A Heart Healed

Chapter 4

Naomi

He didn’t call her after that.

Not the first night, the one after, or even for the next week.

Naomi knew that she said it was in case he needed her help, whether it be with Ezra or himself, but in her own weird way, she still wanted to hear from that man. Something had to be wrong with her.

None of their previous encounters had ever gone smoothly. The man was entirely too blunt and those eyes of his pieced through her nerves like the steel that it shared colors with and yet…

Why was she sitting here on a bench, on her morning off no less, staring at her cellphone? She and Olivia finally got the same day off in like six months. When she had woken up earlier, there was a text waiting for her from her best friend asking if she wanted to go out for breakfast.

Of course, Naomi said yes. Not only to finally spend some alone time with her, but she figured she could always ask Olivia for some advice. If someone just as busy as she was on a daily basis managed to find someone to date, even if it was someone Naomi hadn’t gotten a chance to ask her about yet, then surely, she was doing something right.

“Naomi!”

She looked up from her phone to see Olivia waving at her from the other side of the street they’d agree to meet. The district itself was known for its cute boutique shops and various restaurants and cafés, always filled with life and people who often came from other cities to experience this tourist trap.

Luckily, they knew exactly where to go if they wanted good food that wasn’t going to bust what was left of their budget for the month. Pay day was still another week away and Naomi needed to pick up more cat food for Iris. The little creature seemed to be getting skinnier now, so she had been trying to give her more food which would inevitably impact her wallet.

Unfortunately, not all of us, like a certain executive, had billions in the bank to do with as a person pleased.

“Hey!” Olivia greeted once she crossed the street. The two women hugged one another, and Olivia gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve seen you in anything but scrubs.”

Naomi looked down at her outfit. It wasn’t exactly far from them with a pair of cropped jeans that stopped halfway down her calves and a dark green blouse that fell off one of her shoulders half the time. Her mother had gotten it for her for her birthday and it was probably a size or two bigger than she was, but the fabric was actually quite nice for days like this.

“I know, right? I could barely decide what to wear as it is. You look good though, have you been losing weight?”

Olivia gave her a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of her neck. Naomi really did think her friend looked good though, especially with her dress that seemed to make her legs look longer.

“Let’s grab a bite. Usual place?”

Naomi nodded before the two of them set off down the street together. The sounds and smells of this part of the city were always better. Every restaurant or coffee place each had their own blend of smells while the stores were usually smelling of some kind of perfume.

Something was kind of off though, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It definitely wasn’t the kids from the Catholic school nearby skipping class in full uniform either.

“Liv, you all right?” Naomi tried, but her friend didn’t say anything. She had to try nudging Olivia’s arm before the woman actually looked at her with a confused expression.

“What’s the matter, Naomi?”

Her brows creased together. “I should be asking this. You’re not usually this quiet. Something the matter?” It was true. Between the two of them, it was usually her friend here who was the more vocal one in the friendship. A lot of the time back in medical school, their friends said that her and Olivia balanced each other out. Whenever the one was angry, the easiest solution to calm them down was to usually find the other friend.

Even that afternoon when she had been arguing with that man, one of the nurses had apparently run off to find Olivia. It was only when she had gotten out of observing Ezra’s procedure in the surgical theater that they had found each other. After work that day, the two of them had just gone home together without a word, Olivia’s arm around Naomi’s as they went back to her apartment.

Wait. Was this because of that? Naomi knew they hadn’t spoken at all that day, but it would be rather selfish to assume her best friend was upset over something silly like that.

“It’s nothing. Just some problems at home.”

Oh, so that was it. “Your parents again?” She just nodded. Olivia’s parents had been the topic of a lot of conversations they had had over late nights back from the time they met. Her parents, despite Olivia’s success and happiness in life, didn’t approve of a lot of her choices. She had firstly come from a family of people who still believed very much that she should have gotten married and stayed in her hometown to raise children.

Imagine their reaction when Olivia, their only daughter, had announced that she had no interest in any of that and wanted to be a doctor. Plus, on top of that, she had no plans to have children at all.

There were many phone calls that Naomi could remember Olivia just sitting silently as her mother went from begging her to come home to berating her for deciding to follow her own path, especially since she had done it with what money was left to her from her grandfather. As soon as she had gotten her inheritance, she had climbed on a bus and worked for a scholarship that had carried her on after the money had run out.

If it weren’t for the two of them becoming roommates, according to Olivia on one drunken night, she was going to return home sometime after their first semester.

“Same story?”

Olivia just nodded again. “I don’t really want to talk about it. There was only one piece of good news in that whole conversation and it was that my little brother was getting married.”

The two of them stopped to look up at their usual spot for breakfast. Otto’s. A little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that was built into the alleyway between the building its main restaurant was hosted and the one next door as a kind of eclectic outdoor seating area. The alleyway was clean and packed with tables and a wire frame laced with thick leaves over the top of it to act as impromptu shade. There was nothing like it anywhere else in this area.

Not to mention that they didn’t charge through the nose for good food, which was why by the time Naomi and Olivia had gotten there, there were very few empty seats. Luckily for them, the staff was nice enough to make sure they had gotten one of the nicer tables outside in the breeze. The warm weather was starting to fade with the fall properly setting in their city, but it was still warm enough to not need to go digging for her winter sweaters yet.

A few minutes after they sat down, one of the waitresses came out to their table. Naomi guessed she was probably a college student, might even be a freshman with the energy that seemed to be just radiating from her face.