AUTHOR'S NOTE!
This is my take on various scenes from Episode 9, from both Naomi's and Emily's point of view in turn. I'm trying to fill in some of the gaps left to our imagination by the brilliant Skins writing team. Please do review and let me know what you think! I'm writing this story at the same time as continuing the chapters of my s4 story as I want to switch between the two for variety!
As I approached the steps leading up to the college entrance I was vaguely aware of some ridiculously loud music pumping out from some car that was passing close by. I thought it sounded like something by Lady Gaga but in all honesty I didn't really pay much attention to it. I was far more concerned with trying to stay upright in Katie's ludicrously high heels that she had insisted I wore.
I'd almost fallen over on my arse twice already since leaving home and I was longing to get into the exam room and just sit down. Plus, the short tight skirt I had somehow managed to force myself into to complete the disguise was making me feel both incredibly self-conscious and doubled up in agony.
How the fuck does Katie wear this stuff? I feel like a cheap little tart. Still, if I want to pull off this stunt I've got to look the part, haven't I. I've got to convince them I'm Katie or we'll both end up in the shit. Mind you, even if I do fool them into thinking I'm her and I actually get into the exam room, what the hell do I do then? If I'm pretending to be Katie do I deliberately fail the exam or do I revert back to Emily and do my best to pass it? After all, the chances of Katie passing her History exam were roughly somewhere between slim and none. Normally she can barely remember what happened last week let alone several fucking hundred years ago!'
As I entered the building and made my way slowly towards the registration desk where I knew Doug would be sitting, my hands started to get clammy and my throat became really dry. Get a grip, girl, I told myself, now is not the time to bottle it. Either go through with it or turn around and get the hell out of here!
But I knew I couldn't duck out of it now – I had promised Katie I would do the exam for her. She was so scared to leave the house because she said she looked terrible with that awful bandage and all those bruises. She had begged me to do this one thing for her and, because she was my sister and I loved her, I had agreed to do it for her. I would much rather have been spending the whole time with Naomi instead, chilling out with her somewhere, preferably in her bedroom. Just the thought of Naomi then brought a smile to my face as I began to imagine all the things I could be doing with her right now, particularly if her Mum was out which she often was!
I snapped myself out of my delicious daydream and forced myself to concentrate on what I had to do. The first task was to get past Doug but that turned out to be a piece of piss. He never had been able to tell me and Katie apart all year even though we dressed totally differently, sounded completely different and even looked quite different - if you really bothered to look closely. If I did get found out eventually I reckoned Doug should take a fair share of the blame for falling for one of the oldest tricks in the book!! He was totally taken in by the bandage which I had slaved over for ages to make look really convincing. That, along with more make up you could shake a stick at to make me look like Katie and to give the appearance of some really nasty bruising, made it dead easy for me to fool him.
I did have one hairy moment when I accidentally bumped into JJ in the corridor. He thought I was Katie though, so I reckoned I had got away with it and I sat down at my desk with increasing confidence and filled in Katie's name at the top of the paper. Just as well Katie wasn't sitting one of my exams for me, it occurred to me. The silly cow would probably have filled in her own name at the top!
Then just as the exam was about to start this note suddenly appeared in front of me. I read it and looked around in total horror only to see JJ smiling nervously at me from the next desk. 'You're Emily' the note had said and for one moment I had thought the game was up, that I was totally fucked. But JJ was no fool. He had worked out what was going on. I suppose I might have expected the one guy whose bed I had shared not so long ago to have been able to recognise close up the only girl he had slept with in his whole life!
After the exam was over I made my way over to Katie's locker and started to take out some stuff of hers that she wanted and put in my bag. I was feeling absolutely shattered, still living on the edge of my nerves and badly in need of a pick-me up. Then when I closed the locker shut there it was – my pick-me up, staring right at me from just a few inches away! Naomi!! She was looking as gorgeous and hot as ever and I felt my heart miss a few beats and my chest tighten as she smiled at me, admiring the handiwork on my face.
'Nice job,' she said approvingly, reaching her fingers up to the bandaged area to examine it closer.
'Don't!' I replied, smiling back at her and pushing her fingers away. 'Stop it! It took fucking ages!'
'Yeah well, I wish I had someone to pass my exams for me.'
But I knew she didn't really mean that. She didn't need anyone to take her exams for her. Naomi was clever and bright and she worked hard – when she knew she had to. In fact, she was the complete opposite of Katie in that respect.
We spoke briefly about the night of the barbecue in the woods, the cause of why I was standing here right now made up to look like Katie. We both agreed it had been an eventful evening and she cracked some joke about adultery making a party go with a swing.
It was only meant as a throw away remark, light-hearted, not intended to be hurtful. It was like so many of Naomi's trademark wisecracks and sarcastic one-liners which I'd always loved seeing her come out with when it was Cook or someone else on the receiving end. But this was different. It did upset me, even if only very briefly and I didn't attempt to hide it.
I told her that it wasn't funny what she'd just said and that Effy had really hurt Katie which I knew more than anyone else to be the truth. I'd witnessed at close hand over the last few days how withdrawn and depressed Katie had become. I'd watched like a helpless spectator as her usual overpowering self-confidence had seemed to completely evaporate before my eyes. The loud, brash, in your face Katie was no more – in its place was a just a hollow shell of her former self, a shell into which she retreated more and more as each day passed by..
But then no sooner had Naomi stung me with her little jibe about the barbecue when she started flirting with me, telling me how nice I looked wearing Katie's clothes – from the neck down! I couldn't help breaking out into a big grin at her typically cheeky comment and that momentary awkwardness I had just started to feel towards her quickly evaporated in a puff of smoke as I allowed myself to be flattered by her attentions.
But then just as I was starting to let all my feelings for her wash all over me again like a huge tidal wave, she came out with the thunderbolt that almost knocked me right off my feet. I swear my heart stopped for the briefest of seconds, all time seemed to stand still around me as her next words echoed around in my head like she was screaming them right into my ear.
'I think I'm going away for the summer.'
Not 'I 'm thinking of going away for the summer but only if you'll come with me.' Nor even 'I was thinking of going away for the summer but now I'd rather stay here and spend it with you.' There appeared to be no room for me in the simple statement of intention she had come out with. I didn't seem to be part of her decision-making process.
There were so many thoughts and questions whirring around in my head once she'd said that but I was obviously so confused, so bewildered by the message she appeared to be giving out that all I could bring myself to say was 'Oh.' It may have sounded nonchalant, casual, and almost indifferent to an innocent bystander but it concealed such a chilling fear of what might follow that I dared not put into words.
What she then went on to say felt like a dagger being plunged into my heart. She wanted to go abroad, Spain or Cyprus, by herself to spend some time alone doing some thinking - by herself!! So I was to be totally put to one side, was I, left to fend for myself while she ran away, again, God knows where and for how long, to do some thinking? Thinking that clearly couldn't be done with me in the same country as her.
I asked the only question that could be asked in that situation, the only question that deserved to be asked, that anyone in the world would have asked had they been me.
'About what?'
I don't know if I expected her to give me a straight answer. Maybe I thought she wouldn't give any explanation at all but would just mumble something vague like 'Just things, stuff, you know.' What I wasn't prepared for in any way was her immediate reply, so instantaneous it was almost as if she had rehearsed exactly what she was going to say if I was to ask her that question.
'Let's just be friends, OK?'
Just five words. That's all it took to turn my world upside down there and then. I felt an icy coldness suddenly spread right through every part of my body. It seemed to have numbed all my senses. I shot out an instant response like a reflex action, the only thing I could think of in a split second and I delivered it with all the calmness and composure that I could muster to hide the depths of confusion and misery I was feeling deep down inside.
'We say that, don't we?' I made sure I never took my eyes off her as I said it.
'Yeah. Have a good summer.' But the desperately nervous half smile she gave as she said her final goodbye and turned to walk away betrayed her discomfort, her unease and, so I thought, or maybe just hoped and prayed, the utter lack of conviction in everything she had just been saying.
As I watched her slowly walk away from me, perhaps never to return, certainly not as the same Naomi, my Naomi, with whom I'd spent the most amazing nine months of my life so far, I couldn't stop the one simple truth from escaping my parched lips and hanging in the air between us like a cloud of dust.
'I'll miss you.'
It stopped her instantly in her tracks. She bowed her head, gave out the heaviest and saddest sigh I'd ever heard her give and shook her head gently from side to side. I was afraid she would just carry on walking or, even worse, break into a run to put as much distance as she could between herself and the pain and sorrow she knew I must be feeling. Instead she turned smartly on her heels and came back towards me, her eyes fixed on my bewildered expression. What was she going to come out with now?
I didn't quite know what to expect, but I was hardly prepared for what happened next as she pushed me back against the lockers and started kissing me passionately and repeatedly, with a desperate longing that I eagerly returned. My heart started leaping for joy again after having only seconds ago plumbed the depths of despair.
All the while she was kissing me she kept crying softly 'I can't stand it. I just can't!'
In return all I could whisper back to comfort her, or perhaps in reality it was largely to encourage her to carry on kissing me, was 'It's OK, it's OK.' I clung on to her like I was clinging on to the rest of my life as I lost all sense of time and place.
Not for the first time I was having trouble getting my head round Naomi's sudden mood swings. How could she switch so easily, so effortlessly from coldness, aloofness, even downright indifference to unbridled passion and joy unconfined? I was so confused about whether she really wanted me or not but, frankly, at this precise moment I was just happy to feel her pressed right up against me and smothering me with her kisses.
I think we might have carried on holding on to each other and kissing like that all day if we hadn't suddenly become aware of the sound of voices rapidly approaching from around the corridor. We reluctantly broke apart just as Freddie and a couple of other guys came into full view. We looked at each other and we both knew we had to get out of there; we had to get right away from everyone else and find our own little private space. We needed to be alone to explore and ultimately satisfy the burning fires of passion that were raging within us
