Disclaimer: Skins isn't mine...now let's get on with it...
Author Notes: I've been very busy, but life is starting to ease up a bit, so I'm hoping I can put all of my focus back into writing soon.
Wish You Weren't Here
Chapter Two
The view from the hotel room reached towards the sea in the distance on the left, whilst below, they were in the perfect position to watch the evening entertainment from their balcony. The pool lay out in front with a terrace full of drinkers directly below. The speed that Katie dashed out of the room made Emily suspect she'd discovered the obnoxious smoker's offspring; her suspicions were then confirmed by the three people sat at the far end of the terrace. Effy sat staring intently, as she usually did, probably analysing some couple in love, mostly ignoring - though probably still processing - everything that went on beside her. Katie flirted; her eyes focused on the young man, her chin resting on her hand a little too close for comfort. The obnoxious smoker's child flapped his eyelashes and his toothy grin made their mutual flirting appear somewhat acceptable.
Emily let out a sigh and fumbled with her mobile phone. She regretted never moving to a contract where she imagined there would be an option to call Craig for half the price it would cost her now. Instead she sent a brief message about the arrival and Katie's attempts to woo her first holiday romance. She longed to hear his voice, to feel the familiarity she lacked in a strange place. Even if she didn't love him the way he loved her, he was still her best friend.
'Whatchu doing Emilypoo?' Pandora bounced onto the balcony in a flurry of pink and girly patterns, her scent something akin to a children's perfume playset. Emily smiled, if only to stop her from suspecting that she wasn't as happy as everyone expected her to be. She was engaged; she was supposed to be over the moon, unable to survive without her husband to be. Instead she missed him only by way of the company she had grown so accustomed to.
'Thinking,' she finally answered, putting on her biggest smile until Pandora's worried eyes returned to their usual gleeful look.
'Bet you're missing your Craigy,' she replied. 'I miss my Tommo a real lot. I never thought love could be so flipping hard, but it's whizzer, ain't it Em? Must be harder for you being engaged, I still can't quite believe it. We're only kids, well twenty-three, but it seems so young. Though my mum made monkey with my dad when she was twenty-two, so it's not that different, but still, you're getting married. It's bonkers.'
When Emily turned her attention back to the terrace, Katie and the young man had vanished, replaced by some older gentleman who Effy listened to with feigned attention. Emily searched the rest of the terrace and hoped that her sister was merely buying more drinks. The lock of the door clicking and the creak of the hinges as it swung open, instead, confirmed her less conscious suspicions.
'Emsy?' Katie called out, appearing in the open doorway. She had that look in her eye that told Emily to piss off.
'We'll go save Effy from boredom,' Emily muttered with a smile on her face. She pulled Pandora's hand and they left the room at the exact moment Katie's tongue was dancing in the mouth of the near stranger, his shirt already discarded across the bedroom floor.
The bar was crowded and the man beside Effy smelled of pipe smoke. She liked the smell; it reminded her of one of her grandfathers who smoked a pipe regularly when she was a child. She remembered sitting on the sofa between her mother and Tony. That scent lingering in the air long after they'd arrived. She drifted off, her attention stolen from the conversation in front of her, until, for one of the only times in her life, she didn't actually know what was going on.
'Can I buy you drink?' the man asked in a Spanish accent and she nodded her head. He suggested a couple of options and she stated her preference before he left her alone.
'Finally,' Pandora called out, stealing his seat and putting a very orange, very decorative glass on the table in front of them. 'Thought he'd never leave, don't tell me you'd make monkey with him Eff, he's old enough to be your grandpa.'
'He just sat down,' she muttered in her usual, calm voice.
Pandora started babbling then about how Katie was upstairs with 'some boy' and even though she listened, she also allowed her attention to be drawn away from the table. That blonde from the bus was sat opposite her colleague looking thoroughly bored. Eventually Emily turned around, following her gaze until the both of them were watching her. Then she caught their eye and the both of them returned to Panda's complaint about Emily having to leave the room just so that Katie could have sex.
'I know,' Effy agreed, noticing Emily's gaze return to the table behind them.
The bar was full of tourists, as it was every night. Slimy, smelly, drunken men trying to sleep with her all because she had a pair of tits. She wasn't fond of the locals, but she cared even less for the people she spent the last few months trying to get away from. If she wanted English men slobbering all over her, she would have stayed in England. Instead she'd moved to Spain with the intention of being as far away from the majority of the English population as possible. She doubted she would ever stop thinking about how much she loathed the location of her job. She didn't mind tourists who sat quietly having a drink and talking with their friends, or those who spent their holiday walking up monuments and driving around. Anything but roasting by the sea. She was sure many of them were lovely people, but she didn't move to Spain to spend her night having her ear chewed off about the latest Prime Minister or someone's financial issues. That was, until her eyes landed on the lonely red head by the bar. She looked lost, lonely and altogether very British. Her skin looked like it had seen very little sun in months and her eyes followed the crowds as they danced, in that coy way she'd only seen once, in the girl she kissed in middle school. Yes, she'd kissed a girl. Yes, that meant she was gay, not that kissing someone at fourteen should ever hold labels unless you want them too. She stared at her, watched as her mouth wrapped around the tiny straw, followed by her finger to keep it steady. Her eyes looked across at her, stared a moment longer than anyone could accept as normal, until her eyebrows furrowed and her pupils grew wide. She'd spotted her, somehow she knew. Naomi could tell, not that she knew the woman, couldn't even remember the young girls name, from way back when. But she was definitely her, those eyes bugged in the same surprised way then faltered with doubt and sorrow, a look of regret that Naomi knew all too well. Naomi closed her eyes and turned away, couldn't handle the depth of emotion housed in her face. Not now, not there. She took a deep breath and downed her drink, a bit of Dutch courage before allowing her eyes to open once more. When she glanced back towards the bar, the red head had gone.
Naomi Fucking Campbell. Naomi Fucking Campbell was there, on her holiday, in clear view. She'd seen her before, the same blonde haired woman who sat a few rows ahead on the airport bus and who sat in the bar earlier that day. It couldn't be, that's what she'd told herself. There was just no way that the only person who could change her life, would be there, hundreds of miles away from home. What were the chances?
'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' Emily cried out loudly towards the sea, allowing her cries to be swallowed up by the gentle lull of the water and the vast of sand surrounding her as she sunk to her knees. Nobody even knew who Naomi was, not least Katie. She'd never told anyone what happened and before she could even process what that kiss, that fateful moment, had meant for her sexuality, school had finished. She and Katie were shipped off for a summer in Malaga, Liverpool and Scotland with various family members. Of course the next year was at a new school where Naomi Campbell was a distant memory. None of that stopped her finding her first relationship, with a girl, well, her first thing that lasted all of a month. By her final year of high school she'd come out to her family, not that any of them believed her.
'It's just a phase Rob, don't entertain her silly little crush,' her mother insisted upon at every available opportunity.
There she sat, with a gentle breeze stroking her cheeks as she contemplated the implications of her past landing right in front of her, miles from home. She closed her eyes and tried to picture herself with Craig, her fiancé, the 'love of her life'. Walking down the aisle to marry him, standing in front of him, having him lift the veil of her dress, only to find Naomi's blue eyes staring back at her.
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