Chapter 30 Chapter thirty
AANYA
I was forty-five minutes late to my first day of work.
Rosa met me at the community centre entrance, took one look at me, and smiled.
"Rough morning?"
"You could say that." I followed her inside, acutely aware that I looked disheveled and flustered and nothing like the polished princess I had been trained to be.
"The job is straightforward," Rosa said as we walked through the building. "We have fifteen families enrolled in the education access program. Most are dealing with displacement, housing insecurity, or school transitions due to development projects. Your role is to coordinate tutoring services, help families navigate school enrollment, provide resources for homework support and literacy development. The budget is approximately three thousand pounds per quarter, which sounds like a lot but disappears quickly."
Three thousand pounds per quarter. I had spent more than that on a single gown. The absurdity of my former life hit me again.
"Where do I start?"
"By meeting the families. There is a mother waiting in room three. Amara Hassan. Two children, ages seven and nine. Family was displaced from their Southwark flat six months ago when their building was sold for redevelopment. Currently living in temporary housing in Croydon. Children had to change schools mid-year and are struggling academically. She is here because the new school is threatening to hold her daughter back a year due to missed work."
"What can I do to help?"
"Listen to her. Figure out what resources she actually needs. Then help her get them. The hard part is not identifying the problem. The hard part is navigating a system designed to make accessing help as difficult as possible." Rosa handed me a file. "Her intake form is here. I will check on you in an hour. Try not to offer car services."
She walked away before I could ask how she knew about that.
Room three was small, cheerfully decorated with children's artwork, and contained one very tired-looking woman who stood when I entered.
"Ms. Windsor?"
"Please, just Aanya." I sat down across from her. "You are Amara Hassan?"
"Yes. Rosa said you might be able to help with my daughters' school situation."
For the next hour, I learned exactly how little I understood about the real consequences of the displacement Dev had been documenting.
Amara's family had lived in Southwark for eight years. Stable housing, good school, community support network. Then Crown Estate purchased the building as part of a regeneration project. Existing tenants were given six months to relocate. The compensation offered was enough for three months' rent in the area. Market rate housing in Southwark was now beyond what Amara could afford on her salary as a healthcare assistant.
They ended up in Croydon. Temporary housing. Forty-five-minute commute to her job. Her daughters had to change schools. The new school was overcrowded and under-resourced. Her younger daughter, Zara, was falling behind in reading. Her older daughter, Mina, was acting out behaviorally. The school was threatening retention for Zara and suspension for Mina.
Amara needed tutoring for Zara. She needed behavioral support for Mina. She needed affordable housing closer to her job. She needed childcare during her evening shifts. She needed approximately ten things that the system was designed to provide but made nearly impossible to access.
"I have called every number they gave me," Amara said, exhausted. "I have filled out every form. I have been on waiting lists for months. The school says Zara needs intervention services but the wait for assessment is sixteen weeks. Mina needs counseling but the NHS mental health services for children have an eight-month wait. I am trying. I am doing everything they tell me to do. But it is not enough."
I looked at her, this woman who was working full-time in healthcare while raising two children alone and navigating a system designed to exhaust people into giving up, and I felt the full weight of what Dev had been trying to make me understand.
This was what institutional harm looked like. Not statistics. Not displacement percentages. But Amara, sitting across from me, trying not to cry because her daughters were suffering and she could not fix it despite doing everything right.
"I am going to help you," I said. "I cannot promise I can solve everything immediately. But I will figure out how to navigate this system and get your daughters what they need. Starting with tutoring for Zara. I can arrange that this week."
"The school said the tutoring program has a three-month waiting list."
"The school's program does. But the community centre has emergency funds for exactly this kind of situation. I will talk to Rosa. We will get Zara tutoring this week. And I will personally work with the school to develop a support plan for Mina that does not involve suspension. Is that acceptable?"
Amara started crying. Not sad crying. Relieved crying. "Thank you. I was starting to think no one cared."
"I care. And I am going to make sure you get actual help, not just forms and waiting lists."
After Amara left, I sat alone in room three, staring at her intake file, trying not to feel completely overwhelmed.
This was my job. Fifteen families like Amara's. Fifteen sets of complicated problems with inadequate resources. Three thousand pounds per quarter to address needs that would cost tens of thousands to properly solve.
And I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
Rosa appeared in the doorway. "How did it go?"
"I promised her tutoring this week for her daughter. Do we actually have emergency funds for that or did I just commit to something impossible?"
"We have emergency funds. Approximately four hundred pounds remaining this quarter. Tutoring will cost about eighty pounds per month. So yes, we can do it. For Amara's daughter and possibly two others before the money runs out." She sat down across from me. "Welcome to community work. Where every small success requires impossible choices about who gets help and who has to wait."
"This is brutal."
"This is what real work looks like when you do not have unlimited resources. You figure out what you can actually accomplish, you help who you can help, and you live with the fact that it is never enough." She studied my face. "Are you regretting the choice to take this job?"
"No. I am regretting that I did not understand any of this when I was in a position to actually change policy. I spent years doing performative charity work while people like Amara were drowning in a system I was supposedly helping to improve."
"You understand it now. That is what matters."
My phone buzzed. Text from Dev: How is your first day?
Me: Overwhelming and eye-opening. How are office hours?
Dev: Three students asked if you and I are actually together. Apparently we are very popular on TikTok. There are videos.
Me: Videos of what?
Dev: Us. At the park. At the legal clinic. Someone made an edit set to a Hozier song. It has two million views.
I stared at my phone, trying to process that information.
Me: We have been together for approximately four hours and we are already TikTok famous?
Dev: Apparently our romance is very compelling. The comments are mostly supportive, if that helps.
Me: Define supportive.
Dev: They think we are "endgame" and that you "deserve better than those royal bastards" and that I am "punching above my weight but good for him." Also something about my hands that I am choosing not to analyze too closely.
Despite everything, I smiled.
Me: Your hands are quite nice.
Dev: I will take that as a compliment given that approximately four hours ago you seemed quite interested in what they felt like.
Heat rushed to my face. We were flirting. Via text. In the middle of my first day at work while he was in his office hours. Like normal people in a normal relationship.
Except nothing about this was normal.
Me: I should get back to work. We can discuss your hands later.
Dev: Looking forward to it. See you tonight?
Tonight. Right. We were together now. Which presumably meant we would see each other tonight. Though I had no idea what that looked like. Did he come to Priya's flat? Did we go out? Did we stay in? What did people in relationships do?
Me: Yes. Where?
Dev: I could come to Priya's after my evening shift? Around nine?
Me: Evening shift?
Dev: Corner shop. Four to eight on Mondays. I forgot to mention I still have that job.
Right. Because he was still working three jobs to support his family while also fighting a lawsuit and apparently dating me.
Me: Come to Priya's after. I will be here.
I put my phone away, turned back to Amara's file, and tried to focus on the work.
But part of my mind was already on tonight. On seeing Dev. On the fact that we were together now and I had no idea what that meant but was terrified and excited in equal measure.
And on the memory of kissing him in Sarah Chen's office, the way his hands had felt in my hair, the sound he had made when I had pressed closer.
Focus, I told myself. Work first. Process the fact that you are in a relationship with Dev Marchetti later.
But my body had other ideas, and focusing on intake forms when all I could think about was the way his mouth had felt on mine was proving considerably more difficult than anticipated.