Bex Fowler (Jasmine Armfield) has reflected on the sad d.e.a.t.h of Shakil Kazemi (Shaheen Jafargholi) in EastEnders.
Bex returned to Albert Square under very sad circumstances.
Her father, Martin Fowler (James Bye), had passed away following a horrific explosion, and she had come to support her mum Sonia (Natalie Cassidy) and attend the funeral.
All of the Walford community has been struggling with their grief – with Bex admitting that she’d been having recurring dreams about her dad and wasn’t sure how to address the situation.
Across the road, young Lily Slater (Lillia Turner) has been in a bad way too.
Whilst Martin wasn’t her biological dad, he was a father figure and helped to raise her.
After a catastrophic falling out with her mum Stacey (Lacey Turner) on the day of his memorial, she met up with friend Avani Nandra-Hart (Aaliyah James) and they hit the bottle.
Stace was mortified to find her daughter drunk, but greater issues were to come.
Avani knew just the way she could numb the pain, and got her to smoke some weed.
As the drama developed tonight, Stacey locked herself away in bed following a showdown with her daughter – who had wished her d.e.a.d.
Lily headed out and met up with Avani, asking her to score some more drugs. With a financial hurdle to overcome, the girls were determined to make some quick cash.
In the cab office, Lily offered to cover Harvey Monroe’s (Ross Boatman) shift at the cab office so that he could grab some lunch, in exchange for £20.
She knew that this wouldn’t be enough for the weed, so had to resort to desperate measures. The petty cash tin was on the desk, and she slyly took the contents.
When Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) arrived, she fumed at Harvey for allowing a 14 year old to answer the phones, and then realised that the tin had been emptied.
Lily had already fled by that point, and was sat in the café with daughter Charli.
Bex approached her and and realised her sadness, saying that she was going to speak to Ruby Allen (Louisa Lytton) with a view to keeping in touch with her son Roman, their brother.
As the girls chatted, Bex could smell the drugs on Lily. She couldn’t believe that she had turned to smoking substances, and ordered her to stop.
Trying to take a more sympathetic approach, she told her that she had thought a lot about ex-boyfriend Shakil, who was stabbed to d.e.a.t.h in 2018.
She said that although she still hasn’t come to terms with his passing at such a young age, it does get easier with each day.
Managing to make a breakthrough, Bex offered to give Lily the cash to pay back Kat, on the condition that she stops taking drugs.
However, when Lily went home, grandmother Jean (Gillian Wright) had raided her bag and found the remainder. She obviously had no intentions of stopping.
