Page 40 of Hearts on Fire

It was best that she drove the night away, paying attention to its sounds and whispers and begging them to take away her looming depression.

The next morning, Naomi arrived at work with the telltale signs of her sleepless night hidden under layers of foundation. Her smile was a little too bright and her hands shaky.

She was already having a horrible day in her mind when she got the instruction that she was to go with the dispatch team to work with the fire department.

Naomi couldn’t recall if it was Scotti’s team on duty or not; she hoped not.

But who was she kidding?

The team waiting for the doctors was headed by none other than Scotti Saunders. Infuriatingly handsome in her red fire department shirt. Her eyes were almost navy blue and hard to read. Naomi rolled her eyes.

Why didn't Scotti just stay at home for one bloody day and nurse her wounds?

Naomi couldn't believe that she didn’t even know what Scotti's burns looked like. Between the argument and the bandages, she hadn’t had chance to see them. She wanted to examine them and clean them and treat them herself. How could she possibly trust that to anyone else? She hadn't even gotten the moment to kiss Scotti's pain away.

As Scotti approached them now for a quick greeting, Naomi's gaze dropped to Scotti's gloved hands. She itched to tell Scotti off; to tell Scotti that her burns needed some time to heal before being subjected to the discomfort of the firefighting gloves again.

As usual, Scotti extended a hand for a shake to each doctor that had come to help. When it was time to shake Naomi’s hand, Naomi thought Scotti dropped her hand too quickly. Naomi wondered if, in her desperation, she had squeezed Scotti's hand too tightly.

“There's a road accident scene we'll need to take care of, guys. The hospital is needed and the tow trucks are unavailable. There's no time to waste, it's a major road,” Scotti barked.

Naomi couldn't look at Scotti— wouldn't look at her. Whereas she usually sat in the front of the truck with Scotti, Naomi now ignored the seat and found one further away at the back. She even considered taking her own car.

She needed to be as far away from Scotti as she could get. As long as she still saw Scotti, Naomi was convinced that a conducive environment for healing was merely an illusion.

She tried to reduce their conversations to monosyllabic replies and said them only if necessary. But she couldn't cheat her mind, and many times she caught herself staring at Scotti or touching something Scotti touched for too long.

Naomi wondered if Scotti felt the way she did; if Scotti even noticed she was gone. Scotti seemed to be handling it better than she was. Scotti met her eyes with professionalism, whereas Naomi could barely look at the ground where Scotti stood. She hid this by looking at the patient instead or her report booklet or her phone.

She watched Scotti steer oncoming traffic away to another lane as she and the rest of the team handled the accident victims and cleared off the road.

That was only the beginning of the many paired missions they had together. Naomi wondered if fate was playing a cruel trick on her. Sometimes, Naomi thought that their pairing was just unnecessary.

It was agony that she was so close to Scotti, sometimes even physically touching, yet they were so far away.

She missed the moments when she and Scotti would sneak away at the end of a mission to talk alone. She missed the conversations she and Scotti used to have on the road.

Naomi wondered if the difference was obvious to everyone else and they were just pretending. Did they notice the rift between what used to be the best pair on the job?

Naomi tried as hard as she could to see that her job didn't suffer the brunt of her loss, especially when she worked with Scotti. But she could not help but realize how quickly Scotti seemed to snatch her hand away when an opportunity loomed for them to touch.

Even though there was once a time Naomi had only known Scotti as a dedicated firefighter, Scotti's professional tone seemed too unusual to Naomi. Sometimes she wanted to scream at Scotti to just stop.

It annoyed Naomi even more that Scotti didn't see or appear ruffled by the obvious torture she was going through. And dear God, Scotti hid hers too well.

One time, it took Naomi all the self-control she could muster, not to grab Scotti by the collar, pin her to the wall and kiss her silly.

She'd fisted her hands and dipped them in her pockets to avoid creating a scene.

It was also that day that Naomi decided she was going to request that her pairing with Scotti be dissolved.

She thought it up in her head and cooked up a seemingly reasonable explanation that put neither of them in the center of the story on why she needed an immediate change.

They'd made a good team in the past. They'd saved more lives than Naomi could have done alone. In all honesty, she knew she'd miss the team they were. But if Scotti thought it was best that they severed the ties now, they better sever all of them.

When she got on the firetruck with Scotti once more, she believed it was going to be the last time. Perhaps, it was going to be the last time in a long time that she would see Scotti. Naomi thought she was ready for it.

If this was healing, then so be it! she said to herself.

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