✔️ COMPLETE
Naomi McKay is running away. After a catastrophic end to her three-year relationship, she needs to escape Hampshire to focus on what she really wants in life. St Ives, Cornwall seems like the perfect place for her, far away from everyone...
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The phone vibrated against the wooden table, jolting Naomi out of her focus. She blinked a few times, looking over at Fatima who turned the timer off and looked at Naomi with expectant eyes. Naomi shook her head and Fatima's face visibly fell.
"What you mean?"
"I didn't finish, did I?" Naomi groaned, running her hands over her face, hiding it from view for a few seconds before she sat back in her chair and looked at her laptop in front of her. The two were sitting at Olive's Café on Island Square, seated on lime green chairs outside, the morning sun beating down on them as each of them tried to do work; Fatima looking through the curriculum she was going to teach this coming year, and Naomi doing her UCAT work. Fatima was a teacher for fourth graders, so she knew how to make things easy to understand, how to pull things apart and study properly. When Fatima had suggested that the two of them take a day together to just study, Naomi had jumped at the opportunity. Now, they had met to do exactly this a few days in a row and Naomi was really starting to feel the effects.
The thought of the UCAT exam coming closer and closer made her want to hurl. September 10th didn't seem that far away anymore, something that absolutely terrified Naomi. Not only did she need to be out of St Ives by then, leaving her entire life and friends here behind, but she didn't know where she'd even be. Would she even have enough money? Would she still be in Cornwall? Would she have crawled with her tail between her legs back to Winchester, asking for forgiveness for leaving them all behind?
Fatima pursed her lips, tapping her pen against the top of Naomi's laptop. "Is it 'cause you're stressing too much?"
"Probs."
"It's hard not to when it's important to you."
Naomi sighed heavily, nodding her head in agreement. "This practice exam... well, it was hard."
"They usually are, the practice exams," Fatima explained. "Not necessarily so to scare you, more so that you'll be aware that this will be hard, but the actual exam isn't that bad. They never are."
Naomi gave Fatima a little smile. "Taken the UCAT before?"
"Obvs, I'm the smartest bitch in all of the UK, if not Europe."
Naomi laughed, quickly sighing again as she looked down at her laptop again. This was the first practice exam she had ever taken; Fatima had timed her to see if she'd make it in the estimated time it took to complete the UCAT, but Naomi hadn't managed to. She supposed she still had a lot of time to study and prepare herself, but it still made her feel like all her studying had been for absolutely nothing. One failure, even if it didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, always seemed like the most important thing in the world. How had the world not shifted? How was not everyone around her crying like she felt she should be doing?
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Naomi. I promise you'll be fine."
She nodded, knowing deep down that Fatima was right. The universe would balance itself out eventually, everything would be alright in the end even if her current world was crumbling right before her eyes. Maybe she was just being dramatic, maybe it wasn't that deep and she had just not been focused enough, but Naomi felt like giving up now.
