AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m so frozen my next heartbeat could crack my ribs.
I didn’t insult Naomi. IwantedNaomi more than anyone back then, but I replay the expression on her face that day, how utterly destroyed she looked. I sift through the moments leading up to that disaster—how angry I was at myself, annoyed with my friends for having a normal, stupid conversation about movies and Cameron Diaz when I was scared and upset and…
Oh, shit.
A snippet of that conversation snaps back—me burning with pent-up rage as I ripped the ketchup-stained Bristol board from my jacket and snarled at Shawn, saying, “She’s fucking gross. If I ran into her at a party, the only way I’d touch her is if she was wearing a paper bag over her head, so just shut up about her already.”
My burger and rings threaten to eject.
“I said that stuff about Cameron Diaz,” I tell Ricky, my words sounding desperate. “I was so upset about what I did to Naomi’s posters I tuned out half the conversation and had no clue you switched topics. I was totally into Naomi back then. I’d never have said anything rude about her.” I shouldn’t have said something so crass about a random celebrity, let alone a girl I liked.
“Well, shit.” Silence lingers. Ricky picks at the calluses on his hand. “I mean, that makes a lot more sense. I just assumed you were lashing out the way you did after E disappeared, so I didn’t harp on you about it.”
“That’s why she hates me,” I mumble more to myself than to him.
I thought I needed this answer, this irritating blank spot in my past filled in. I figured the knowledge would give me closure and allow me to squash my attraction to Naomi. I’d finally quit letting her antics annoy me. But as I eventually leave Ricky’s, drive home, and watch TV in an attempt to clear my mind, my thoughts spin faster than a hamster on a wheel.
I keep dissecting how much my careless words—a complete misunderstanding—must have hurt Naomi back then. I keep replaying the shock on her face, the lone tear gliding down her cheek.
Andfuck. Last week? When she hit my car? I yelled at her to quit giving me dirty looks while blaming me for the accident. Her reply comes back to me now, a flood of shame accompanying the memory.
“Should I put a paper bag over my head?” she said, harsh. “Will that make it easier for you to talk to me?”
I’m not sure if I did something else to make her hate me more since she became extra vicious this past fall, but I rub aggressively at my eyes. Holding onto hostility for this long means she was likely as into me during high school as I was into her. It means I shook her self-esteem. Maybe affected how she interacted with guys afterward. And instead of squashing my continual thoughts of Naomi James, I’ve just accomplished the opposite.
I now have no clue how to feel about the woman I’ve considered my enemy for the better part of a decade.
chapterfour
Avett
I push open the door to Sugar and Sips, groggy from lack of sleep, while simultaneously edgy and nervous. I want Naomi to be here. I don’t want her to be here. I want to apologize. Explain that I wasn’t talking about her in high school. I also don’t want to rehash this mess.
She’s here, of course. The last person in line.
I swear, she knows exactly when I’m about to walk in. She must zip inside right before me, like a high-heeled ninja, ensuring I’m stuck behind her.
I don’t feel stuck today. I feelaware.
When the front door falls shut behind me and the bell above tinkles, she glances over her shoulder. Her usual smug expression doesn’t make me bristle. The hard cut of her dark eyes feels different. Instead of a villainous vixen, I see a hurt girl under her tough exterior.
Remorse hits me again, harder this time.
I never talk to Naomi in line. We ignore each other, while imagining ways to murder each other’s patience. This morning, I can’t stay quiet. I have no clue what to say, how to broach this lingering conflict that has shaped us both. I settle on reverting to teenage me, who can’t utter more than one syllable to women.
“Hi,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t reply.
If I wasn’t watching her body like the sleep-deprived, Naomi-conscious soul I am, I’d wonder if she heard me over the whirring coffee machine and the café’s acoustic tunes. Since my attention hasn’t drifted from the soft fabric of her blue wrap dress hugging her curves, I don’t miss the tiny pulse of her shoulders, the way she freezes infinitesimally afterward.
She’s likely wondering what game I’m playing. Or she’s pondering which weapon to draw from her arsenal, when to pounce and make the first cut.
Even worse? Her hair is up in a bun and the urge to trace her jawline with my lips strikes.
In the past, I’ve fisted my hands angrily, frustrated with my body’s reaction to Naomi. Today? I’m…curious.
I suddenly want to relive how I used to ache around her, desperate to ask her out but terrified to lose another person in my life. I lost her in the end, pushed her away intentionally—and unintentionally—before she could hurt me. All these years later, emotion still simmers under our messed-up history. And I’m still awkward around her.
