Chapter 5

She'd started by arguing with Cat. Denying it, scoffing at the ridiculousness of it all, but that soon gave way to resignation and then, finally, acceptance.

It still felt slightly ridiculous, the idea that she might be in love with Isla, but Cat had been so definitive about it. "I just thought that you didn't want to talk about it," she said. "Because it was some tragic unrequited thing, though even that…"

Rachel held up her hand. "No no, one wild revelation at a time, thank you very much. I'd know if Isla was in love with me."

"Would you?" asked Cat. "You didn't even realize that you were in love with her."

There was some truth to that statement, but Rachel was still processing her own moment of self-discovery.

Isla was her best friend; that much was obvious to pretty much everyone, but more?

"Look," said Cat, their voice softening. "It's not like this doesn't happen with queers all the time. You know enough friends who've thought that they're just hanging out when they've actually been going on dates. Not—" she added, "—that you've been on dates with Isla. I'm definitely not saying that. But I do think that without her in your life, you'd have left London a long time ago."

Their final viewing was in an old building, previously abandoned, that was being done up.

"We're not sure what the space is going to end up being," said the manager, Tel, with a frankness that Rachel immediately warmed to. "But we'll have a café—probably vegan—and the idea is that the hall can be hired out by different marginalized groups for various events. I can't say that they'll all be kinky, but they'll definitely all be focused on community."

The hall itself was really big, with sweeping ceilings and a stage that would be perfect for demos or talks. Cat and Rachel swapped glances, trying very hard not to get too excited. Anything could happen.

"So you'd be okay with us doing demos?" asked Cat.

"Absolutely," they replied. "And we'll have our own private security, but we would have to insist that it's a carded 18+ event."

"We were intending on that anyway," said Rachel. "The marketing will be subtle, and refer to it as an ‘alternative market' and an ‘adult event', but having onsite security already would be so helpful. Otherwise, we were going to hire our own. With an event like this, you really can't take any risks."

"And," added Cat, "It's a queer and poly event, which means trans and nonbinary inclusive. So we want to make sure that the security team that we work with are going to be accepting of pronouns, and willing to step in if we have any protesters turning up."

Tel grinned. "I'm agender myself, so it's one of the things that we screen for when interviewing people to work with us. When it comes down to it, we're all just sacks of meat, but some people really don't see it like that. We host a couple of other queer events, so the team is fully trained."

"Great." Rachel was trying not to let her excitement show on her face too much. The whole afternoon had been more disheartening than they'd expected, and this venue—and Tel as its manager—was ticking all of the boxes. "Is there anything else that you'd particularly like to know?"

"I mean, the main things is that we'd need you guys to sort out public liability insurance yourselves, but that'll be the case anywhere, I should think."

Rachel nodded, a smile spreading across her face. It all seemed a little too good to be true.

"Well, I think this would be perfect," said Cat. "We'd love to work with you and your team."

"And we'd love to have you," said Tel. "Are you local? It'd help for organization, sorting deposits, checking out final details—all the boring bits."

"I am," said Cat. "Rach abandoned us for London, but I'm hoping that she'll come to her senses and move back down here." She laughed, and Rachel knew that it was a joke, but Cat's words stuck with Rachel as they left the venue. It was definitely true that she didn't much care for London, and also true that if she hadn't left when she had, she'd probably still be living in Brighton now. But had she really stayed because of Isla?

Rachel thought about their weekly film nights, the excursions to art galleries, the fact that Isla would drop everything for her at a moment's notice.

Yeah. Isla was a big part of why she'd stayed.

But as she walked through The Lanes with Cat, she kept seeing queer couples walking along, hand in hand. And that happened in London, for sure, but in Brighton it wasn't even worth commenting on. It felt safer.

No wonder she'd immediately thought of this city when her and Cat had been spitballing ideas about the Littles' Market.

Maybe it was time for a change.