FIC: i can't get out of love ;; part 2
i can't get out of love (a love i had a grip on; now it's gripping me)
Author: Eskimo Jo
Rating: 18
Warning: language, sexuality, substance use.
Sunshine is truly a horrible thing, Naomi muses half-consciously as streams of light slice across Effy's bedroom. It's hot and it's bright and all she wants is to burrow into nothingness and never emerge into real life again. The idea of course is ridiculous, though not entirely undesirable. She could roll over, away from the glare, except that would involve an unholy amount of effort which she's not certain she actually possesses at the moment. There's a whiff of alcohol drooping lazily over her senses and short of opening her eyes she has no way of determining if Effy is drinking it as she suspects. Hair of the dog seemed to by her friend's constant motto these days, as if chronic alcoholism and liver disease is indeed a perfectly legitimate method to live life to its fullest. Eventually, and mustering all the courage she can, she squints towards the other side of the bed, noticing with some surprise that there isn't a stick-insect-like brunette sipping liquor beside her. It makes a pleasant sort of change that is quickly nullified however by the aroma of vodka still wafting around. Repressing the urge to be ill, she turns over slowly and excruciatingly carefully, away from the sunlight.
She catches herself dozing off numerous times before finally fully awakening with slightly more gusto than previous, but nowhere near the amount she needs to actually be a functional member of society. Thumps and voices filter in from outside the bedroom and she groans out loud at the possibility of more than just Effy being present in the household. Suddenly the bedroom door swings open with a bang and there's a curse from the otherside belonging to a voice that is vaguely familiar yet still unnameable.
Her eyes widen slightly as another brunette peeks into the room and Naomi's not sure if the sick in her throat is from the hangover or the blurry memories of last night that have suddenly been reawoken. Michelle crosses the room towards her with a quiet “Hey” and a glass of water in her hand. She places it carefully on the nightstand and glances down at the bin of barely-digested chips and rum. Her eyebrow quirks and Naomi's insanely jealous of this girl who could both drink her under the table and be seemingly peachy the next morning, with no evidence that they had actually been on a rather large binge the night before.
Without asking, Michelle gently sits on the edge of the bed, slightly too close for Naomi's comfort. Had it been Effy, her feelings would have been different but no doubt at this moment she reckons she looks something between a mangled clown and a lump of shit. Worse though, she feels like she's been spat out the wrong end of a meat-grinder. On a ship. During a storm at sea. It all makes for an incredibly less than desirable situation for early morning polite conversation. Michelle of course looks no worse for wear, only slightly tired and a little less make-up.
She quickly rips open a packet, reaches over and drops an Alka-Seltzer into the glass. “Tony suggested I come up and give you that. Figured you were pretty poorly this morning.”
Settling for a squint rather than a full-on glare due to the sheer effort required, Naomi groans quietly. “I'm fine.” Please go away.
Unfortunately, unlike the Stonems, Michelle doesn't appear to be a mind-reader and as such is completely oblivious to Naomi's silent objections to her presence. She just smiles almost shyly. “Figured it was my fault you're in this state,” she says softly and wriggles around her pocket, pulling out a small bottle of prescription tablets. “So, here is my peace offering.” Holding out some light blue pills, she gestures for Naomi to take them. “They're my mum's. Work wonders on hangovers as you can clearly see,” she laughs gently. “But keep it quiet. I don't have enough to go around.”
Naomi takes two tablets hesitantly, eyeing Michelle suspiciously and swallows. Girls like her are not supposed to be this nice. Girls are catty and judgemental and vapid and unhelpful, and girls like Michelle are supposed to be all of these things to a much higher degree. Like Katie. Predator and prey. The only explanation is that she is feeling incredibly guilty about something, and likely something more than just getting Naomi to the point of moderate alcohol poisoning.
“Cheers.” It's all the blonde can mumble under the circumstances.
“I meant what I said last night. I'd really like us to be friends.” The words seem to spin over Naomi's head, confusing her and bringing about a strange sort of wonder. Naomi falls back on her usual justification for her skepticism: her kind and Michelle's kind are not natural allies. They reside in different niches, different classes and different ranks in the completely imaginary yet highly influential social structure of young people in Bristol. And worse still, she can't figure out what the ulterior motive actually is for this bridging of types. That Abigail horsefucker bitch may have been onto something in that Michelle's back from uni, lonely and looking to regain her status. Could be. Whatever the reason, it's far too much work to try to evaluate it in her hungover state. She'll save that for later when she's sulking about in her room alone and bored.
She opts for a standard, “Yeah.” in response which prompts a smile from the brunette.
“Nice. See you later then, Naomi,” she grins and squeezes the blonde's free hand. The gesture provokes sparks to shoot down her arm and Naomi blames it on the sickness that has already subsided. Standing up, Michelle exits the room without further comment, leaving Naomi to nurse her hangover in peace.
It's barely a half hour later when the door creaks open again and a much more familiar face peers in, assessing the situation quickly. The front door had slammed a few minutes earlier and presumably both Tony and Michelle have left. In her visitor's hands is quite a large book.
Effy sits down softly beside Naomi. She sighs, reaches over and places a heavy book on Naomi's lap. Grimacing at the idea of reading anything with her head as sore as it is and her mind as tangled, the blonde groans. It's some massive text about Greek myths. “What is this, Eff?” She attempts not to sound as irritated as she feels but comes up short.
“A book.”
Fucking Effy. If she had the willpower and strength, she'd take said book and smack her friend over the head with it right now. But the mere idea of that much movement causes her stomach to clench and she swallows hard instead. Huffing out an exasperated breath, she settles for a minute yet disdainful headshake.
Effy opens the book on Naomi's lap, flipping through the pages until she comes across a picture of a swan and eagle. “There's another version of that story you were going on about last night,” Effy says softly, as if telling a secret.
Naomi squints, blearily recalling something about drunkenly staring at the stars. Oh, yes, Cygnus. She stares down at the illustration, three beautiful birds in flight.
“In order to avoid Zeus,” Effy begins, “Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, jealousy and punisher of hubris, turned herself into a wild goose. Upon figuring this out, Zeus -who had become inexplicably taken with Nemesis' outstanding beauty- changed himself into a swan and the goddess Aphrodite, of love, beauty and sexuality, transformed into a ferocious eagle. Aphrodite then chased the wild goose Nemesis into Zeus' lap, where they mated and Nemesis bore two eggs. As a timeless testament of his success, Zeus placed the swan in the night sky.”
She snaps the book closed quickly causing Naomi to jump and wince at the sound. “You know what a nemesis is, right?”
It is far too early in the day to have a lesson on mythology and vocabulary. Naomi does know, sort of but her mind is still foggy from the drink and exhaustion. She just wants to crawl back under the blankets and sleep away the nasty feeling in her body. Effy is staring intently at her, awaiting a substantial answer. “Yes,” she growls and throws the duvet off. She's going home if Effy won't leave her alone.
Sensing the impending departure, Effy continues. “It's not always bad.”
Turning to look over her shoulder, Naomi casts a dark glare in Effy's direction and is only further aggravated by two blue eyes mischievously twinkling back at her. Who gives a flying shit about the meaning of nemesis anyway? Too fucking early. She merely groans and pulls herself slowly off the insanely comfortable mattress, swaying on her feet for a moment as her head stops spinning. A shaking hand clenches at her forehead, willing those tablets of Michelle's to start full-on working already. “I'm leaving, Eff.” She takes a few steps towards the door. “Have fun with your dictionary,” she mumbles and stares back at her best mate.
Effy's just smirking, entirely too amused at the situation, as bloody always, and adds, “It means inescapable.”
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”
- Anais Nin
It starts innocently. Well, it starts as innocently as anything that involves dry-humping, French kissing and excessive liquor consumption can possibly begin. The first time, it's a mere half hour borne of a chance meeting at the top of Park St. Awkward greetings give way to a tentative chat while they meander down to the College Green. Parting ways, Michelle leaves Naomi with nothing more than a smile. The second time, it's less reliant on random chaos theory and Naomi doesn't make up excuses when Michelle rings and further doesn't attempt to back out of a coffee date down by the floating harbour. 'Date' is a generous word of course; in reality it's just two friends sharing some caffeine-laced drinks and making aimless discussion. It lasts only a bit over an hour but as Naomi attempts to scurry away, Michelle catches her in what turns out to be a rather half-assed and strikingly brief embrace.
The increments in-between meetings become fewer and the chats themselves much longer. Goodbyes take more time. Naomi hugs back with a kind of familiarity eventually. She's the one that lingers a little longer on Friday afternoon.
Of course, by the next Saturday Naomi finds herself dragged along to a party at Roundview halls. An impressive number of sixths are crammed into two adjacent rooms, with lager and spirits soaking carpets and bedsheets as the party rages on without reserve. She doesn't ask how this is allowed to happen in halls. She doesn't much care. The party itself is a definite decrease in drama from a fortnight ago's shenanigans yet she still manages to lose track of Effy somewhere in the space of 200 metres. It's like partying with a ghost.
There are just too many kids. Slipping away, she finds her mate in the loo, pulling on a spliff and they lock themselves in a cubicle to finish it as some loudmouth Belgian exchange student is sick in the stall next door, wailing in French between heaves. Effy thinks the scene is equally as ridiculous and immature as Naomi does. They decide to head down to Warehouse out of sheer desperation but not before coming face to face with a newly arrived Tony and Michelle. This time Michelle doesn't hug Naomi in greeting as her hand is securely clasping Effy's brother's. A smile and a few words is all they manage to exchange before Tony interrupts with a very dismissive tone.
“Christ, I feel like a paedophile here.” Just then, a blonde and quite attractive Scottish girl with the lowest cut top known to man falls into him, giggling and splashing her drink over his striped polo shirt as she attempts to right herself. Without even an apology she flits off to prop herself up against a lanky ginger boy who is obviously munted beyond all belief as a boyish-looking girl grins at the scene. Effy sneers and shakes her head. They're too old for this.
The Warehouse is equally boring and irritating for the remainder of their time there yet Michelle and Tony seem to slip away without notice anyway. Naomi doesn't get a hug goodbye, or even a text.
Michelle's attitude on the weekend seems to be only a hiccup. Monday brings her round again and the cycle starts anew. More time together in ever greater lengths of time, until the weekend. Just as it is Effy's chance to shrug off the shackles of her so-called normal life for one of Class-A-soaked nostalgic debauchery, to suspend reality for a few days, it also becomes the time where Naomi is reminded that friendship doesn't trump romance. Michelle is standoff-ish with her guard up every moment Tony is near. And in all honesty, the same occurs to Naomi if Emily happens to be at a party or club (now thankfully rid of that insufferable Abigail and flying solo). Naomi keeps botching up her chances however in her pursuit of the red-head. Each step closer she gets, something pulls her back, waiting for a signal, longing for a push. Sometimes even her normally laser-focused vision is distracted by brunette waves and green eyes and it takes a definite force of will to refocus on Emily.
And so it is for weeks. Maybe it's months, Naomi can't be certain because after a while, it becomes routine. Routine becomes habit. Habit becomes second-nature. Weekdays volley between part-time shit jobs and outings with Michelle or Effy, and occasionally dodging into shop doorways or behind rows of books to avoid Emily. She still hasn't worked out the perfect, romantic and ultimately persuasive thing to say to win her back and she can't risk an encounter until she's certain it'll work. Parties remain the same: mostly shit with the sporadic highlight, while she spends the majority of her time chasing after Effy, staring at Emily overtop the heads of strangers and pretending that Michelle's weekend-indifference doesn't sting, even just a little. She can't admit that something is switching on, the suffocating fog of past relationships dissipating just slightly when she calls Michelle “Chelle” for the first time. The only real change that she is willing to admit is that she begins to loath Tony's presence, and even moreso the mention of his name during the week. He's merely Effy's intolerable brother. She won't admit much more than that.
Once she falls into this pattern, time moves slowly, seeping down through the calendar. It just erodes gently like rainfall on stone. Keeping track of its painfully lethargic movement is a waste of effort.
The monotony breaks finally one night as Naomi is lying half-awake in her bedroom, staring at the shadows passing over the ceiling above. Her body is thrumming from an unrecoverable dream that has just woken her. Her mind lazily drifts to Emily as her fingers wander into the crease between her thighs. It's always Emily at these moments of bliss. Creamy skin set ablaze by the contrasting crimson hair, brown eyes deep and patient but bold and a gaze strong. She sees the freckles on her shoulders and the tiny scar on her bottom lip left from Katie stabbing her with a fork when they were little. It's been months and she can still recall the touch of Emily's hands and lips and her raspy voice as she begged Naomi for release. Laying prone and alone on a rainy Bristol night, Naomi only sees white sand and sunshine and Emily's naked body writhing against her own. She hears the moans complimented by the distant howls of delight from revellers along Anjuna or Vagator and the crashes of ocean waves pounding against the beach -- just like an ecological orchestra composed only for her own ears. Frenzy mounts as sweat trickles over them, the real-life pattering of rain becomes the countdown tick-tock of a bomb as she rides her own fingers, oblivious to reality.
Then from behind her eyelids come traitorous visions. Emily is no longer herself but instead, Naomi glimpses a different body, chestnut hair and the voice is altered, sparking memories of that long ago party. She feels Chelle instead against her. She cums fast before her mind can push the images back to Emily's profile, not that she can will that back into her imagination at the moment if she had wanted. Accepting the quirk in her fantasy, at least for the time being, she lets the vision fade as she draws in deep breaths. It's only after a minute or so that her eyes snap open again, fear coursing unbidden through her, spurring on by the pervasive confusion. She leaps out of bed, grasping almost desperately for her laptop, tossing the plush fox toy sitting on top of it aside. As she does, her gaze darts up and out of her window into the night sky, landing on Canis major. It provokes a momentary pause but shaking her head clear, she pulls open her computer and settles back into bed, pulling up photos of Goa and college. Anything to wipe away the realisation that she'd just come harder than she had done in ages, and it had little to do with Emily.
She falls back asleep with pixelated images of Emily burned into her eyelids.
It should have been obvious that with one small change in routine, everything else will unravel as well. It's physics. Or chemistry. Or something science-y that Naomi could not care less about. It's probably none of those things, just something like fate. And that itself is neither science nor rational. In fact, it's really just one of those things that no one sees while its happening but just in retrospect all the pieces seem to fuse together in an odd sort of puzzle that makes you wonder how on Earth you hadn't seen it coming sooner.
Naomi Campbell is not graced with a great deal of foresight however. And she hates physics.
It could perhaps be considered coincidence seeing JJ in the Bedminster Library two days later as she's idly flipping through an astronomy guidebook. It looks to be for children, teenagers at best, but she's got nothing better to do for a few hours until Michelle is off work, and all the books she had come here to look at are painfully dull. It's the last time she trusts the internet to make suggestions for reading material. Her gaze drifts over an illustration of Orion, one of the most recognisable constellations in the world. She already knows about the hunter and all that. She even knows, thanks to her father, about this set of stars and their relation to Frigg --the namesake of Friday-- a Scandinavian goddess with the gift of prophecy, of seeing everyone's destinies yet refusing to reveal her visions. She chuckles, thinking about Effy suddenly. Frigg was the only woman granted the ability to sit beside Odin and view the entire universe.
She's interrupted from her amused pondering when there's a tap on her shoulder. Immediately preparing some sort of nasty comment she swings towards the source. She's granted only a very up-close view of a blue and green striped jumper. Her gaze slowly shifts upwards towards the face of the boy standing far closer than is generally accepted as polite. She squints. Once. Twice.
“JJ?”
He quirks a small smile. “Hi, Naomi.” His hand waves hesitantly, as if he's not even certain if he should have said hello. The fact is, Naomi would never have noticed him otherwise. Not only is something strangely different about him now which makes him blend into the general mass of nameless idiots, but she doesn't give a shit really about anyone else in the library or otherwise. Without his previously noticeable differences, he's just morphed into one of the many. Despite his shy demeanour, he seems more confident, more self-assured somehow. His hair is shorter, the spots once all over his face have all but vanished and, well, he's not dressed like his mother picked out his wardrobe any longer. They play the staring game for a few minutes before Naomi rolls her eyes and gestures to the seat beside her as she pushes the stack of useless books she'd previously gathered out of the way.
“Christ, Jay, sit down. You're making me nervous.”
The boy follows her instruction and takes a seat slowly, tapping his fingers against the Formica tabletop. Neither seem in any hurry to start the conversation. It's not that Naomi dislikes JJ exactly, but she barely knows him; she's never bothered to get to know him, never had a desire nor need. His quirks had been too much for her to handle in her petulant and bewildering beginning days of college, and there was that whole fuss with Emily in Year 12. And afterwards, any chance she'd had to get to know him had dissipated slowly after Sophia's death when Emily had taken him for hers alone, as if when they semi-broke-up they each staked a claim to particular friendships in teenage divorce settlement. She'd got custody of Cook and Effy; Emily had taken JJ and Katie. Now, it's awkward, very much so, actually. She thinks of Freddie, and the initially inseparable trio of boys. Too much had happened in college, so much that should have drawn the whole group of them closer, but in the end, it had only worked to drive them further and further apart. He's not quite a stranger now but he may as well be.
Eventually, bored of the penetrating silence between them, Naomi speaks. “So, what are you doing here? Though you'd gone away to uni.”
JJ's eyes sparkle at the mention of university, or maybe at the idea of leaving Bristol. His lips form into a lop-sided smirk. “I have. It's just... just that. Well. I'm home to visit... Mum for a few days.”
He doesn't give her much to work with as she senses that it's not her place to ask why. There's just something about the way he says “Mum” that makes it sound personal, too personal to talk with an acquaintance about. Instead, she purses her lips momentarily and nods, humming. “Cool.” She realises she has no clue what to ask because she really has no idea what he's like. “Where, uh, do you study then?” This conversation is already like plucking hairs, one at a time. Tedious.
“London. Imperial College,” he says proudly but his grin falters. “Not sure I like London much though. It's not like Bristol.”
Naomi snorts. “Reckon that's probably a good thing, yeah?”
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
She doesn't know why he came over to talk to her. This is hardly engaging conversation. Neither of them are particularly good small talkers, and especially not with each other. It's as if someone had turned the awkward dial to full capacity. And sealed all the escape hatches. Just brilliant. Now she's thinking all sci-fi and geeky just like him.
“So are you at uni in Bristol then?” he ventures carefully. He's seeking common ground. Naomi restrains a sneer as she realises that they're unlikely to find any such place.
Shaking her head disdainfully, she chuckles. “Not me, no.”
He reaches over and slides the book she's reading towards himself and peers at the the pages. “So then why are you reading about astronomy?” The action is so bold for JJ and Naomi's put off by this change in him. He's no longer the painfully shy and completely socially inept boy she'd met in college. This is a different JJ, though maybe socially inept in a new way, unaware of personal boundaries. One that takes risks, even if they're small ones. Maybe university makes people change, in bad and good ways. She suspects it's more like it helps people grow up and fend for themselves in a way that she's not experienced living generally the same life as she had done since college began. Instead of praising this personal growth of his, she snatches the book page and closes it abruptly.
“Doesn't matter,” she snaps, covering it with her folded arms and glaring at JJ as best she can in this state of confusion. What she expects from him never transpires. He doesn't shirk away, bumble an excuse to leave or get that look of fear in his eyes as she has become accustomed to. Instead, his smirk is slightly wider. He still can't meet her eyes, but this new JJ is a bit disconcerting. It's like all her power that she'd harnessed in college has dissipated in the light of his higher education. That idea makes her feel uncomfortable in his presence, and somewhat paranoid and depressed about the state of her own life.
JJ's staring at the corner of the book poking out from under her elbow. “I love astronomy,” he admits matter-of-factly. “Wasn't able to fit in into my programme this year.” He pauses as if he's lost his train of thought for a second. “Besides, first year astronomy lessons are not meant for people like me.”
Naomi's certain this boy is going to turn into some nutty professor one day, sitting alone in a shit tip of an office and scribbling insane mathematical formulas over all his students' papers. Her own thoughtful meanderings are interrupted by his voice again. “You'd probably like them, you know.”
Her blue eyes latch onto him, trying to pierce him with sheer force of will. She's fairly certain he's just called her stupid. “What's that supposed to mean?” she scowls, believing she knows full well what he means. Finally, something familiar happens and JJ appears to be momentarily flustered at her outburst. He stumbles around for words, muttering out some sort of half-arsed apology. It should make her feel better, that things aren't quite as buggered as she'd thought; in fact, underneath it all, they're still just the same idiot kids they were at Roundview. But somehow, all she feels now is guilty for pressing him so hard only to make herself feel more at ease. Fuck. Guilt is such a prevalent part of her existence now. What would Emily do?
“JJ, look,” she starts but never gets the chance to finish before he's shaking his head quite adamantly against her words, his eyes clenched shut. He's blocking her out so she huffs out a long breath and waits for him to settle down a bit before continuing. “Sorry, okay?”
She watches his shoulders sag and dip, and the muscles in his face begin to relax until he's regained his new sense of composure. It's likely as new a state for him and it is for her. This adjustment to being a grown-up doesn't seem to happen in one easy swoop. They sit in the near-silence of the library surrounding them. Someone drops a book nearby and they both flinch at the sound. It's like a switch is flipped and JJ's reversed everything that had just happened, gone back to confident new JJ. “You were looking at Orion,” he states with an air of pride, but it's laced with hesitancy as well.
She nods. “Yeah.”
“You know what's interesting about that one?”
Blonde hair sways as she shakes her head, waiting for him to explain some completely boring thing about binaries or light years or similar bollocks. He clears his throat and she winces.
“Canis major and Canis minor can be found from following the line of his belt and his shoulders.”
The information doesn't intrigue Naomi in any way whatsoever. “So?”
“There are the interpretations of those stars as being Orion's hounds but they also represent the irresistible force paradox. The question of what happens when an unstoppable or irresistible force meets an immovable object. N-Not that any such thing can exist as any immovable object would necessarily need to possess infinite mass, and thus doing so would create a singularity, a black hole. Which, inversely, actually is surrounded by an event horizon.” Off Naomi's puzzled look, JJ attempts to explain further. “It's something that as a particle approaches close enough, it has such a strong gravitational pull that escape is then impossible.” He smirks as if privy to some secret knowledge about all that bollocks.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asks, slightly irritated by the boring abstract concepts and jargon she's only ever heard whilst flicking through the channels on boring Saturday afternoons. “What does any of that have to do with constellations of dogs?”
JJ tries to keep his composure in light of her dismissive attitude towards the information he's belaying onto her. “H-Hound and fox, Major and Minor,” he clarifies and a darkness comes over his face, as if he doesn't want to speak about it any longer; as if he's tired of wasting his breath on someone who doesn't appreciate his cosmological offering. He doesn't tell her to look it up because as out of touch as he can be, he knows at least that Naomi would never actually do anything he asked of her. She barely did anything even Emily had asked of her at the best of times.
Naomi likes things to be simple. Suddenly what were just a bunch of stars twinkling in the sky every so often are transformed into things with this deep, unfathomable meaning that she can't quite grasp. Annoyed at this, she glowers at the boy, trying to impress on him how much time he's just wasted. Hers and his own. JJ's not exactly a skilled reader of emotional and social cues and as a result, the message flies over his head, yet something must click somewhere because he shifts away slightly, preparing to leave.
“I like astronomy too,” he repeats from earlier. “It's constant.” His voice has a strange quality to it, almost wistful. It's something she'd never heard from him ever before. As someone who is painfully blunt and awkward, he had never actually revealed that he felt emotions the same way as the rest of them. He was either completely overwhelmed or completely void of feeling, in her presence anyway.
Naomi's eyes flick sharply to him with the familiar sentiment. She hates the feeling that she and JJ may be alike in some way, well, other than both being able to say they shagged a fit lesbian in college. What a club they would make: The Shaggers of Emily and Lovers of Constellations Club. Gross. As she's considering the idea, JJ moves away, gathering his own books under his arm.
All she can do is leap at the chance. “Have you heard from Emily?” She hates how overwrought she sounds in her own ears.
JJ's pauses, halfway out of his seat for a moment, as if caught in some trap, a deer in headlights. He nods, swallowing hard before standing up fully. It's fucking pissing her off that not two minutes ago she couldn't shut JJ up, and now he seems incapable of speaking. Dumb mong. She's about to ignore him when he coughs softly. Glancing over, she sees his hands trembling and immediately another wave of guilt rises up from her gut, crashing into her mind. Her voice softens, “Did she say anything about me?”
Their eyes lock, icy blue on icy blue, like deep space meteors seconds before collision. He swallows visibly, obviously quite uncomfortable with the position he's suddenly in. She recognises the fear in his eyes. What was it that Emily used to call it? Locking in? Locking down? Well, no matter, cos whatever it is, she senses it's about to happen again. Her own gaze softens as she tries to shift the pressure from him specifically. “I just... I don't know where her head is at.” She pauses, uncertain about revealing any of this to JJ, who for all intents and purposes is almost like not only a stranger, but his loyalties are to the opposing forces. “Or what she's thinking about the future. About us. Or me. Or her. Like...” She trails off, having said too much already.
There is a very heavy, suffocating sort of silence that descends over them again as JJ just stares, not at her eyes, but her chin it looks like. He can't quite return her desperate stare but he appears to be thinking quite a lot, something is spinning in that muddled-up mind of his. Eventually, there's a slight raise of his eyelids, like he's had some kind of epiphany and Naomi's chest grows tighter in anticipation.
Reaching over, he picks up Naomi's pen and flips open the book she had been reading. Leaning down practically over her shoulder, he scribbles some mathematics formula on the back inside cover. It's just a bunch of triangles and funny looking letters that she vaguely recognises from maths lesson years ago. He underlines it emphatically a few times before handing her pen back.
“Have you ever heard of the EPR paradox of entangled particles?” he asks excitedly.
There's a moment where Naomi says nothing; instead, she just stares completely impassively at his jittery form, practically vibrating with energy. JJ doesn't pick up on her non-verbal cue so she sighs. “Why the fuck would I have ever heard about that bollocks?” She hadn't meant to sound like such a prick about it, but it was her default setting when people did and said things she couldn't understand. The sarcasm and disdain pass over JJ like he hasn't even noticed them. He shrugs, consciously considering the reason why she honestly may have heard about the concept. Giving up on finding a rational theory, he points to the formula again, tapping it a few times forcing her attention towards the garbled symbols.
“It's based around the Uncertainty principle, Naomi,” he says slowly to her, as if she's a child.
Clenching her teeth from coming up with a nasty retort to his tone, she responds with a measure of strong self-control. “Yeah, and? JJ, honestly, what's your point? What has Emily said?”
“Doesn't matter.” He mutters it nervously and against her better judgement, an angry scowl stretches over her face, threatening.
That's it. That's just fucking it. Her patience has reached far beyond its limit and JJ is just standing there, practically hovering over her and all she wants to do is grab the irritating boy and shake him into talking sense. Her fists clench of their own accord but relax when JJ begins stuttering, trying to force out his thoughts before they're quite ready. At least he's trying, she supposes.
“The more p-precisely the current position of a particle is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. The more accurately you measure one property, the less likely you will be to measure or control the other. It's just nature.”
Naomi winces, her teeth catching her bottom lip as she stares blankly at the scrawled letters in the book. There's a message she's not quite hearing yet and JJ just keeps poking at the symbols, as if the meaning is inherently crystal clear. “I can tell you what Emily is feeling right now, quite accurately in fact,” he explains, again slowly but this time Naomi's somewhat thankful for the pace. “But likely it will only work to blur what you expect to happen. You won't be able to see the future or where she's going any better because of it. May make it worse. The observation even makes you part of the system, which alters it, or perception at least.”
“I'm already part of it,” Naomi protests, but finds her voice betraying her and coming out pathetic and weak. “It's about me.”
JJ merely smirks down at her and she's becoming really fucking tired of this attitude from him, like he knows it all just cos he throws around a bunch of triangles and maths theories and he's so clever at his uni now. It's all rubbish anyway.
He shakes his head, finding familiarity and comfort and thus, confidence, in his static formulas and their application to human life, as ridiculous as that is in itself. He really doesn't understand being human, she's sure. She huffs and waves a hand dismissively at him. “Thanks for nothing, Jay,” she growls, her voice sulky and disappointed that he couldn't give her a straight answer. Just for once. It's all she really asks. How is that such a bloody difficult wish to grant?
JJ's mobile ringing causes them both to jump, and his face turns a deep shade of pink as he fumbles desperately for the source of the noise. It's so him, the sound. All robotic, like lift-off aboard a space shuttle or some shit. “I've-I've got to go,” he squeaks out, pressing at various keys to silence the alarm. “My mum needs me.”
Naomi allows him to flee without even a goodbye. It's peculiar though. The name that flashed up on his screen hadn't looked so much like “Mum” as it had “Emily”.
It should have been a sign that the day was about to become even less ordinary. The thing is though, Naomi isn't really paying attention to any warning signs. She'd need a big flashing billboard with it spelled out to her in simple words in order to even consider the possibility that anything else was about to be turned upside down and inside out. Running into the irritatingly cryptic JJ had been the extent of things she could possibly imagine. Interesting things simply didn't happen too often in Bristol anymore, and certainly not more than one anomaly in a single day. Of course, the fact that the next situation began gradually doesn't help her recognise it for what it is immediately.
Michelle texts her, as is the norm, the routine. Nothing odd about that. She responds after a few minutes, trying not to seem too eager, which is odd in itself cos that's the sort of game people play with people they fancy, not regular friends. Normal people can text their friends a response milliseconds later and it doesn't mean anything deeper than “we're having a conversation”. But with people you fancy the rules change for some reason. However, well, Naomi doesn't fancy Michelle, like at all. At least that's what she repeated to herself last night while imprinting digital photos of Emily into her brain and making up excuses, for the 3rd night in a row. It's all very confusing and it's easier just to ignore the niggling questions her own behaviour raises within the cacophony otherwise known as her mind.
The moment she sees Michelle coming across the park, something is off. Her walk is hurried and sharp; it looks likes she's definitely angry and Naomi groans inwardly at having to listen to another play-by-play of her and Tony's latest stupid row. She positively loathes speaking about Tony now, or even listening to Michelle whinge on about him. It's terribly redundant and she honestly thinks the girl is an idiot for not just dumping the tosser straight up. In all fairness though, she'd prefer Michelle's incessant complaints as opposed to her disgustingly sweet gushing about what a wonderful boyfriend he is now and how in love they really are, despite their rows and how it may appear to everyone else. It's interesting that she always qualifies such statements of love with that disclaimer.
But as the brunette draws nearer, it's obvious the source of her ire is likely far more related to the wet stains covering her white top. She's fussing with it, flapping the loose fabric in an effort to dry it most likely. Coming up beside the blonde, Michelle is positively fuming.
“Bloody fucking wankers,” she shouts to no one in particular, and no one in particular even seems to care. Not a single head turns their way. Lovely, indifferent Bristolians. Before Naomi even has the chance to ask what happened, her friend is already involved in a rant to explain the situation. “Some cocky little bastards with water pistols thought it would be funny to scream 'Wet t-shirt contest' and assault me with water on my way here.” She groans again in agitation, flapping her hands around, fanning the nearly see-through fabric. “Boys like that need a proper kicking. Right up their little pre-pubescent arseholes.”
There's little Naomi can do other than stare, her eyes growing wider with Michelle's choice of language. She really could let out some quite impressive swearing when truly riled up. She shouldn't find it quite as amusing as she does and does an impressive show of hiding her smirk. Michelle was likely coming from Effy's just south there on Elvaston, which was literally not even 10 minutes away, and in that time she'd managed to be completely soaked by a bunch of brats. And now is growling and pacing like a near-drowned cat, muttering about some kids named James and Gordon. Naomi doesn't clue into who the little perverts really are.
Finally she finishes off her rant with a dramatically drawn out sigh. Naomi's not certain who Michelle's actually even speaking to anyone specific anymore, just venting to the grass and trees it appears. That is, until she faces Naomi face-on and asks, “Does it look like I wanted a shower?”
The question is meant to be rhetorical obviously. She's not meant to answer it, or even consider the realistic possibility. But that's the irritating thing about fancying someone (even if you deny it, and sometimes even if you don't fancy them at all): when they say “shower”, your thoughts immediately and without reserve take a leap into fantasy. And not really any dirty, smutty sort of way. More like a daydream. Naomi certainly is not standing in a public, very open park picturing her current companion butt-naked with water cascading over her shoulders. Not quite anyway. It's just the words somehow spark something in her belly, and her head tilts to the side slightly as if studying droplets of water trail down an exposed neck, or a bare leg. But it could hardly be counted as even a fantasy considering it evaporates as quickly as it came; the rational, practical side of Naomi's mind leaps to attention instead, reminding her that thoughts such as those are unwelcome in friendships. And this is very much only a friendship. She's in love with Emily. People who are in love with Emily Fitch should not be considering the curves of another girl's pelvis as water slides down into the dip. Not at all. Emily has a lovely pelvis, lovely hips. Lovely everything. Very lovely indeed. The image fades, but there's a nudge deep inside her belly that Naomi has to physically scratch at the surface to distract herself from.
Meanwhile, Michelle's regarding her curiously, apparently waiting for a response but Naomi's not clear if there was even a question. She's been a bit preoccupied and didn't hear it if there had been. She shrugs, mumbles a “Yeah.” out of habit and sighs, glancing away from the other girl.
“Ugh, whatever. Anyway, I need a drink,” Michelle states, pinning Naomi with an imploring gaze that the blonde attempts to ignore. She's not really in the mood to get drunk midday Tuesday just because some twatty kids got Michelle's top a little damp. Damp. That word should not be in her vocabulary. Not now especially.
She has a better idea and tells Michelle so but the suggestion is met with reluctance.
“Ah, I don't think so.”
Naomi scoffs, pulling out the spliff and waving it about. She forgets sometimes that Michelle isn't Effy, and baiting her with drugs won't really draw her approval. “Why not? I don't have any drink and neither do you.”
“There's a pub just on Windmill Hill, yeah? It's only a few blocks.”
There's really no need to inform Naomi about that particular place. It's right across from her bloody house after all. She could add in the off-license down the road as well but she decides to stay schtum. Honestly, there's nothing she wants less at this moment than to get sloshed at her local. Or at her house with supplies from the offy. Michelle's never come round and now's not the time to change that. Girls coming back to hers other than Emily always results in disaster. Plain and simple. Sophia. That pigshit Mandy. All of Emily's ladies in waiting. JJ's piece. Katie and Jenna Fitch. Oh, Jesus, that cunt Arsey. Or whatever the fuck her shit-stained name was that gave Cook up to the plod. It was just a bad temptation of fate, like her house is cursed. It'd be easier to just head back to Effy's really. It's just as close. Closer actually. By about 5 minutes. And not quite as cursed. Maybe.
Naomi shakes her head. She will refuse. She must. It would break she and Effy's schedule. They only get drunk on weekends and the occasional bank holiday. Spliff is the only acceptable option during weekdays. “Come on, Chelle. I know a place here. It's fine.” She hears herself and realises she sounds strangely reminiscent of those anti-peer-pressure adverts she'd seen as a child.
Michelle winces a little with discomfort. “I don't really... do that.”
The words don't seem to compute initially and the blonde blinks, refocuses and waits for clarification. “What do you mean?” The idea is foreign, like completely alien.
With an irritated sigh, the older girl gestures to the joint. “That. Drugs. Not really my thing. Never has been.” She smirks and offers a conciliation. “I do love my vodka though.”
Naomi's face morphs into complete disbelief. She's seen Michelle smoke, and drink of course. And she's friends with that whole bag of assholes, so Naomi's pretty sure that people like Anwar the Tit and Tony have never met a drug they didn't like. “So, what, you've never...?”
“Of course I have, you daft cow,” Michelle teases (but it comes out a little too harshly for Naomi's taste). “I just don't really care to now is all.”
It's been an odd, shitty sort of day and the last thing the blonde is interested in is debating the pros and cons of recreational drugs use. She shrugs, looks Michelle over with something resembling disdain, and puts the spliff to her lips. “Well, I'm going over to that grove at the south-east. Near the small hockey pitch, yeah? You can join me or not, I don't give a toss but I'm not going to get pissed on a Tuesday afternoon.” With yet another shrug, she turns towards her destination and isn't at all surprised to hear footsteps padding after her across the grass.
She really should have known better. Those children's adverts warned about peer-pressure and drugs. She should have listened.
<< PART 3 >>
PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6
Author: Eskimo Jo
Rating: 18
Warning: language, sexuality, substance use.
Sunshine is truly a horrible thing, Naomi muses half-consciously as streams of light slice across Effy's bedroom. It's hot and it's bright and all she wants is to burrow into nothingness and never emerge into real life again. The idea of course is ridiculous, though not entirely undesirable. She could roll over, away from the glare, except that would involve an unholy amount of effort which she's not certain she actually possesses at the moment. There's a whiff of alcohol drooping lazily over her senses and short of opening her eyes she has no way of determining if Effy is drinking it as she suspects. Hair of the dog seemed to by her friend's constant motto these days, as if chronic alcoholism and liver disease is indeed a perfectly legitimate method to live life to its fullest. Eventually, and mustering all the courage she can, she squints towards the other side of the bed, noticing with some surprise that there isn't a stick-insect-like brunette sipping liquor beside her. It makes a pleasant sort of change that is quickly nullified however by the aroma of vodka still wafting around. Repressing the urge to be ill, she turns over slowly and excruciatingly carefully, away from the sunlight.
She catches herself dozing off numerous times before finally fully awakening with slightly more gusto than previous, but nowhere near the amount she needs to actually be a functional member of society. Thumps and voices filter in from outside the bedroom and she groans out loud at the possibility of more than just Effy being present in the household. Suddenly the bedroom door swings open with a bang and there's a curse from the otherside belonging to a voice that is vaguely familiar yet still unnameable.
Her eyes widen slightly as another brunette peeks into the room and Naomi's not sure if the sick in her throat is from the hangover or the blurry memories of last night that have suddenly been reawoken. Michelle crosses the room towards her with a quiet “Hey” and a glass of water in her hand. She places it carefully on the nightstand and glances down at the bin of barely-digested chips and rum. Her eyebrow quirks and Naomi's insanely jealous of this girl who could both drink her under the table and be seemingly peachy the next morning, with no evidence that they had actually been on a rather large binge the night before.
Without asking, Michelle gently sits on the edge of the bed, slightly too close for Naomi's comfort. Had it been Effy, her feelings would have been different but no doubt at this moment she reckons she looks something between a mangled clown and a lump of shit. Worse though, she feels like she's been spat out the wrong end of a meat-grinder. On a ship. During a storm at sea. It all makes for an incredibly less than desirable situation for early morning polite conversation. Michelle of course looks no worse for wear, only slightly tired and a little less make-up.
She quickly rips open a packet, reaches over and drops an Alka-Seltzer into the glass. “Tony suggested I come up and give you that. Figured you were pretty poorly this morning.”
Settling for a squint rather than a full-on glare due to the sheer effort required, Naomi groans quietly. “I'm fine.” Please go away.
Unfortunately, unlike the Stonems, Michelle doesn't appear to be a mind-reader and as such is completely oblivious to Naomi's silent objections to her presence. She just smiles almost shyly. “Figured it was my fault you're in this state,” she says softly and wriggles around her pocket, pulling out a small bottle of prescription tablets. “So, here is my peace offering.” Holding out some light blue pills, she gestures for Naomi to take them. “They're my mum's. Work wonders on hangovers as you can clearly see,” she laughs gently. “But keep it quiet. I don't have enough to go around.”
Naomi takes two tablets hesitantly, eyeing Michelle suspiciously and swallows. Girls like her are not supposed to be this nice. Girls are catty and judgemental and vapid and unhelpful, and girls like Michelle are supposed to be all of these things to a much higher degree. Like Katie. Predator and prey. The only explanation is that she is feeling incredibly guilty about something, and likely something more than just getting Naomi to the point of moderate alcohol poisoning.
“Cheers.” It's all the blonde can mumble under the circumstances.
“I meant what I said last night. I'd really like us to be friends.” The words seem to spin over Naomi's head, confusing her and bringing about a strange sort of wonder. Naomi falls back on her usual justification for her skepticism: her kind and Michelle's kind are not natural allies. They reside in different niches, different classes and different ranks in the completely imaginary yet highly influential social structure of young people in Bristol. And worse still, she can't figure out what the ulterior motive actually is for this bridging of types. That Abigail horsefucker bitch may have been onto something in that Michelle's back from uni, lonely and looking to regain her status. Could be. Whatever the reason, it's far too much work to try to evaluate it in her hungover state. She'll save that for later when she's sulking about in her room alone and bored.
She opts for a standard, “Yeah.” in response which prompts a smile from the brunette.
“Nice. See you later then, Naomi,” she grins and squeezes the blonde's free hand. The gesture provokes sparks to shoot down her arm and Naomi blames it on the sickness that has already subsided. Standing up, Michelle exits the room without further comment, leaving Naomi to nurse her hangover in peace.
It's barely a half hour later when the door creaks open again and a much more familiar face peers in, assessing the situation quickly. The front door had slammed a few minutes earlier and presumably both Tony and Michelle have left. In her visitor's hands is quite a large book.
Effy sits down softly beside Naomi. She sighs, reaches over and places a heavy book on Naomi's lap. Grimacing at the idea of reading anything with her head as sore as it is and her mind as tangled, the blonde groans. It's some massive text about Greek myths. “What is this, Eff?” She attempts not to sound as irritated as she feels but comes up short.
“A book.”
Fucking Effy. If she had the willpower and strength, she'd take said book and smack her friend over the head with it right now. But the mere idea of that much movement causes her stomach to clench and she swallows hard instead. Huffing out an exasperated breath, she settles for a minute yet disdainful headshake.
Effy opens the book on Naomi's lap, flipping through the pages until she comes across a picture of a swan and eagle. “There's another version of that story you were going on about last night,” Effy says softly, as if telling a secret.
Naomi squints, blearily recalling something about drunkenly staring at the stars. Oh, yes, Cygnus. She stares down at the illustration, three beautiful birds in flight.
“In order to avoid Zeus,” Effy begins, “Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, jealousy and punisher of hubris, turned herself into a wild goose. Upon figuring this out, Zeus -who had become inexplicably taken with Nemesis' outstanding beauty- changed himself into a swan and the goddess Aphrodite, of love, beauty and sexuality, transformed into a ferocious eagle. Aphrodite then chased the wild goose Nemesis into Zeus' lap, where they mated and Nemesis bore two eggs. As a timeless testament of his success, Zeus placed the swan in the night sky.”
She snaps the book closed quickly causing Naomi to jump and wince at the sound. “You know what a nemesis is, right?”
It is far too early in the day to have a lesson on mythology and vocabulary. Naomi does know, sort of but her mind is still foggy from the drink and exhaustion. She just wants to crawl back under the blankets and sleep away the nasty feeling in her body. Effy is staring intently at her, awaiting a substantial answer. “Yes,” she growls and throws the duvet off. She's going home if Effy won't leave her alone.
Sensing the impending departure, Effy continues. “It's not always bad.”
Turning to look over her shoulder, Naomi casts a dark glare in Effy's direction and is only further aggravated by two blue eyes mischievously twinkling back at her. Who gives a flying shit about the meaning of nemesis anyway? Too fucking early. She merely groans and pulls herself slowly off the insanely comfortable mattress, swaying on her feet for a moment as her head stops spinning. A shaking hand clenches at her forehead, willing those tablets of Michelle's to start full-on working already. “I'm leaving, Eff.” She takes a few steps towards the door. “Have fun with your dictionary,” she mumbles and stares back at her best mate.
Effy's just smirking, entirely too amused at the situation, as bloody always, and adds, “It means inescapable.”
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”
- Anais Nin
It starts innocently. Well, it starts as innocently as anything that involves dry-humping, French kissing and excessive liquor consumption can possibly begin. The first time, it's a mere half hour borne of a chance meeting at the top of Park St. Awkward greetings give way to a tentative chat while they meander down to the College Green. Parting ways, Michelle leaves Naomi with nothing more than a smile. The second time, it's less reliant on random chaos theory and Naomi doesn't make up excuses when Michelle rings and further doesn't attempt to back out of a coffee date down by the floating harbour. 'Date' is a generous word of course; in reality it's just two friends sharing some caffeine-laced drinks and making aimless discussion. It lasts only a bit over an hour but as Naomi attempts to scurry away, Michelle catches her in what turns out to be a rather half-assed and strikingly brief embrace.
The increments in-between meetings become fewer and the chats themselves much longer. Goodbyes take more time. Naomi hugs back with a kind of familiarity eventually. She's the one that lingers a little longer on Friday afternoon.
Of course, by the next Saturday Naomi finds herself dragged along to a party at Roundview halls. An impressive number of sixths are crammed into two adjacent rooms, with lager and spirits soaking carpets and bedsheets as the party rages on without reserve. She doesn't ask how this is allowed to happen in halls. She doesn't much care. The party itself is a definite decrease in drama from a fortnight ago's shenanigans yet she still manages to lose track of Effy somewhere in the space of 200 metres. It's like partying with a ghost.
There are just too many kids. Slipping away, she finds her mate in the loo, pulling on a spliff and they lock themselves in a cubicle to finish it as some loudmouth Belgian exchange student is sick in the stall next door, wailing in French between heaves. Effy thinks the scene is equally as ridiculous and immature as Naomi does. They decide to head down to Warehouse out of sheer desperation but not before coming face to face with a newly arrived Tony and Michelle. This time Michelle doesn't hug Naomi in greeting as her hand is securely clasping Effy's brother's. A smile and a few words is all they manage to exchange before Tony interrupts with a very dismissive tone.
“Christ, I feel like a paedophile here.” Just then, a blonde and quite attractive Scottish girl with the lowest cut top known to man falls into him, giggling and splashing her drink over his striped polo shirt as she attempts to right herself. Without even an apology she flits off to prop herself up against a lanky ginger boy who is obviously munted beyond all belief as a boyish-looking girl grins at the scene. Effy sneers and shakes her head. They're too old for this.
The Warehouse is equally boring and irritating for the remainder of their time there yet Michelle and Tony seem to slip away without notice anyway. Naomi doesn't get a hug goodbye, or even a text.
Michelle's attitude on the weekend seems to be only a hiccup. Monday brings her round again and the cycle starts anew. More time together in ever greater lengths of time, until the weekend. Just as it is Effy's chance to shrug off the shackles of her so-called normal life for one of Class-A-soaked nostalgic debauchery, to suspend reality for a few days, it also becomes the time where Naomi is reminded that friendship doesn't trump romance. Michelle is standoff-ish with her guard up every moment Tony is near. And in all honesty, the same occurs to Naomi if Emily happens to be at a party or club (now thankfully rid of that insufferable Abigail and flying solo). Naomi keeps botching up her chances however in her pursuit of the red-head. Each step closer she gets, something pulls her back, waiting for a signal, longing for a push. Sometimes even her normally laser-focused vision is distracted by brunette waves and green eyes and it takes a definite force of will to refocus on Emily.
And so it is for weeks. Maybe it's months, Naomi can't be certain because after a while, it becomes routine. Routine becomes habit. Habit becomes second-nature. Weekdays volley between part-time shit jobs and outings with Michelle or Effy, and occasionally dodging into shop doorways or behind rows of books to avoid Emily. She still hasn't worked out the perfect, romantic and ultimately persuasive thing to say to win her back and she can't risk an encounter until she's certain it'll work. Parties remain the same: mostly shit with the sporadic highlight, while she spends the majority of her time chasing after Effy, staring at Emily overtop the heads of strangers and pretending that Michelle's weekend-indifference doesn't sting, even just a little. She can't admit that something is switching on, the suffocating fog of past relationships dissipating just slightly when she calls Michelle “Chelle” for the first time. The only real change that she is willing to admit is that she begins to loath Tony's presence, and even moreso the mention of his name during the week. He's merely Effy's intolerable brother. She won't admit much more than that.
Once she falls into this pattern, time moves slowly, seeping down through the calendar. It just erodes gently like rainfall on stone. Keeping track of its painfully lethargic movement is a waste of effort.
The monotony breaks finally one night as Naomi is lying half-awake in her bedroom, staring at the shadows passing over the ceiling above. Her body is thrumming from an unrecoverable dream that has just woken her. Her mind lazily drifts to Emily as her fingers wander into the crease between her thighs. It's always Emily at these moments of bliss. Creamy skin set ablaze by the contrasting crimson hair, brown eyes deep and patient but bold and a gaze strong. She sees the freckles on her shoulders and the tiny scar on her bottom lip left from Katie stabbing her with a fork when they were little. It's been months and she can still recall the touch of Emily's hands and lips and her raspy voice as she begged Naomi for release. Laying prone and alone on a rainy Bristol night, Naomi only sees white sand and sunshine and Emily's naked body writhing against her own. She hears the moans complimented by the distant howls of delight from revellers along Anjuna or Vagator and the crashes of ocean waves pounding against the beach -- just like an ecological orchestra composed only for her own ears. Frenzy mounts as sweat trickles over them, the real-life pattering of rain becomes the countdown tick-tock of a bomb as she rides her own fingers, oblivious to reality.
Then from behind her eyelids come traitorous visions. Emily is no longer herself but instead, Naomi glimpses a different body, chestnut hair and the voice is altered, sparking memories of that long ago party. She feels Chelle instead against her. She cums fast before her mind can push the images back to Emily's profile, not that she can will that back into her imagination at the moment if she had wanted. Accepting the quirk in her fantasy, at least for the time being, she lets the vision fade as she draws in deep breaths. It's only after a minute or so that her eyes snap open again, fear coursing unbidden through her, spurring on by the pervasive confusion. She leaps out of bed, grasping almost desperately for her laptop, tossing the plush fox toy sitting on top of it aside. As she does, her gaze darts up and out of her window into the night sky, landing on Canis major. It provokes a momentary pause but shaking her head clear, she pulls open her computer and settles back into bed, pulling up photos of Goa and college. Anything to wipe away the realisation that she'd just come harder than she had done in ages, and it had little to do with Emily.
She falls back asleep with pixelated images of Emily burned into her eyelids.
It should have been obvious that with one small change in routine, everything else will unravel as well. It's physics. Or chemistry. Or something science-y that Naomi could not care less about. It's probably none of those things, just something like fate. And that itself is neither science nor rational. In fact, it's really just one of those things that no one sees while its happening but just in retrospect all the pieces seem to fuse together in an odd sort of puzzle that makes you wonder how on Earth you hadn't seen it coming sooner.
Naomi Campbell is not graced with a great deal of foresight however. And she hates physics.
It could perhaps be considered coincidence seeing JJ in the Bedminster Library two days later as she's idly flipping through an astronomy guidebook. It looks to be for children, teenagers at best, but she's got nothing better to do for a few hours until Michelle is off work, and all the books she had come here to look at are painfully dull. It's the last time she trusts the internet to make suggestions for reading material. Her gaze drifts over an illustration of Orion, one of the most recognisable constellations in the world. She already knows about the hunter and all that. She even knows, thanks to her father, about this set of stars and their relation to Frigg --the namesake of Friday-- a Scandinavian goddess with the gift of prophecy, of seeing everyone's destinies yet refusing to reveal her visions. She chuckles, thinking about Effy suddenly. Frigg was the only woman granted the ability to sit beside Odin and view the entire universe.
She's interrupted from her amused pondering when there's a tap on her shoulder. Immediately preparing some sort of nasty comment she swings towards the source. She's granted only a very up-close view of a blue and green striped jumper. Her gaze slowly shifts upwards towards the face of the boy standing far closer than is generally accepted as polite. She squints. Once. Twice.
“JJ?”
He quirks a small smile. “Hi, Naomi.” His hand waves hesitantly, as if he's not even certain if he should have said hello. The fact is, Naomi would never have noticed him otherwise. Not only is something strangely different about him now which makes him blend into the general mass of nameless idiots, but she doesn't give a shit really about anyone else in the library or otherwise. Without his previously noticeable differences, he's just morphed into one of the many. Despite his shy demeanour, he seems more confident, more self-assured somehow. His hair is shorter, the spots once all over his face have all but vanished and, well, he's not dressed like his mother picked out his wardrobe any longer. They play the staring game for a few minutes before Naomi rolls her eyes and gestures to the seat beside her as she pushes the stack of useless books she'd previously gathered out of the way.
“Christ, Jay, sit down. You're making me nervous.”
The boy follows her instruction and takes a seat slowly, tapping his fingers against the Formica tabletop. Neither seem in any hurry to start the conversation. It's not that Naomi dislikes JJ exactly, but she barely knows him; she's never bothered to get to know him, never had a desire nor need. His quirks had been too much for her to handle in her petulant and bewildering beginning days of college, and there was that whole fuss with Emily in Year 12. And afterwards, any chance she'd had to get to know him had dissipated slowly after Sophia's death when Emily had taken him for hers alone, as if when they semi-broke-up they each staked a claim to particular friendships in teenage divorce settlement. She'd got custody of Cook and Effy; Emily had taken JJ and Katie. Now, it's awkward, very much so, actually. She thinks of Freddie, and the initially inseparable trio of boys. Too much had happened in college, so much that should have drawn the whole group of them closer, but in the end, it had only worked to drive them further and further apart. He's not quite a stranger now but he may as well be.
Eventually, bored of the penetrating silence between them, Naomi speaks. “So, what are you doing here? Though you'd gone away to uni.”
JJ's eyes sparkle at the mention of university, or maybe at the idea of leaving Bristol. His lips form into a lop-sided smirk. “I have. It's just... just that. Well. I'm home to visit... Mum for a few days.”
He doesn't give her much to work with as she senses that it's not her place to ask why. There's just something about the way he says “Mum” that makes it sound personal, too personal to talk with an acquaintance about. Instead, she purses her lips momentarily and nods, humming. “Cool.” She realises she has no clue what to ask because she really has no idea what he's like. “Where, uh, do you study then?” This conversation is already like plucking hairs, one at a time. Tedious.
“London. Imperial College,” he says proudly but his grin falters. “Not sure I like London much though. It's not like Bristol.”
Naomi snorts. “Reckon that's probably a good thing, yeah?”
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
She doesn't know why he came over to talk to her. This is hardly engaging conversation. Neither of them are particularly good small talkers, and especially not with each other. It's as if someone had turned the awkward dial to full capacity. And sealed all the escape hatches. Just brilliant. Now she's thinking all sci-fi and geeky just like him.
“So are you at uni in Bristol then?” he ventures carefully. He's seeking common ground. Naomi restrains a sneer as she realises that they're unlikely to find any such place.
Shaking her head disdainfully, she chuckles. “Not me, no.”
He reaches over and slides the book she's reading towards himself and peers at the the pages. “So then why are you reading about astronomy?” The action is so bold for JJ and Naomi's put off by this change in him. He's no longer the painfully shy and completely socially inept boy she'd met in college. This is a different JJ, though maybe socially inept in a new way, unaware of personal boundaries. One that takes risks, even if they're small ones. Maybe university makes people change, in bad and good ways. She suspects it's more like it helps people grow up and fend for themselves in a way that she's not experienced living generally the same life as she had done since college began. Instead of praising this personal growth of his, she snatches the book page and closes it abruptly.
“Doesn't matter,” she snaps, covering it with her folded arms and glaring at JJ as best she can in this state of confusion. What she expects from him never transpires. He doesn't shirk away, bumble an excuse to leave or get that look of fear in his eyes as she has become accustomed to. Instead, his smirk is slightly wider. He still can't meet her eyes, but this new JJ is a bit disconcerting. It's like all her power that she'd harnessed in college has dissipated in the light of his higher education. That idea makes her feel uncomfortable in his presence, and somewhat paranoid and depressed about the state of her own life.
JJ's staring at the corner of the book poking out from under her elbow. “I love astronomy,” he admits matter-of-factly. “Wasn't able to fit in into my programme this year.” He pauses as if he's lost his train of thought for a second. “Besides, first year astronomy lessons are not meant for people like me.”
Naomi's certain this boy is going to turn into some nutty professor one day, sitting alone in a shit tip of an office and scribbling insane mathematical formulas over all his students' papers. Her own thoughtful meanderings are interrupted by his voice again. “You'd probably like them, you know.”
Her blue eyes latch onto him, trying to pierce him with sheer force of will. She's fairly certain he's just called her stupid. “What's that supposed to mean?” she scowls, believing she knows full well what he means. Finally, something familiar happens and JJ appears to be momentarily flustered at her outburst. He stumbles around for words, muttering out some sort of half-arsed apology. It should make her feel better, that things aren't quite as buggered as she'd thought; in fact, underneath it all, they're still just the same idiot kids they were at Roundview. But somehow, all she feels now is guilty for pressing him so hard only to make herself feel more at ease. Fuck. Guilt is such a prevalent part of her existence now. What would Emily do?
“JJ, look,” she starts but never gets the chance to finish before he's shaking his head quite adamantly against her words, his eyes clenched shut. He's blocking her out so she huffs out a long breath and waits for him to settle down a bit before continuing. “Sorry, okay?”
She watches his shoulders sag and dip, and the muscles in his face begin to relax until he's regained his new sense of composure. It's likely as new a state for him and it is for her. This adjustment to being a grown-up doesn't seem to happen in one easy swoop. They sit in the near-silence of the library surrounding them. Someone drops a book nearby and they both flinch at the sound. It's like a switch is flipped and JJ's reversed everything that had just happened, gone back to confident new JJ. “You were looking at Orion,” he states with an air of pride, but it's laced with hesitancy as well.
She nods. “Yeah.”
“You know what's interesting about that one?”
Blonde hair sways as she shakes her head, waiting for him to explain some completely boring thing about binaries or light years or similar bollocks. He clears his throat and she winces.
“Canis major and Canis minor can be found from following the line of his belt and his shoulders.”
The information doesn't intrigue Naomi in any way whatsoever. “So?”
“There are the interpretations of those stars as being Orion's hounds but they also represent the irresistible force paradox. The question of what happens when an unstoppable or irresistible force meets an immovable object. N-Not that any such thing can exist as any immovable object would necessarily need to possess infinite mass, and thus doing so would create a singularity, a black hole. Which, inversely, actually is surrounded by an event horizon.” Off Naomi's puzzled look, JJ attempts to explain further. “It's something that as a particle approaches close enough, it has such a strong gravitational pull that escape is then impossible.” He smirks as if privy to some secret knowledge about all that bollocks.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asks, slightly irritated by the boring abstract concepts and jargon she's only ever heard whilst flicking through the channels on boring Saturday afternoons. “What does any of that have to do with constellations of dogs?”
JJ tries to keep his composure in light of her dismissive attitude towards the information he's belaying onto her. “H-Hound and fox, Major and Minor,” he clarifies and a darkness comes over his face, as if he doesn't want to speak about it any longer; as if he's tired of wasting his breath on someone who doesn't appreciate his cosmological offering. He doesn't tell her to look it up because as out of touch as he can be, he knows at least that Naomi would never actually do anything he asked of her. She barely did anything even Emily had asked of her at the best of times.
Naomi likes things to be simple. Suddenly what were just a bunch of stars twinkling in the sky every so often are transformed into things with this deep, unfathomable meaning that she can't quite grasp. Annoyed at this, she glowers at the boy, trying to impress on him how much time he's just wasted. Hers and his own. JJ's not exactly a skilled reader of emotional and social cues and as a result, the message flies over his head, yet something must click somewhere because he shifts away slightly, preparing to leave.
“I like astronomy too,” he repeats from earlier. “It's constant.” His voice has a strange quality to it, almost wistful. It's something she'd never heard from him ever before. As someone who is painfully blunt and awkward, he had never actually revealed that he felt emotions the same way as the rest of them. He was either completely overwhelmed or completely void of feeling, in her presence anyway.
Naomi's eyes flick sharply to him with the familiar sentiment. She hates the feeling that she and JJ may be alike in some way, well, other than both being able to say they shagged a fit lesbian in college. What a club they would make: The Shaggers of Emily and Lovers of Constellations Club. Gross. As she's considering the idea, JJ moves away, gathering his own books under his arm.
All she can do is leap at the chance. “Have you heard from Emily?” She hates how overwrought she sounds in her own ears.
JJ's pauses, halfway out of his seat for a moment, as if caught in some trap, a deer in headlights. He nods, swallowing hard before standing up fully. It's fucking pissing her off that not two minutes ago she couldn't shut JJ up, and now he seems incapable of speaking. Dumb mong. She's about to ignore him when he coughs softly. Glancing over, she sees his hands trembling and immediately another wave of guilt rises up from her gut, crashing into her mind. Her voice softens, “Did she say anything about me?”
Their eyes lock, icy blue on icy blue, like deep space meteors seconds before collision. He swallows visibly, obviously quite uncomfortable with the position he's suddenly in. She recognises the fear in his eyes. What was it that Emily used to call it? Locking in? Locking down? Well, no matter, cos whatever it is, she senses it's about to happen again. Her own gaze softens as she tries to shift the pressure from him specifically. “I just... I don't know where her head is at.” She pauses, uncertain about revealing any of this to JJ, who for all intents and purposes is almost like not only a stranger, but his loyalties are to the opposing forces. “Or what she's thinking about the future. About us. Or me. Or her. Like...” She trails off, having said too much already.
There is a very heavy, suffocating sort of silence that descends over them again as JJ just stares, not at her eyes, but her chin it looks like. He can't quite return her desperate stare but he appears to be thinking quite a lot, something is spinning in that muddled-up mind of his. Eventually, there's a slight raise of his eyelids, like he's had some kind of epiphany and Naomi's chest grows tighter in anticipation.
Reaching over, he picks up Naomi's pen and flips open the book she had been reading. Leaning down practically over her shoulder, he scribbles some mathematics formula on the back inside cover. It's just a bunch of triangles and funny looking letters that she vaguely recognises from maths lesson years ago. He underlines it emphatically a few times before handing her pen back.
“Have you ever heard of the EPR paradox of entangled particles?” he asks excitedly.
There's a moment where Naomi says nothing; instead, she just stares completely impassively at his jittery form, practically vibrating with energy. JJ doesn't pick up on her non-verbal cue so she sighs. “Why the fuck would I have ever heard about that bollocks?” She hadn't meant to sound like such a prick about it, but it was her default setting when people did and said things she couldn't understand. The sarcasm and disdain pass over JJ like he hasn't even noticed them. He shrugs, consciously considering the reason why she honestly may have heard about the concept. Giving up on finding a rational theory, he points to the formula again, tapping it a few times forcing her attention towards the garbled symbols.
“It's based around the Uncertainty principle, Naomi,” he says slowly to her, as if she's a child.
Clenching her teeth from coming up with a nasty retort to his tone, she responds with a measure of strong self-control. “Yeah, and? JJ, honestly, what's your point? What has Emily said?”
“Doesn't matter.” He mutters it nervously and against her better judgement, an angry scowl stretches over her face, threatening.
That's it. That's just fucking it. Her patience has reached far beyond its limit and JJ is just standing there, practically hovering over her and all she wants to do is grab the irritating boy and shake him into talking sense. Her fists clench of their own accord but relax when JJ begins stuttering, trying to force out his thoughts before they're quite ready. At least he's trying, she supposes.
“The more p-precisely the current position of a particle is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. The more accurately you measure one property, the less likely you will be to measure or control the other. It's just nature.”
Naomi winces, her teeth catching her bottom lip as she stares blankly at the scrawled letters in the book. There's a message she's not quite hearing yet and JJ just keeps poking at the symbols, as if the meaning is inherently crystal clear. “I can tell you what Emily is feeling right now, quite accurately in fact,” he explains, again slowly but this time Naomi's somewhat thankful for the pace. “But likely it will only work to blur what you expect to happen. You won't be able to see the future or where she's going any better because of it. May make it worse. The observation even makes you part of the system, which alters it, or perception at least.”
“I'm already part of it,” Naomi protests, but finds her voice betraying her and coming out pathetic and weak. “It's about me.”
JJ merely smirks down at her and she's becoming really fucking tired of this attitude from him, like he knows it all just cos he throws around a bunch of triangles and maths theories and he's so clever at his uni now. It's all rubbish anyway.
He shakes his head, finding familiarity and comfort and thus, confidence, in his static formulas and their application to human life, as ridiculous as that is in itself. He really doesn't understand being human, she's sure. She huffs and waves a hand dismissively at him. “Thanks for nothing, Jay,” she growls, her voice sulky and disappointed that he couldn't give her a straight answer. Just for once. It's all she really asks. How is that such a bloody difficult wish to grant?
JJ's mobile ringing causes them both to jump, and his face turns a deep shade of pink as he fumbles desperately for the source of the noise. It's so him, the sound. All robotic, like lift-off aboard a space shuttle or some shit. “I've-I've got to go,” he squeaks out, pressing at various keys to silence the alarm. “My mum needs me.”
Naomi allows him to flee without even a goodbye. It's peculiar though. The name that flashed up on his screen hadn't looked so much like “Mum” as it had “Emily”.
It should have been a sign that the day was about to become even less ordinary. The thing is though, Naomi isn't really paying attention to any warning signs. She'd need a big flashing billboard with it spelled out to her in simple words in order to even consider the possibility that anything else was about to be turned upside down and inside out. Running into the irritatingly cryptic JJ had been the extent of things she could possibly imagine. Interesting things simply didn't happen too often in Bristol anymore, and certainly not more than one anomaly in a single day. Of course, the fact that the next situation began gradually doesn't help her recognise it for what it is immediately.
Michelle texts her, as is the norm, the routine. Nothing odd about that. She responds after a few minutes, trying not to seem too eager, which is odd in itself cos that's the sort of game people play with people they fancy, not regular friends. Normal people can text their friends a response milliseconds later and it doesn't mean anything deeper than “we're having a conversation”. But with people you fancy the rules change for some reason. However, well, Naomi doesn't fancy Michelle, like at all. At least that's what she repeated to herself last night while imprinting digital photos of Emily into her brain and making up excuses, for the 3rd night in a row. It's all very confusing and it's easier just to ignore the niggling questions her own behaviour raises within the cacophony otherwise known as her mind.
The moment she sees Michelle coming across the park, something is off. Her walk is hurried and sharp; it looks likes she's definitely angry and Naomi groans inwardly at having to listen to another play-by-play of her and Tony's latest stupid row. She positively loathes speaking about Tony now, or even listening to Michelle whinge on about him. It's terribly redundant and she honestly thinks the girl is an idiot for not just dumping the tosser straight up. In all fairness though, she'd prefer Michelle's incessant complaints as opposed to her disgustingly sweet gushing about what a wonderful boyfriend he is now and how in love they really are, despite their rows and how it may appear to everyone else. It's interesting that she always qualifies such statements of love with that disclaimer.
But as the brunette draws nearer, it's obvious the source of her ire is likely far more related to the wet stains covering her white top. She's fussing with it, flapping the loose fabric in an effort to dry it most likely. Coming up beside the blonde, Michelle is positively fuming.
“Bloody fucking wankers,” she shouts to no one in particular, and no one in particular even seems to care. Not a single head turns their way. Lovely, indifferent Bristolians. Before Naomi even has the chance to ask what happened, her friend is already involved in a rant to explain the situation. “Some cocky little bastards with water pistols thought it would be funny to scream 'Wet t-shirt contest' and assault me with water on my way here.” She groans again in agitation, flapping her hands around, fanning the nearly see-through fabric. “Boys like that need a proper kicking. Right up their little pre-pubescent arseholes.”
There's little Naomi can do other than stare, her eyes growing wider with Michelle's choice of language. She really could let out some quite impressive swearing when truly riled up. She shouldn't find it quite as amusing as she does and does an impressive show of hiding her smirk. Michelle was likely coming from Effy's just south there on Elvaston, which was literally not even 10 minutes away, and in that time she'd managed to be completely soaked by a bunch of brats. And now is growling and pacing like a near-drowned cat, muttering about some kids named James and Gordon. Naomi doesn't clue into who the little perverts really are.
Finally she finishes off her rant with a dramatically drawn out sigh. Naomi's not certain who Michelle's actually even speaking to anyone specific anymore, just venting to the grass and trees it appears. That is, until she faces Naomi face-on and asks, “Does it look like I wanted a shower?”
The question is meant to be rhetorical obviously. She's not meant to answer it, or even consider the realistic possibility. But that's the irritating thing about fancying someone (even if you deny it, and sometimes even if you don't fancy them at all): when they say “shower”, your thoughts immediately and without reserve take a leap into fantasy. And not really any dirty, smutty sort of way. More like a daydream. Naomi certainly is not standing in a public, very open park picturing her current companion butt-naked with water cascading over her shoulders. Not quite anyway. It's just the words somehow spark something in her belly, and her head tilts to the side slightly as if studying droplets of water trail down an exposed neck, or a bare leg. But it could hardly be counted as even a fantasy considering it evaporates as quickly as it came; the rational, practical side of Naomi's mind leaps to attention instead, reminding her that thoughts such as those are unwelcome in friendships. And this is very much only a friendship. She's in love with Emily. People who are in love with Emily Fitch should not be considering the curves of another girl's pelvis as water slides down into the dip. Not at all. Emily has a lovely pelvis, lovely hips. Lovely everything. Very lovely indeed. The image fades, but there's a nudge deep inside her belly that Naomi has to physically scratch at the surface to distract herself from.
Meanwhile, Michelle's regarding her curiously, apparently waiting for a response but Naomi's not clear if there was even a question. She's been a bit preoccupied and didn't hear it if there had been. She shrugs, mumbles a “Yeah.” out of habit and sighs, glancing away from the other girl.
“Ugh, whatever. Anyway, I need a drink,” Michelle states, pinning Naomi with an imploring gaze that the blonde attempts to ignore. She's not really in the mood to get drunk midday Tuesday just because some twatty kids got Michelle's top a little damp. Damp. That word should not be in her vocabulary. Not now especially.
She has a better idea and tells Michelle so but the suggestion is met with reluctance.
“Ah, I don't think so.”
Naomi scoffs, pulling out the spliff and waving it about. She forgets sometimes that Michelle isn't Effy, and baiting her with drugs won't really draw her approval. “Why not? I don't have any drink and neither do you.”
“There's a pub just on Windmill Hill, yeah? It's only a few blocks.”
There's really no need to inform Naomi about that particular place. It's right across from her bloody house after all. She could add in the off-license down the road as well but she decides to stay schtum. Honestly, there's nothing she wants less at this moment than to get sloshed at her local. Or at her house with supplies from the offy. Michelle's never come round and now's not the time to change that. Girls coming back to hers other than Emily always results in disaster. Plain and simple. Sophia. That pigshit Mandy. All of Emily's ladies in waiting. JJ's piece. Katie and Jenna Fitch. Oh, Jesus, that cunt Arsey. Or whatever the fuck her shit-stained name was that gave Cook up to the plod. It was just a bad temptation of fate, like her house is cursed. It'd be easier to just head back to Effy's really. It's just as close. Closer actually. By about 5 minutes. And not quite as cursed. Maybe.
Naomi shakes her head. She will refuse. She must. It would break she and Effy's schedule. They only get drunk on weekends and the occasional bank holiday. Spliff is the only acceptable option during weekdays. “Come on, Chelle. I know a place here. It's fine.” She hears herself and realises she sounds strangely reminiscent of those anti-peer-pressure adverts she'd seen as a child.
Michelle winces a little with discomfort. “I don't really... do that.”
The words don't seem to compute initially and the blonde blinks, refocuses and waits for clarification. “What do you mean?” The idea is foreign, like completely alien.
With an irritated sigh, the older girl gestures to the joint. “That. Drugs. Not really my thing. Never has been.” She smirks and offers a conciliation. “I do love my vodka though.”
Naomi's face morphs into complete disbelief. She's seen Michelle smoke, and drink of course. And she's friends with that whole bag of assholes, so Naomi's pretty sure that people like Anwar the Tit and Tony have never met a drug they didn't like. “So, what, you've never...?”
“Of course I have, you daft cow,” Michelle teases (but it comes out a little too harshly for Naomi's taste). “I just don't really care to now is all.”
It's been an odd, shitty sort of day and the last thing the blonde is interested in is debating the pros and cons of recreational drugs use. She shrugs, looks Michelle over with something resembling disdain, and puts the spliff to her lips. “Well, I'm going over to that grove at the south-east. Near the small hockey pitch, yeah? You can join me or not, I don't give a toss but I'm not going to get pissed on a Tuesday afternoon.” With yet another shrug, she turns towards her destination and isn't at all surprised to hear footsteps padding after her across the grass.
She really should have known better. Those children's adverts warned about peer-pressure and drugs. She should have listened.
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