Effy.
You weren't looking for anything, though you never have and yet things always seem to find you. You don't try. Effy stonem never tries and yet where there's trouble and drama, whether it's yours or not you get warped in somehow. Fucking soap operas.
There's a party, one of your last in Bristol probably since you're a few weeks away from fucking off to uni, leaving all the bullshit that this place has never given you a break from. And even though you know that as long as where you go is populated there's always going to be bullshit, for once it won't concern you. You won't have to be the fixer even though these past couple of years with your parents has only served to teach you that some things can't be fixed. But away from here, away from all who know you, there'll be no one that expects you to.
Maybe you can be somebody else. Someone who's not you.
You see her, and she's not that hard to spot since she's about the only person not parading around on the makeshift dance floor in the living room.
You watch amused for a minute as she turns down some guy flat with not much more of a roll of her eyes and a barb which you can't make out from where you are. Right, no bullshit you think with a smirk before you take your cue.
"Fancy a smoke? Reckon it's probably safer in the garden" you say and jerk your head in the direction of the guy who's now suffering from what looks like a right royal piss taking from his mates.
She looks slightly surprised for a second, follows your eyeline and then looks back up at you with a smirk of her own. "Right." She says, grabbing her wine and standing. "Why the fuck not."
You smoke the entire spliff in a silence that probably means nothing to her, but confirms in your mind that this wasn't a mistake. You watch her intently as she casts funny looks at you in return, you can feel her growing more irritated by the minute and you almost want to laugh.
"Is there something on my face? Or are you waiting for me to break the ice? because if you didn't pick it up from the preview in there I should point out that i'm fucking shit at making conversation." A sigh then, before adding in a smaller voice, "I don't even know what i'm doing here."
You know she means the party, but she's also probably questioning her decision to venture out into the garden with the chronic starer and so instead of replying you show her that you get it, how unnecessary words can be (you know a thing or two about getting by without words). You lean in and kiss her, swallowing the small sound of surprise before you pull back and say "I don't want you to 'break the ice', I don't want you to say anything."
She looks at you thoughtfully for a long moment, and then her face breaks into a totally stoned grin.
"Safer in the garden my arse" she says, before pulling you back in.
And that was how it began. You and Naomi. You can't give it a name, nor do you want to. But it's without any of the things you might associate with dating, no actual dates for a start, and you know that's why it's happening in the first place.
Those final weeks of summer became about Naomi. Naomi's body, parts of Naomis life, which you learned not from heartfelt confessions, but from seeing. Like when you saw her living situation, and knew you weren't the only one who couldn't wait to get the fuck out.
You don't believe in fate in the sense where there's no control, but you do believe significant events aren't without reason. You saw her for a reason, but you chose to go over. And when Naomi had said where she was headed soon "Way up north, Manchester, big fucking change you know?" All you could think was of course.
It turned out that you were going to the same city, but not Uni. Whilst neither of your houses had been the best environment for studying it seemed that when you'd been escaping yours to the pub, Naomi had opted for the library. Unsurprisingly, you'd come away with fairly different results.
She's staying at your halls tonight though, looking like a giant contradiction with her politics textbook In one hand and a joint in the other. You watch in amusement as she tuts and tosses the book the floor before stretching out next to you.
"Ah, finally realised politicians are wankers? Bit late now."
"Shut up." She she says haughtily. "I can't possibly concentrate when my brain thinks the more pressing issue is whether to order pizza or chinese. Bloody spliff. You're going to ruin my education you know."
"Better hand it over then" you say plucking it from her fingertips and taking a deep drag that results in a small sound of protest from her and a snort from you.
Stoned Naomi reminds you of that first night, and she looks as entirely lovely now as she did then. It's a bit startling then, that her next question is this:
"Why did you kiss me Eff? I mean, why did you...you didn't even know my name."
More stoned than you thought, since this has been something you both just slipped into without questioning, and this is the first time she has.
"I knew enough." You say, stubbing out the joint and pressing her into the mattress, kissing her deeply and putting the conversation to bed quite literally.