Everything Put Together Falls Apart
Naomi sees her first. It's that hair of course, still flame red, blazing despite the heavy rain and even now, after twelve years and what feels like several lifetimes lived, Naomi can't look away.
She's almost directly opposite, on the other side of the road. Head down, wet hair in her eyes she's fighting an unruly umbrella for dominance and Naomi would laugh if she wasn't so completely afraid.
Emily had always been the fighter.
Her first instinct, after that sharp initial jolt in the pit of her stomach, is to run and run fast but she's always had a hard time turning away from this girl. And then it's too late because Emily's seen her too and everything's falling apart.
---
They go to a coffee shop, to talk and dry off.
Emily orders coffee and they find a seat and Naomi tries very hard not to stare as soft pink lips take that first cautionary sip.
She can feel her heart beating in her chest, wedding ring heavy on her hand. She feels like a fraud.
When Emily starts to talk it's hard to listen, because it's so utterly, painfully clear that she has done so much of what she wanted. What they had wanted, when they were young and daring and in love.
She tries not to look down at herself, at the black of her suit and the ordinary colour of her shoulder length brown hair. Tries not to wonder what she must look like to a woman who remembers her at seventeen, all principles and attitude and vivid blonde.
When it's her turn to speak she tries very hard to reconstruct herself: the business women, the mother, the loving wife. To put back together the pieces of herself, as she had been, before she happened to walk down that particular street and into what could have been.
They talk for hours, coffee cooled and long forgotten between them and it's so easy to lose herself in the familiarity of Emily's smile, the warmth of her laugh. Everything's breaking apart and she doesn't look away long enough to notice it's stopped raining.
---
They meet again. First in bars and later in hotel rooms where the sheets are rough and smell of disinfectant and they can hear next door's T.V through the white washed walls.
Naomi lies awake and thinks of all the things that are and will be and might have been.
She broke both their hearts once before and she knows she's going to have to do it again because she's married and she's a mother and they aren't seventeen anymore. But then Emily leans in to kiss her again and she thinks maybe she never really had any choice.
It can't be a choice if you can't live without someone.
Everything's falling apart and she wishes she was braver.