not just Emily, but the whole fucking college know now, and Naomi can’t take it back, no matter what happens.
She feels pressure, because she’s already on her second chance, and she knows she won’t get many more, maybe that’s it, maybe there’s no more.
She feels scared, because this is new, showing her feelings, holding Emily’s hand in public, attracting attention. It’s probably her dress, and Emily’s hair, and the fact that Emily’s not wearing shoes, and the scratches fresh on her cheeks that people are looking at, but Naomi is sure that they can see what’s just happened as if it were written on her face. It’s obvious, surely, to anyone who looked closely. Naomi’s just taken a step off the edge, into the unknown, into love, and no, she’s not scared. She’s terrified.
And then Emily squeezes her hand and smiles up at her softly. “You’re thinking. Stop thinking so much.”
It’s not as easy as Emily seems to believe, not over thinking things, but the way Emily’s looking at her, it makes her want to try. It makes her really fucking want to try to just go with this and focus on the good feelings, the ones she knows she’s meant to feel, and ignore anything else that shouldn’t belong anymore.
---
It’s different this time, when they trace the route back from college to Naomi’s house for the second time in a week. Before it was anticipation. Now it’s uncertainty. It’s stark, the difference.
Emily’s teeth have started chattering by the time Naomi has let them both inside. Even though it’s summer, it’s late now, and the concrete must have been cool on her feet. They face each other and Naomi runs her hands up and down Emily’s arms. “You’re cold.”
Emily smiles. “Yeah, it’s ok. I’m ok.”
Naomi’s heart is beating so loud she can hear it, she can feel the pulsing in her veins, and it’s different, again, from the last time, where there wasn’t time to notice things that weren’t clothes getting in the way of hands.
“Hey. You’re doing it again,” Emily whispers, reaching up to brush hair from her eyes. It brings her face much closer to Naomi’s, and even with the height difference it’s not much for Naomi to lean down and kiss her. It’s gentle, unbearably so, but when she tries to deepen it, tries to make it familiar, Emily pulls back.
“I- It’s been a long night, I think, and maybe we should just…we have time now, yeah?”
It shouldn’t feel like a rejection, and Naomi knows it isn’t really. “Yeah, you’re right. Come on then, sleep.”
She leads Emily up the stairs by the hand, but it’s another change from the last time, when they raced. Everything is slower now, and it’s more vivid, and it’s overwhelming, is what it is.
---
Things stay overwhelming for a long while.
The way Emily kisses her awake in the morning. The way she smiles so widely when Naomi blinks her eyes open. They way they make love, because they do now, Naomi can’t pretend it’s just sex anymore. The way Naomi’s stomach drops at the thought of Emily having to go home. The way Emily always leaves something, so she has something to come back for tomorrow. The way the clock always runs at half the speed until tomorrow comes.
It eases off very slightly as the days go by, and Naomi begins to adjust to having these feelings - the happiness, the love, the fear, the panic, and the pressure - and for them all to take a permanent place in her life.
---
She’s almost there, she thinks, she’s almost done adjusting, when Emily takes away the need to adjust. Three weeks has never felt so long, so stretched out into the future, into some unimaginable space in time that Naomi can’t comprehend.
Everything seems duller now. Where previously Emily’s presence had brightened things, now it’s the lack of her that Naomi notices without fail, and at every opportunity.
So worry gets added to the list of new feelings. Worry that if Emily were to really leave, and there wasn’t an end point of three weeks to focus on, but instead it was infinite, this time line, worry that Naomi would never be able to accept dull again.
---
Things right themselves when she returns. Naomi can’t explain, isn’t sure what’s changed, apart from the fact that she’s just there.
It’s this realisation - the knowledge that Naomi’s happiness now depends solely on one person, and that nothing else, no-one else, can do anything for her - that’s the scariest one of all. It sharpens the pressure to get this right, because she knows now, that it’s Emily who holds all of the power here, and Naomi’s helpless to do anything about it.
---
Mexico. Travelling for a year.
It’s not what Naomi had planned, but then she hadn’t really planned anything yet. And Emily’s face had lit up talking about the places they could visit, and the bars they would drink at, and the beaches they would fuck on, and how they’d be doing this together. And Jenna wouldn’t be able to get to them, not when they were so far away.
And most importantly, it would be a year, a full year for them.
The prospectus stares back at her from her desk.
---
It wouldn’t hurt to check. Then she would know, for sure, that Emily’s right, and travelling together is the best option, the only option.
---
The campus is excellent. The course is better.
Emily would love it, Naomi’s sure. The benches outside the union for a quick pint after class, the gardens to sprawl with a book in the summer, the sheer number of societies, the stock in the library, the intricacy of all the old buildings.
It’s not what Naomi wanted at all; she wanted it to be awful, and for her mind to be made up for her, and for it to be easy. It’s anything but.
She lights a cigarette and looks out at what could be her future. It’s very clear then, that there is a left and a right, the paths set at polar opposites to each other, and that’s it, there is no middle ground.
There’s a tap on her shoulder. “Naomi?”
She turns to see a dark haired girl looking at her enquiringly. “Sorry, but do I know you?”
She looks a little embarrassed, as if she might be regretting approaching Naomi in the first place. “Um, Roundview, right?”
Naomi frowns, and takes in some more of this girl, tries to place the face, or come up with a name, but she can’t. “Yeah. I don’t, sorry, I don’t recognise you?”
“Sophia,” she smiles shyly and reaches out her hand for an awkward handshake. “I’m in your year.”
“Oh. Ok,” Naomi says and then goes back to her cigarette. Sophia stays next to her, searching her pockets for a cigarette of her own, and then, once she’s found one, her lighter.
Naomi reaches into her bag, offers hers.
She takes it with a smile, a full one this time. “Thanks,” she says before having a drag. “I heard about you, you and Emily, at the Love Ball. That’s how I know who you are.”
Naomi looks around. “You were there?”
“No. I just heard. Everyone heard. It was the talk of the town, you were quite a big deal.”
Naomi cringes inwardly. It was stupid that, and dramatic, and over the top, and attention grabbing and these are all things that Naomi’s not. Except when it comes to Emily, and then she is all of those things, and she can’t explain the change in her, and how Emily makes her do things that she thinks are just stupid normally.
When it becomes clear that Naomi isn’t going to reply, Sophia gestures out towards the campus. “Scary, isn’t it? All of this just sitting here, waiting for us, if we choose it.”
This isn’t scary. Mexico’s not scary. It’s the step before either of those things that’s scary.
“Fancy a drink?” She answers.
---
They get a bottle of wine from the union bar. They take the piss out of Doug and some of the other teachers. They people watch, make up stories about what could be their future classmates.
It’s a relief, an escape, the easiness of it all.
It’s a break from all of the constant feelings and stresses and pressure of everything else. It’s comfortable, because Sophia isn’t anyone, not really, and it doesn’t matter what she says, because there’s no expectations of a tomorrow, or of a year in Mexico.
It’s the wine that loosens her tongue when they’re on the train, travelling back to Bristol, but really, it was Emily. It was Emily who spent all that time at college working on her, breaking down the walls she’d spent so long putting up.
“I shouldn’t have been there, you know.”
Sophia looks at her curiously.
“I had to lie, to be here,” she clarifies.
“So did I,” Sophia replies. “It’s Art School. It’s what I want to do; it’s all I want to do. But my mum, she doesn’t want…” She shakes her head, rubs a hand over her eyes. “I should join the Army. Like my dad. It would make him proud, she says. I want him to be proud, I do. But I don’t want to join the Army, I want to draw. She doesn’t understand, and I don’t want to let her down. I don’t want to disappoint her, but it’s what I want.”
It’s too close, it’s too similar, and Naomi understands why Sophia’s crying. She understands completely. She smiles reassuringly, and places her hand on top of Sophia’s. “It’s ok. It’ll work out.”
She doesn’t know which one of them she’s telling.
---
Naomi’s not really thinking about anything, that’s what Emily had said, that she thinks too much, and inviting Sophia back to hers with the promise of vodka is the end result.
Naomi’s sure that this must be how Effy goes about things. Not really caring about consequences and emotions, and just doing what feels easy. Naomi doesn’t take the time think about whether that’s working for her or not, pretending she doesn’t care.
The kiss is of comfort. And reassurance. And shared frustrations.
It’s not one of love, or care, or even fear, or any of the other emotions that she’s come to associate with kissing now.
It’s not Emily.
“You should go. This isn’t, it’s not…I think you should go,” she says, and doesn’t look Sophia in the eye.
---
It was wrong, of course it was wrong.
But it helped for a while, for a very short while, that escape. Until she came back to reality, and then it was worse. Worse than it was before, and the panic, and the terror and the pressure, which were almost unbearable previously, are excruciating now. She doesn’t know what to do with them, these feelings, so she pushes them down, hides them behind walls and locks them in.
She’s not as good at it as she once was.
It’s sometimes, with Emily when she smiles, and everything genuinely feels good, that the stabbing in her chest will happen, and take her by surprise. Naomi has to fight to return the smile, to ignore the pain and to pretend that everything’s as it should be.
And then it’s other times, when she’s alone, that it’s all she can think of, and her stomach clenches and her heart speeds up and she breaks into a sweat. But she knows, she has to keep fighting, because she can’t go back to dull again. She won’t.
---
She’s made her decision, by default really, because she can’t talk about that open day, not now, not ever, so maybe the decision was made for her. It’s good though; it’s the right decision, the only decision.
Mexico with Emily. It will be good, it has to be.
---
Naomi doesn’t know how to make it up to her, how she can make things better, when Emily doesn’t even know how bad she’s made it.
A gesture, she thinks. A gift, perhaps.
And then she remembers when times were better, and that day at the lake, when things changed. And they took their bikes, and Emily, God, Emily nearly broke her neck before they even got there. And now she has this moped, and Christ, if it isn’t asking for trouble, tempting fate at every turn. Naomi wants more days like that one at the lake, days where they can be alone in their own bubble, fuck the rest of the world. And she sees these goggles, and they’re ridiculous, completely awful, but so right. And she knows it’s something, not much, but something, towards making things how they should be again.
---
Cook helps her out, she knew he would. He frowned a bit at first, when she’d asked, but then shrugged and said, “You’re smart Blondie, I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
She wasn’t sure how to tell him that she didn’t know at all, and hasn’t for a long time now.
---
It’s shocking.
The blood. The screaming. The way her body is splayed. The bile that rises from Naomi’s gut.
She sees it every night, before she sleeps fitfully.
---
It’s horrible.
A horrible thing that’s happened. But it’s already happened, and Naomi can’t change it. She hates herself for thinking it, but it means that what she had done is consigned to history.
No one needs to know, it’s just up to her to forget and then things can go back to how they should be, how they should have been all along, before she got scared and fucked up again.
It’s not that easy. It was never going to be, of course. Someone died. There are moments where she can almost forget, but these are few and far between.
---
The police want to talk to them. Not just her, but her and Emily, and the panic that she had been trying to ignore strikes back with a vengeance. She tells the police they didn’t see her fall. It’s a lie, but Emily goes with it, and Naomi can’t express the relief she feels. It only lasts until they leave the room, because Emily’s curious, and she’s persistent, Naomi knows that better than anyone. She won’t be put off, despite Naomi’s best efforts to save her from herself.
She’s found a picture. A fucking picture. Shouldn’t she have to sign a form or something for them to print a fucking picture of her? Don’t they know that they’ve just ruined everything with some fucking picture?
There’s no way to get out of this now. It’s a question of how little she can tell without giving it all up.
That Emily would accuse her in the first place stings. That Emily’s almost right, tears at her insides. That Naomi’s instinct, the lie that isn’t quite a lie, comes so easily to her is frightening.
It’s survival instinct though. Fight or flight. Naomi’s not giving up, she’s not running anymore, she’s not going to let something that didn’t mean anything - because it didn’t, it really fucking didn’t - ruin them.
---
Naomi can’t quite take it in. She was being stalked. Sophia had stalked her. She had her fucking toothbrush. It’s horrible, knowing that she’d been watching Naomi. Did she plan this? All along, was this what she had wanted? Was this why she’d talked to her at the open day?
Emily breaks the tension, stops her thoughts. Her grin, that smile she gives Naomi brings respite. She can breathe again, because her and Emily are going to be ok now. Emily knows enough, and she’s still there. She doesn’t need to hear any of the other stuff that doesn’t matter, she doesn’t need to know any of that stuff that could ruin them.
It’s easy. To kiss her, and to hold her, and to believe that the worst is behind them now.
Characters: Naomi/Emily, Naomi/Sophia
Rating: M (for language)
Words: 2767
Summary: Naomi is in deep. Starts after the Love Ball up to 4.02
Disclaimer: Not my characters
A/N: This is unbeta'd so any mistakes are all mine. Contains spoilers for 4.02.
Naomi knows how she should feel when they leave the Love Ball.
She should feel happy, with Emily’s hand in hers. She should feel relieved, that Emily still wants her. She should feel love, for Emily, and from her as well.
And she does. She does feel all of those things, but she feels more as well. She feels things that she doesn’t think she should.
She feels panicked, because this is it now. She’s told Emily, and not just Emily, but the whole fucking college know now, and Naomi can’t take it back, no matter what happens.
She feels pressure, because she’s already on her second chance, and she knows she won’t get many more, maybe that’s it, maybe there’s no more.
She feels scared, because this is new, showing her feelings, holding Emily’s hand in public, attracting attention. It’s probably her dress, and Emily’s hair, and the fact that Emily’s not wearing shoes, and the scratches fresh on her cheeks that people are looking at, but Naomi is sure that they can see what’s just happened as if it were written on her face. It’s obvious, surely, to anyone who looked closely. Naomi’s just taken a step off the edge, into the unknown, into love, and no, she’s not scared. She’s terrified.
And then Emily squeezes her hand and smiles up at her softly. “You’re thinking. Stop thinking so much.”
It’s not as easy as Emily seems to believe, not over thinking things, but the way Emily’s looking at her, it makes her want to try. It makes her really fucking want to try to just go with this and focus on the good feelings, the ones she knows she’s meant to feel, and ignore anything else that shouldn’t belong anymore.
---
It’s different this time, when they trace the route back from college to Naomi’s house for the second time in a week. Before it was anticipation. Now it’s uncertainty. It’s stark, the difference.
Emily’s teeth have started chattering by the time Naomi has let them both inside. Even though it’s summer, it’s late now, and the concrete must have been cool on her feet. They face each other and Naomi runs her hands up and down Emily’s arms. “You’re cold.”
Emily smiles. “Yeah, it’s ok. I’m ok.”
Naomi’s heart is beating so loud she can hear it, she can feel the pulsing in her veins, and it’s different, again, from the last time, where there wasn’t time to notice things that weren’t clothes getting in the way of hands.
“Hey. You’re doing it again,” Emily whispers, reaching up to brush hair from her eyes. It brings her face much closer to Naomi’s, and even with the height difference it’s not much for Naomi to lean down and kiss her. It’s gentle, unbearably so, but when she tries to deepen it, tries to make it familiar, Emily pulls back.
“I- It’s been a long night, I think, and maybe we should just…we have time now, yeah?”
It shouldn’t feel like a rejection, and Naomi knows it isn’t really. “Yeah, you’re right. Come on then, sleep.”
She leads Emily up the stairs by the hand, but it’s another change from the last time, when they raced. Everything is slower now, and it’s more vivid, and it’s overwhelming, is what it is.
---
Things stay overwhelming for a long while.
The way Emily kisses her awake in the morning. The way she smiles so widely when Naomi blinks her eyes open. They way they make love, because they do now, Naomi can’t pretend it’s just sex anymore. The way Naomi’s stomach drops at the thought of Emily having to go home. The way Emily always leaves something, so she has something to come back for tomorrow. The way the clock always runs at half the speed until tomorrow comes.
It eases off very slightly as the days go by, and Naomi begins to adjust to having these feelings - the happiness, the love, the fear, the panic, and the pressure - and for them all to take a permanent place in her life.
---
She’s almost there, she thinks, she’s almost done adjusting, when Emily takes away the need to adjust. Three weeks has never felt so long, so stretched out into the future, into some unimaginable space in time that Naomi can’t comprehend.
Everything seems duller now. Where previously Emily’s presence had brightened things, now it’s the lack of her that Naomi notices without fail, and at every opportunity.
So worry gets added to the list of new feelings. Worry that if Emily were to really leave, and there wasn’t an end point of three weeks to focus on, but instead it was infinite, this time line, worry that Naomi would never be able to accept dull again.
---
Things right themselves when she returns. Naomi can’t explain, isn’t sure what’s changed, apart from the fact that she’s just there.
It’s this realisation - the knowledge that Naomi’s happiness now depends solely on one person, and that nothing else, no-one else, can do anything for her - that’s the scariest one of all. It sharpens the pressure to get this right, because she knows now, that it’s Emily who holds all of the power here, and Naomi’s helpless to do anything about it.
---
Mexico. Travelling for a year.
It’s not what Naomi had planned, but then she hadn’t really planned anything yet. And Emily’s face had lit up talking about the places they could visit, and the bars they would drink at, and the beaches they would fuck on, and how they’d be doing this together. And Jenna wouldn’t be able to get to them, not when they were so far away.
And most importantly, it would be a year, a full year for them.
The prospectus stares back at her from her desk.
---
It wouldn’t hurt to check. Then she would know, for sure, that Emily’s right, and travelling together is the best option, the only option.
---
The campus is excellent. The course is better.
Emily would love it, Naomi’s sure. The benches outside the union for a quick pint after class, the gardens to sprawl with a book in the summer, the sheer number of societies, the stock in the library, the intricacy of all the old buildings.
It’s not what Naomi wanted at all; she wanted it to be awful, and for her mind to be made up for her, and for it to be easy. It’s anything but.
She lights a cigarette and looks out at what could be her future. It’s very clear then, that there is a left and a right, the paths set at polar opposites to each other, and that’s it, there is no middle ground.
There’s a tap on her shoulder. “Naomi?”
She turns to see a dark haired girl looking at her enquiringly. “Sorry, but do I know you?”
She looks a little embarrassed, as if she might be regretting approaching Naomi in the first place. “Um, Roundview, right?”
Naomi frowns, and takes in some more of this girl, tries to place the face, or come up with a name, but she can’t. “Yeah. I don’t, sorry, I don’t recognise you?”
“Sophia,” she smiles shyly and reaches out her hand for an awkward handshake. “I’m in your year.”
“Oh. Ok,” Naomi says and then goes back to her cigarette. Sophia stays next to her, searching her pockets for a cigarette of her own, and then, once she’s found one, her lighter.
Naomi reaches into her bag, offers hers.
She takes it with a smile, a full one this time. “Thanks,” she says before having a drag. “I heard about you, you and Emily, at the Love Ball. That’s how I know who you are.”
Naomi looks around. “You were there?”
“No. I just heard. Everyone heard. It was the talk of the town, you were quite a big deal.”
Naomi cringes inwardly. It was stupid that, and dramatic, and over the top, and attention grabbing and these are all things that Naomi’s not. Except when it comes to Emily, and then she is all of those things, and she can’t explain the change in her, and how Emily makes her do things that she thinks are just stupid normally.
When it becomes clear that Naomi isn’t going to reply, Sophia gestures out towards the campus. “Scary, isn’t it? All of this just sitting here, waiting for us, if we choose it.”
This isn’t scary. Mexico’s not scary. It’s the step before either of those things that’s scary.
“Fancy a drink?” She answers.
---
They get a bottle of wine from the union bar. They take the piss out of Doug and some of the other teachers. They people watch, make up stories about what could be their future classmates.
It’s a relief, an escape, the easiness of it all.
It’s a break from all of the constant feelings and stresses and pressure of everything else. It’s comfortable, because Sophia isn’t anyone, not really, and it doesn’t matter what she says, because there’s no expectations of a tomorrow, or of a year in Mexico.
It’s the wine that loosens her tongue when they’re on the train, travelling back to Bristol, but really, it was Emily. It was Emily who spent all that time at college working on her, breaking down the walls she’d spent so long putting up.
“I shouldn’t have been there, you know.”
Sophia looks at her curiously.
“I had to lie, to be here,” she clarifies.
“So did I,” Sophia replies. “It’s Art School. It’s what I want to do; it’s all I want to do. But my mum, she doesn’t want…” She shakes her head, rubs a hand over her eyes. “I should join the Army. Like my dad. It would make him proud, she says. I want him to be proud, I do. But I don’t want to join the Army, I want to draw. She doesn’t understand, and I don’t want to let her down. I don’t want to disappoint her, but it’s what I want.”
It’s too close, it’s too similar, and Naomi understands why Sophia’s crying. She understands completely. She smiles reassuringly, and places her hand on top of Sophia’s. “It’s ok. It’ll work out.”
She doesn’t know which one of them she’s telling.
---
Naomi’s not really thinking about anything, that’s what Emily had said, that she thinks too much, and inviting Sophia back to hers with the promise of vodka is the end result.
Naomi’s sure that this must be how Effy goes about things. Not really caring about consequences and emotions, and just doing what feels easy. Naomi doesn’t take the time think about whether that’s working for her or not, pretending she doesn’t care.
The kiss is of comfort. And reassurance. And shared frustrations.
It’s not one of love, or care, or even fear, or any of the other emotions that she’s come to associate with kissing now.
It’s not Emily.
“You should go. This isn’t, it’s not…I think you should go,” she says, and doesn’t look Sophia in the eye.
---
It was wrong, of course it was wrong.
But it helped for a while, for a very short while, that escape. Until she came back to reality, and then it was worse. Worse than it was before, and the panic, and the terror and the pressure, which were almost unbearable previously, are excruciating now. She doesn’t know what to do with them, these feelings, so she pushes them down, hides them behind walls and locks them in.
She’s not as good at it as she once was.
It’s sometimes, with Emily when she smiles, and everything genuinely feels good, that the stabbing in her chest will happen, and take her by surprise. Naomi has to fight to return the smile, to ignore the pain and to pretend that everything’s as it should be.
And then it’s other times, when she’s alone, that it’s all she can think of, and her stomach clenches and her heart speeds up and she breaks into a sweat. But she knows, she has to keep fighting, because she can’t go back to dull again. She won’t.
---
She’s made her decision, by default really, because she can’t talk about that open day, not now, not ever, so maybe the decision was made for her. It’s good though; it’s the right decision, the only decision.
Mexico with Emily. It will be good, it has to be.
---
Naomi doesn’t know how to make it up to her, how she can make things better, when Emily doesn’t even know how bad she’s made it.
A gesture, she thinks. A gift, perhaps.
And then she remembers when times were better, and that day at the lake, when things changed. And they took their bikes, and Emily, God, Emily nearly broke her neck before they even got there. And now she has this moped, and Christ, if it isn’t asking for trouble, tempting fate at every turn. Naomi wants more days like that one at the lake, days where they can be alone in their own bubble, fuck the rest of the world. And she sees these goggles, and they’re ridiculous, completely awful, but so right. And she knows it’s something, not much, but something, towards making things how they should be again.
---
Cook helps her out, she knew he would. He frowned a bit at first, when she’d asked, but then shrugged and said, “You’re smart Blondie, I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
She wasn’t sure how to tell him that she didn’t know at all, and hasn’t for a long time now.
---
It’s shocking.
The blood. The screaming. The way her body is splayed. The bile that rises from Naomi’s gut.
She sees it every night, before she sleeps fitfully.
---
It’s horrible.
A horrible thing that’s happened. But it’s already happened, and Naomi can’t change it. She hates herself for thinking it, but it means that what she had done is consigned to history.
No one needs to know, it’s just up to her to forget and then things can go back to how they should be, how they should have been all along, before she got scared and fucked up again.
It’s not that easy. It was never going to be, of course. Someone died. There are moments where she can almost forget, but these are few and far between.
---
The police want to talk to them. Not just her, but her and Emily, and the panic that she had been trying to ignore strikes back with a vengeance. She tells the police they didn’t see her fall. It’s a lie, but Emily goes with it, and Naomi can’t express the relief she feels. It only lasts until they leave the room, because Emily’s curious, and she’s persistent, Naomi knows that better than anyone. She won’t be put off, despite Naomi’s best efforts to save her from herself.
She’s found a picture. A fucking picture. Shouldn’t she have to sign a form or something for them to print a fucking picture of her? Don’t they know that they’ve just ruined everything with some fucking picture?
There’s no way to get out of this now. It’s a question of how little she can tell without giving it all up.
That Emily would accuse her in the first place stings. That Emily’s almost right, tears at her insides. That Naomi’s instinct, the lie that isn’t quite a lie, comes so easily to her is frightening.
It’s survival instinct though. Fight or flight. Naomi’s not giving up, she’s not running anymore, she’s not going to let something that didn’t mean anything - because it didn’t, it really fucking didn’t - ruin them.
---
Naomi can’t quite take it in. She was being stalked. Sophia had stalked her. She had her fucking toothbrush. It’s horrible, knowing that she’d been watching Naomi. Did she plan this? All along, was this what she had wanted? Was this why she’d talked to her at the open day?
Emily breaks the tension, stops her thoughts. Her grin, that smile she gives Naomi brings respite. She can breathe again, because her and Emily are going to be ok now. Emily knows enough, and she’s still there. She doesn’t need to hear any of the other stuff that doesn’t matter, she doesn’t need to know any of that stuff that could ruin them.
It’s easy. To kiss her, and to hold her, and to believe that the worst is behind them now.