It's easier, isn't it? Easier to burn everything and walk the other way. This is how she's felt comfortable operating for years and it wasn't an aspect she was looking to change in her life any time soon. Easier solutions. Run, burn, rinse and repeat. Don't let anyone get close enough to hurt you, burn them first when you think you see it coming. Sure, it leaves marks. Of course in would, sometimes you don't even want to burn anything, you just feel trapped and it's easier to light the match and just fucking burn it all. She'd stuck by this theory since she was a child. Maybe that was where this had all started? She couldn't be sure anymore, her entire life was flip-flopping as she watched helplessly.

She was cornered at 17, burned it all at 18 and here, at 23, it's all come back to bite her in the ass. Naomi Campbell never wanted to stay in Bristol. It was swallowing her a little bit more, year after year, and it's appetite only seemed to expand when she met Emily Fitch. It was scary at first, then comfortable, then too comfortable to the point that it scared her again. A vicious fucking circle. When she started picturing babies and homes and white picket fences, all in fucking Bristol, she knew the goddamn town's teeth were at her most vulnerable point and if she didn't light that match, she'd be devoured. That's all Sophia was, the poor girl, she was a match and even though it had all gone down so ugly, she still didn't feel guilty about what she'd done. At least what happened to Sophia. Surely, she had started the fire, but it wasn't her fucking fault the chick was batshit crazy.

That was the first time that she had tried to put out the fire before too much got damaged. She'd hidden it, cried about it, fought tooth and nail for forgiveness when all the damage was revealed. But it was too late, wasn't it? At least it was made to seem so. Emily changed in the instant she knew she had been betrayed and it was already too late to run, or she didn't want to, so Naomi put up with it all. It was borderline abuse, now that she thinks about it. The coldness, the theft of her bed and her home and her heart. Someone, surely, somewhere would tell her that she was in the right for leaving. Or that is what she told herself time and time again. She didn't have anything to stay for anymore, right? It had all gone to shit.

They'd finally called things off after they tried to have a go at it in the summer, it just wasn't the same. Emily wanted to drink and Naomi wanted to read. Emily wanted to fuck when Naomi wanted to make love. She fucking missed Emily, her gentle Emily, not the drug-taking, smoking and hateful girl that had replaced her. Emily wanted to float and Naomi wanted to grow. She was too fucking smart and gifted and just… she couldn't stay in Bristol. When Emily started fucking other girls, she made her decision and accepted the invitation to study at New York University. New country, new life. She didn't need to burn Emily, because it had been burned the moment she let Sophia touch her and she was aware of it now, but they had lived in the remains for too long so leaving still left wounds, and the soot and ash from their former lives had compacted itself deeply in their skin, leaving scars so they could move on but never forget.

She'd managed four years away from Bristol, only visiting for one Christmas that second year she was away and never again after it. She'd run into Emily and her new 'friend' one night when she'd ventured out with Cook and it still hurt so bad, a year later, that she cried the whole walk home with Cook's arm firmly planted around her shoulders. He didn't know what to say, how to make it right. Or even if Naomi had wanted it to be made right. So he rubbed her arm and let her cry and led her home. They had started that fire together, and he never let her think she was facing it alone. He kissed her again, like that day on the grass in front of her house, the day she left Bristol for the final time and she knew it didn't mean what most people thought it would. They were best friends, they got each other. She told him then at the check-in she wouldn't be back and she boarded the plane to New York and that was it.

As soon as he was cleared to leave the country, he had shown up on her doorstep with just a duffle bag and she hugged him for what felt like an hour. They were best friends, they'd stick together. They'd made a pact to leave it all behind, and never fuck a girl with a name starting with E again.

Now here she was, four years later, and finally living that adult life she had always dreamed about. Well, mostly. She lived in a three bedroom apartment with Cook and a fucking dog. They had a fucking dog, named it Zoe. She'd finished that NYU for journalism and wrote for a minor newspaper during the day and tended bar with Cook at night. Between the both of them, they lived comfortably in a big apartment and most people thought they were dating and they let them, because they knew the truth. It was a simple life for them, for her and Cook and little fucking Zoe. She still swore to hate dogs, but she let the little black mutt sleep on her legs at night and fed her from the table, but she definitely still hated her. She liked their little makeshift family, it felt comfortable without being trapped and she could count on someone else. She'd never had that before, not with her mother and not with Emily, especially not at the end. Cook never let her down, and despite what everyone back in Bristol thought of him, he would take care of her. She was finally content until that fucking morning that changed it all.

She usually walked to work, even in the winter, the mornings in New York were still worth the walk. Sure, you had to deal with bums and sometimes snow and always ignorance. The one thing Naomi hadn't gotten over since her move to America was the just complete disregard for manners. She'd get shoved at least once a day on the sidewalk, or nearly pissed on by a dog (she hated them, remember?) Frankly, New Yorkers were rude. And this was coming from the queen of rude. But that morning, Cook had gotten up before her to make her pancakes. Fucking James Cook making her pancakes in the morning, who'd have thought that would be happening. But in her enjoyment of maple syrupy goodness, she'd lost track of time and had to dash out to the street to hail a cab. Naomi hated cabs more than she hated dogs and New Yorkers combined. Why did they always smell so fucking bad? And why didn't anyone speak English when you really needed them to? She was fully convinced that all taxi drivers could speak perfect English but pretended not to to avoid conversations with drunks or tourists. With her bloody accent, they always thought she was a tourist.

"Where you headed to, love?" Came the first response as she slid across the seat, careful not to bunch up the flowing skirt she'd chosen to don that morning. Of course, as she spent several minutes musing over the general lack of English-speaking cab drivers, she'd get one. One with an accent similar to hers, as well, who'd have thought it? It didn't stink too bad either, not like body odour, maybe a little maple syrup. Or maybe she still had the bloody shit on her face, which caused her to paw at her mouth for a second. She glanced up to give the address and her eyes narrowed at the familiarity of those staring back at her. It couldn't be, not in her safe bubble of New York. But instead of babbling the address of her place of employment, that definitely expected her through it's doors in ten minutes time, she stuttered out a confused. "M-M-Mr. Fitch?" and everything from there was ruined.


It took a second for those kind eyes to register who was speaking to him, but Rob Fitch's eyebrows raised and he actually just… grinned. Not the creepy scary grin that Naomi was used to, but a genuine one and though she was still put-off by this reminder of her past life, she found herself genuinely grinning back. "Naomi, love, that's it right? Haven't seen you in ages!" He turned a little from the steering wheel after sliding the taxi into park, to get a better look at the passenger in the seat of his taxi cab. Naomi suddenly felt like she was being sized up, and remembered all too well the last time she'd really seen the elder Fitch in her backyard at a barbeque with her screaming about drugs and fucking dead girls. Though Rob's eyes were still light, she shifted against the seat and furrowed her brows, cleared her throat. Obviously looked visibly nervous because Rob shifted again to put his hands on the wheel, though his eyes remained locked on the girl in his backseat through the rearview mirror. She found her voice after a moment, glancing up to meet his gaze. "Yeah, ages. Seventh and 47th, please?" She felt like a seventeen year old child all over again in front of her childhood love's parent. The eldest Fitch only nodded and started the car into traffic.

She merely sighed at her luck when they were in morning traffic. This is exactly why she didn't take cabs. Because it was quicker to walk on foot and then she wouldn't have been stuck in a goddamn yellow cab with Rob Fitch. "So love, how long have you been in the Big Apple, then?" He attempted to make conversation as she shifted uncomfortably under his rearview mirror gaze once more. She picked at the hem of her shirt with a shrug of her shoulders. "Nearly five years, I believe? Moved when I was eighteen." II figured Emily would have told you all about it./I Her decision to move to New York, or run away as Emily had put it, didn't sit well on their already crumbling relationship. In fact, they had ended so ugly that they'd ended up physically brawling and then crying and fucking before she packed to leave. The last real conversation she had with Emily had gone along the lines of her cowardice and how Emily already knew it was over anyway. Not a very good ending to a rocky relationship.

Rob Fitch knew more than he let on, it occurred to her when he simply nodded and moved his eyes back to the traffic. She fought the urge to roll her eyes, god knows what Emily made up about her. She also fought the urge to ask about the bitter girl that she wasn't Iallowed/I to even think of because of her pact with Cook. She'd managed to do relatively well, with only a few small things reminding her and causing that tiny ache in the centre of her chest. Making little progress in the traffic situation, Naomi leaned her head back against the seat and almost relished the silence, despite the underlying tension that had developed. They both had their minds on the same redheaded girl. "Yeh, we've been here about a year and a half I reckon?" The we made Naomi raise her eyes abruptly, which Rob caught and grinned a little. "Jenna and I split and I moved here on my own, then I wasn't so alone." He paused a moment, whether for dramatic effect or that he was concentrating on moving the vehicle forward, Naomi wasn't sure, but it set her chest on fire. That familiar fucking burn. Rob Fitch wasn't alone and she was. She hadn't even noticed when they arrived near enough to her destination and he slowed the cab to a stop. "Your stop, love." He jolted her out of her constriction and she nodded and looked at the meter, which he had obviously never started. With a wave of his hand he shook his head. "No worries." She moved from the seat with a blank nod of her own, her mind still reeling over the surreal ride. She glanced as Rob rolled down the window and grinned, still genuinely. "Got a business card, love?" She nodded and didn't question and fished it out of her large bag to hand to him. "Great, Emsy will love to have this when I get home."

She just stood dumbfounded as he drove off, on the curb of downtown Manhattan. Her jaw was surely touching the concrete, but as her phone started to buzz in her pocket she was reminded of how late she probably was. Fishing the phone from her pocket she pressed the answer key and blindly rose it to her ear, turning towards her building of employment. The loud voice on the other end, a bit angry, pushed her out of her little world and that roll of her eyes finally became a reality. "Keep your fuckin' knickers on, yeah? I'll be up in a second." And then she dropped the phone into the bottom of her bag, where it would be safe from her hands and moved towards work.


The day had been fairly uneventful, she'd been grounded to her desk for most of the day with a promise that if she didn't complete some bullshit tiny article on the re-emergence of a bloody cable station after blah blah blah, she wasn't really listening to her assignment. She'd drawn excellent stick figures in flames on the calendar on her desk and jumped at every buzz her phone had given her. She didn't dare pull it from her bag, what if Rob had really gone home and given her bitter, nasty ex her number. Was Emily still angry at her? Yeah, maybe she had run away and maybe they could have salvaged it, but they hardly recognized each other in those final days that Naomi wouldn't be convinced that they'd know each other any better four and a half years later. Eventually, of course, she gave in and pulled the blackberry from her bag. Two messages from Cook, another from a girl she'd chatted up while working at the bar and a missed call from her mother. She rolled her eyes, panicking over nothing, and responded to Cook about work that night, to the girl that was only in her phone as 'Sex on the Beach' that she was in fact working that night and dialed her mothers number from her desk telephone. After a few minutes of listening to the newest details in Gina and Kieran's sex life, Naomi had ended the conversation rather abruptly and gone to search through the vending machines for her daily candy bar lunch, abandoning her phone and desk in search of better prospects.

Armed with two candy treats and a bag of crisps and a water, Naomi resumed her position in her office to continue her epic stick figure masterpiece, with a little bit of a sugar rush to aid it's conception. She'd get to the article eventually, once she figured out exactly what she was supposed to be writing. She didn't like this bloody desk job anyway and her office was the equivalent of a janitorial closet. Frankly, she knew her concentration was shot for the day from her pleasant morning cab ride. Drumming the end of her pencil against the desk absently, Naomi leaned onto her hand and enjoyed the peace and quiet. She loved her life at home, but between Cook and the yappy little dog, it wasn't very peaceful in their flat. Not that she minded the noise either, she just appreciated the silence when it was granted to her. Creating an unsteady beat with her eraser, she moved the mouse of her computer to scroll through her e-mail rather haphazardly. Delete, delete, move, save. The same fucking shit, over and over again. It wasn't until her phone buzzed next to her, ominously close to the edge so she was forced to grab it. All forces were working against her that day, weren't they? One new text.

Scrolling through the different parts of her phone, she felt her stomach knot as she opened her messages. One new message, unknown number. It was a New York area code, familiar enough but not familiar at the same time. The morning was a far off haze with the second candy bar, she had managed to forget her run-in until she opened the message.

One new message. One new message that simply said Ironic.