AI The air in The Raven’s Nest smelled of old leather, spilled whiskey, and rain-soaked wool. Rory wiped a damp strand of black hair from her forehead, shaking out her delivery jacket as she pushed through the door. The green neon sign outside had flickered in the downpour, casting a sickly glow on the wet pavement. Inside, the usual low murmur of after-work drinkers filled the space beneath the thrift-store jazz playing softly from hidden speakers.
She spotted Silas behind the bar, polishing a glass with a white cloth, his grey-streaked auburn hair catching the dim light. He gave her a slight nod, his hazel eyes flicking toward the back booths. A regular gesture—his way of saying he saw her, she was safe, proceed as needed. Rory shrugged off her jacket, hanging it on a peg by the door, and made her way toward a small table near the fireplace. She wasn’t on the clock now. This was her home, or the closest thing to it since she’d fled Cardiff.
It was the laugh that caught her first. A bright, familiar peal that cut through the jazz and chatter like a shard of glass. Rory froze, her hand halfway to pulling out a chair. She knew that laugh . Knew it from university libraries and late-night kebab shops, from whispered secrets in dorm rooms and the back of Evan’s car when things were still good. Or seemed good.
She turned slowly .
At a corner table, half-shrouded in shadow from a faulty lamp, sat Eva. Eva Reilly. Her childhood friend. The one who’d texted *Get out, Rory, come to London, I’ve got a sofa* five years ago. The one Rory hadn’t seen in person since that first chaotic week on that sofa, before Eva’s photography career took her globetrotting. The girl from Cardiff with the riot of copper curls and paint-splattered jeans, who dreamed in wide-angle lenses and saturated colour.
This woman was not that girl.
Eva’s hair was now smooth, straightened to a severe black sheet that ended at her jawline. She wore a tailored charcoal pantsuit, sharp at the shoulders, expensive in its minimalist cut. A large portfolio case rested against the table leg. Her fingers, once stained with ink or clay, were bare except for a single platinum band on her right ring finger. No phone in sight. She was speaking to a man in a suit, her posture upright, her smile a calibrated curve.
The man left some cash on the table, shook Eva’s hand, and departed. Eva’s smile vanished the moment he turned his back. She pulled a sleek tablet from her portfolio, tapping the screen with a focused intensity Rory recognized—it was the same look she’d get when lining up a perfect shot.
Rory’s feet moved before her mind could stop them. She navigated the maze of tables, the threadbare rug catching at her trainers. She stopped a few feet from Eva’s table, waiting.
Eva glanced up, annoyance flashing in her green eyes. Then confusion. Then a slow, dawning recognition that seemed to physically wind its way through her rigid posture. Her shoulders dropped half an inch. Her carefully composed face fractured into something raw and astonished.
“Rory?”
“Hey, Eva.”
Eva stood up so quickly her chair scraped loudly on the floorboards. Several patrons glanced over. She didn’t seem to notice. She took a half-step forward, then stopped, as if unsure of the protocol. A hug? A handshake? They hovered in the awkward space between.
“What are you… I mean, you’re here?” Eva finally managed.
“I live upstairs.”
“*Upstairs?*” Eva’s gaze swept the bar, taking in the maps, the photographs, Silas behind the bar. “You live above a pub?”
“It’s a bar. And yeah.” Rory gestured to the empty chair. “Can I sit?”
“Of course. Yes. God, sorry.” Eva sat back down, her movements stiff. She closed the tablet cover with a soft click. “I had a meeting. With a gallery owner. Over now.”
Rory slid into the chair across from her. Up close, the changes were even more pronounced. Eva’s skin was flawlessly made up, but faint tension lines framed her mouth. Her eyes held a polished weariness. “You look… professional.”
A wry twist touched Eva’s lips. “That’s one word for it. You look…” Her eyes scanned Rory’s simple t-shirt, jeans, the small crescent scar on her left wrist visible as she rested her hands on the table. “You look like Rory.”
“Is that good?”
“It’s real.” Eva sighed, the sound escaping like air from a punctured tire . “I didn’t know you were still in London.”
“You stopped texting,” Rory said, the words soft but blunt.
Eva flinched. “I got busy. The travel… it was constant. And then the agency reshuffled, and I moved into curation. It’s a different world. All emails and contracts and…” She waved a hand. “You know.”
“I don’t, actually.”
Silence settled between them, thick and heavy. The weight of five years, of abandoned messages and unshared Christmases. Rory remembered the last time they’d spoken properly, on a crackling long-distance call from Bangkok. Eva had been vibrant, buzzing, talking about a monsoon shoot. She’d asked about Evan. Rory had lied and said things were fine.
“Are you still with him?” Eva asked suddenly, as if reading the memory .
“No.”
“Good.” The word was sharp, decisive. “I should have… I wanted to come back sooner. After I sent you that first text, urging you to leave. I felt responsible, in a way.”
Rory shook her head. “You weren’t responsible for him. Or for me staying as long as I did.”
“But I was your friend. And I left you here.”
“You gave me a sofa. That was more than enough.”
Eva’s fingers traced the edge of her tablet. “I sold out, Rory.”
The confession hung in the air , stark and simple.
“What?”
“The photography. The art. I sell corporate visuals now. Stock photos for luxury brands. I curate safe, soulless exhibitions for investors who care about tax deductions, not art.” She laughed, a short, bitter sound. “I wear suits. I say words like ‘synergy’ and ‘brand alignment’ without vomiting. My portfolio—” she nudged the black case with her foot, “—is full of perfectly lit, utterly meaningless compositions.”
Rory studied her friend’s face. The polished exterior was a shell, and inside, the old Eva was still there, screaming. “Why?”
“Money. Security. The travel was glorious but it burned through cash. My dad got sick. The bills…” Eva shook her head. “It’s not an excuse. It’s a reason. A shitty, practical reason.”
“You could have told me.”
“And said what? ‘Hey Rory, I’m giving up every dream we talked about, every late-night plan, for a desk job and a pension scheme’? You were the brave one, leaving everything. Starting over with nothing. I couldn’t admit I was doing the opposite.”
Rory felt a pang of grief , not for herself, but for the copper-haired girl with paint on her hands . “It’s not giving up. It’s a different path.”
“It feels like a surrender.” Eva looked down at her own manicured hands. “I see your life, living above a bar in Soho, and it seems… authentic. You escaped. You built something real, even if it’s small.”
Rory thought of her tiny flat upstairs, the smell of Silas’s coffee in the morning, the rumble of the delivery bike. The fear that still crept in sometimes when a tall blond man walked into the bar. The ache for her parents’ quiet house in Cardiff. “It’s not all brave. It’s just life. Messy and unplanned.”
A server approached, but Eva waved him away without looking. The moment stretched, filled with unsaid things.
“I missed you,” Rory said quietly.
Eva’s eyes glistened. She blinked rapidly. “I missed you too. Every day. I’d see something, a weird cloud formation or a crumbling wall covered in graffiti, and I’d think, ‘Rory would love that,’ and I’d reach for my phone. But then I’d remember the time difference, or the mountain of work, or the person I’d become… and I’d put it down.”
“You’re still you, Eva.”
“Am I?” She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t even own a camera anymore. Just this.” She tapped the tablet.
Rory leaned forward. “So get one.”
“What?”
“A camera. They still sell them.” Rory allowed a small smile. “The Eva I knew wouldn’t let a pantsuit stop her.”
Eva stared at her, a slow light dawning in her tired eyes. For a second, the polished curator vanished, and the fiery, determined artist peeked through. “Maybe.”
“Not maybe. Do it.”
They lapsed into silence again, but this time it was softer. The rain pattered against the windows. Someone laughed at the bar. The world outside kept turning, but at this table, a bridge was being rebuilt , plank by fragile plank.
Eva took a deep breath. “Tell me about your life. All of it. The bar, your job… everything.”