Greetings, gentle viewers. Thank you so much for all your support, whether it's in the form of hits to the site, reviews, or just telepathically willing me to update :)
Thanks for sticking with the story up to now, I know I'm taking things kinda slow, but I just want to make it believable, and give us all time to get to know the characters now they're all growed up.
But no, seriously, thanks for being awesome, and rest safe in the knowledge that you guys are making this story happen!
Have a nice day
-----------------
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck ... Naomi's brain chanted the mantra as she paced her room. She felt like a complete fool, and looking back on her encounter with Emily at the library, she couldn't have done a more convincing impersonation of a stalker. She felt resentful towards Emily, jealous of her cool and calm attitude, of her thoroughly convincing act of indifference. A cold thought shot through Naomi's buzzing mind: it's not an act. She just doesn't care.
With that thought, all other thoughts screeched to a halt. Defeated, Naomi slumped down onto her bed. This had to stop.
****
Nat was already there when Emily got home.
Emily had cycled home the long way through the park and round the lake, telling herself she was making the most of the gorgeous weather, secretly knowing that she was actually hoping to take so long that Nat would give up and go home.
She swung a leg over the bike, cruising on one pedal into the drive in front of her house, before she dismounted and wheeled it to the gate at the side of the house. Opening the gate she gave the bike a final push and let it go, leaving it to totter forwards for a few seconds before collapsing to the left.
'Emily!' whined a voice, 'Be more careful with my bike will you!' her brother appeared from round the back of the house, pointing accusatorily at the collapsed bike.
'Um, no James, I don't think I will,' she stated, 'and it's not yours, I just lent it to you while I was away.'
James huffed, hands on hips, 'It is mine,' he whinged, 'and I'm going to tell Mum you stole it.'
'Fine,' said Emily, 'Then I'll tell Mum you stole her box of tampons to make costume jewellery.'
'It's for an art project,' James said quickly.
'I don't care what it's for you creepy little perv,' Emily told the annoying adolescent. She resented having to live at home, especially after being spoiled with living on her own during university.
'There's a girl here to see you,' James informed her, changing the subject.
Emily inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. She was most definitely not in the mood for socialising.
'Has she been here long?' she asked her brother, who shrugged.
'I don't know,' he answered, 'Her boobs are bigger than your last girlfriend's,' he noted astutely.
'She's not my girlfriend,' Emily hissed at him, 'And shut up,' she added.
'She wants to touch your fanny!' he said, before running off.
Emily's jaw and fists clenched. She'd spent years waiting for James to turn into a normal person, hoping that when he grew up a bit he'd at least stop peering through keyholes to watch her and Katie change. But it seemed that puberty had only compounded the problem.
She gingerly made her way into the house, opening and closing the front door with the silence of a ninja, well-practised in the art of sneaking out and back in without waking her parents.
But Katie was not to be fooled, 'Here she is now,' Emily heard her say from the kitchen, just before she was able to dash up the stairs.
Emily cringed as she aborted the mission.
'Where the fuck have you been?' Katie demanded of her in a harsh whisper as she materialised in the hall. 'Nat's been here for half an hour!'
'And whose fault is that?' Emily hissed back at her.
'Hi Emily,' said another voice, as a third girl appeared from the kitchen, and gave a little wave.
'Hi Nat,' Emily replied, her tone changing suddenly to sweet and light. 'Sorry I'm late, got held up at work.'
'That's okay,' Nat replied, good-naturedly, 'Katie kept me company.'
'Good good,' Emily said, eyeing her sister, 'Talk about anything interesting?'
'Just general stuff: life, love, families,' said Nat, giggling girlishly, 'Turns out Katie's an Arsenal supporter, so she was totally psyched to hear my cousin played for them.'
'No way,' Emily said, the simple statement loaded with sarcasm that completely evaded Nat's notice, 'What a freakish coincidence.'
'I know!' Nat said enthusiastically.
Emily suddenly felt a small pang of guilt. The girl was clearly lovely, well-meaning and admittedly very attractive. But Emily's mind was elsewhere, her thoughts enveloped in the steely gaze of the blue eyes that she'd met today, and as frustrating as she found it, it was all she could think about.
'... which you're both totally welcome to come to,' Emily was rudely snapped back into the situation at hand, realising she'd zoned out.
'Yeah, we'd love to, wouldn't we Em?' Katie said, jabbing her sister discreetly in the side, noticing her eyes had glazed.
'We would?' asked Emily, entirely unaware of what was happening.
Katie rolled her eyes in exasperation. 'Yeah, we'd love to go to Nat's cousin's birthday party and mingle with the totally exclusive guest list.'
Emily looked at her sister, then at Nat, who was in turn looking hopefully back at her, 'Oh ... erm ... yeah. Absolutely. Wouldn't miss it,' she concluded, slightly unsure as to what she had just agreed to.
'Cool,' said Nat, 'I'll let Russ know. Oh, and there'll be some press people there. You know, journalists and photographers and stuff. That's okay right?' she asked Emily.
'Of course,' Katie answered for her as Emily opened her mouth to speak. 'Now aren't you two crazy love birds off out?'
Nat giggled and Emily glared.
****
It was another depressingly beautiful day. The sun rose early, stretching yawning streaks of pink and orange across the hazy morning sky. The spreading light stirred the small birds of the morning, and they greeted the warm sun with sweet and cheerful song, which in turn woke the larger, uglier birds that seemed to congregate near Naomi's window, dragging her out of a sporadic sleep pattern with their choking cackles and drawing her from her bed in a thoroughly foul mood. It did not bode well for the rest of the day.
Spurred on by the slanging match that shortly followed her rude awakening with one of her house mates as to why she was such a bitch, Naomi slammed the front door of her house and almost stomped down the avenues of grotty student terraces until she reached the university campus.
The fact that her housemate had been entirely justified in calling her a complete and utter bitch that morning was irrelevant. It was the principle that counted. And the principle was that she wasn't going to get anywhere if she continued to mope around feeling sorry for herself. And the first thing on her agenda designed to mentally give herself a kick up the arse was to strike the name 'Emily Fitch' from the list of things in her life that she should be concerned about. She was going to march down to that library right now, return the stupid book she had borrowed (which she knew from cover to cover anyway) walk out and forever turn her back on the library and everything in it. Emily clearly couldn't give a flying fuck if she ever saw her again, so she decided to make it mutual, roughly choking down the feelings that had flooded to the surface since she'd seen her at graduation and resolving to ignore the dull ache until it ebbed. She'd done it before. It would be easier the second time round.
Blissfully unaware of the hurricane that was soon to tear through the library doors, Emily sat behind the front desk staring blankly at a computer screen, accompanied only by the sound of faint static humming from the screen and occasional clicks of the mouse.
Stupid Katie. Stupid Katie and her ability to manufacture situations to suit her own schemes, Emily's mind mumbled irritably. She scowled and crossed her arms like a brat as she thought about her sister's smug expression before she had left the house last night.
Her date with Nat had been clunky and awkward. She found herself yawning throughout most of the dialogue, which was geared primarily towards how much fun they were going to have at the footballers' party. Nat had smiled and laughed the whole way through: cheerful, friendly and good-natured. Emily found herself wanting to yell at the girl, wanting her to get angry with her, wanting her to snap her out of the lull she had let herself slip into. Emily felt like she needed to be shaken awake. Whatever poor excuse for a relationship she might end up scraping together with Nat would most likely come to a shuddering halt as Emily's interest declined until it was off the scale.
'It's not 'cool' to be distant, Emily,' the voice of a sad ex-girlfriend from university echoed in her mind, 'It just hurts, and unless you realise that you're going to end up sad and alone.'
Emily shook her head. Women. So very predictable. And the thing was, Emily had learnt, that it was cool to be distant. There was no better way to make a woman desperately desire you than to seem aloof and mysterious. Well, there were better ways, but this way was far more wholesome. Emily didn't do it on purpose. She hated the kind of girls who did, some of whom she'd been unfortunate enough to know. Emily told herself she just hadn't found that elusive someone yet. What she neatly skipped over was the fact that she didn't care if she did.
She knew how it must appear to others, and she was hyper-aware of how Katie saw the whole business: poor, crushed Emily, heart-broken and feverishly scared to love again. But that wasn't it at all. She was damaged, yes; disillusioned, maybe; but scared? Definitely not.
She sighed and continued to trawl through e-mail requests for books that the library failed to stock, composing a list and checking it against a budget. The library was quiet. The summer holidays were approaching and most students were locked up in examination rooms, with only a few post-graduate or research students left free to populate the libraries.
She looked up from her work when she heard doors open, and was greeted with the sight of a very flustered blonde girl power-walking towards her, gripping a book tightly, with a thunderous expression on her face. The small smile that the sight of Naomi had induced on Emily's face was quickly scared off by the force with which the book was slammed down on the desk in front of her.
Emily looked down at the book, then back up at Naomi. 'No good?' she ventured.
'No,' Naomi said firmly, 'Pretty goddamn shit actually.'
Emily carefully took the book off the counter, scanned it and put it to one side.
'Okay,' she said. When Naomi didn't move she felt obliged to inquire, 'Is there anything else?'
Naomi narrowed her eyes at the small girl in front of her. She looked squarely back at her. Not timid, not shocked, not concerned, not anything but completely calm. Naomi felt her anger ebb to be replaced only with the empty feeling of hopelessness.
'Yeah,' Naomi said quietly, Emily noticed the shift in her mood, 'Look, I'm not technically a student here anymore, so I may as well hand this back in,' Naomi dug into her pocket and retrieved her library card, knowing it had to be returned sooner or later due to its valuable 24-hour access chip. The university clearly thought that a gang of youths would be drawn to a centre of learning to stage a break-in.
She placed the card in Emily's small hand. Her fingers closed around it. 'Right,' Emily said, looking down at her clasped hand, 'Okay. Thanks.'
Naomi didn't know what she was expecting. Maybe the gesture hadn't been clear enough. The handing over of her library card to Emily was meant to be significant. The girl was meant to recognise that it symbolised Naomi walking out of her life.
Emily put the card down next the book Naomi had returned. Naomi watched as she turned her attention back to her computer screen. She waited for a few more seconds, and then turned, and began to walk away.
Emily glanced sideways from the screen, her gaze landing on the small, faded and slightly pixelated passport-size photo of Naomi that stared up at her from the deserted library card. She took a deep breath.
'Naomi,' she said, softly. The sound travelled effortlessly in the soundless library.
Naomi stopped, inwardly rejoicing, outwardly looking mildly pissed off. She turned and walked slowly back to the desk.
'You're a journalist, right?' Emily asked, once Naomi was back at the desk.
Naomi nodded.
'Well, I've got this ... um ... friend,' Emily skirted the issue, 'and her cousin is Russ Evans, the footballer?'
Naomi looked at her blankly.
'He plays for Arsenal?'
Naomi looked at her blankly.
'Anyway,' Emily continued, 'He's having a party next week, and there's going to be loads of press there. I thought, maybe, you could see if you could get an exclusive.'
Naomi frowned, 'A party full of brainless misogynistic men and idiotic plastic-chested women?' she clarified, 'Not really my scene Ems.'
The abbreviation of her name caught them both by surprise, triggering memories that were difficult not to dwell on.
'Not what I meant,' Emily said, shooting Naomi a 'come on, seriously?' look. 'I thought maybe you'd be interested from a feminist point of view.'
Naomi's expression switched from unimpressed to vaguely interested.
Emily continued, 'You know, like 'look at how far girls will go to get with footballers ... something something ... the decay of western society ... yadda yadda ...' she wafted her hand to elaborate. 'You know, that kind of stuff.'
Naomi smiled slightly, almost imperceptibly. 'I see,' she said quietly.
'Look, if you're not interested–'
'I never said I wasn't interested.'
'Well ... good. Maybe you should come then.'
'Maybe I will.'
