Chapter Text
"You're not my mother Jos, I don't understand why you're so up in arms about this!"
"Is that what you're gonna tell your dads too? Because they're not gonna say anything I'm not."
Naomi groaned in place of giving that a response, flopping back down onto the hotel bed and digging the heels of her hands into her eyes.
In hindsight, maybe she should've waited until they were on the way back from the spring break trip to drop this on her. But she was excited. Whether Josie was or not.
"I graduate next year, 'm not gonna get many more opportunities like this." She said, sitting up some and propping herself back up onto her elbows.
Josie was still halfway sitting on the desk across the room, arms crossed over her body- cheeks flushed like they always got when she was upset.
Naomi hated that sight.
"The farthest you've ever flown is to Florida, I know how you get- this isn't about me." She spat out, voice wobbling the farther she got into her sentence.
And she wasn't wrong, there was some amount of anxiety clawing at her about some of the logistics.
Just not enough that she didn't think it was impossible to overcome as Josie was making it.
Josie was a worrier, something Naomi credited half to just being the way she was and half to her being in the passenger seat for the shitstorm that had been the past year and a half ordeal with her brother and Wyatt.
It was something she understood- liked to think she was good at managing. Was happy to manage, when it was her.
Being in the scope view of the irrationality it wrought though- that was a different story.
"You're treating me like a little kid."
The volume of her voice increased to the extent that she saw Josie's eyes widen a bit. When they went back to their normal sides she was stepping forward off the desk.
Josie inhaled, pressing the sides of her hands against her nose on the exhale. "You aren't listening to me- can you do that, for two seconds please."
"You aren't listening to me." Naomi spat back. "I worked hard for this- if you lo- cared about me," She continued, almost slip up making her chest grow tight. "Then you'd be supportive instead of just flying off the handle because you think I'm such a baby I can't handle a long-haul flight and,"
"I wish I loved you less Naomi."
The interjection felt like Naomi imagined Josie coming across the room and hitting her across the face would. She squeezed her eyes shut like she had, and when she opened them again Josie hadn't moved a muscle, staring at her as the color drained from her face.
"I'm sorry," She blurted out after a few more seconds of staring, voice watery as her eyes appeared to be getting glossy. "Fuck- I'm sorry,"
Naomi scooted off the bed, to do what she wasn't sure exactly. But by the time she was on her feet Josie had bolted past her and right into the bathroom, the door slam echoing off of every wall in the hotel room.
Sitting down on the edge of the matress, Naomi held her face in her hands- watching the closed bathroom door like she if she just tried hard enough, she could see through it.
She could count on one hand she'd almost said the kinder version of what her girlfriend had just half-shouted at her. That she loved her.
But where Josie was the worrier between them Naomi was the chicken. Hell, they wouldn't even be together at all if she'd been left to her own devices in crossing that hurdle, that much she could laugh about.
Though it showed up in more aspects of her life than just this one. She applied for study abroad to begin with as another form of kicking herself across some invisible "stop being a fucking coward" threshold.
And given the option now she'd kick herself so hard it bruised. For not thinking through how she'd tell Josie about this more, for letting her bolt into the bathroom without saying anything- for all of it.
When ten minutes of flopping back in bed and counting the lines in the ceiling didn't bring her out of the bathroom Naomi forced herself to sit back up.
Swinging her legs over to the side of the bed, she messed with the comforter between her fingers for a few more seconds before she spoke.
"Don't wanna talk about this through a door Josie." She said, digging one foot into the carpet. "So if you wanna come on out of there that'd be great."
She could hear some shuffling on the other side of the door and it cracked open a few seconds later.
Josie's face was splotchy, eyes rid rimmed.
"IdontwishIlovedyouless" She said before Naomi could say anything, a hiccup escaping as she wiped her nose with a tissue. "I shouldn't have said that- I love you so much, okay?"
"Okay, yeah." Naomi replied, swiping her tongue over her bottom lip.
Out with it kid.
"I love you too, sit." She continued, and motioned with her head to the spot next to her on the bed.