Love Always Wins

Chapter 5-Goodbye

CHAPTER 5
Days turned to weeks, to months. Eventually, Naomi and I were spending everyday together. Time went by fast, and before I knew it we were celebrating our three month anniversary. Not only were we celebrating our anniversary, but we were also celebrating my seventeenth birthday. She was great, and always spent time with me. Never once did she ever leave me at a table to dance with someone else, and if she ever got up to dance... it was with me. She loved me, and I loved her, too. Tonight... I was going to tell her. I had been afraid, because sometimes when someone said it... the relationship went to shit. Just like Nora's, and she understood that. I know Naomi's nothing like Nora, but I don't understand why I was still afraid.
I walked up to her front door and knocked. A woman answered. She had brown hair with hints of silver throughout it. Her eyes were light green, and she was wearing a dark blue robe.
"Hello." She said with an angry tone.
"I- I'm sorry Miss Reynolds... I-is something wrong?" I asked nervously. I was scared that Naomi had told her, and she took it wrong.
"I'm sorry, Lydia." She said. She check her tone and it was lighter. I gave a hidden sigh of relief. "I was just in a slight argument with Naomi's father. Come in... Come in. She's upstairs in her bedroom."
"Thankyou." I said as she moved from the door way and I walked through.
"Down the hallway, last door on your right." She directed.
"Thankyou." I walked down the hallway as directed and knocked on the bedroom door.
"WHO IS IT?" Naomi's voice came from the other side.
"LYDIA!" I yelled back. Then a moment later she opened the door.
"Lydia, you've made it." She hugged me, and pulled me inside the room. "Happy Birthday."
"Thank you." I said as she grabbed a small birthday bag that was sitting on her bed, and turned to me.
"You ready to go?" She asked.
"Yeah, what's in the bag?" I looked curiously at the bag in her hands.
"That's your birthday gift, silly." She answered. "You'll get it later."
"Then let's hurry up and go." I said walking out of the room. She followed me down the hallway, and out the front door. She didn't say a word to her parents. I waited for her to shut the front door, and still whispered just to be sure. "You didn't tell them, did you?"
"No. We just already went over all the rules." She replied. "I thought you wanted me to tell them?"
"I do, but I don't want this huge argument on my birthday."
"That's why I'm waiting." She replied.
"Two months." I said in a 'seriously' tone. She looked at me in the same tone.
"Ok you win." She finally said laughing.
"Come on girls... You two are going to be late." Connor called from the car.
"We're coming." I called back. Mom was in the passenger seat, so Naomi and I had to get in the back. We closed the door and seat belted, so he would actually drive off. We stopped at the restaurant that we'd planned to dine at, and Naomi, mom, Connor, and I walked in to get our table. We sat and ate and talked the night away. My curiosity kept getting the best of me, and Naomi watched as my eyes shot towards the birthday bag. She scoffed and set it in front of me.
"Go ahead and open it." She demanded. "You're impatient."
"You're just now noticing it?" I asked reaching into the tiny bag, and pulled out a ring box. I opened it and there was a ring inside. It was thin with a small diamond in the center. I was in shock. "Naomi..."
"It's a promise ring, Lydia." She explained holding my hand. "A promise that we'll be together for a very long time."
Thank you so much." I said sliding the ring onto my finger. I leaned over and kissed her. "I love it."
"I love you." She said, hugging me. I was shocked at first. She wanted me to say it first, but now she'd said it.
"I love you, too." I returned. I was so happy that tears were running down my cheeks.
"On a side note. I don't think either of us are expecting desert from here." Connor joked. I gave him a glare, but Naomi giggled.
"Connor though that was cute, I don't think you should joke about that." Mom said laughing. "Why don't we head on home?"
"Alright." I said jumping out of the seat. Naomi copied me, and we walked out of the restaurant holding hands. We were soon outside waiting on Mom and Connor to pay the check. "I was thinking about it, Naomi."
"What?"
"Maybe you should tell them now." I said shrugging my shoulders. "I mean... we have been together for three months."
"How long we've been together isn't going to make a difference to them, Lydia." She said tensely.
"You're right." I agreed. "It's not... but... it will make a difference to us."
"Do you really think that?"
"Yeah. Naomi, they'll find out eventually. We've made it three months without them finding out. How can we go any longer without them knowing? It's unnatural, and... well... Just think about how upset they'd be if they found out without you telling them." I said.
"You may be right, but just think about what they'd do." She said. "Lydia... My cousin told them she was lesbian, and they tried to get my aunt to send her away."
"You're graduated, Naomi. They can't control you anymore. There's nowhere they can send you without your consent." I said holding her hand.
"A mental institution." She continued. "A fucking mental institution. Lydia... They'd think I was an abomination."
"Oh wow that's more intense than I expected."
"That's why I hadn't told them yet."
"Oh." I said.
"Right." She looked at me and grabbed my other hand. Now she was holding both my hands in both her hands. "Lydia... I love you so much, and the last thing I've ever wanted was to hurt you. If I told my parents about us... we'd both get hurt."
"Ok." The thought of us having to break up because of her parents hurt. I didn't want to lose Naomi. She was the only girl for me, and the only one who ever treated me right. I loved her. I loved Naomi. I hugged her and kissed her. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
"Alright kids." Connor said as he and mom walked out. "Get in the car."
"Ok." I said, and Naomi and I walked to the car and got in the back. We'd dropped Naomi off at her home, and she blew me a kiss before she went inside. Then we drove home before. I walked upstairs and went to bed.
The next day, Naomi didn't call or text until noon. She didn't get home 'till late last night, so I figured she'd been sleeping all day... but she didn't call at all that day. I was upset waiting on her call, or maybe even a text. I waited and waited. I even kept my phone on me the whole time.
It wasn't until a couple days after that, when she called me. I was in my room when her ringtone, "Cheerleader" by Omi, started playing. I quickly answered it. I was excited she finally called me, but upset because she was in tears. I could hear the catch in her throat.
"Naomi what happened? Are you ok?" I asked worried.
"Lydia, they found out."
"What?"
"I don't know how, but they found out about you. They were pissed off." She wept. I was scared about what she'd say next. "I had to tell them about me."
"So they know we were together?" I asked very worried about this.
"Yeah." She sighed. "They said I had to break up with you, and they're sending me to my grandmother's in L.A."
"L.A.?" I nearly yelled. "You can't move to L.A."
"I have to. They're going to make me." She sobbed. "Lydia, I'm so sorry. I don't know how they found out."
"Did you ask them?"
"They dug through my secret hiding spot and found a picture of us kissing." She answered between sobs. "I'm sorry Lydia."
"Naomi calm down."
"I can't. My parents are forcing me to break up with the person I love, and I'm stuck outside in the cold."
"They locked you out?"
"No I snuck out. I'm waiting for someone to answer your door." She replied sniffling.
"O-Ok I'm on my way out." I ran downstairs past mom and Connor in the kitchen. I opened the door, and she was standing there waiting on me. We walked up to my room and slid out the window onto a low part of the roof. We watched the stars and talked. "Naomi?"
"What?" She laid her head on me, and I wrapped my arm around her.
"When are they making you leave?" I asked.
"Friday." She answered. I was shocked at how soon. "They want me out as soon as possible."
"Do you think you could make me a promise?"
"What?"
"You'd come back." I choked. She looked at me and saw the tears run down my cheeks. She moved my glasses and wiped them off.
"Of course I will come back, Lydia." She answered. "As soon as I turn eighteen."
"But that's..."
"Not even a year." She kissed me. "I love you, and no matter what... I will come back to you."
"Will you?" I didn't want her to leave. She was the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I was losing her. I needed her. She completed me. "Don't miss a single day of calling me."
"I... uh..."
"What?"
"They're shutting down my phone."
"Then take mine." I said. "Mom will get me a new one. She'll understand."
"Lydia." She gave me the 'real' look. Which she only gave me when I was being unreasonable. Then I broke down and started sobbing.
"I just love you so much, Naomi. This can't be happening. I don't want it to happen, you- you can't leave me. You can't go. Naomi, you have no idea how hard it was to live my life... alone. I've always been alone, and you made me better. You gave me a shoulder to lean on and you gave me the half of my heart that I was missing. Naomi, I love you so much. Please... there must be something that can be done."
"There isn't." She said, and we cried together.
"Well..." I sniffled, and got up.
"Lydia?" She stood up with me.
"Wait here." I said as I went back in through my window. I walked over to my side of the bed and grabbed a bag that I had hid in the drawer. Then I walked back out, and handed it to her. "Looks like I'm gonna miss your birthday, so what the fuck. I bought it yesterday for your birthday next week. I saw it at the mall and thought about you, and I wanted to get it before someone else did."
"An early birthday gift?" She said reaching into the bag and pulling out a box similar to the one she got me. She opened it and gasped. She put the small ring on her finger, and kissed me. Then she hugged me sobbing. "Oh Lydia... I love you."
"I love you more." I hugged her back and sobbed with her. "Don't you ever forget that Naomi."
"I won't Lydia." She sobbed.