The Dargle was at peace, with its darkish waters lapping at the heavily vegetated banks. Naomi threw her head back towards the perfect blueness of the sky. With her hand inside her pocket, thumbing the pebble Emily had left for her, she begged for answers, but obtained nothing. Fuck. Sinking her fingers in her hair and then covering her face, Naomi moaned in desperation. Her distress was so palpable that people on the street had started to look, or so it seemed.

Everything was wrong and it was all Emily's fault. The redhead had shown her cards and now Naomi couldn't pretend that she was blind. Those words would float around them whenever they saw each other, hiding behind their exchanges, and she didn't know if she would be able to take it. Even though her first instinct was to blame Emily, the possibility of not going to her was nonexistent.

Swearing under her breath, Naomi made her way down Main Street and sauntered over to Finnbees, where she thought she distinguished Emily behind the counter. However, instead of going inside, she crossed the street, sat on a doorstep in front of the coffee shop, and waited, and smoked, and waited.

The redhead exited the coffee shop some time later, waved goodbye to two other girls, and then froze, looking straight at her with a serious face. It was as if she had detected Naomi's presence. Do I really look that awful? she mused. Nevermind. Naomi crossed the street and stood before the girl, nervously biting the inside of her cheek. Now what?

"Hey," Emily said, quite tenderly. "You okay?"

Oh, well, let's see… Yesterday you informed me that you liked me -liked me as in fancied me-, and that you wanted to kiss me. Furthermore, you also seem to believe that I like you back. And, on top of everything, you would've kissed me, yesterday, at the beach, or even the night before, but you didn't. Why? Because you respect me. So you stopped by to tell me that you'd manage. And now everything's fine, isn't it?

"Yeah, I'm okay," she finally answered, detaching her eyes from Emily's face.

The previous day she had wanted to say that she wasn't gay, but the girl hadn't even let her finish, interrupting her with a single, lethal, one-worded question: "So?" Indeed. That was the only little fragment of reason she could've held on to, like a desperate mountain-climber trying to avoid the fall, but Emily had shaken it off like it was nothing, because she knew the deeper truth: that Naomi would have let her kiss her if she had tried. The certainty of that truth had kept her awake that night and it was making her look away now. Now that it had been said out loud, her pretense could no longer seem authentic.

"Can we go somewhere?" She was staring down at the tips of her shoes.

"Go where?"

"Anywhere." Her response was immediate and not unlike releasing a heavy load after carrying it around for a long time.

Further questions were seemingly unnecessary, as Emily was equally quick in nodding and leading the way to the orange scooter. Naomi secured her Greenpeace tote bag on the back of the bike and then climbed behind the redhead, sighing as their bodies came into contact when she surrounded her waist. For a moment she worried that the girl would feel her accelerated heartbeat through their clothes. Was that even possible?

She kept her eyes closed during most of the trip, inhaling the scent of Emily's hair, which was already archived in her mind. However, she had her suspicions about where they were headed, and these were confirmed when the familiar brick house appeared into view. Of course, Emily's garden had to be that "anywhere", that piece of nowhere Naomi thought she needed; the place where Emily had given her permission to just be, or say, or do anything.

"My sister's in Dublin," Emily said, perhaps wanting to reassure her in that respect.

Naomi nodded and sat directly on the grass, letting the colorful greeting of the fairy lights greet her like an old friend, relaxing her a bit. The stalkerish role she had played by waiting for Emily at her workplace had been so unlike herself that she would have never imagined being in that situation - and that scared her. It proved that she was losing control. Her front, her everything, was in peril.

When Emily joined her, sitting next to her, Naomi pushed her tote bag towards the girl.

"I brought you your clothes."

As contradictory as it sounded, the need to run away had been as intense as the need to run to Emily - run towards her, to do what, exactly? At that point, she always backpedalled in her mind. The effect of Emily's words the day before, the creeping sensation of knowing that the girl liked her and that she could probably read every one of her thoughts was immensely distracting. So much, in fact, that Naomi got lost inside the whirlwind of her own mind and realized only too late that Emily had been speaking.

"… Keep the shirt."

"What? The shirt?"

"Yeah, you like it, don't you? You were wearing it yesterday."

I was wearing it yesterday because it was yours. Emily knew the real reason, she was sure, but they were being very civil to each other now. Is this how it's going to be? The girl had made it very clear the day before that the ball was in Naomi's court.

"After all, you're a Seagull now."

"Why does everyone keep mentioning seagulls around me?"

The redhead giggled. "We're the Seagulls. It's the Wanderers' nickname."

"Oh… Right." Naomi gestured towards the bag. "I brought something else."

Emily peeked inside the bag and pulled out a large, transparent bottle. "Vodka. Are you planning on getting me drunk?"

She tilted her head in mock reflection and then shrugged, because she had planned on drinking it, with or without Emily. But it was better with Emily. "Maybe."

Breaking the bottle's seal, the girl inspected her with squinted eyes and then drank without detaching her eyes from Naomi.

"I listened to the song you mentioned the other night."

It seemed unnatural to say "the other night", for it felt like months ago had gone by since Emily had taken her to The Porter House. It was as if she had been feeling during a much longer time. Feelings, yes, that's what they are. Scrunching up her nose, Naomi got a hold of the bottle and took a swig. The drink burned down her throat and then settled in her stomach, dissolving slowly, but leaving behind a sensation of warmth which, combined with the setting, soothed her.

"Yeah? What did you think?" Emily gave a little, excited jump.

"It was… quite special."

"Yeah. You'd think this music's sad, but it doesn't have to be. It's like an echo, it kind of… walks with you?"

Yes... The song had made her heart swell and realize that she could be lost, but that didn't have to mean being alone if she didn't want to, because she wasn't condemned to it, not by destiny, or bad blood, not even by particularly annoying genes. It had been as if somebody had told her that she wasn't stuck inside a spiral and that she didn't need to run away - a piece of knowledge which had almost provoked a panic attack.

Closing her eyes for a minute, Naomi breathed out.

"Isn't it funny how we all want to live for years and years… but the days that count, that really change us, really make us feel something, are so few." Naomi locked eyes with the girl and drank from the bottle again before handing it to her.

The redhead raised her eyebrows. "Or you got to make them count."

"Yeah? How do you do that?"

"I guess… You go with your feelings. You do what you love." Emily said, almost at once.

"What's that, then?"

"Yeah, careful with that cynicism," the redhead wagged the bottle at her before drinking. "It might hit you in the face one day."

"How?" she looked away, innocently. "You mean like this?"

Naomi lashed out with her right arm, gently slapping Emily on the nose with the back of her hand.

"What the fuck?" Emily cried, laughing and pushing her.

The vodka bottle dropped with a dry thud and rolled out of the way. Naomi followed it with the corner of her eye, becoming aware that she was prostrate on the ground, with a certain girl on top of her, and the short blades of grass tickling her cheek.

"Now what?" the redhead asked, accentuating her words with an additional shove.

"Now the grass's gonna get pissed," Naomi answered, jerking her head towards the bottle.

"Don't care. I'm not letting you go."

Her arms were pinned down, but her legs were free. Grinning, Naomi took a moment to note the absurdity of the situation before jerking her hips and pushing Emily off with her legs. In one fell swoop, she rolled on top of the girl, immobilizing her quite easily.

Now what? she mused, echoing Emily's question. Not only were they closer than they had ever been, but she was sitting astride the redhead, securing her arms against the ground. The inevitability she had associated with Emily ever since she had first set eyes on her was now more powerful than ever. Before, she hadn't known what to do with it -or had been too terrified to imagine-, but the chaos in her brain had now turned to urgent and astonishing clarity. The more her brain told her to react against what was happening to her, the more her instincts pushed her towards the girl.

And now, it had come to this. Emily had stopped squirming and was simply looking at her with her enormous brown eyes, waiting. Naomi breathed out and bowed her head until their noses touched and the girl's face became a one-eyed blur. She closed her eyes, feeling Emily's soft breath on her face, and released her arms. Still, the redhead didn't try to free herself, didn't even move an inch, although an inch would have made all the difference. Whether it was an inch or a mile, Naomi knew that it was up to her, and it was too much.

She opened her eyes and pulled away, rolling off from the girl altogether and returning to a sitting position, hugging her bunched up legs. "Sorry."

Emily sat up, frowning. "What are you sorry for?"

"Dunno." With a great effort, she pushed herself to a standing position and paced towards the swimming pool, nervously rubbing her hands up and down her legs.

"I'm not gonna ask you why," Emily began. "But it's like… you avoid, you hold back, and I can't figure out if you do it because you're scared that something bad's gonna happen to you, or something good."

It was the fucking clarity, the fucking certainty - that was what was killing her. She sat and stared down at the shadowy water.

Emily's reflection appeared next to hers, but the girl kept her distance. "I didn't want to upset you. Do you want me to take you home?"

"I'll be fine in a minute," she answered, swallowing her tears and inwardly cursing at herself for being such a ridiculous dick.

It had been an automatic response, one which the redhead would have to respect, even though it was utter bullshit. You'd do that, wouldn't you? They had an agreement. If she wanted to change it, she would have to take a step.

"I don't want good things to happen to me," she said, through clenched teeth. "You get used to the good too easily, soon you start needing it. But the good always disappears."

"Does it?" Emily asked, stepping closer.

"Always has." She smiled, shaking her head.

"Well, it doesn't have to."

Fairytales, if not lies. She turned to look at Emily, prepared to answer with all the sarcasm in the world, but the girl's face stopped her. With those hopeful, shiny eyes and that unfaltering, little smile, Emily was asking her to believe.

And believing meant accepting the certainty and crossing the distance. Naomi leaned in very slowly, until she reached the redhead. Her parted lips touched Emily's, barely stroking them, closing her lips around the girl's only when it became unbearable. And only then did she feel Emily kissing back.

She frowned at the intensity of having their lips pressed tightly together, thinking that she'd never felt anything so soft. They separated for a moment, and the air caught in her throat as she saw Emily licking her lips before moving forward once more. She captured Emily's lips between her own, releasing them slowly, while Emily brought a hand to the back of her head and moved her lips to Naomi's cheek, her jawline, and then down her neck. Those delicate, tiny, butterfly kisses made Naomi gasp and open her eyes. And, when the redhead promptly kissed her neck again, she had to draw back, because it was too much, because intense feelings had always made her recoil.

"Jesus, you're killing me," she said, smiling at what the redhead had done to her in just a few seconds.

"We could stop."

Naomi bit her lower lip, tasting a little bit of Emily and little bit of vodka. Her hands, which had been firmly planted on the grass for support, now moved. One traced Emily's hairline, down the side of her face and her lips. She watched in amazement as the redhead's eyes closed; an image so beautiful that it was painful to watch.