Chapter Text
“Mummy,” a young voice whined, “I can’t sleep.”
Joy, who was sitting on the couch, lifted her head from her book to turn towards her daughter. She offered her a gentle smile.
“Come here, sweetheart,” she said, putting her book away. Alice hopped in the free space next to her mother, leaning into her side so the woman could squeeze her tightly. “How come you can’t sleep, then?”
“I don’t know, Mummy. I feel… all jiggly and ressless.”
Joy laughed softly at her daughter’s wording. “You know, when I was younger, whenever I couldn’t sleep my parents would ask me if I’d tried and closed my eyes. It’s a bit rubbish, innit? Because I’m sure you already tried that – just like I did at the time!”
“I did! I tried to close my two eyes and it didn’t work!”
The young mother feigned a gasp. “Did you? Both of them, really?”
“Of course, Mummy!” Alice replied, her wide eyes emphasizing how obvious it all was.
“Well, we’ve got to do something about it, don’t we?”
Joy had an inkling this was about more than the sugar rush induced by one too many custard creams Alice ate after dinner. Now that she thought about it, she felt restless in a similar fashion. Anyone would after breaking a well-established habit. For the first time in weeks, Joy had decided to skip her weekly shopping – which also meant that their weekly meet-up at Yaz’s checkout till had been postponed.
All she wanted to do was to treat her daughter to some take out, and thus she decided to report the weekly shopping to the next day. But as happy as Alice was about the idea of having take out for dinner, Joy heard the slight disappointment in her tone when she replied, “Does it mean we won’t see Yaz tonight?”
And if she was honest with herself, her daughter’s tone had mirrored her own feelings. She couldn’t put the words on why she felt like this. All she knew was that, just like her daughter, she had grown attached to the other woman. It was a strange feeling; new and familiar all at once… and definitely scary.
Regardless of her own feelings, it was clear that the fact Alice hadn’t seen Yaz today had an impact on her ability to get some rest.
“What would you say if we went to the park? We could stop by the shops to say ‘hi’ to Yaz on the way there,” Joy added, tugging at her daughter gently.
Alice offered her mother a beaming smile, jumping at her neck to hug her. “This is the bestest idea ever!”
***
Alice was ready in record time, and they soon were on their way to Yaz’s place of work. The young girl was skipping next to her, holding her hand tightly.
“I’m really happy we’re going to see Yaz, Mummy.”
Joy smiled at her daughter. “So am I, sweetheart.”
The young girl gradually stopped skipping. When Joy looked down, she was met with Alice’s perplexed glance. She started laughing heartily.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
The girl looked as if she was weighing her words carefully before speaking up. “I think Yazzy makess you happy and I really, really like it.”
The woman’s heart skipped a beat at the child’s words. “I… I…” She could barely form a clear sentence, and thus decided to avoid the subject altogether. “Wait, did you call her Yazzy?”
The girl simply nodded.
They walked in silence for a moment – leaving Joy alone with her daughter’s words repeating endlessly in her mind.
“We’re here, Mummy! We’re here!”
Once they were in proximity with the entrance’s sliding doors, Joy let go of her daughter’s hand so she could run freely to Yaz’s till. Yet, once she was inside, Alice stopped dead in her tracks instead of running off.
“Y’alright, sweetheart?” Joy asked as she walked to her daughter.
When she heard a man shouting, she knew why the girl had stopped running. She swiftly lifted her daughter from the ground, holding the girl against her chest and guiding her head away from the screaming man.
“You’re not better, not smarter. Just as stupid as everyone else working here. You all need me to survive, Yasmin,” the man said with a disgusting pride tainting his tone.
Joy was staring at him, and she could only hope her eyes were truly translating how furious she was. How could that man – definitely Yaz’s horrible boss she had heard about – say such horrible things to the other woman?
“Hey, you! What are you looking at?” The man said, staring right back at her.
He was clearly trying to scare her. He puffed out his chest and made his tone somehow more menacing than it already was. But Joy wasn’t scared of him and kept on looking at him with daggers for eyes.
“Not looking at anything, mate. Just shopping,” Joy said with a composed voice.
They held each other’s glance for a short moment, until the woman decided to look away and focus on Yaz.
Joy’s eyes instantly softened at the sight. She wanted to run to her and hug her and tell her that everything would be okay. She wanted to take her hand and lead her outside of this place. She wanted to…
“Have a nice day, ma’am,” the man interrupted her thoughts, just in time for her to avoid walking into the uncharted territories of her heart. When she reluctantly looked back at him, he was offering her a not-so-polite smile, before walking away.
“Mummy, can I go see Yazzy now?” Alice whispered in her ear.
For sole reply, she kissed her daughter’s cheek and let her down. The girl ran towards the younger woman, who instantly crouched to receive the long-awaited hug they seemed to both had longed for. Joy sighed at the sight, and she felt her heart double in size. In no time, she was crouching between them, holding onto them as if her life depended on it. She rubbed Yaz’s back gently, tracing circles with the tips of her fingers.
“I’m taking you out of here,” Joy whispered in the younger woman’s ear.
Yaz broke away from the embrace to look at the older woman. She seemed to be searching Joy’s eyes for something. Was the older woman taking her out of there for now, or for good?
When their eyes met, everything Joy felt in Yaz’s presence – all the new, exciting, and scary emotions – instantly turned into a newfound inner peace. Silence after chaos. Light after darkness. The hand laying on Yaz’s back instinctively found the young woman’s cheek and, as if they both knew all along that the energy between them was always going to lead them to this, their breaths hitched in unison.
They ached longingly for what was coming, but there were no glances downwards, only brown and hazel gazing into each other until needy lips finally came into contact.
To Joy, nothing made sense, but everything felt right. Maybe she should have been careful, or considered what this would mean for them in the long run. All three of them. But then, she remembered how Alice couldn’t sleep without having her weekly dose of Yaz.
And then, she heard her daughter laugh and cheer next to them.
“I knew you make Mummy happy, Yazzy!”
They broke their kiss, staring at each other once more, before they both set their glance on the girl next to them. They chuckled as Joy placed a kiss on her daughter’s forehead.
“You’re always right, sweetheart.”