Page 39 of Hearts on Fire

Scotti knew that if she was going to have a shot out of this, her only chance was the one she had just taken.

11

Naomi

Naomi was livid.

Livid actually fell short of the emotion she felt. She was disappointed, upset and, well, livid! She couldn't believe Scotti.

Scotti broke up with her!

Something about that statement seemed impossible, unreachable. It wasn't something that ought to have happened between them, speak nothing of how soon it had happened.

Naomi thought there was something she wasn't understanding. Of course, it was impossible that Scotti, her Scotti, would break up with her over something as cheap as the fact that Naomi had endangered her life.

Naomi picked up her phone again to call Scotti. But she still had nothing to say to her— the words just wouldn't form.

The only word that rang in her mind was hypocrite. As much as she didn't want to ever call Scotti that, it was the only word that appeared to match what was going on at the moment.

Naomi itched to call Scotti, but her ego held the phone and held on even tighter to her pride.

There was no way, Naomi thought, she was going to be the first to call Scotti. It was true that they never really go defined their relationship. But that was no one's fault either, in all fairness. And yet…

How could Scotti look at her and decide they were better off without each other? Who gave her the right to make such decisions?

Naomi's thoughts revolved around questions, possibilities that could have been, and answers she guessed.

But nothing quite pacified the anger she felt toward Scotti. Naomi believed the argument had started when Scotti asked her not to go up to the child who was having seizures and she disobeyed.

Naomi wanted to scream at Scotti, reminding her that there was a kid there who would have died if she hadn't dared to go into the building. It was true that Scotti had saved her life there and Naomi was grateful for that, but if Scotti was angry because Naomi endangered her life briefly for a patient, Naomi couldn't help but call this what it was— hypocrisy.

Scotti was being a hypocrite.

Maybe it was better that it ended anyway, Naomi thought. Better now than she dated a hypocrite and faced the doom that came with it.

Naomi drove home angrily that afternoon. All drive long, though she'd set the volume of her speakers to play loudly and drown her thoughts, Naomi could not stop herself from thinking of Scotti. She didn't think she had been this angry with anyone in a long time.

It was simply infuriating that Scotti threw herself at fire everyday by the requirements of her line of work and Naomi only did it once and Scotti thought it a fair reason to sever the ties they had.

Naomi squeezed the steering wheel a little too tightly. She ought to have returned to her office and to work with the fire department dispatch team that took the injured victims to the hospital. But after Scotti dropped the news, Naomi took a taxi home immediately. She didn't even go into her apartment. She got into her Ferrari and decided that one of those quiet drives on those lonely roads will do well for her head.

But all she'd sustained from that was a throbbing headache, a bad heartache, and a hundred contemplations without answers forthcoming.

Perhaps even worse was the fact that she'd had to deal with a pressing truth: As mad as she was with Scotti, the only person who would know what to say to her in a mood like this was Scotti herself.

Too many times she'd picked her phone up, even twice dialed Scotti's number and dropped it. All she had in her was a rant, and a rant wasn't going to do anything for either of them.

Naomi wanted Scotti. She craved nothing more than Scotti's touch. It was Scotti's voice she wanted to hear again desperately. But before she would ever hear that again, she had to be ready to say that she did not care if Scotti endangered herself a hundred times a day to save someone else.

Naomi could not bring herself to lie like that. Even if she somehow managed to knit the words together, her very body would betray her real thoughts.

Naomi turned to the next street.

It was getting too late to still be out here driving around. The road was eerily quiet and it had been a while since Naomi passed another vehicle. She knew she ought to turn around and go home, but the thought of meeting an empty home feeling this way was depressing.

It brought a memory back to her mind; the night she'd returned home after receiving news of Sasha’s death. The house had been so silent, Naomi could hear her own crippling thoughts aloud and was paralyzed by them.

She feared that this moment bore a strong resemblance with that one and that she'd immediately go down that black hole again.

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