Title:Love Accidentally - Chapter 45
Author:dropletsofjupiter
Rating:M
Warnings:Swear words.
Disclaimer:S4 is over but still, I don't own anything. I hate that fact. Seriously.
Summary:"It was the morning after that made last night's events so much worse, and just—real."
A/N: Okay, so first of all, I want to apologize for taking so long to update. I sort of kinda took a hiatus from writing. A lot of things came up and I thought that it would be good if I take a break. Sorry guys. .
I hope you all like this one. I kind of had a hard time getting this out, but I guess it's normal since it had been long months before I wrote something again. I promise, the next ones are gonna be better! Go easy on me, please? Thanks! :3 For all those who stuck around with LA, my highest gratitude to all of you. Thank you so much.
It was the morning after that made last night's events so much worse.
Naomi didn't need to tune in to the news, or read the morning paper to figure out that she was the talk of the town, of the whole of England and back; and she was supposed to have gotten so used to it. She had been through so much before, and somehow, she had found a way to ignore every little thing that came out about her; had learned to not give a fuck to what people had to say.
But what happened last night was a different thing altogether; entirely fucking different, and this was something she just could not pay no heed to.
She barely got any sleep at all despite the tired, sore feeling coursing through her veins. She wondered if it was the uncomfortable silence that made it difficult for her to sleep, let alone, close her eyes; or if it were the thoughts running inside her head, swirling unreservedly, brought about by the thick, heavy silence that had fallen over ever since she entered the room. Her old room. There was a stark contrast that she couldn't help but find ironic. The room which used to make her feel safe for countless of years was now a place she would rather not spend any more second with. Because the silence was just—it was driving her insane.
She shuffled on the bed, right in time when a ray of sunlight escaped through the curtains, and dropped her weight wearily against the headboard, where her back landed with an almost inaudible thud. She tipped her head up and let it rest on the wall, blatantly ignoring the perpetual vibrating of her phone from somewhere not really far (probably over her nightstand or wherever exactly she had chucked it). She couldn't bring herself to pick it up or even bother to check, because well, what was the point? She was almost entirely sure it wasn't Emily, whoever was calling.
A series of soft knocks followed not long after, once the constant vibrating had ceased, much to her delight. Her mum's voice echoed around her room, sounding a little bit off key as it passed through the bulky, wooden door. "Naomi, love." Gina called out. "Are you awake?"
An unintelligible sound escaped from her throat, which came as close to a 'yes' anyway.
Her door squeaked open, revealing a cautious yet smiling Gina with a tray of tea and toasts juggled in between her hands. "Thomas called." She started, then, walked small, deliberate steps towards Naomi's bed; eyed Naomi all too warily, like she was a ticking time bomb about to explode at any given minute. "He said he's been trying to reach you since last night."
Naomi, on the other hand, couldn't really blame her mum to be that cautious. They never shared as much conversation as what they had the night before as far as she could remember; couldn't really think of a particular time when they had that kind of talk, or if they ever did. "I figured." She answered with a strained sigh, and watched Gina turn around and place down the tray on the empty space over her study table.
"He wanted me to tell you that he needs to talk to you as soon as possible." Gina continued and took her place back at the foot of Naomi's bed, a hand resting on top of the short pole. "I think it's pretty urgent love."
"It must be." Naomi muttered flatly. At this point in time, she couldn't really be bothered with anything. Any fucking thing at all.
Gina pressed her lips in a tight line, her fingers drumming against the round part of the bed pole as she watched her daughter fidget with the hem of the duvet for a few more beats. Somehow, she had a strong inkling that Naomi was going to pop a question that was just rather heartbreaking, even if either left unanswered or not.
"Did anybody else call?" Naomi asked, her eyes falling everywhere except her mother, and with a tone torn between hopeful and just—plain pained that Gina could feel her own heart breaking for her daughter. Because amidst everything that was going on, at some point, it crossed Naomi's mind that this was all just a dream, for most part had happened during strange times of the day—when nothing seemed to be real; like some sort of strange time vacuum in between the wee hours of dawn and the coming morning. A part of her wanted to believe that last night had gone her way; that things had gone the way she expected them to. At some point, a part of her wanted to believe that last night ended differently—happily.
Gina's face fell, and for a moment, she was at a loss for words. "Naomi, dear—" She stuttered, in between attempts of getting the words out without them sounding as bad as they already were. "I mean—"
"It's fine Mum." Naomi broke off with a forced, shaky laugh. "I just—well, I just asked." She brought her head down once more, her nimble fingers back to fiddling with the hem of the duvet. "I was just wondering if, you know, Panda or—" There was a hard pause, followed by a long, deep swallow; because even saying her twin's name was just as equally hard as saying hers, surprisingly. "K—Katie has called."
All Gina could do was watch helplessly from where she was standing, as Naomi struggled to try and keep herself together, keep the pieces of herself from completely falling apart. "Well—" She started to say, then, "I'll tell you as soon as anybody else calls. Alright?"
A ghost of a smile crossed Naomi's lips, but was already gone before Gina could even fully take notice. "Thanks Mum." Naomi murmured softly. "And for the breakfast too."
"It's no problem dear." Gina replied affectionately. "If you need anything else, I'll be downstairs, yes?"
Naomi came up with a feeble nod for an answer. "Yeah. Thanks."
Gina hesitated for a few more seconds before turning around completely, and headed towards the door; deciding that it was best not to pry, best to leave Naomi to herself at least for the meantime.
Naomi was half thankful and half worried for it, because it would mean that she'd be left alone again, left with the heavy silence and the niggling thoughts she had been trying to overcome ever since she came up to her room that night.
It was the morning after that made last night's events so much worse, and just—real.
Katie woke up with a throat nearly dried up, and a mouthful of bright red hair.
It didn't take her long to realize that she had spooned Emily from behind. And as she tried to shake the remnants of sleep away, it slowly came to her that she didn't have the faintest idea of how she even got to the bed. Last night was almost a vague memory for her. What happened after all the shouting and the crying weren't as clear to her as they were before the moment she had finally succumbed to sleep. Though, she remembered watching over Emily for God knows how long; remembered watching Emily lay so awfully still, that she felt a sudden need to shake her or at least touch her, just so she could see to it that her twin was still there, still breathing.
Upon remembering, alongside the terrified feeling that suddenly crept up quickly on her chest, Katie couldn't help but tighten her grip around Emily's waist; her breath held in closely until she felt Emily give her fingers a gentle squeeze. "Ems—" She whispered, but stopped midway, because really, what was she supposed to say? There was no sense of asking Emily if she was alright, well at least for her, because the answer was rather quite obvious.
"Yeah?" Came Emily's hoarse response, her voice almost gone. She slowly turned around when it dawned on her that Katie wasn't going to say anything else.
The circles under Emily's eyes were dark and quite puffy, Katie could clearly see, and she honestly couldn't tell if it was because of Emily's lack of sleep or too much crying, or probably a mixture of both. "Come here." She murmured softly, letting Emily's head settle comfortably at the crook of her neck as she reached for her, because the look that crossed Emily's face, that look that Emily just gave her just about told her that Emily was about to cry again. She didn't try to shush her when she did start crying, but rather, held her as tight and as close as she could.
"I don't know why she did that." Emily's fingers balled into tight fists, crumpling the back of Katie's top into an absolute mess. "I don't know why." She could feel Katie's fingers running through her hair, Katie's other hand rubbing up and down the length of her back. It was comforting in some way but wasn't enough to calm her down, the gesture making her want to squeeze herself more to Katie's side, because Katie was the only one she felt she had left, and the thought of her twin falling out of her grasp was oddly terrifying.
"I don't—" Katie tried to say, but had to stop because Emily was breaking into another fit of muffled sobs, and now she was torn between letting Emily cry or shushing her down completely. She hadn't seen Emily shed tears this much even when they were kids, and as much as Katie did not want to admit, it was starting to scare her. She was scared of what could happen after; scared that Emily might never be able to come back from this. "Emily, hey." Katie could feel the tears pooling around the space on her neck, but it didn't make her grimace in disgust or anything like it would usually have. It made her pull Emily closer instead, if anymore possible, because this thing Emily was going through, she could feel it as well, for known and unknown reasons.
Katie had heard people say that there would always be an uncanny connection between twins, some sort of mystic link that tied both her and Emily together. Yet, this was one of those days that Katie wasn't thankful for it; one of those days that Katie wished she wasn't a twin, but not enough to make her regret being one, let alone, be Emily's.
There was a pile of neatly folded clothes, her clothes to be exact, lying next to the tray of cold tea and nearly soggy toasts her mum had brought up to her that morning; and it took her almost half of the day to notice.
On top of the pile was a small note, a fucking small piece of paper yet it made something drop at the pit of her stomach, heavy and unmoving; settled in there in the most unraveling way that it can, like the note had suddenly weighed tons just because scribbled in it was a string of letters with a name that meant as much as her whole fucking life.
'Emily slept here :-)'
Underneath it was something written in a much smaller and finer print, but was growing gallingly larger in front of her eyes as she continued to read, like that of screaming bold letters on a newspaper headline.
'Hope this makes you smile.'
The remorse hit her again square in the chest, harder this time, harder than any other time it ever surfaced, over how things got so royally fucked up because she permitted them to be; conceived into thinking that what she was doing at that time was right, when, if truth be told, it was the biggest mistake she had ever made.
The mattress barely sunk when she dropped herself to bed, the shirt that Emily wore clutched closely to her chest. She could see the edges of the note she left lying next to her pillow be ruffled by the gentle wind, and it was the last thing she remembered as her lids grew heavy, until, eventually drifting off to sleep.
Ruffled notes, neat scrawls, bright red hair—all wounding up in a flashing sequence that was remorseful yet comforting for the most part. Something she knew she'd still be thankful for by the time she would wake up.
Emily woke up to Zeus' attempts, switching alternately between barking and licking along the side of her face. The covers beneath her rustled as she shifted on the bed; and judging by the faint light breaking through the curtains as she looked around, she could tell that it was late in the afternoon, almost near evening. Zeus circled around on top of her until he found a comfortable spot, his paws tucked under his chin as he lay himself down. Her lips pulled into a lopsided smile as she watched him yawn widely while one of his paws reached forth and seemingly scratched his nose.
"I'm sorry about that."
Emily turned her gaze and saw Katie stood along the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. "I came to check up on you." Katie said matter-of-factly, and flicked the light switch on. "But then he came running, and, well, woke you up."
Emily winced as the bright light flooded the room in haste, her eyes taking a little bit longer to adjust and sort through the blur of colors that filled her vision. "'S'okay." She replied not long after, when the shades and the rays of light had seemingly stopped swirling in front of her. She smiled at Katie, though it came out a little bit strained, or at least that was what she thought. "I don't mind." She looked at Zeus and raised a finger; tapped the tip of his nose affectionately.
Katie found her place on the other side of the bed, and extended a hand to pat Zeus' head. She never really liked dogs that much, or any kind of pet at all to be fair, but patting him felt rather appropriate at that moment. "You know, for a dog, he seems quite clever." She muttered much later on, when patting became something that she actually liked to do, not just something that she felt like she was forced to. She watched as Emily gently bobbed her head in agreement, her eyes flickering between Emily's face and that silver thing hanging loosely from Zeus' collar; one that Emily had just caught with her fingers and started playing with. There was a beat of unbearable silence that Katie had to sit through and put up with, until she could hear shallow sniffles slowly filling the room as Emily continued to toy with the bone-shaped accessory. The imprinted letters glimmered under the fluorescent light and she could make out 'NEMO' in them. One glance at Emily and Katie was almost entirely sure that her twin would be back to crying in no time.
Emily could taste something at the back of her tongue, fast rising in her throat, and she was so close to throwing up, for known and unknown reasons.
"What really is his name?" Katie asked out of nowhere, rather, more like out of whim to steer the conversation away from anything related to Naomi. But then again, everything might be related to Naomi now.
"I—" Emily started, her voice breaking, then, "I don't really know."
"Seriously, that dog's going to have, like, huge psychological issues." Katie said with a half smile, the words muttered in a tone so light, as light as Katie could come up with. The pads of her thumb were back to wiping the tears that had escaped from Emily's hold, erasing every stain they had managed to leave on Emily's cheeks. "Come on. Let's get you something to eat." She murmured, ever so softly, just enough to pierce through Emily's muffled sobs; and Katie's heart was beating so fast with worry because Emily looked so close to hyperventilating. "Okay?"
It was long seconds before Emily found her voice again, much to Katie's relief. "Yeah." She answered with a tight-lipped smile. "That sounds nice."
Katie's answering smile was a little less strained now, because somehow, despite everything that had happened, she couldn't help but feel quite relieved for Emily hadn't succumbed to total apathy, yet. "Downstairs then?"
Katie offered a hand. Emily took it with a tight squeeze, and clung to it like she was holding on for her dear life.
The days passed, to Naomi in a huge blur that she almost lost track; to Emily, every fucking second felt like years.
She had made a conscious effort to try and get back to her feet; to at least get back to what used to be normal for her. But her own definition of normal had changed drastically in meaning, because most part of it involved Naomi. Emily knew then that a much bigger effort should be made if she wanted to at least get a grasp of some of her old life back, especially when she was surrounded by things that wouldn't make anything easy.
At some point before, she had learned to hate the days that Naomi would not be home, in that short period of time she had spent with her.
But now, she was starting to try to unlearn it, because it was on those days that the tugging feeling hurt less, and she knew that she should at least be thankful.
Naomi on the other hand wasn't doing quite well.
It honestly felt like she was reliving her dark days. Back when she used to blame and hate herself for her father's death. The heavy silence, the unkempt room, the closed curtains, the locked door—they were all too familiar; scenes of a particular era that Emily had made her once forget.
She stood in front of the mirror, and she could make out her red, puffy eyes in the dim lighted room. She could see glimpses of her old self standing in front of the same mirror—defeated and all alone. She was halfway on surrendering; halfway to believing that she could never get this fixed when a messy scrawl caught her eye. There printed on her right cheek was Emily's name, almost fading. She drew two fingers up, and hovered them above the letters, letting the pads slide through her cheek as she figured out where it probably came from. She turned her head and saw Emily's note lying above the pillow where she previously had been.
It caught her by surprise, that there was a striking difference to what she went through before and what she was going through now; how she could feel a strong urge within her to fight, to not lose this time. A powerful desire instigated by a small note that had left its mark under her skin, almost permanently.
"You've been hiding."
Naomi, who was at first surprised upon seeing Thomas standing in her doorway, gave a tight smile in turn and nodded her head towards him. "As it would seem." She replied, a small shrug rolling off her shoulders.
Thomas considered it as an invitation and took his place on the empty chair by the study table, right across Naomi's bed. "For you by the way." He raised the box he was holding for Naomi to see and patted it twice. "Panda asked me to give this to you."
"What's that?" Naomi asked, cocking her head to point the light green box.
"I'm not really sure." He replied with a soft chuckle. "But there's a note, just in case you're wondering."
Naomi reached forward to take the box, letting it rest on her lap afterwards as she fiddled with the folded note stuck on the cover. "Donuts." She laughed softly upon reading. "Tell Panda I said thanks."
"Sure."
"And that, yes, I will be taking a shower." Naomi watched as creases formed on Thomas' forehead, keeping hush until he was staring at her in a way like she suddenly sprouted another head. "It's on the note." She waved the small piece of paper. "She's telling me not to forget to take a shower."
Thomas snorted out his laughter. "That's Panda all right."
"Yeah. I can really tell." Naomi answered in between soft laughs that matched Thomas' slightly louder ones.
"She is worried about you though." Thomas said, beats after both their laughter had trickled down into heaved deep sighs and a comfortable silence. "How are you holding?" He asked, with a genuine kind of sincerity that Naomi had barely ever seen before. She and Thomas never really had something more than their business type of relationship, so his visit really came to her as a surprise. They had been through worse, she must admit, but then probably they both knew that this time, they were dealing with a situation far different from the others they had gone through.
"I don't really know." Naomi barely whispered, but her room was far too quiet for both of them not to hear. It sounded so weak that she could hardly believe the words came from her; that she said them herself.
Thomas answered with a rather sympathetic nod. "I understand."
"It's just—" Naomi began, but was at a loss for words all at once. "I don't really know where to go from here." She ran her fingers through her hair, slowly; over and over until it felt soothing enough. "I'm all out."
Thomas studied her for a few beats, before asking. "Do you think you've hit the bottom?"
Naomi lifted her head up and threw him a quizzical look. "I'm sorry?"
A soft chuckle broke from Thomas' lips, and he repeated his question again, much to Naomi's bemusement. "Well. Do you?" He drawled out, and waited patiently until it seemed that Naomi had understood what he was trying to say.
There was a short moment of hesitation, before Naomi finally had the courage to admit things; had the courage to say that she might be losing a battle she had been trying so hard to win. "I'm afraid I have."
"Then—" Thomas replied with a rather warm smile, surprisingly. "There's really nowhere else to go but up, isn't it?"
"Is it?" Naomi answered, with a deep sigh and an apprehensive tone that Thomas could only associate with uncertainty. It was something that he could hardly recognize, for Naomi had constantly been the type of person who seemed like she was always so sure of herself. Naomi had always been that person who wore her confidence proudly on her sleeves.
"I don't think we're headed to anywhere else." Thomas said, with that same warm smile he was already giving. "Really."
"But I don't know what's waiting for me." She replied, in a cut up kind of way that pretty much echoed all her fears, that this was her career and her life, which probably was the bigger part at stake; and it genuinely felt like this was the first time she ever cared about what was going to happen next. "I don't know if I still have something—anything to go back to."
"You haven't stolen anything or killed anyone Naomi." Thomas stated matter-of-factly. "This kind of thing happens all the time, to almost anyone. Famous or not."
Naomi grimaced at Thomas' words, feeling a particular sting graze through her skin. "But this is different." She tried to reason out; to at least defend herself from what she thought was a groundless accusation. "It wasn't supposed to happen."
"I'm not saying you did anything on purpose." He shook his head animatedly, as if to clear whatever misunderstanding that was about to occur. "And I'm not saying that you do this all the time either." He brought his hands together and propped both his elbows against his bent knees. "My point is, what happened is not as bad compared to others. I've seen worse and believe me, those people? They were able to come back." He caught Naomi's eye and looked at her straight, with a rather defiant expression he had never failed to exude. "You will be too."
Naomi's lips quivered, with a little less insecurity this time. "How are we going to do this?"
"We'll figure something out." He replied, with a firm tone and eyes trained towards Naomi. "One step at a time, okay?" He didn't bat an eyelash until he had heard her speak.
"Yeah." Naomi, after a short moment of mooting, answered with a nod. "Thanks." She murmured and took his words as some sort of assurance that things would be fixed, eventually. He took his words and his smile, thinking that, they were better than not taking anything at all.
"I'll see you when you're ready, yes?" Thomas stood up and gave Naomi's knees a comforting squeeze. "I'll be in my office."