Epilogue: (One year later)

"Lazy daddy! Can you say, lazy daddy?" Ria babbled to the bouncing almost eleven-month-old baby in the high chair, eagerly awaiting her next spoonful of honeycomb porridge. Her eyes—the colour of threads of foliage—were wide, and her mouth partially flared open. Still, Ria's words halted the child's jumping, her face taking on a crestfallen countenance as she appeared to shake her head.

Ria groaned. "What happened to women supporting women, huh, Antara?" Ria could just about hear the ruckus from the shower next door, followed by Blaine's humming. The sound caused Antara to resume her celebratory bouncing as she clapped her hands clumsily and kicked her tubby legs out from the chair.

Ria was only half-annoyed that Antara's first word had indeed been 'dada' and not Ria. Especially since her name was far easier to pronounce, in her view. But it was no shock Antara ostensibly favoured Blaine, and Ria could scarcely blame the child. Blaine had instantly been fond of Antara, whilst it had taken a few weeks for Ria.

Antara was born exactly one month after Indiya's suicide. Her olive-toned face had been barely perceptible behind a thick mass of dark waves as she held her arms aloft as though waiting for the mother that would never hold her.

It was the baby's eyes that Ria had witnessed first, that laser-like piercing green quality that she'd only ever seen once before. It left no question of Antara's paternity; perhaps that should have been another reason to be frustrated with Sihem. But instead, she preferred to see it as a blessing. Antara was her and Blaine's connection to Indiya from beneath the grave.

Blaine entered the room then, fresh out of the shower, the white tee he'd tugged on clinging to his well-developed muscular build. He immediately headed for the gurgling Antara, clutching her from beneath her arms, up and out from her highchair. If anything, Blaine had grown more handsome to Ria over the year. Maybe it was his alacrity to raise her sister, or perhaps it was the fact that he was no longer held back by enduring the tribulations of life alone.

"You know, I wasn't too sure when I first saw her; she kind of resembled a gremlin, but I trusted the process, and look how cute she is now." Blaine feigned taking a bite from Antara's chubby left thigh, and the child squealed with delight, oblivious to the half-insult. "She kind of looks like you now, Ria." He bent down then, Antara's arms still graced around his neck as he planted a delicate kiss upon Ria's lips.

"Blaine, sweetheart." Ria began, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I know you're trying to soften me up, but it's not working. Care to explain the bag of clean nappies I found in the bin this morning?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Ri." He rushed the words so swiftly that Ria knew he was well aware of what she was alluding to. He distracted himself by periodically throwing Antara a few inches into the air before catching her again. Ria had to lower her gaze to avoid becoming too distracted by how his biceps seemed to bulge with the motion.

"I know, Blaine. I know you've been changing Antara's nappies when they're still clean, so only I end up changing all the soiled ones." She explained matter-of-factly. "Honestly, I would be angry if I wasn't so annoyed that I hadn't come up with the idea first."

He smirked gleefully. "Pretty smart, huh?"

She flung a pillow from the couch at him. "It would've been smart if you hadn't got caught. Because now you're changing every single nappy until she's toilet trained!"

He dodged to the side in time. "I guessed I walked into that one." He propped the giggling child onto his hip as his phone blared. He glimpsed down at Ria. "Ben's twenty minutes away."

"You're kidding?" She leapt up, grabbing the dirty bowl from in front of her. "They could at least give us more notice. Go, get her cleaned up. I'll sort the mess in here."

Although Antara's adoption procedure had been smooth sailing, given that she was Ria's biological sister and Sihem supported the process, Ben's had proved more difficult.

Initially, they'd been denied from the get-go, so they'd opted for the fostering route instead. Blaine's drug-associated hospitalisation, his subsequent arrest, and the fact that he was co-parenting Antara proved to be massive obstacles. But, finally, after months, they'd been granted supervised weekly afternoon visits, followed by weekends. Now, they had access to Ben unsupervised every weekend. It had been a protracted and gruelling process. They still felt they were treading on eggshells whenever he was dropped off by the social service worker. They were terrified that if the house weren't perfect enough, they'd be demoted to supervised visitation again.

However, Blaine's change in vocation offered massive leverage. Earlier that year, he became a trainee physical education teacher at a local primary school. It had mandated him to return to university part-time to get the appropriate credentials, but he hadn't minded too much. Ria had been stunned initially, but as it turned out, Blaine was excellent with children. She couldn't have been prouder of him if she had tried.

Tanya also visited Ben for an hour every Sunday. She was still facing a battle against drugs, but she had made several steps in the right direction. Tanya had joined a community detoxification programme, and occasionally, she plunged into old habits, but she was trying. She'd even picked up a part-time job at a local pub. Ria had argued that working alongside alcohol whilst getting clean from drugs may not have been the best decision. Still, Blaine was grateful that she was trying to improve for her sons. In Tanya's spare time, she seemed to have picked up an irksome habit of nagging Ria and Blaine for grandchildren. She'd even resorted to buying clothes too small for Antara and then slyly implying they would be handy for the next baby.

What happened to everyone else, you ask?

Funnily enough, Reid did join the army. Until he quit precisely two months later. Ria had laughed when he'd told her that. What was it with the boy and jumping into things on a whim? He'd settled down in Newcastle for the better part of the year. He said he had business there; she wouldn't understand.

And she didn't. Until she visited him a couple of months ago and saw that he'd started up his own drunk driving campaign. Reid had spent his days moving around North England, talking to college and university students alike about the risks of drink-driving, and hoping to foster an environment where fewer people would repeat his actions. Ria had attended one of his talks and shed several tears.

She had finally forgiven Reid soon after.

Meanwhile, Hazel's luck had changed. Or, so she thought. She'd won a small sum of money from a lottery scratch-card and had decided to embark on a tour of Europe. She'd argued that her soulmate might not be English, and she needed to venture out. It was totally what Indiya would have wanted. She was currently in Germany, drinking far too much good wine and beer.

Even Lydia had stayed in contact with Ria and Blaine occasionally. Ria wouldn't have gone so far as to say they were friends, but the previous years events had tied them together in an odd way. After all, Lydia was one of the few people who knew what really happened to Rayhan. She had the opportunity and the motive to expose the truth, yet she hadn't. Perhaps, Lydia wasn't as bad as Ria had once thought. Last she'd heard from Lydia, she'd entered a new relationship with a budding actor. Oh, and it was her turn to be a bridesmaid because, in a turn of events, Leela and Felix were tying the knot in the next month.

For now, Ria was content with evenings of watching Ben teach a bemused (and maybe slightly captivated) Antara how to play chess. He was positively convinced that despite the fact she was only eleven months old, she had apprehended the rules and wanted to play. And perhaps he was right because she seemed to coo and cackle at the correct times.

"See, Ria; she knew to move the knight there. She did it herself. I told you!" Ben clapped over-excitedly as Antara appeared to plough a pawn in a diagonal direction.

"You did, Ben. I should've listened to you." Ria giggled as Blaine joined her on the couch, his arm skirting around her waist as he handed her a glass of Pinot Grigio. "Hey, my sister and your brother get along so well. You know what that means, right?"

He cocked his head to the side, a knowing smirk playing across his face. "What does it mean?"

"We can never break up now. Me and you: we're bound to each other forever." She joked gleefully, nudging her glass against his.

He chuckled. "As if there was any doubt of that. I'm all yours, forever." He clasped his fingers around her upper arm, moving his lips against her supple skin, as he peppered small kisses along the length of her arm, down to the back of her left hand. Even after more than a year together, his touch still invoked a fire that seemed to settle deep within her bones. "Forever. For better and for worse. For richer and for poorer. In sickness—"

"Blaine!" She gasped, removing her arm from his lips. "I expect you to get down on one knee before you say those words to me!" She chortled, shrugging him off mindlessly as she nestled comfortably against his chest.

"Soon." He replied, acutely aware of the small circular object's outline in his pocket, grazing against his thigh.

Little did Ria know that Blaine had visited Sihem in prison, Reid in Newcastle and Rayhan's grave over the course of the few weeks. Perhaps, it was outdated to do so, but he'd asked each of the three for their blessing. The former two had offered resounding approvals, and he hadn't been struck down by lightning as he sat by Rayhan's grave, so he took that as a positive sign.

And tomorrow, he'd pop the question.

The end

———-

Authors note:
And it's a wrap!! I'm actually far more upset than I thought. Why do I feel like I've said bye to lifelong friends?!

I'm so thankful for everyone who stuck around for this journey. I hope you felt the characters got an ending they deserved or at least had some growth (some of them, anyway).

A few of the events/characters are very loosely based on real-life situations/people. Writing this book allowed me to come to terms with certain things in my life, so I'll always be thankful for this book.

I know some of you really wanted Ria and Blaine to have a baby, and I hope this epilogue will make you happy with them raising baby Antara and Ben! (They totally do have kids later on!)

On another note, I have a new book out called 'Mind The Bleep' which is a medical romantic-drama, with a dash of humour! I hope you'll check it out. It's way more light-Hearted than this but does still deal with some heavy topics in the medical field!

If there's anything in particular you'd like to see, let me know (I know there's some appetite for a spin-off with Hazel!)

As for now, goodbye from the whole gang. And thank you once again for sticking around for this wild journey ❤️