To LoveNaomily, Emily is 19. It's stated in chapter one. Thanks for your review, and thanks you to everybody else who has shown an interest :)
Chapter Three
The ink gets lighter and lighter with every word she scrawls to the page. She clicks her tongue and shakes the pen, willing it to perform for the final sentence. It doesn't, and she tosses it at her bin.
She rolls over on her bed, peering up at the ceiling, a mess of her ruby hair sprawled across the unfinished diary entry.
Soon, thoughts of why she's even keeping a diary in the first place bubble up, and she considers whether it was a wise decision to stop going to those anxiety management classes.
"You should've just carried on going." She husks to herself, puffing out a long breath.
She can say that all she wants to now, but it was the excruciating bus rides to and from the classes, the inescapable feat of having to stand up and introduce herself at the beginning of every lesson. She's allowed all of it to steal her progress, and now she often wonders whether she'll ever find a strong enough voice to be able to deal with others without coming across like a cowering mouse.
She rolls back onto her stomach, stretches her arm until her fingertips are brushing the pen on her desk, and with one final lunge, she grabs it, turning to a fresh page in her diary.
Naomi.
It's written small, as though it's a secret.
Eventually she strikes a line through it, adding another, and another...
Naomi.
It's scrawled a little bigger this time.
"Who's that coffee for?"
Emily looks at the mug in her grasp, and then at her mother, heart suddenly thrashing in her chest. "Erm..."
Jenna throws a look towards the office at the end of the corridor, the one her daughter's feet are emphatically pointed in the direction of. Her stare darkens. "That better not be for her, Emily."
"It, it's not. It's – it's mine!"
"You've always been useless at lying; I cannot believe you're sneaking up here delivering Satan's baby hot beverages."
Emily sighs, lets all pretences slip. "Mum, it's part of my job to get people coffee."
"Did she ask you to make her one?"
A year seems to go by before Emily shakes her head, lowers her coffee hues to that which matches them.
When Andy brisks past, Jenna reconsiders her yell for a whisper instead. "Well then why the hell are you doing anything for that cow?"
"I just," Heart thudding in her ears. "I...I wanted to..."
"Jen, Optical Resolutions are here. We need you now."
Jenna reluctantly breaks her glare with her daughter, spits a chilling, "We'll talk about this later on tonight, young lady," before disappearing into the lift with Ivy.
Emily stands there, stares at the mug in her hands, "Fuck sake." She mutters, the simple act of throwing the drink away tempting her, before she rolls her eyes and begins a slow shuffle towards the room at the end of the corridor.
She peeps around the door, spends a moment watching the woman inside systematically sift through the documents on her desk. Eventually she glances at the mug in her hand, decides to clear her throat. "Erm..."
Naomi looks up through her eyelashes, hand slowing on its way to the phone. She quickly draws it back, as though she's going to need everything about her if she's going to endure this interaction, sighs. "What?"
"Erm..." The words dissolve in her throat, so she quickly holds the hot beverage up. "I, I b-bought you this?"
A slight frown wriggles into Naomi's forehead as she stares at the girl in the doorway, "Erm, thanks...I didn't ask for one, though..."
Emily briefly scratches her nose, blinks once, shuffles from one foot to the other. "Erm I know, but I, I wanted to..." She looks everywhere but at the woman she's just spent the last fifteen minutes preparing and perfecting coffee for, internally riding herself for how stupid she knows she sounds.
"And your mother didn't get you to spit in it, or add a healthy dose of rat poison?"
"If, if you don't want it, I'll just throw it d-down the sink...or in that ugly plant downstairs?"
Naomi's frown begins to ebb, her lips even managing a subtle upward curl, as she nods at her desk. "Bring it here then."
"Here." Emily mutters, gingerly handing the mug to the other woman.
Naomi runs her eyes over the steaming hot drink, glances back up at Emily, and then sips at it, her eyes instantly bulging. She lowers the mug a fingertip away from her mouth, stares at it. "Hmm." She releases, strawberry rose tongue shooting out and sliding across the length of her lips, eyebrows northward. "That's a mean cup of java."
Emily looks elsewhere, shrugs, relaxes into a vague smile. "It's Vienna roast. Cousin of mine went on holiday and b-b-brought us some back." She shrugs again.
Something flits into Naomi's eyes as she hears that, and she slides the mug away, nods. "Well thank you, but, I think I've had enough coffee for one day."
Emily deflates; her shoulders, the glow in her cheeks, the strength in her knees. "Ok, I'll just, I'll g-get rid of it t-then." Her fingers clumsily angle for the mug's handle.
A second later dark liquid is sweeping through every document on the desk, racing to the cliff of the table to drip into Naomi's lap.
"Jesus!" The tall woman hisses, jumping up from her chair. She stares at the sodden papers she's just spent the last hour sorting through and then glares hot hell at the frozen girl stood on the other side of the desk. "What the fuck?"
"I-I didn't mean to. It w-was an accide –"
"Look at the state of my fucking trousers!"
"I-I'm really, I'm really sorry."
"Just – fuck!" –Naomi pauses to shake her coffee sodden shoe out –"Just leave!"
Emily's feet blur carrying her out of the room.
She lets out a low growl of complaint, picks up her plate. "I'm going upstairs."
Jenna spins around so fast, she almost makes it round a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. "Sit!" She hisses.
Emily looks towards her father.
"Do as your mum says will you love?"
The younger girl drops her plate back to the dinner table and slumps back down into the chair, subjects herself to her mother's barbs as she bustles noisily around the kitchen.
Eventually Jenna joins her daughter and husband, puts her plate down with a pointed thud and scoots her chair out, before sitting.
"So how was it at the office today then Em?" Rob asks, his square jaw churning around the food in his mouth.
Emily looks at her mother, rolls her eyes. She then turns to her father. "I, I made Naomi a cup of coffee, and now I'm being forced to sit and eat down here."
Rob throws his wife a look.
Jenna glares back. "Oh don't look at me like that Rob. I'm not in the mood."
"I thought I said that I didn't want you bringing that nonsense home eh? Let alone dragging poor Emily into it. You used to be friends with the woman for God's sake, and we all know how strict the criteria for you to befriend someone is, so she can't be that bad."
"It doesn't matter that I was fooled into thinking she was ok once, I expect my family to be behind me. You should've seen her." She gestures a disgusted fork at her daughter, "Sneaking around on the third floor so that she could take Naomi that cup of coffee, when just days before she'd seen that lanky bitch laying into me about the supposed rocks our marriage is on."
"Mum, you…you started that argument. Naomi just, she just retaliated."
Jenna's eyes nearly pop in their sockets and her voice reaches unheard of octaves. "You weren't there when it started, you little traitor!"
"Just calm the flamin' hell down will ya?"
Emily shoves her plate away, pushes up from her chair and stomps the steps of the stairs until she reaches her room.
She twists the key in the ignition, slips on her sunglasses, and glances into the rear-view mirror, pressing her foot on the break as a small knocking rattles out on her window. She sighs, leans forward to press a button, and her window slides down.
"Emily." She says in sardonic cheer.
"Hi...Erm..."
"Can you make this quick? I need to get going."
"S-Sorry about that the other d-day. It was an," Her ruby tresses fall around her face as she hangs her head, "Accident." She glances up into round intimidating sunglasses, tucks a few strands behind her pale ear, and just stands there in the car park beside the shiny car. "I, I can give you the money for new shoes, or, or trousers..."
Naomi rolls her eyes behind her shades, clicks her tongue. "It's fine."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Like...seriously?"
"Yeah, like seriously." Naomi nods, peering out of her windscreen with a small bunching to her cheeks.
"What?"
"Nothing." Naomi says, reaffirming her two hands around the steering wheel. "Am I now free to burn rubber home?"
"A-Actually, I wanted to, I wanted to talk to you about my mum, maybe?"
Hope expands in Emily's chest when five seconds pass and Naomi hasn't wound the window up and tattooed the concrete with tire treads.
Naomi sighs, shakes her head as she shrugs. "We don't get on. That's the beginning and end of it."
"You could...try? Y-You used to get along."
"Emily, your mother's a miserable cow. All the friends she thinks she has in the office all slate her behind her back, and she deals with her failing marriage to your father by picking fights with me. She doesn't want to get along, and more importantly, I don't care to get along with her."
"My parent's marriage isn't...failing."
"Well that's great then Emily!" Naomi waves her hand about, finally resting it back on the steering wheel with another shrug. "I don't really care – I just know that your mother has issues. Now, are we done?"
Emily rubs her arm up to her shoulder, mumbles. "Thanks, you know, f-for speaking to me. You seemed angry at m-me in the office...today."
"Busy," Naomi enunciates, glancing at the pale porcelain fingers tap-dancing against the white paint of the car. "Not angry."
Emily nods that information in, drops her hand to her side. "Ok, w-well...have a safe journey home, Naomi."
The car remains stationary, and even with those sunglasses, Emily notices the confliction going on in the other woman's face...
"Where's your mum; how're you getting home?" Naomi finally breaks.
Emily allows herself a small smile. "She erm...she left. I stayed so that I could catch you."
Naomi glances at her watch, reaches across to the passenger seat and lifts a bag and some newspapers into the back seat. She presses another button, and there's a click which would be loud if not for the bustle of passing traffic. "Get in."
The gesture washes through Emily as she stands there, gives her the strength to brave the windy chill without a shiver. Everything's warm, until her mother's stern glare flashes in her mind. "Thank you, Naomi, but..."
"Just get in; I'll drop you off a street away from where you live."
"Thanks." Emily whispers, the rising car window cutting her off. She ambles round to the other side of the car, opens the door and gets in.
They journey in moderate silence the first five minutes, mostly because Emily's lost in noting everything about the interior of the car. The smell, the beige overlaying the seats, the boxing glove shaped air-freshener hung around the rear-view mirror.
It's part of Naomi's world, and Emily suddenly realizes that this is the first time in years that she's been in a car which doesn't belong to a Fitch.
It makes her cheeks swell with a smile.
"Where do I turn?"
Emily jolts out of her joy, her fingers floundering at the street they've just sped past. "You've just gone past it!"
"Fuck it," Naomi says to herself, twisting the wheel as she turns down a long road.
"Where a-are you taking me?"
Naomi briefly glances over at Emily before returning her gaze to the road. "Well, despite the things your mother's probably told you about me, I'm not going to kill you and then dump you in the bushes, so just relax."
Emily gulps, somehow stricken by Naomi's tone.
"I'm meeting someone at the bar, and I don't want to be late. I'll drop you home when that's done. Ok?"
"...Ok."
.
.
The drink topples from Emily's unsteady hands, gleaming shards of glass everywhere. "Shit!" She winces, as cold liquid seeps through the toe of her grey pump. Her eyes race for anything that'll mop it up, landing on a neat stack of serviettes sat on the mahogany table. She leaps for them and her elbow jars the glass resting close by. "Shit." She mutters, watching it's brown liquid slosh dangerously from side to side. "I'm so s-sorry. Shit."
Naomi curls her hand around Emily's nearest shoulder, stilling her at once. "Just, stop."
The younger girl nods, and Naomi lets go.
She leans back, shakes her head and rolls her cerulean eyes whilst lifting her glass to her lips, mutters. "God, is this what it's come to, me hanging out with a fumbling minor?"
Emily blinks and bows her head, hair curtaining her face like ruby velvet in the strobe light. Over the rim of her glass, Naomi feels the sight tug at something.
"Emily, I'm sorry."
The younger girl quickly shakes her head, stares off into nothing. "No, it's, it's fine."
Naomi sighs, another eye roll and a click of the tongue. "Look, I'm not really used to having to consider anybody else's feelings but my own and my daughter's. Most of the time it's just my own, since I only get to see her a week out of the month. If anything I say offends, I most probably don't mean it to cut so deep, ok?"
Emily turns to look at the woman sat beside her. She spends a long moment just...looking, before submitting to a small smile. "You, you have a daughter?"
Naomi sits her glass on their table, pulls out her purse, and smiles as she hands Emily a thumb-sized photograph. "She's thirteen now."
Emily squints in the mocha-skinned teenager in the small photo and smiles, absent as ever with her slow thumbing of it. "What's her, her name?"
"Thea."
"She's probably having to beat the boys off." Emily muses, small chuckle.
Naomi raises an eyebrow, clasps her glass again. "Not if her dad has anything to say about it. The day we found out we were having a girl, he started looking into buying a shotgun, so that he could blow any boys, looking to corrupt his daughter, to smithers." She chuckles fondly, before indulging another long sip of whiskey.
"Is that w-where she is right now, with her, her dad?"
Naomi peers down into her glass, swills the strong brown liquid. "Yeah." She throws the glass at her mouth and when it hits their table again it's empty. Heaves a large breath, "So, another drink?"
.
.
Emily pulls at the threading of her purse, unzips and zips it back. She turns it repeatedly in her hands, eventually resting it next to her unfinished drink on the table, boldly looking towards the woman who brought her here. She notes the collection of dark hair beginning to sprout from Naomi's sideburn, notices the arc of her slim nose.
She lowers her gaze and smiles one of those lopsided smiles...
Naomi sits her empty glass down, clicks her tongue at the silver hanging from her wrist, "Ok, now I'm getting annoyed."
"Maybe you should, I d-don't know..." Shrugs. "Phone the person you're supposed to be meeting?"
"I'm not phoning anyone, we had an agreement to meet here at a certain time, and he hasn't bothered to text. Nothing. Wanker can phone me."
Emily's lips quirk at that; she runs her fingers along them, taps them as her cheeks fight a grin.
"Are you drunk?" Naomi asks, eyebrow arched. "You've had two weak drinks and you're tipsy. Great."
"I'm n-not. It was just, it was funny the way you were calling him a, a wanker."
Naomi spends a moment staring at the girl sat beside her, then: "I'm going out for a fag, and if he hasn't arrived by the time I'm done, I'm dropping you off and going home."
Emily's grin falls straight from her face, but she nods anyway.
.
.
Finally mustering the courage, she stands up and walks past the crowd of rowdy lads, releasing a large breath when she pushes open the doors and walks outside. She spots Naomi behind a fog of burning tobacco, the breeze blowing her blonde locks around her far-gazed expression. Hugging herself, the small redhead cautiously walks over.
Naomi slips her lighter into her coat pocket. "You ready to go home then?"
"B-But...you haven't finished your cigarette yet."
"Have now," Naomi says, flicking the depleted butt to the ground. "He just sent me a text to say he can't come. Unprofessional tosser." She grumbles.
Emily's curiosity becomes thick, thick to where her concerns about coming across as a prier lessen considerably. "What were you supposed to be meeting him...f-for?"
Naomi stares at the slightly shivering girl beside her for a long moment, eventually responds. "I don't like having strangers in my house and I wanted to get a face to face quote on some double-glazed windows."
There's nothing Emily can do to hold in the nasal chuckle that suddenly escapes her.
"What's funny?"
Emily's mirth instantly dwindles. "N-Nothing. Nothing's funny." She mumbles, wincing.
"It's not always smart to be alone in your home with people you don't know." Naomi affirms, not a scent of mirth about her.
"S-sorry." Emily mutters, just because she feels like she should.
"I think it's time I dropped you home."
.
.
"Where've you been?"
"Nowhere mum. I, I just fancied a slow walk home." She pulls the tangled wiry mess of her earphones and IPod from her pocket. "Listened to some tunes on the way..."
"So getting you to go to the shop by yourself is near impossible, but you just fancied a walk home?"
"Mum –"
"I thought I told you to stay away from her Emily?"
Emily wraps the tangled earphone wires neatly around her IPod, slips it back into her coat, mumbles. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes you do."
"I don't..."
Jenna folds her arms, leans back against the banister. "I'm going to give you one more chance to tell me where you've been, Emily."
"I, I told you – and Katie never gets this third degree, ever! She comes and goes as she pleases."
"Yeah, well Katie can take care of herself." She watches her daughter pale, shakes feelings of being a terrible mother to say. "Donna sent me a text, said she saw you getting into Naomi's car as she was walking out of the office. Now tell me you walked it home." She raises her eyebrows when the stretching silence begins to irk on her nerves. "Go on!"
Emily's eyes dart all over the place.
"Where the hell did you let that bitch take you?"
Her daughter gives a pathetic one shouldered shrug, mumbles. "Nowhere."
"I want you to stay away from her! Just wait until tomorrow. She's not going to be able to walk by the time I've finished with her."
Emily slowly lifts her eyes, narrows stern hazels at her mother. "Mum," She glares. "Leave her alone."
Jenna regards her daughter with affront; her head leant slightly on its side. "Emily!" She chides, uncrossing her arms to rub at her sternum. "Don't you dare speak to me like that."
Emily kicks off her pumps, pushes past her flabbergasted mother and disappears up the stairs.
"Where did you take my daughter yesterday evening? I want to know now!"
"No hello, no how are you." Naomi drawls, not looking up from the report she's reading. "Nothing."
Jenna closes the door behind her, leans against it and folds her arms tightly.
"Careful on the cleavage there Jen, I may just lose all self-restraint and end up fucking you with my great big strap-on by mistake."
Every inch of Jenna's top lip curls with disgust, her neck momentarily shriveling into her shoulders as she shakes the image off. She jabs a finger at her co-worker. "If you took her to one of those repulsive –"
The documents within Naomi's grasp slap the desk loudly. She clasps her hands over them, nods, "Yeah, that's exactly what I did. I took your underage daughter to a gay bar, introduced her to a stud they call motor tongue, and had the two of them exchange numbers. Just a regular matchmaker, me."
"Fuck you Naomi."
Naomi' chuckles quietly to herself. "Get out of my office, Jenna. I've work to do."
"Tell me where you took my daughter! Now!"
"I just told you. I took her to a gay bar in the hopes that I could gay her up, seeing as I failed with you."
Jenna's eyes close to an evil squint as the memory plays out in her mind. "If I find out that you took my daughter to one of those...places." She spits. "I'm going to do everything in my power to make your life a misery. Stay away from my daughter. We understood? Good." She cranks the handle down, pulls open the door, and slams it shut upon her exit.
Naomi rolls her eyes, shakes her head. She scoots her chair closer to the desk, and resumes work.
Thoughts? Thanks for reading.
