We're lying idly on my bed having a lazy afternoon after college. We're laughing, cuddled up together in our own little bubble of love. It's nice, how we can be like this, together, just because we can.
"Stay over tonight," I'm not asking her. I know she loves that I just tell her to stay, like going her going home is not an option. Which really it's not. I hate waking up alone, not being able to see Emily. I like to watch her sleep and when she wakes, have her kiss me in that lazy morning way.
"I didn't bring any clothes with me." I know she's just teasing me, knowing that I love her in my clothes. It's like branding her as mine. Possessive and slightly creepy I know, but when you have a stunning girlfriend like I do, it's necessary.
"Wear mine. You look better in them anyhow."
She smiles, "I do?"
"Mmm. Amazing," I say while lazily tracing circles on her flat stomach.
"And what about underwear?" she smiles devilishly.
"What about it?" I raise my eyebrows.
"I can't wear the same pair twice. That's gross," she wrinkles up her nose. It's so cute I can't resist placing a quick butterfly kiss on it.
"So don't wear any then," I smile cheekily knowing Emily will be offended, but slightly curious and turned on by the suggestion.
"Naomi! No! I can't do that. Can I?"
"I think you can do anything," I say, a throwaway comment reminding her of the first time we really spent any time together, just us. I look at the clock and sigh, "Spose we should some coursework."
She sighs, "Yeah. We should."
We lay there for a few more minutes, cuddling, appreciating just being together. It's Emily who makes the first move to get up. I follow her. We gather our coursework and head downstairs to the kitchen. Mum's sitting at the table.
"Hi girls," she smiles. Mum loves Emily, Treats Emily like family, making tea for her in the morning and giving her a set of towels to use when she stays over. She loves to tease her. Usually it's sexual and related to me, making Emily blush the same colour as her hair. If it wasn't so cute watching Emily squirm, I would tell Mum to shut up. She's still a bloody annoying cow, but I do appreciate how cool she's been about the whole Emily thing.
We walk down the college steps, our hands intertwined perfectly. We walk together until we reach the corner, left to my house, right to Emily's.
I turn and look into her eyes, drowning in their beauty. I smile and squeeze our hands tighter together, "Um well I guess this is goodnight then." I don't want to let go, let her go.
"What?" she narrows her eyes at me. "You allow me a very public declaration of love, tell me you love me and you aren't even going to take me home? Are you embarrassed by me or something? God Naomi. I thought after tonight you were over all that. I'm so stupid."
I shake my head. This is not how things are supposed to go. "Emily I know I've given you a lot of reasons to doubt me and I can't promise that I won't mess up sometimes but I'm not embarrassed by you, not at all. I am over not wanting anyone, because I do want you, so much. I was just saying goodnight because I didn't want to presume anything. I figured you, I don't know, might want to take this, us, slow or something..." I trail off and look away unsure of myself. It's only been ten minutes and I'm already screwing this up.
She lifts my chin and looks me in the eyes, "I'm sorry Naomi. I didn't think. It's true, you have given me a lot of reasons to doubt you, but now just like you have to try not to run, I'm going to have to try to have faith in your motives and trust you. It's really sweet that you think I'd want to take this slow and you know if we'd had a more conventional beginning to our relationship, I might want to. But I think we're past all that now. And you look really, really beautiful..." now she trails off. She looks me up and down, an appreciative look forming in her dark chocolate eyes.
I'm surprised. No one has ever called me beautiful, except Mum and that doesn't count. "You think I look beautiful?"
"Of course. You always look beautiful. You are beautiful," she reaches up and strokes my cheek.
"Not as beautiful as you Emily Fitch. When I saw you tonight you literally took my breath away. And even more so when you ditched the purple for this," I run my hands up and down the side of her curves.
She shudders.
"My place?" I raise my eyebrows.
"Please," she takes my hand and we turn left towards my house.
It takes us another 15 minutes to walk to my place. The whole time Emily is shivering and I can't stop worrying about her bare feet. I offer to carry her and she just looks at me and laughs, calling me surprisingly sweet. As we come up the path to my house I stop and scoop Emily up into my arms, no longer able to stand her shivering form.
"Naomi! Put me down," she screeches.
I just laugh continuing to the door. If she wants to get down she can. I know secretly she loves it. The door opens before us and there stands Mum.
"Hello dear. Emily," Mum smiles.
"Hi Mum."
"Um hi Gina," Emily says, her face turning impossibly red. She looks up at me, "Put me down?"
"Oh right, yeah." I put her down and we walk inside.
"You look very nice Emily. How was it? You're home early. Was the ball not fun? Emily where are your shoes?" Mum throws a barrage of questions at us.
"Chill out Mum. The ball was...eventful."
Emily stifles a laugh.
"But why isn't Emily wearing any shoes? Did something happen? Are you okay?"
"Oh don't worry about it Gina. It was fine. Will you excuse us please?" She looks up at me, "Can we go upstairs?"
"Wait," I pull on her hand, stopping her. "Mum, this is Emily-"
She interrupts me, "I know that dear."
I roll my eyes, "Obviously. Before you interrupted I was going to say, this is Emily my girlfriend. I love her," I place extra emphasis on the word girlfriend. Emily squeezes my hand. I look at her and she is beaming. I'll never get sick of seeing her smile.
"Oh. I see," Mum says, a sort of proud, happy look coming over her features. "Well that's fantastic love. Couldn't have picked better than this one," she comes over and hugs us both, and for once I don't mind. I'm just glad Mum is being so calm about my being in love with a girl.
She eventually lets us go, "Anyway I'm off."
"You are?" I ask.
"Mmm. I do have a life Naomi, contrary to popular belief. I'm off to Kieran's. And I trust you two will want some alone time. Bye love, Emily. Look after her Naomi."
I turn red from Mum's not so subtle remark about me and Emily wanting 'alone' time, "I will. See you." I watch Mum leave the door shutting behind her. I take Emily by the hand and lead her upstairs to my room and shut the door behind us. I turn to Emily, "So...?"
"You called me your girlfriend," she looks at me in wonderment.
"Yeah. You are my girlfriend...right?" suddenly unsure of myself.
She laughs, "Don't look so worried. Of course you are. God, I'd bloody hope so after everything."
"About that. I'm so sorry Ems. I wish I could back and tell myself to stop being such a prick, to get over myself and just let you in." A finger across my lips silences me.
"Stop. We'll talk about that. We will. I promise. But right now there are more important things."
"There are?"
"Yeah," her voice drops about two octaves lower than normal, making my knees turn to jelly. "Like the fact that we love each other. Like the fact that we just officially became a couple tonight and I want to celebrate that. Like the fact that you look so beautiful in that dress. Like the fact that we have the house to ourselves and there are so many things I want to do to you."
"Oh. Yeah, those things" I smile, my heart beating rapidly in anticipation of Emily's next move.
"So shut up and just let me kiss you. Okay?"
I nod. She wraps an arm around me, her hand resting on the top of my bum and places the other behind my head drawing us together. At first her lips touch mine almost like a whisper. I lean in, hungry. She pulls my head in further to her and I respond by pressing our bodies tight together. Her lips move against mine languidly. I press my tongue at her lips and she willingly accepts it, my tongue slipping into her mouth and dancing with hers. She stumbles back until we hit my bed and fall on it, me on top of her, kissing her hungrily.
"Perfection, How did I resist this for so long?" is my last thought before I am entirely taken up in Emily.
Later that night we're lying together in a post-coital embrace. Her head rests on my shoulder. I love sitting, lying like this, always touching. The TV is on but we are too wrapped up in each other to pay it any attention. She looks up at me, "I can't believe uni is only six months away."
"Mmm. Better than college though."
"True. That place is a dump."
Understatement of the century. I roll my eyes, "Obviously. They let Cook in."
She laughs. "Where do you think we'll be next year?"
"That's easy. At our respective universities, studying, partying, making friends."
Her brow furrows, "Our respective universities? What do you mean?"
"Wherever we end up."
We never did talk about university in this sense. We talked about going and what we wanted to study but never where. That was too much of a dangerous conversation. I had no idea where Emily wanted to go, it could be in bloody Scotland for all I know. The only thing I did tell her was that she had to apply for Oxbridge because she is freakishly smart and would be crazy not to try.
"Wherever we end up? You make it sound like you don't even care if we end up at the same university or not," she splutters.
"I do care," I say, trying to sound sincere because I do care a lot more than I'm prepared to let on. It's been weighing on my mind, wondering about what will happen to us. We can't end but I'm scared that if we never see each other because we're split up by distance, then it will happen without either of us realising.
"What's going to happen next year then?"
"I don't know Ems." But I certainly fucking hope it involves you, I think to myself.
"What do you mean you don't know?" her voice is edgy.
"Exactly that. I don't know."
"It should be an easy question to answer Naomi," she sounds pissed off, her eyes narrow at me.
I look at her, eyebrows raised, willing her to continue, to tell me all about our life together because that's what she does. She tells me how it is and I follow her. Emily knows everything, always has a plan.
"Fucking great," she gets out of bed, scrambling around for her clothes.
I don't understand. This is far too reminiscent of last year before the Love Ball. "Emily," I sigh. "Don't. Please. Stay." I don't mean to hurt her, but I do. "Please," I say weakly, begging her to stay.
"No Naomi. God it's like a fucking flashback to last year. I wasn't asking you if know what will happen next year. I was asking you what you hope will happen next year and you couldn't fucking say anything. You're supposed to say something Naomi. God. You never change do you really?" she yells at me. By this time she is fully dressed, roughly shoving shoes on to her feet.
I sit there shell shocked at her outburst, her eyes boring a hole into mine. I'm speechless.
She shakes her head, "It's like you take one step forward and then two more back. I'm sick of it," her voice is thick, tears threatening to spill out of her beautiful eyes. She turns on her heel and flees my room. The door slams and I hear her thunder down the stairs. I hear the front door click shut.
I feel something wet drip on my chest and realise tears are rolling down my cheeks at rapid speed. I think Emily just broke up with me. I start to sob. My bedroom door opens and I look up in hope, thinking it's Emily. It's Mum. I sob harder, unable to hide my emotions.
"Oh love," she sits down on the edge of my bed and hugs me.
The fact that I'm butt naked under the covers should be awkward but I'm too upset to even bother caring. I just lean into the embrace, soaking her shoulder with tears while she shushes me and rubs my back.
After a few minutes she pulls me back and I lie down. She lies down beside me and turns over to face me, a look of concern gracing her features.
"I heard Emily shouting at you love. She seemed pretty angry."
I nod.
"From the sounds of it I think she probably overreacted a bit. Remember that you gave her a lot of reasons to doubt you last year. She won't have forgotten all of that."
I sigh, "I know. But it hasn't been like that for ages. I mean sometimes I still say silly things and she gets mad at me but we always make up. The only time she was ever that mad at me was that time last year when she stormed out before the Love Ball."
"Love you have to understand that most people aren't like you. I know you went into this relationship totally accepting Emily as she is. But she went into it hoping, expecting you would change. She expected you to slip up, revert back to your old ways, and you have but she thought eventually it would end. I would guess that she's a little bit of sick of it, wondering if you're a lost cause."
I look at her in awe, "How do you know all of this Mum?"
"I know Emily pretty well. I talk to her quite a bit you know. And the rest I am guessing from what I've observed of you two."
"Does she talk to you about me? About us?"
"Of course. You're a big part of her life, the biggest. It's not your average teenage relationship. You know that. She risked a lot to be with you Naomi."
"I know."
"Do you really? You know her Mum still isn't talking to her? Just goes about her day pretending Emily doesn't exist."
"No. That's not true. She told me it was all fine at home. Ages ago."
"And you believed her. Did you not notice how much time she's been spending here? She practically lives here. Not that I mind," Mum rushes to add.
"She wouldn't lie to me."
"She would to protect you."
"Protect me?"
"She knew how much it was tearing you up when you knew about her Mum not talking to her. She was worried you were going to break up with her on the premise of it being the best thing for her."
I nod. The thought had crossed my mind at the time.
"And she didn't want that. So she lied, to protect you, to protect herself really. And she kept lying because it was easier. Would you really want to hear you're the reason her home life is so shitty?"
I shake my head. "I would've felt terrible. I did, back when it was happening."
"She hated making you feel like that. Because it isn't your fault, not really. Emily would still be gay if you weren't around. Her Mum just won't accept that."
"I don't understand. Emily's exactly the same as she's always been."
"I know that. You know that. Even Katie and her Dad know that. Her Mum'll come round. Now how are you going to fix this? Because you need to fix this. You need Emily as much as she needs you."
"I'll apologise."
"I think it might take a bit more than that love, but it's a start. Oh is that the time? Kieran and I supposed to be meeting for a drink and then I'm staying over at his. Will you be okay? I'll stay if you want."
"Go. No point in ruining another person's night."
"If you're sure..."
"Go! Have fun," I order her. I just want to be alone to think. She gets up. As she's at the door I say, "Thanks Mum."
"I'll always be here for you."
"I know," I give her a half-smile.
I've decided that I should brave the Fitch house to go and see Emily, and make this all better. I need Emily in my life. Living without her isn't an option. I'm seriously considering calling Katie, who I've kind of reached an impasse with, to ask her for advice when my phone buzzes. I hope to god its Emily.
Emily's sitting on the corner. She looks cold. Love Mum.
Bloody hell, she was only wearing a thin singlet and skirt. It's still cold at night even though it's almost summertime. I scramble out of bed and quickly chuck on some clothes. I pick up my phone, my keys and a jumper for Emily. Coincidentally it's the green jumper I was wearing our first time at the lake.
I shut the front door and immediately see the tiny person shivering at the end of the street. I start to walk towards her. I call Emily and pretend to act surprised when I can hear her phone ringing. I rush over to her, pulling the jumper over her head before she has enough time to protest. Her skin is ice cold.
"What are you doing here? You half frozen to death. Come on, let's get you inside."
She shakes her head, "You don't get to come out here and be the hero Naomi. What are you even doing out anyway? Going to lose yourself with Effy?" she raises her eyebrows, challenging me.
"I was coming to see you. I ready to go to your house and then Mum texted me, saying she'd seen you sitting here. You saved me a lot of time really."
Her eyes widen a little, "Oh. You were going to go to my house? But what about my Mum?"
I shake my head, "She doesn't scare me, well actually she does. But that doesn't matter. All that does matter is finding you and making things right, even if I have to cross your Mum," I put my hand on top of hers.
"You would do that for me?" she sounds confused.
"Of course I would."
"You're so confusing Naomi. One minute you're rejecting me, the next you're saying you'd face my mother. I don't understand you. And trying to is exhausting me," she sounds exasperated.
I sigh and put a hand up to my temple, "I didn't mean to upset you Emily. And I wasn't trying to reject you, far from it. I was waiting for you to tell me all about the life we would lead at university. I'm not used to having to think up the answers because you always have them all Em and I'm just running along beside you trying to catch up."
"I can't always have them though Naomi. You need to make decisions too. I can't tell you everything. It's tiring. I'm tired."
"I know, and I'm sorry. But I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"I want you to be happy and I thought letting you take control did that. And what if I make the wrong decisions? If I make a mistake?"
"It's exhausting wondering if what I decide is what you want too. And when I try to ask you, you just say whatever. It's not meant to be like that. We're supposed to decide things together, as a couple. To work out what's best for us. It's give and take Naomi. And you're just so passive, so blasé. Sometimes I wonder if you care."
"No. Don't say that."
"I do wonder sometimes Naomi. I think you need to know that. We're supposed to be a team."
I nod, "Okay. We can do that."
"Can we? Can you?" she sounds dubious, unbelieving.
"I can try. I want to. I'll do whatever it takes Em. If I'm doing the wrong thing you might have to tell me, pull me up on it. You know I'm not good at this relationship stuff, but I want to be. I want to be better at it, for you, to make you happy. That's all I want in life, is to be with you, making you happy. And it seems I'm not very good at it. And it's the only thing that I've ever really, really wanted to be good at, because you mean everything to me Emily. When you walked out tonight I thought that we were over and I started to fall apart. You not being in my life isn't an option," I stop, emotion overcoming me, tears welling up in my eyes. It's probably the most frank, honest, soul baring thing I've ever said in my life.
Her eyes widen, "See, there needs to be more of this sharing. I need to know what you're thinking. For the first time I finally feel like I know that. You let me see little parts of you but never the whole thing. I have to guess the rest. I need to see the whole thing Naomi, good, bad, ugly," she stops.
I nod, "Okay. I can do that. I want to. But can we please go inside? It's cold out and you're shivering like crazy."
She nods.
Inside we head straight to the comfort of my warm bed. I lie down on my back, Emily on her stomach. Our arms are brushing, our heads turned in towards each other, so close our noses almost touch and I feel her warm breath on my face.
"Have I really been that bad this year? I thought I was better. I thought I was doing okay."
"You have been better. I was just mad at you so I said stuff that wasn't totally true. I know you've been trying and you've changed a lot. But sometimes, well quite a bit of the time it feels like you're holding back."
"Before when you asked about uni and everything..."
"Yeah?" she looks worried.
I rub her back, trying to appease her worries, "Honestly I don't care what happens as long as I have you. That's all that matters."
Emily raises her eyebrows, "You don't have your heart set on going somewhere?"
"Well sure. UCL, that's my dream. But I want to be somewhere that isn't too far away from you. I know that we could do the long distance thing. I believe we would survive it, but..." I trail off, unable to find words to express what I want to say.
I feel Emily nodding, our noses brushing, "I know. But what if you get into UCL and I get the grades for Manchester? I don't want you to settle somewhere you're not happy just for me. That will never end well. You know the teachers are right when they say you shouldn't plan your future around someone else. I mean don't take that the wrong .way. I just think in the long run, you'll be unhappy, or I'll be unhappy, if one of us goes to a university just so we can be closer together. University is important."
I sigh, "First off, you most definitely will get the grades for Manchester. You could go Oxbridge way if you wanted to."
She shakes her head against my skin.
"But you sent the applications yeah? I thought you did the interviews when I went to Liverpool to see my aunt."
"Yeah I did. But there's no way I'll get into either of them. It's a dream. But that's it, a dream."
"You are brilliant and they'd be crazy not to take you. But back to the point, I am planning my future around you because you are my future Em. The rest is just background noise."
Emily gets up, holding herself up with each arm either side of me, her eyes shining, a smile playing on her lips. "You really mean that?" her voice is hopeful.
I nod, "Yeah. I really do. I don't tell you this enough, but I love you Ems, like I really fucking love you. It's more than just first love, teenage love, and all that. This is real, you know? You and me are forever. This is the real deal, house, marriage, 2.5 kids and all that." I exhale, my breath shaky. I've put myself into a very vulnerable position and my heart is pounding, anticipating Emily's reaction. I've been thinking about everything, us for ages, since before we were even together. And I just know that this is something special and I've got to grab it with both hands and hold on to it forever. No one I'll ever meet will ever be a special or be able to come close to how Emily makes me feel.
Emily's expression is unreadable, almost blank. Her eyes are wide and a few tears rolling down her cheeks, a couple dripping on to my jumper.
I wrinkle my brow in concern, worrying that I've scared her or worse, somehow upset her again. "Ems, are you okay?"
She lowers herself, straddling me. Her hand rests on my forehead, smoothing out my frown and she smiles the most brilliant smile at me. "God Naomi. Way to make a girl swoon."
I laugh weakly, "Yeah that's me. God's gift to women. But seriously, you're not freaked out...?"
She lowers her head and places a sweet kiss on my lips, "A little yeah, but not for the reasons you think. I'm freaked out because I'm wondering where my girlfriend is and who this girl in front of me is. Because my girlfriend while being a total sweetheart likes to keep her feelings to herself, letting me guess what's going on with her. The girl in front of me is saying things that scarily sound like things I want her to say, but realise she'll always be too scared to."
I grin. "Do you like this girl?" I lean up and place a soft kiss on her lips.
Emily's eyes light up, "Very much. She's saying amazing stuff that's making my heart pound and I just want to check that it is in fact my girlfriend," she smiles cheekily at me."
"My heart is pounding just as hard, wondering if my girlfriend will run away because I've just revealed everything I want in this relationship, where I see us going."
Emily shakes her head, "Not at all. She is shocked, but very, very happy. Seriously Nai, do you mean it all, everything you said?"
I nod furiously, because I mean every word.
Emily smiles, beams and then lowers her head, her lips finding mine. The kiss starts off slow and sweet but I need more. I slip a hand into her silky hair and wrap the other around her tiny waist. Her tongue presses at my lips and I allow it entrance immediately, needing to taste her. Eventually she pulls back, "God," she breathes. "Wow. Sorry I'm still amazed. You want marriage and babies? You don't really seem the type..."
"I'm not, I wasn't. But you make me want all that. I want to wake up in your bed every morning and kiss you. I want to have little Emily's running around, sending me mental and making my hair go grey. I want you."
She's silent.
I start to worry again, "You want all of that...don't you? I thought that's what you dreamed of."
"I do. But I never really believed that you would...I don't know. I kind of hoped and wished but thought that I would be lucky just to have you. And that if we did end up having all of that, I would have to slowly convince you into it. I never thought it would be like this," she laughs.
"It's all you Ems. Like I said, you make me want that. Stuff I never dreamed of, hoped for and now I want it all."
"Naomi Campbell you take my breath away. Here I was tonight thinking we were all but over and then you go and say all this. You are constantly full of surprises. You're very sweet under the tough exterior you portray you know that?" she giggles.
I pretend to sigh heavily and pout, "I know. You've turned me into this big ball of mush."
She pokes me, "Well I happen to think you needed a little mush."
"Maybe."
"Definitely."
"Yeah."