A/N: For the Sukeve Secret Prompter 2024 fic exchange.
Disclaimer: I don't own EastEnders.
She can't remember the last time she was in London. It's something she avoids as much as she possibly can, ill-equipped as she still is to face the ghosts of all she had suffered in that quiet, friendly suburban she had thought would be her home forever. No matter what she has achieved in the twenty-two years since then, she will always be haunted by the fact that it was such violence that had rent open the doors of her cage and enabled her to fly free. It's gilded with a sharp, jagged guilt that she has never quite been able to leave behind, no matter the miles and the memories she has collected since then.
Ayesha allows herself to be jostled along with the crowd that disembarks the tube with her, in the direction of the exit. A little place called Walford, that's where the Panesars have ended up. Away from the whispers on the street, but still close enough to be connected with the gurdwara that they'd all used for years.
The fact that Suki and the children never moved out of the area is something that Ayesha can't fathom. She knows how people at the gurdwara talk. She could not have borne it.
It's a relief to be out into the fresh air after the oppression of the tube. It's a warm day, made worse by the way she has chosen to armour herself. Sharp suit jacket, cinched dress, towering heels. If she is to face them—and she still isn't sure if she can, even though she's here—she wants them to be able to see that she has made a success of herself in spite of what Nishandeep took from her.
She tries not to think of the Panesars too often. Nishandeep in particular, of course, for the way he destroyed her life, but Suki too.
Suki, who had unknowingly made her feel all the things she was supposed to feel for a man. A year younger, but with four children more—and hadn't Hardeep's parents seen that as her greatest failing; she will never forget the way they had asked with passive-aggressive interest about just how her little neighbour was getting on with the chaos of family life, as if Ayesha was solely responsible for her and Hardeep's lack of offspring—her small stature cloaking a spine of steel. Ayesha had often found herself thinking that she must have needed that to endure being married to someone like Nishandeep.
They had rarely spoken about the states of their respective marriages—it simply wasn't the done thing—but Ayesha remembers the way that Suki had always parroted Nish's opinions like a dutiful songbird. How she had sometimes caught glimpses of Suki's own canniness beneath that guise of the good, devoted wife. How she had tried to encourage Suki to think for herself, to cultivate her own experiences. It had always been clear that Suki had ambition far beyond anything Nish could ever dream of. Privately, she had always thought that Suki was wasting herself with him. But, of course, there were children involved, and marriages in their community usually meant for life, no matter how unhappy they were, lest they forever be dogged by gossip and judgement.
And when they'd been together, the last thing Ayesha had ever had any interest in was talking about Nish.
No, all she'd been focused on was Suki.
Suki's shy little smiles as they'd sat together at the table, drinking chai and gossiping about people they knew. Preparing rotis together, the brush of Suki's fingers against her own sending sparks of fire down her nerve endings, the light smell of her perfume more intoxicating than any wine as she leaned in closer to show Ayesha where she was going wrong with the balance of the ingredients, for Suki was far better at cooking than she was. Those moments, when they had looked at each other, and Ayesha had been almost sure that Suki would welcome it if she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to those slightly parted lips…
Ayesha swallows hard, pulling her thoughts away. Best not to dwell on that, for her own sake as much as anything else.
There's a quaint little market nearby, the main lifeblood of the small square by the look of it. The place has stirred into life; the thrum of friendly chatter permeates the air. Tightening her hold on the straps of her handbag, Ayesha moves off in its direction.
Nish had said that he would meet her at a place called Walford East at eleven o'clock. He wants to make amends, he'd said. To put right the wrongs of years ago, to seek forgiveness for his actions, because he is dying.
When she'd first read the words, her first instinct had been to laugh. It is not in the teachings to hold hate in her heart, but she makes an exception for him. She hopes that one day Waheguru will understand.
She had almost replied exactly that to him, her fingers shaking as she'd typed the words: I can only hope your death is slow and excruciating, and you never know a moment's peace again.
But she'd deleted it. It will be far more satisfying to spit those words into his face.
She checks her watch. It's barely ten. She feels foolish for being so early—is probably foolish for even entertaining any of this at all—but she hadn't slept at all last night, her stomach churning with anxiety and all those old angers, and in the end she hadn't been able to bear the thought of lying there for a second more. Moving forward, moving forward, it's what she's done her entire life to keep one step ahead of the past.
To try to keep her guilt at bay that it had been the death of her husband that had brought her her freedom.
Hardeep had been so kind, so gentle. He hadn't deserved what had happened to him. She might not have loved him in the way a wife was supposed to love her husband, but she had had great love for him. She doesn't know if they would have stayed together, if she would have been able to face the rest of her life denying what was really inside her, but it hurts her to know that Hardeep never had the opportunity to live the life he deserved. She has profited from that, and it will never not plague her. She knows Hardeep's family resents her for the very same reasons. Not that she is still in contact with them. They cut her off the moment she first spoke up about her true sexuality. She can't say she blames them. She knows how difficult it is for some people in their community to accept that homosexuality is natural and that love between two women is as beautiful as it is between a man and a woman, and she understands that it must have been beyond difficult for them to have lost a precious son, a genuinely good man, only for her to seemingly besmirch his memory by telling the world that she'd rather spend her life with another woman instead of playing the mourning widow for the rest of her days.
As she walks up the street, she takes in the sights of the market stalls, so quintessentially British. Fruit and veg, cultural memorabilia, clothes, random tat. There's a burger van right at the top of the street, looking down over the entire market. The idea of eating anything makes Ayesha's stomach turn over, but as she glances at the woman working behind the line, she thinks that perhaps she could manage a drink instead.
There's danger in making assumptions, but she reasons that no harm can come of putting out the feelers. If she's going to be forced to relive some of the worst moments of her life, she thinks she might as well have something to enjoy at the end of it all. Even from a distance, this woman gives off a certain vibe.
Resolved, she keeps her head high and marches in the direction of the van. Even if she's wrong, a drink would give her something to occupy her hands with. She spies a café a little further away, but the thought of being trapped inside, counting down the minutes to when she has to decide whether she's going to go through with this or not, is one that makes her feel claustrophobic. Better to stay outside, with the warm sun on her face, and remember to breathe.
The woman straightens up as she approaches, sweeping a stray strand of her short hair back behind her ear.
"Morning!" she says cheerfully. Ayesha's ears prick at the northern lilt in these hostile southern surroundings. That, more than anything, settles some of her nerves. Gives her a sense that she's less alone than she'd felt. Which is ridiculous, really. This woman is a stranger. But the warmth of the people up north is what got her through those difficult years.
Perhaps it's a portent that she is doing the right thing, being here.
"Morning," she returns, approaching the van.
Up close, the woman is even more striking—light, clear eyes that seem to dance between colours depending on which way she tilts her head, a slightly crooked grin that is wide and welcoming and entirely charming, a dusting of freckles over her nose so light that they'd be easily missed and are all the sweeter for it. She holds herself with a kind of assuredness that Ayesha has come to associate with more masculine-presenting women. She's probably at least interested in women, if not a lesbian.
"Can I get you something?" the woman asks.
Ayesha comes to a stop in front of the van. Here she goes. No risk, no reward. "I don't know. Haven't decided if I like what I see yet."
The woman grins at her, clearly receptive to a bit of light flirting. "Well, just let me know. Everything available is up there on the board."
Is that a hint? Her eyes slide to the woman's left finger—no ring. And short, clean fingernails. Not exactly a failsafe indicator, especially given that she works on a food van, but pretty close. All hope is not lost just yet.
"I take it you're Stacey?" she asks, nodding to the eponymous sign above their heads.
The woman laughs. "Oh, no, I'm her business partner, Eve."
"In that case, it's nice to meet you, Eve." She bites down the tawdry quip about her belief that Stacey must have some incredible baps if Eve is only the employee, because, good God, Eve's don't half look exceptional in that tight white t-shirt. She's not gauged enough to know if Eve would appreciate it or not, though her cheeky grin suggests she's no stranger to a coy pick-up line. "I'm Ayesha."
"It's nice to meet you, too," Eve returns. "So, you decided on what you want? I'm a dab hand with a bacon sarnie, even if I do say so myself."
"That so?"
"Yep. Between you and me, I do it better than Stace."
"I'll bet." Ayesha lets her gaze linger purposefully for a moment, before clearing her throat. "But, actually, I don't think I could eat anything right now. Maybe just a drink?"
Eve leans over the hatch that sticks out the side of the van. "Ah, in that case, I'd recommend grabbing a coffee from Kathy's. It's just over there, look. As much as Stacey would kill me for turning business away, I can't pretend our coffee is a patch on hers. My other half won't touch the stuff. Says it tastes like sludge."
Ah, so there is a partner somewhere. No indication of gender yet, but Ayesha would still stake her reputation on it being a woman.
She's never been someone to go for women with partners before, but with the past's noose sliding over her neck once more and threatening to jerk tight, today she thinks she might be prepared to do anything to gain some relief from the agony she will be forced to confront today. A one-night stand with a stranger, just pleasure and sex, might be the only cure.
"I'll take it anyway," she says. "I've swallowed some shit in my time."
Eve laughs at that. "A bit of bravery. I like it. You need it round here, let me tell you."
Silence falls between them for a moment as Eve busies herself with making the coffee. Instant, by the look of it. But Ayesha is content to watch her work. Eve looks like she has strong, capable hands.
"So what brings you to these parts, Ayesha?" Eve asks, pushing the polystyrene cup across the counter when she's done.
"Closure."
Eve's eyebrow lifts. "That's rather cryptic."
"I find I have more fun that way." Ayesha reaches out for a packet of sugar, stirring it in with one of those pathetic wooden sticks. She takes a sip and pulls a face; Eve wasn't joking about the quality of the coffee. It's bitter and rancid, but she forces it down anyway.
Eve laughs, but when Ayesha glances back up at her, she finds that the other woman's gaze has drifted away from her and is fixed on something over her shoulder. The smile on her face is wide and soft, the kind of smile reserved for a lover who means the whole world to someone.
It's in that moment that Ayesha knows it's futile to pursue any kind of connection here. It's abundantly clear that Eve is very much unavailable and has no interest in looking elsewhere.
She hears the shuffle of footsteps, a no-nonsense little strut that exudes confidence and charisma—and perhaps a little confrontational, too, if they'd clocked the way that Eve had been leaning over the hatch and Ayesha had been standing close.
"I'm sorry for interrupting," comes a voice behind her, before she can turn, "but do you mind if I steal Eve away for a few moments?"
A woman's voice: she has her answer. Eve is definitely into women—and this one alone. Her expression now is practically dreamy.
And this tone of voice makes it clear that Eve's partner is not looking for an answer, that that is what she's going to do regardless of what anyone thinks. Assertive. Perhaps marking her territory a little.
Ayesha turns to smile pleasantly at the newcomer, intending to make it transparent that there's no competition here. The last thing she needs is to get into a quarrel with a stranger. She'll have to google nearby gay bars and pick up a willing woman that way instead.
Her breath dies in her throat.
She reaches out to grab hold of the metal hatch.
"You okay?" she hears Eve say; her voice is strangely distorted above the ringing in her ears.
"Yeah," she answers, or thinks she does, because her whole world has pitched sideways, and she doesn't even know if she's capable of coherency.
Because it's with a sickening jolt, as if she's freefalling from the top of a rollercoaster, that she realises just who she is looking at.
It's Suki. Sukhwinder, as Nish had reminded people over and over again, but Ayesha had never used her given name when the two of them were alone. She'd always been Suki. It was a secret for just the two of them to share, in defiance of her husband.
A Suki twenty years older than the girl she remembers, whose round, soft features have hardened into something sharp and stately.
She's even more beautiful than she remembers.
Thick curls falling around her shoulders from a half-clipped up-do. An electric blue suit, sharp, tailored blazer and white blouse open from throat to just shy of her cleavage, wide-legged trousers that match. Bizarrely, the ensemble is finished with a moon boot on one leg and a black trainer on the other foot, but it still doesn't detract from the authority that exudes from her.
It's an ensemble the Suki of twenty years ago would never have dared to wear. It's an ensemble that Nishandeep would never have allowed her to wear. Ayesha remembers the way Suki had always been drowning in shapeless dresses and oversized jumpers, anything to hide her figure from the eyes of other men.
Her eyes, though Nish could never have known it.
…Actually, it's rather like something she would wear. Ayesha glances down at her own attire. It's pretty similar, all things considered, right down to the bright, audacious colour.
Suki doesn't even spare her a second glance, emanating a kind of aloof disdain, as if she isn't even worth her time, and Ayesha is struck so mute by her sudden arrival that she can't possibly find the words to reintroduce herself.
Instead, she stands motionless as Suki trots by her to the side of the van.
Time seems to have frozen. She tries desperately to claw back some semblance of composure.
She's been trying to prepare herself for what she might feel in an hour's time, walking through the doors of this Walford East place and coming face to face with Nish and Suki for the first time in twenty-two years.
She hadn't been prepared to face her past out here on the street, with no prior warning and no way to steel herself.
She can't tell which emotion is the prevalent one. The inevitable wrenching open of that old hurt, the wound that has closed but never fully healed, destined to bleed anew.
A long-forgotten lurch in her stomach, the same way she had always reacted whenever she had seen Suki all those years ago, an aching longing to reach out and brush her fingers over the curve of her cheekbone, smoothing an errant curl back from her face.
"Excuse me," Eve murmurs, and without waiting for her to try for some semblance of an answer, she throws open the bap van's door and leaps down onto the bottom step, landing smoothly in front of Suki.
Subtly, Ayesha adjusts her position, tottering on colt-like legs over to the single metal table outside the bap van on the pretext of adding more sugar to the awful coffee just so she can eavesdrop and cast a surreptitious glance in their direction. Neither of them notice, seemingly completely wrapped up in each other.
"Who's the pretty woman?" she hears Suki say, and her heart does a funny somersault in her chest despite herself.
"I dunno," Eve replies. "Some out-of-towner here for the day."
"Ah, so you know that much, do you?"
"I was just making friendly conversation."
"Yeah, I saw how 'friendly' that conversation was getting. You were flirting."
"I was not!"
"You think I don't know you well enough to know when you're flirting? You were practically falling out of the van."
"Are you jealous?" There's a lilting tease to Eve's tone.
At that, Suki tosses her curls over her shoulders. "As if."
"The same way you weren't when that woman at Pride was chatting me up at the bar? I actually thought you were gonna hit her with your crutches."
"I might have just accidentally stumbled into her and made her spill her drink all over herself instead."
Eve's laugh is coloured in such warm affection, the kind that runs blood-deep. "I knew you were planning something."
Ayesha makes a grab for the back of one of the metal chairs, closing her eyes to recentre herself. She suddenly feels disorientated and unstable, as if she's stepped through the looking glass into a world that looks the same as the one she's always known, but runs completely parallel to the one she'd lived in.
She'd expected to come face-to-face with a Suki who was still with Nish.
But…but that doesn't seem to be the case at all.
It seems that in the intervening twenty years, Suki has discovered parts of herself that had slumbered undetected.
And her instincts had been right all along.
She hadn't imagined the spark, the heavy intimacy in Suki's shoulder leaning in to her as she shared a conspiratorial piece of gossip about one of their elders, in the brushing of fingers that set her alight in a way that Hardeep never could.
Suki is at the very least bisexual.
And, for a split-second, she aches at the lost history that yawns in the chasm between them. The endless potential for what they could have been if she had ever been brave enough to take the risk. Perhaps if she had, it would have been Suki sharing her bed in Manchester, not a string of strong but ultimately ill-fated relationships that had all ended on amicable terms. They could have dealt with the grief and the guilt together. She could have helped Suki to raise the children. Little Vinny might even have grown up seeing her as another mum.
But none of it makes any sense. What the hell is Nish playing at, then, by luring her down here? None of his messages gave any indication that he wasn't still married to Suki, and with the way he had guarded her like the crown jewels, jealous of anyone getting too close, even innocent friends, she can barely comprehend how the two of them can possibly coexist in the same space if Suki is with someone else. How she even found herself with someone else.
Another woman.
Because she is in a relationship with Eve, of that there is no doubt.
There's surely some cruel irony to Ayesha being too late to another chance. That this stranger she had been scouting out for a one-night stand is in a deeply committed relationship with her first love—because there can be no doubt about how deep that connection runs, given the way that Eve's face had lit up when she had caught sight of Suki over her shoulder.
Ayesha takes a subtle step to the side, keen to catch a glimpse of the pair of them together, filled with an almost perverse desire to know more. They're both still oblivious, which is unsurprising given the way that they're staring at each other as if they're the only two people in the whole world.
And they're holding hands. Swinging them a little, like young lovers in the first blushes of romance might. Suki is practically beaming. In all those years they knew each other, Ayesha doesn't think that she ever saw Suki as happy as she looks right now, holding hands with the woman who works on a sandwich van.
"It's a nice surprise to see you here," Eve murmurs.
"Well, you practically ran out of the door without so much as a goodbye."
"Erm, I wonder why that was!? You practically had me tied to the bed this morning…!"
"Don't give me any ideas," Ayesha hears Suki murmur, low and throaty, and she feels herself flush at the image. It seems to have the same effect on Eve, too; she clears her throat, a pink tinge in her cheeks and the tip of her nose, a giveaway to her desire.
"It's not fair to get me hot and bothered when I can't skive off. And you in this suit is just to die for. You know what it does to me."
"I know," Suki replies coyly. "Why do you think I wore it?"
"I know I'm always trying Stace's patience, but I do think she would actually kill me if I shut up shop during the morning rush to have a bunk up with my girlfriend."
"Pity. The house is empty, too."
"God, you're not making this any easier for me."
Suki raises their joined hands to check the watch on her right wrist. "It's probably for the best. I don't have much time, either." She lowers her voice to a throaty rumble, so quiet that Ayesha would not have heard had she not been straining her ears desperately. "Quick, dirty fumbles are hot, but I prefer to be able to take my time."
Eve swallows hard, her eyes a shade more akin to savoy. "Raincheck?"
"I'll see what I can do about getting Vinny to clear out for the evening."
Ah, so Vinny is still around. That doesn't really surprise Ayesha; she remembers how clingy he'd been to both of his parents, forever wrapped around their legs, desperate for attention. She'd always suspected that Nishandeep had found it rather grating, when he had more interest in moulding his two older sons, but Suki seemed to draw great comfort from being so needed by the younger boy, indulging his whims at every turn when she probably would have been better served in saying no. Not that Ayesha would ever have said so, of course, for what right did she have, childless as she was, to judge another person's parenting?
She hadn't been able to bear the thought of hurting Suki's feelings, of causing any kind of rift between them. She'd always known that Suki was touchy when it came to criticism, however well-meant and constructive it was, because day after day it was all she heard from Nish, and the last thing she'd ever wanted was to compound that. More selfishly still, the idea of losing even a single second of the precious time they had alone was simply something she couldn't have risked.
In the present, Eve grins, a look deep with want. "I like the sound of that." Then: "Where you off to, anyway? Has something come up?"
"No, just off for a late breakfast at Walford East with Vinny. Got a few things to discuss."
Ayesha wonders where Kheerat, Jagvir, and Ashneet are, if they've moved out to make lives of their own, or if they're still in the area. She wonders what they think of their mother being with another woman. Vinny at least must be fine with it, which is a wonderful relief. She knows firsthand just how difficult it can be to be openly gay as a Sikh woman. She has been met with so much love and celebration in her time, but there are still those who judge and sneer and condemn her for turning her back on the word of the Akal Takht, for not resisting the unnatural desires that live within her.
"Is that about—?"
"Not here, Eve," Suki interrupts. "But yes."
Eve sighs. "Just…be careful, all right? Play it smart."
"I know what I'm doing."
"I know, I know. I just…worry, that's all."
"I know. But we've got to press forward. We'll deal with the rest if we have to."
"When, Suki, not if. It's dangerous to carry on as if nothing has changed."
So Suki is Suki to Eve, too. Except for the way she says it is wrong, with the elongated oo that does not really exist, the westernised botching of the pronunciation. She gets that enough with her own name, to the point where she's stopped bothering to correct people.
But Suki doesn't seem to mind the fact that Eve mangles it in the slightest, reaching out to cup her face in the palm of her hand, tracing a tender thumb over her bottom lip. Cherishing. Treasuring. Ayesha supposes, in its own way, there's something lovely and intimate about the way a name sounds in a lover's mouth, however misguided the elocution. A secret shared between them alone; no one else will ever be able to reproduce it in quite the same way.
"It won't be for too much longer," Suki says. "Once everything's safe in Vinny's name and he's nothing but dust in the wind, he'll never darken our life again, I promise you. It can't come soon enough, but it will come eventually, Eve. And then we'll finally be free to live our life however we want. To love however we want without the fear of recourse, or having to ignore his constant, pathetic bigotry, or enduring him trying to worm his way back into our epicentre. We deserve that, and we will get it."
"You deserve it more than anything," says Eve, lifting her own hand to cradle Suki's cheek in the palm of her hand. "A life free from his poison, a life that you get to decide how you live."
Suki moves her hand up to press over Eve's, keeping it in place. "We both deserve that chance, Eve. He's tortured me for over thirty years. But I know what people have put you through too, and the poison your parents dripped in your ears. There will come a day when none of them can touch us ever again. We'll stand together in defiance of it all. The only life I ever want to live is one where you and me are together every single day. In this one, in the next, in the one after that."
"God, you really are the most romantic, poetic person I know," says Eve, but Ayesha can see just how deeply those words have affected her in the way that she leans down to press their foreheads together, closing her eyes.
It's starting to feel more than intrusive now, spying on a moment imbued with such intimacy. It's clear that the two of them are in their own little bubble, that what's happening here is more than just feelings. It feels like a fusing of souls.
Ayesha hadn't even believed such a thing possible until this moment.
"Compared to you, that's not difficult," Suki quips, breaking the tension.
"Ouch!" Eve laughs. "That's uncalled for."
"I'm just saying."
"I can be romantic!"
"Eve, your idea of high romance is telling me how turned on you are."
"Like that doesn't get you going too."
The expression on Suki's face is a stark indication that she can't refute her lover's claim.
"Anyway, get your mind out of the gutter," Eve continues. "Because I clearly meant that whilst I might not have been infused with the talent of a nineteenth-century poet, I like to romance with actions."
Suki's whole face softens. "Okay, I'll give you that. No one could ever treat me like you do. I am so, so lucky."
That raises a smile. "Believe me, I feel the same. And it will be nice to be able to relax once Nish has done us all a favour and carked it. We could celebrate with that break we were talking about. Although I'm not sure we can trust Vinny, Priya, and Ravi to look after the kids between them. I reckon we'd come back to find the house completely ransacked."
The mention of two unfamiliar names and the presence of more kids shows Ayesha again just how little she knows of the life her first love has led in the intervening years. She doesn't think Suki has had more children, but 'the kids' could be her grandchildren, and perhaps Priya and Ravi are Vinny's little family. A wife and older son, maybe? Vinny isn't yet thirty, by her own reckonings, but he could have started a family young for all she knows. It was what Suki did, after all.
Suki pretends to consider it for a moment. "I think I'd be prepared to take that risk for the chance of a holiday somewhere hot."
"Ah, well, that rather changes things, dunnit? If I get to perve on you in a bikini, I'm all for it."
"Eve!" Suki admonishes, but there's no disapproval there; Ayesha sees the pleased smile that curls at the corner of her mouth.
Eve holds her hands up. "Right, right. I'll be on my best behaviour until tonight. No promises after that, though."
"Good. I wouldn't want you to."
Suki's tone is flirtatious and simmering with the evident promise of a passionate evening, and Ayesha feels her cheeks heating at the implication. She tries not to imagine the scene.
Eve's clearly having the same trouble. With a concerted effort, she clears her throat and changes the subject. "I'll see you later, all right?"
"Yeah. Text me when you get your break and I'll come meet you. I probably won't be hungry, but we could go to Kathy's. I can grab a coffee while you have something to eat."
"Sounds good."
"I love you."
"I love you too."
And then Ayesha is openly staring at Suki Panesar kissing another woman, right there on the street as if she doesn't have a care in the world. Thinking she is sheltered from prying eyes by the back of the van, her fingers thread through Eve's short hair, stretching up on her tiptoes as Eve stands towering above her on the van's bottom step, Eve's own hands daringly low over her hips, just shy of caressing her backside.
The words Suki uttered just before that kiss resonate in Ayesha's head.
I love you.
So it's love.
Of course, how could it ever be anything else? Those soft looks, the bright, dreamy smiles, the intimate promises meant for no one but each other, looking to a future that they're both so desperately grasping at. The lingering, passionate embrace.
Suki's impassioned avowal that she wants Eve always, in this life and all of her lives to come.
Ayesha takes a moment to try to process what she's heard. It's a lot of information to absorb in a short space of time. Raises more questions than it answers. Doesn't give her any indication of what has happened in the intervening twenty years for Suki to find herself here, openly loving another woman, a world away from the shy, cocooned young thing that Ayesha remembers from the past. How did this come to be? What did Eve have that gave her the courage to face herself? How long has she been out? When did she leave Nish? Why is he still in the vicinity, trying to pull the strings, trying to control the narrative? She wonders why he was so insistent that she come here, what game he's playing.
She does not want to be part of any sick, twisted scheme of his ever again. Quite frankly, she has no interest in anything he's got to say. If he's looking for atonement, then he's seeking it in the wrong place. She will never, ever grant him forgiveness for what he did to Hardeep. She will never, ever be able to forget her own gains from something so horrific. She knows Hardeep would never begrudge her finding happiness again and carving out an authentic life for herself, but it doesn't help when the guilt comes preying. It doesn't help when she's lying in bed with another woman sleeping peacefully in her arms, knowing that she gets to do this because Hardeep died.
She shakes her head, trying to dispel those noxious thoughts. Tries not to let those memories surface, out here in the open where she has no control over them. She draws in a rattling, shaky breath.
And then she's brought back down to earth with a crash.
"Can we help you with something?"
She blinks, and finds herself looking properly into Suki Panesar's face for the first time in twenty years. It's not the welcoming expression of a friend. Suki's tone is spiky around the edges, hackles raised at the brazen gawking of someone she believes to be a stranger; she is on the defensive in a way that only someone who is still getting to grips with being out and proud can be. At her shoulder, Eve stands pushing her hair back behind her ears, not seeming the least bit embarrassed that she's just been caught kissing her girlfriend at her place of work instead of taking care of her customers. Doubtless her regulars are used to such displays.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Ayesha stammers. "I was just…"
But she trails off, unsure how she can possibly introduce herself without giving Suki the shock of her life.
She can't pretend that it doesn't hurt a little, that Suki doesn't recognise her immediately, the same way she did, but she has to remember that twenty years have passed and she is a different person to the drawn, haggard woman that Suki had last clamped eyes on, wearing a widow's shroud of grief, unable to comprehend the way that her life had been flung to the wolves. And Suki is not expecting her here, that much is now clear to see, so why would her first thoughts stray to a long-lost ghost of the past when she has warm, tangible real love here in her present?
Suki is still staring at her, disapproval pinching her face. She folds her arms across her chest, a shielding stance. Ayesha remembers her blunt accusations that Eve was flirting with her, and senses that there's also a current of that behind her unfriendliness, too. For her part, Eve places a reassuring hand on Suki's shoulder, as if to centre her, to remind her that she is there with her. Suki leans slightly into the touch, but she stares with an unblinking defiance at Ayesha.
Oh, yes, this is a Suki that she doesn't recognise, fierce and confident in a way she would never have dared to be in the past. Warring emotions rise up inside her.
She remembers soft music, wine-stained lips, the whole world a little hazy around the edges, Suki's low laughter and a tongue wetting her lips, so titillating without it ever intending to be, a whisper in her ear that was sensual for the way that her mouth clumsily grazed her earlobe.
The glass slipping through her fingers, scarlet wine steeped like a bloodstain over her brand-new rug.
An innate, wistful yearning for the years that she had missed, for the life that they might have had if she'd been brave enough to test the waters, to test the theory she had been so sure of in transient moments…
There's that old grief and anger, too, welling up inside her like a tidal wave, a maelstrom of negative emotions rising to the surface, because the last time she saw Suki was at the trial where her husband was found guilty of murdering hers, and in those moments, staring across the court, she had felt a bitter resentment at the way that Suki hadn't even been able to raise her gaze to look at her…to apologise for the way that Nish had torn her life apart…
Shaking her head in irritation, Suki says, "I haven't got time for this."
She steps forward, clearly intending to sweep past her, and Ayesha feels her limbs jolting into life.
There's nothing else for it.
She holds her head high and moves to confront the past.
