The house has fallen into a silence that is louder than any cry. After the condolences fade and the front door stops swinging open for visitors on that day, all that remains is the stillness of Lila’s room. It beckons her mother like a question she has never had the chance to ask.

Two days later, an old friend of Lila’s arrived. His name is Decha, now a reputable doctor in Chiang Mai. He and Lila had known each other since middle school and had stayed in touch over the years, maintaining a polite but meaningful connection despite the distance. A junior general practitioner, Decha works tirelessly at three large hospitals, commuting from one to another, serving patients from morning to morning.

Lila and her mother had last seen him when he was still an intern at a local clinic in Buriram. Her mother’s company had hosted a promotional health check-up event for employees and their families, and Decha had been assigned to assist. They had lunch together at the clinic cafeteria that day.

Lila’s mother had always respected Decha, not just for his profession, but for his quiet resilience. He had lost both his parents young, his father to cardiac arrest during school years, and his mother to Covid-19 during the early waves of the pandemic. Since then, Decha had thrown himself into work and study. He had no one left to rely on. He was the type of person you silently rooted for, the kind of person you hoped might, for once, catch a break.

Though Lila and Decha had never been particularly close, their friendship was consistent.

They would check in occasionally, chat about the lives of celebrities they once followed, exchange news, and keep each other updated on the habitualness of growing older. Lila looked up to Decha, trusted him when it came to health advice. Perhaps she asked too much at times. Perhaps he, already overwhelmed, began to feel reduced to the sum of his usefulness. She had not offered comfort when he had needed it most. And he, quietly, had started to pull away.

Until the moment he steps into Lila’s home to meet her mother, Decha has not fully realized how much he was about to lose. Though they had only met in person once, Lila’s mother knew who Decha was. Her daughter spoke of him often, especially during moments of joy. And every year, without fail, Decha had sent Lila small gifts for her birthday and New Year’s.

"Oh, Decha. I was very, very sad," Lila’s mother said, embracing him with shaking arms. "Thank you for always looking out for Lila when she was sick, or celebrating something. I know you were an important part of her life."

They had their own kind of language. Inside jokes, viral memes, long text threads that drifted from laughter to reflection. Whenever Decha visited town, Lila would invite him out for snacks and window shopping. He, in return, would make sure she joined him at sports games or local weddings. Even an errand like a car wash turned into shared moments, ice cream in hand, laughter bouncing off summer air.

It was almost like dreaming of a fairy tale.

Decha realizes now, or, maybe he always knew how much she meant to him. Moving to Chiang Mai had seemed like a career decision at the time. But in hindsight, it was something more. He had been chasing stability, a foundation, something worthy of building a life with someone like Lila. Perhaps, someday, he had hoped to return and ask her to be his wife.

"I'm so sorry," Decha whispers, his voice catching. "I should've done more."

"I know you treasured Lila," Her mother replies. "I think she felt the same. She always spoke so kindly of you. You were special to her, Decha."

Decha nods, even as the weight of grief crushed the last flicker of hope. He had dropped everything to be here, but there was nothing left to save. He was too late. And he was torn.

He still has some unread messages from Lila. Some simple, ordinary check-ins he would mean to reply to, but never had the chance to. He would scroll through her posts, just to reassure himself that she seemed okay. In his own way, he had tried to stay close. But her absence now carved a deeper void than he could have imagined.

"Anyway, did the sessions with the new psychologist work out?" He asks gently, after the condolences faded into a more casual conversation with her mother.

"What psychologist?"

"She said she was feeling drained. I suggested she see a psychiatrist, maybe get on something to help. She also asked if I knew a good psychologist in town, and I gave her a few names. But I never followed up to see if she actually went."

Her mother sighs deeply. "Lila was not the most open person, even with me. She mentioned needing something with stress and stomach ache, but that was all she said. That’s all I knew."

Decha spares a glance to the window, staring at the light filtering through the glass. Then he turns back to face her.

“That," He thinks bitterly, “and maybe you, as her parents, didn’t ask enough.”

He wishes he had done more from seeing the signs earlier, taken her more seriously when she mentioned recurring pains. He remembers how conflict-avoidant Lila had always been, how she would keep things to herself until they overflowed. He might have done anything but been more present, more persistent. When Covid hit, she bore so much on her own. And he let her.

Now all he could do was let her go. Cliché, yes, but he hopes truly that she was freed from whatever had weighed her down. Deep inside, he still does not know if it was him who failed her, or if she was simply always walking this path alone.

Lila had once mentioned a strained relationship with her father, and how it shaped her choices in relationships and led her into things she didn’t fully understand. Decha had sensed it, too. There was something about her father’s silent expectations, an invisible standard that no one could quite reach.

He was young and just starting out as a doctor. He was a bad boy, on his own terms, and lived in a flat.

After all, maybe it was always going to end like this. Maybe not naming the dream out loud spared them the heartbreak of it falling apart. Maybe it was easier to pretend it was not real than to risk having it crushed.

Lila would always be his girl, in memory, at least. No one could take that from him, and for now, that memory still felt warm.

The brief encounter is concluded.

Decha and Lila’s mother bid farewell. Never have they imagined they finally got the chance to meet again only to put Lila to her last resting. 

*

When the weight of her family pressed down like a second atmosphere, Lila found her only relief in the simplest moments. Bagels on a weekday morning, soup slurped with chopsticks, laughter shared across a wobbly café table. The chaos at home, the towering problems she carried alone, shrank into background noise when she was surrounded by friends. In those small pockets of joy, where conversations meandered from music to dreams to gossip, life felt almost manageable. Her friends were the family she had chosen, and in their presence, the unbearable became merely heavy. Together, they made the world feel softer.

She would text someone to grab breakfast with her, framing it like an event, a rare invitation, even though they had probably seen each other two days prior. They would dress up for no reason, wearing perfume and lip balm, heading out just to get coffee and warm bread before going their separate ways. These activities meant everything to Lila.

In such rituals, she felt the most real. Not as a daughter stuck in obligation, or a worker performing adequacy, but simply herself, laughing in a sunlit corner of Buriram. The sound of metal utensils clinking, the hum of other people’s conversations, the way the light pooled on the table was like a quiet blessing. All of it made her feel lively, briefly.

There was something bittersweet in how much she cherished these mornings. She knew it was not about the food or the errands that followed. It was about being seen. It was about knowing someone had saved space in their day for her. The things that overwhelmed her. Her family’s silence, the loneliness of her rented room, the invisible pressure to be fine, felt distant, like billboards she passed from the passenger seat of a car. The sadness was still there, but muffled. In the presence of others, her pain became just another story on the street, a background detail in the city’s noise.

Lila could sit across someone who mirrored her worst fears, insecurities, doubts, and still feel comforted. They would talk about almost nothing and still call it catching up. They would share secrets that were not really theirs to tell, knowing others did the same about them, and that was fine too. It was understood. 

At home, the isolation was sharp and personal. There was no laughter to muffle it, no shared slurping of broth to break its hold. Everything felt too loud with her thoughts and regrets. But after a catch-up or two with people she trusted, Lila would float again. Her friends lifted her without knowing it, without trying to fix anything. They just showed up, and that was enough.

Some days, after a morning like that, Lila would catch herself smiling without realizing it. The smile would stay a little longer than it used to. And in those moments, when her guard softened and the sun touched her face just right, she would think, maybe life was not so bad after all.

Deep inside, Lila had always spent her life on alone-ness. She was raised by two nannies, and barely had a friend her age in the neighborhood, or from her relatives. Truthfully, she started to think that her nannies were indeed her only true partners growing up. They helped her sneak out snacks, and watch over so she could switch the TV channel and watch cartoons. They joked around, but taught her how things worked, even though they used a different set of sights to begin with.

One of Lila’s earliest memories of spending time with her peers was a school trip in her kindergarten years. There would be a marathon race that required two to three people to pass the baton. Lila’s sweet face and polite endeavors would always be the teacher’s favor, but not for the other pupils. When the teacher had to demonstrate how the competition should be done, she would grab Lila and pretend they were doing the running as an example.

It was different, though, when the real match began. No one would have the heart to take on Lila as their partner. Was it because she was small for her age? Wasn’t she athletic enough to run one metre? Lila had tried to advocate for herself to be picked and invited by the girls, but none listened and proceeded with doing the run with their own matchup.

Lila had this feeling vividly in her mind as her mother, who took her to the playground area, had a printed picture of it.

What had Lila known?

Other pictures on the photo albums show that Lila spent her third birthday with her parents and nannies only. When she turned five, she only invited two other boys who are younger than her, just because they happen to be in the same neighborhood, and they were poorer so her mother thought it would have been miraculous for them to taste birthday cakes.

Another year passed. Another year of being celebrated by those who barely knew her, another year of smiling through candles and cake while quietly wondering what real love truly felt like. Another year of yearning, not for gifts or grand gestures, but for mutual connection. For something honest. Something rooted in being known, not just acknowledged. Lila did not want abundance. She wanted to belong. The kind of love that did not come with performance or conditions. The kind that stayed.

By now, Lila had become the person that little Lila desperately needed. If she could go back and meet that frightened, confused girl, she would not offer advice or deliver some wise, polished truth. She would just sit beside her. Hold her hand. Let her know she was not alone. She would protect the fire inside her, small as it was, and tell her that life could still be worth living despite the things others had done. Despite the pain they had left behind.

But every birthday felt untethered. A floating day. A marker of time that didn't feel like progress. No one truly saw her, not in the way she craved. Each year became another round of writing stories no one would ever read, imagining futures she would eventually reject before they came too close to reality. The dreams were too fragile to risk hope. Instead, she dimmed her scars quietly, as if tending a wound in the dark. And still, with each turn of the calendar, she told herself, “This is another chance not to lose myself completely.”

School was a special challenge. Each new year brought the same unease. Lila remembered how the other children saw her as too much in ways she never understood. Too loud when she was anxious. Too privileged, apparently, even though she did not ask for what she had. Back then, her family’s wealth had not protected her. Indeed, it had isolated her. If she panicked, they said she was dramatic. If she tried to express anything at all, they dismissed it as attention-seeking. Lila had not known that her existence alone already drew more attention than most people wanted her to have. And so, she adapted. Tried harder. Smiled wider. She learned to shrink herself while still dazzling. She tried to blend in by shining, in just a way that was not harmless, but agreeable.

It took her years, maybe a lifetime, to put the pieces together. To understand that she was never meant to be everyone's cup of tea. Some people liked coffee. Some people would never choose her, and that was okay. She did not need to keep molding herself into the shape of someone else's expectations. The truth was, when people truly carved coffee, they would seek it out. And when someone truly wanted her, they would not ask her to be anything else.

There were enough people in the world who would understand her, if she let them. The rest, those who did not get her and who did not stay, were simply cups of tea in someone else’s story. Not everyone belonged in hers. And finally, Lila had begun to make peace with that.

Ultimately, she just wanted to experience having people of her age and had fun. Mostly, it was just to talk about homeworks, and how they spend their days at home. Lila was excited to start and try again in every new era at school, until she finally found Phairoj.

Phairoj and Lila had known each other since the earliest years of primary school. Though their time as close friends did not stretch far beyond those formative grades, the bond forged in childhood carried a peculiar weight. One that is anchored by proximity. Their houses were only a few blocks apart, and it wasn’t long before their parents knew one another by face, if not by name. Playdates turned into casual family encounters. The kind where a mother waves from the porch or a father nods while passing by with grocery bags in hand.

Phairoj stood out in their quiet neighborhood. Tall for his age, with deep brown skin and a halo of tight curls that bounced when he ran. His features were striking. His nose finely chiseled, his build lean yet capable of surprising strength.

He seemed born for motion. He was always the first to win at sprints on sports day, hurdling effortlessly in the javelin throw classes, and darting across the badminton court with a focus beyond his years. His mother stayed at home, a warm and grounded presence in his life, while his father worked long hours, mostly out of sight but never out of the frame.

Lila was way, much quieter. Her world was more contained, and though she spoke little of her home life, there was always a sense that she observed how others spoke of their families, to what they had, to where they had been. It was in third grade when something cracked beneath her composure.

That day in class, one of their friends was recounting her father’s travels with the animated pride only children carry. He was a university lecturer, she said, who frequently flew overseas to Japan, Colombia, and beyond. She spoke of souvenir trinkets, hotel pools, and the feeling of the summer at beaches. The room turned to her, and Lila, sitting across the circle, felt something uncommon stir in her chest. It wasn’t jealousy exactly. It was more like a quiet panic, a need not to disappear into the background. So she spoke up.

“My dad’s been to a lot of countries too,” She said, trying to sound casual. “Japan, America… even Australia. He travels a lot for work.”

It wasn’t true. But the lie slipped out so smoothly she almost believed it herself.

For a few days, no one questioned it. Children, after all, are generous with their beliefs. But Phairoj had a sharp eye and an even sharper sense of justice. Something in Lila’s tone must have struck him as off. Or maybe, he simply asked and got a different story. Regardless, he discovered the truth and he did not keep it to himself.

“She lied,” Phairoj announced one morning during recess, loud enough for their circle of friends to hear. “Lila made it all up. She does not want to look bad for us.” 

One ordinary morning at school, Phairoj ignored her and even warned the others to not be friends with liars. It started to become apparent to her that there was something shameful in her doing.

“Are you mad at me?” Lila carefully asked one of the friends in the group.

“No.” She answered nonchalantly, as if she did not want to be seen with Lila for once. Her gesture did seem off, though, as her lips locked, eyes never met Lila’s.

Lila, then, tried to gain more courage. After finally getting it together, and composing her calmness, she approached Phairoj.

“Did I do something wrong?”

It was just pure interrogation. Lila’s chairmate was pulled behind by Phairoj, so they could line up in a circle behind Lila until she turned around. Then, they proceed with asking Lila questions and corner her. Phairoj would start by saying that they couldn’t stand any more lies from Lila and that they wanted her to explain everything now.

Phairoj crossed his hand in his chest. “Is it true that you have a Russian doll as a souvenir from your uncle who travelled a lot?”

“My uncle did go to Russia once, though.” Lila shivered.

“Are you sure that your father travelled abroad as part of his job?” Phairoj’s tone rose.

His words hit like a cold splash of water, freezing Lila in place. There was just a blunt distancing. She knew that her web of lies would get her trapped in her own mess, but she did not think it would feel this disheartened, and her friends would turn to her.

“That, I can explain.” Lila finally answered. 

“You realized that most or all of it isn't true, right? We wouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore because you keep on telling us lies.”

“The stories may not be something that I want you guys to accept, but you have to believe me that I didn’t mean any harm.” Lila was on the brink of tears.

“You’ve gotta be kidding!” 

Both were just in disbelief, of Lila’s habit in telling lies, and of how rude Phairoj could be to take away Lila’s confidence and relationship with their friends.

Phairoj stepped back and asked the others to leave Lila. 

“Why would anybody create such a lie? You told us a sequence so convincingly that we trust you for that.”

Lila shrank in an instant. Whatever friendship they had built over the years, however quietly and unconsciously, crumbled with that single moment of public shame. What hurt the most was not just being exposed. It was that it came from Phairoj, someone who had known her long enough to understand why she might have said what she did.

But children can be cruel without meaning to be. They see lies, but not the loneliness that causes them. They spot falsehoods, but miss the hunger to belong hiding underneath.

Lila would still remember that moment, not because of the lie itself, but because it marked the beginning of her silence. From then on, she learned to measure her words, to mask her truths with practiced restraint. And though she would meet many people after Phairoj, some kinder, some more perceptive, there would always be a part of her that remained guarded, as if still standing in that schoolyard, waiting for someone to see her and not walk away.

As the years passed, Phairoj’s subtle mistreatments took on new forms. He refused to wear the same styles of backpacks or sneakers as Lila, even if they were not identical. He needed to stand out, to be distinct. He always wanted the latest gear, even if it meant scouring online markets or stretching payments thin. Looking good mattered, being first mattered more. Image, not practicality, was currency.

When Lila fell ill with chickenpox, Phairoj saw it as another opportunity. The upcoming exams were just around the corner, and if Lila could not attend, he would finally edge past her in the rankings. But Lila recovered just in time. She took the exams in a supervised health room and reclaimed her first-place rank, leaving Phairoj in third. At the awards ceremony, his father whispered to anyone within earshot that the top students must have cheated. His son, honest and hardworking, would never be beaten otherwise.

Even after they reconciled, Phairoj’s insecurities simmered. He joked loudly in front of others about how he had to protect himself from Lila’s contagion, taking vitamin sachets theatrically as if to ward off her illness. Lila laughed along, but when Phairoj caught the virus days later, it was Lila who remembered his mockery in silence.

One of the cruellest rumors Phairoj ever spread was that Lila might be adopted because she did not resemble the look of her mother. The doubt lodged itself deep in Lila’s mind. She went home and asked her mother for proof of photos, videos, and something concrete. But there was only one baby picture, her mother holding her with a tired smile. The image was generic. It did not ease the ache of uncertainty. And so, she let the accusation go, because there was nothing else she could do.

In junior high, Lila’s mother was hospitalized for surgery. Phairoj had invited her to the music store, and she went, keeping the news to herself as if it was not monumental. When Phairoj eventually asked why the house was empty, she confessed. His own parents later came by for a visit. Lila’s mother, pale and tired, still greeted them with a quiet grace. In that moment, Phairoj finally admitted to Lila that he saw the resemblance after all. “You look exactly like her," He said under his breath.

They had good times, too. Field trips where they shared earbuds and passed iPods between them. Phairoj would buy fancy meals or branded bags as gifts mostly for himself or his brother, but he always saved a little something for Lila. A bite, a sip, a token of something better. For Lila, those moments felt like glimpses into a different world. One where life was more than hand-me-downs and unspoken rules.

But there were betrayals that never healed. It was Phairoj who told Lila’s parents about her worsening eyesight. It was Phairoj who spilled the secret about her quiet romance with a boy at school, such incidents that ignited chaos at home. Lila’s father scolded her as though she had desecrated the family name. Her mother looked at her with disappointment and confusion. And it was Phairoj, again, who encouraged his mom to probe about Lila's worldly father story from times ago, fanning the flames of shame all over again.

Phairoj eventually went on to attend Bangkok University. Success suited him. He took to city life like he was born for it, securing a managerial position at New Balance’s Bangkok supplier chain’s main office. He rarely returned home, but when he did, he arranged coffee meet-ups with the old friend group, just enough to maintain a cordial connection with a kind gesture. Known now as a Casanova, he dated widely and carelessly with sisters of friends, single mothers, anyone who offered novelty. His Instagram bloomed with filtered snapshots from Dubai, the Bahamas, or just Singapore.

He and Lila barely stayed in touch. They did not talk about money, family, fear, or failure. Phairoj liked to manage, to be seen as the dependable one. When Lila died, it was actually Phairoj who sent the first messages. He broke the news to their circle, coordinated gift baskets, and gathered sympathy funds. He made sure her parents were included to express etiquette, at least on paper.

But inside, Phairoj held a resentment he never voiced. He envied Decha for the gentle way Lila looked at him, the private laughter they shared. In school, Phairoj had never truly been loved by anyone in that way. Not really. He wanted that closeness, that romantic bond. Instead, he had stayed unapproachable.

Lila never stopped caring for Phairoj, though. She remembered how they once fished together by the pond. The time she had to ditch him for a visiting friend, only to come back and find him sulking, “Go play with your girls," He said bitterly. She thought it was sweet, even then, so she came back and stayed with him.

But she also saw him clearly. Phairoj wasn’t original. He copied the class clown’s jokes, looking for approval.

He echoed his parents’ beliefs instead of forming his own. His motto of “Whatever you’re doing, your parents are behind you” was only easy because his father was well-connected, his mother involved, his brother successful. Phairoj’s road was paved. And yet, they were kindred in some strange way. Both cared about appearances. Not in wealth, but in dignity. Neat hair, clean style, an air of class. They saw the world with similar aesthetic values.

But Phairoj had always craved attention. He inserted himself into Lila’s friendships, her spaces, her inner world. He was the school’s gossip hub, always collecting stories, rarely sharing his own. When a friend’s parents passed away in Buriram, Phairoj organized a memorial from wherever he was at that moment, unfortunately excluding Lila entirely. Not out of malice, but oversight.

He was independent, smart, and charming. He had always been those things. But to Lila, he was also the boy who needed to win, even if it meant leaving everyone behind.

*

Lila met Ploy at a self-development and social branding fair held in the stale, overlit ballroom of a downtown hotel. The event buzzed with ambition of young professionals in stiff blazers, influencers clinking coffee cups, and PowerPoint slides that promised success in ten easy steps. Lila had signed up on a whim, hoping to quietly disappear into the back row. But during one of the breakout sessions, she was paired with Ploy for a group exercise to devise a marketing strategy for a local Instagram account.

At first, Lila kept her distance. Ploy had a strong presence of no-nonsense posture, a commanding voice, and the kind of sharply drawn eyeliner that made her appear perpetually skeptical. But as they began to sketch out campaign ideas, a surprising rhythm formed. Their conversation flowed, not perfectly, but honestly. Ploy laughed at Lila’s dry wit, and Lila was startled by how good it felt to be seen without trying.

After the session, they exchanged numbers and followed each other on social media. It was Ploy who broke the ice again.

“People always say I look bitchy until they know me,” Ploy said over a DM one night.

Lila replied with a half-joking, “Same.”

That shared the plight of the Resting Bitch Face curse, and it was the first unexpected thread between them. Neither of them was truly unkind or disinterested; they just had faces that did not beg to be approached. It bonded them in a way that felt like being let in on a secret.

Ploy was from rural Chanthaburi. She was not someone born into ease. Her father had an affair when she was still in high school, an open wound that tore her family apart. After the divorce, she and her mother pledged to cut him out entirely. But when Ploy got engaged years later, the old dilemma came back like a stormcloud. She wanted him to know she was getting married, but not enough to invite him. So she sent a message with no date or venue. Just news. Her wedding was a quiet affair, witnessed only by her mother and her maternal uncle. No drama, no reconciliation. Just the people who stayed.

She had her own ghosts. As a child, she once accidentally burned her house down playing with candles, the flame catching a curtain before spreading wildly. Everything including clothes, toys, and important documents was lost. That disaster marked her.

In adulthood, she had a complicated relationship with money. Every time she had a bit of extra cash, she spent it quickly, and often impulsively. If Lila bought a new lipstick, Ploy wanted the same one. If Lila wore a certain jacket, Ploy would ask the brand, the price, and sometimes show up in something nearly identical within days. It wasn’t vanity. It was hunger for stability, beauty, normalcy.

Ploy was not traditionally privileged, but Lila found her brilliant. She had clawed her way through local schools and public universities on full-ride scholarships for low-income students. She was resilient, gritty, and clever. She could reverse-engineer mobile apps and re-code software from scratch. She worked for a telecommunications firm in Buriram and rented a modest room near the city center. Her life was hustle, layered with side gigs of tutoring, selling homemade meals, picking up freelance design jobs just to cover rent, clothes, and occasional luxuries.

Lila admired her. Ploy could cook a week’s worth of meals in an hour. She kept her space clean, her schedule packed. Sometimes she lived on too little sleep and too many quick snacks. She was insecure about her body being shorter and rounder than Lila, and when she tried to mimic Lila’s style, it did not always fit her in the same way. Still, she tried, not out of envy, but out of hope and wanting to feel just as effortless, just as seen.

Ploy was the one introducing Lila to the possibility of living alone. At first, Lila would just sleep over after late-night conversations, but slowly, she became a semi-regular guest in Ploy’s compact flat. They cooked together, talked about careers and families. Ploy became the mirror Lila did not know she needed for nonjudgmental, grounded, a sister forged from the same furnace.

Sometimes Lila would escape to Ploy’s place just to breathe, away from the expectations of home. Ploy didn’t ask too many questions. She simply made space for silences, for laughter, for the kind of honesty Lila rarely found elsewhere. When Ploy fell ill, Lila cooked soup and brought her own medicine stash. She helped to clean the room, brought her food, and made her tea. They cared for each other in small ways that were not dramatic but mattered more than most people could understand.

Ploy’s world, though not luxurious, felt warm and stable in its own way. Lila felt safe there. Safe to laugh, to fail, to dream. Ploy did not pry into Lila’s past, but she was there for the present. When Lila talked about her frustrations, Ploy didn’t offer empty sympathy. She offered practical advice, and sometimes just her silent company.

Lila once said, “I feel more at home in your room than in my own house.”

Ploy didn’t laugh. She just smiled and said, “You’re always welcome. I also liked having you here.”

In the end, theirs was not a friendship of grand gestures or glossy memories, but of the everyday. The dishes were done together, the movies watched from single earphones, and the soft space made for each other when the rest of the world felt cold.

Circling back to the current time, in the course of her own investigation, Lila’s mother tries to reach out to her friends, at least those who actually show up at the funeral. Ploy is included. Lila might, or might not have told her unconsciously where Ploy lived in the rented flat, and her current address now that she moves to her husband’s house. And little did she know, her mother still listened to it and remembered.

What they are learning turns out to be full-on bizarre.

“I thought she told you that she’s renting a room, too, in my previous flat?” Ploy asked Lila’s mother.

“No, she did not! So, all this time, she would go to your place and work from there?” Lila’s mother is in utter confusion.

Ploy tells her that, at one point in their conversation, Lila started to show interest and ask a lot of questions about renting a flat like her. She wanted to know if there was a space available, what the price was, and how to process the rental if she was interested in joining. Ploy once made sure that her parents knew about this, to which Lila answered with just a simple, “Yes.”

“There was this overlap,” Ploy begins, her voice drifting with memory. “When she started working from the flat, I was still there too. She would come in around seven in the morning, always right on time, and set up her laptop like she was clocking in at an office downtown.”

She gives a small laugh, more fond than amused.

“Meanwhile, I would just be waking up, dragging myself to do laundry or something. You know, typical commuter stuff. My mornings were stiff, and hers were scheduled.”

Ploy pauses. She throws her glance as if watching a scene replay on the wall.

“She kept her space spotless. Like, not just tidy and intentional. Everything had its place. Her lunch breaks were like clockwork, too. And she never missed a beat when it came to heading home. Six on the dot in the evening.”

She smiles, her tone dipping into something more wistful.

“Sometimes, when I got to come back early and found her still working, she would be deep in something, but if she saw me, she would say hi and ask how my day was. We would have this short little chat that was never too long, but like she did not want to lose momentum, and then she went to pack up and head out. Always with that same composed little wave.”

Ploy looks down for a moment, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve.

“It’s weird thinking about it now. Like, I was there, sharing space with her, but I don’t know if I really knew what she was doing. We were always around together, but she was also somewhere else entirely.”

Lila’s mother listens attentively, even though all of Ploy’s story sounds nonsense and nothing that she has been aware of. It is like hearing a completely different version of your daughter that you never know.

“It seemed normal, really,” Ploy says, folding her arms as she leaned slightly back in the chair. “She told me she needed a quieter space to focus, and said working from home was tough with the traffic noise, or that her desk being so close to her bed made it way too easy to just fall asleep.”

She shrugs a little, her tone is thoughtful.

“It all made sense at the time. She never gave me a reason to doubt her. Paid the rent concisely, and always polite to the renter. I know it for sure because I even asked the contractor once, and she said she never missed a single payment.”

There is a short second-though before Ploy resumes with a weakening voice. 

“I just thought she was trying to carve out a bit of independence for herself. You know, figure things out on her own terms. And I respected that. I still do, to be honest.”

One by one, Lila’s invented story comes to light for her mother. When she told her that she rented a co-working space in town, Lila was just making it up to assure her that she is settling in a good and comfortable place. Had she found out that Lila would rather rent a flat than spend her time in their decent house, she would get worried and never give her permission to start a working atmosphere of her choice.

Then, how many other occasions that Lila told, or kept, that are the truth? It matters because there are only a few people that have had encounters with Lila daily, and in her regular life, but her own mother can’t tell any of it. 

The other people may include Ploy herself, and Siree, and so she came to the conclusion that Lila was not the daughter she thought she always figured out. Lila has never been one to anyone ever.

Ploy has a stepsister. A volatile, high-strung girl coming from the fragmented remains of her father’s second marriage. Whenever Ploy, her stepsister, and Lila were out together, Lila could not help but notice the tension thickening the air. The younger girl would pout or burst into a tantrum when she lost at even the simplest games. Ploy always tried to keep her calm, but there was always a flicker of exhaustion behind her smile, as if she’d already spent years playing the adult.

It was clear that Ploy’s relationship with her sister mirrored her own inner conflicts of guilt and pride tangled up in sisterhood. Her stepsister looked up to her too much. The way she styled her hair, her obsession with skincare and luxury knock-offs. Ploy did not stop her. Maybe she couldn’t.

Lila suspected that deep down, Ploy liked being admired, even if she could not afford to model the life she pretended to live. Every time Ploy tried to keep up with Lila by buying the same gadgets or clothes, it was not just for herself anymore. Her sister had to be included, too. It strained her wallet, but she did it anyway.

Back home in Chanthaburi, Ploy’s mother ran a tiny laundromat. Tiny first story, where their home is at the second, with no signs or fancy branding. Just a glass front, a flickering light above the door, and coin-operated machines that clanged late into the night. She was the sole breadwinner, and Ploy carried that reality with her like an invisible yoke. She had left the family’s duplex for a small rented flat in Buriram, but the weight of responsibility never really left her. She could stretch a dollar thinner than anyone Lila knew.

Because of that, Lila always tried to ease the load. She would quietly pay for their meals, pick attractions that were cheap or free, or suggest the food court over the trendy brunch spots Ploy followed on Instagram. It was not a pity as Lila never felt sorry for Ploy. She admired her. She admired the way Ploy kept showing up, even when her trousers had holes and her bank account had dipped below zero again. Lila simply wanted to offer her the same comfort of a place to exhale that Ploy had offered her.

But for all their similarities, two young women shaped by fractured homes and quiet expectations, they were worlds apart in how they viewed love.

Ploy craved stability, and she found it in the form of a boy she had dated since high school. He was plain-looking, awkward even, but from a wealthy family. Lila never said it out loud, but she thought Ploy could have done better.

Ploy was smart, socially sharp, and beautiful when she let herself be. Lila had seen how tech guys at Ploy’s school and office hovered around her, subtly orbiting her confidence. But Ploy never looked back. She clung to the idea of building a different kind of family than the one she came from. Her boyfriend’s parents pampered her as his mother took her shopping, while his father gave her a car. And so, she married him. Because she did not want to repeat her parents’ mistakes.

Lila, meanwhile, avoided relationships altogether. She was not running toward the future. She was running from a legacy. She did not want to be bound to someone out of fear or habit. She wanted to find herself first, and Ploy could not understand that. To her, love was an anchor and a reassurance. To Lila, it was another chain she was not ready to be tied to.

One night, after a long walk and a cheap dinner, Lila confessed something she rarely admitted out loud, that it wasn’t easy living under her parents’ roof. The curfews, the silent treatments, the invisible rules she was expected to follow. She had not just wanted to leave. She needed to. Ploy stared at her, stunned.

“You? I thought… you had it easy. You always seem so… carefree.”

Lila signaled ignorance, “I fake it better than most.”

From then on, their differences became more noticeable.

Ploy dreamed of children. She wanted to restore what her childhood lacked, including warmth, tradition, and continuity. “It’s sad not to leave something behind," She said one afternoon, sipping coffee with both hands like she needed it to ground her. But Lila had never pictured herself as a mother. If she ever did have a child, though, she would adopt out of principle and conscience. She did not want to contribute to a population already straining at the seams. That quiet argument escalated faster than either of them expected.

To decide to finally have a child was not a project. It is a work that would take up to years to lifetime, just to begin, to maintain, to inherit, to survive. Most people, Lila thought, did not realize the importance of having enough awareness of bringing another human being to live in this world. When there was failure, it should have never been a dead end where one gave up and retired. People ought to always find a way out.

Coming from a land that was far from the perfect prototype of a family, Lila imagined that it would only last a while. Five years top, perhaps. She had no motivation to create anything she was not able to look out all the time, while her own upbringing was messy and in constant surveillant. All she saw for her future was her breaking down into a depressive episode while she had to pretend she was happy in the first place in front of a smaller version of her and someone else.

And thus, she would rather take the opportunity to build a better version of herself first. To finish searching for what she truly was. By letting herself delve into outside references and internal discussions, she also realized that if one day, that time came of a readiness to nurture together a beautiful little family, it did not have to be with a child of her own. She knew it was never wrong to not have a kid at all. Every person had the opposite of a dead end, and going to be on this path was also a brave option.

Something that neither of her parents would view as good, but Lila had as her preferable way of life. The problem was if there would be a moment when it all came alive. The part where she could advocate giving birth or just adopt one. At heart, Lila had never known there was a chance for her to eventually be at that phase of life and talking about kids with someone.

Ploy, wounded, told Lila she did not understand the gravity of parenting. That adopting meant dealing with unknown health conditions, genetic baggage, or personal and social trauma. Of course, when life offered her that kind of experience, Lila would have thought and prepared for all that. As if having a baby for Ploy was not full of contemplation efforts to seek all the highs and lows during the process.

Ploy’s idea of sticking to what her ancestors had been doing was contradictory to Lila’s thirst of being groovy, tenacious, and free spirited. If Lila would have to be planted in a garden, she would be a wildflower, lily from the valley, in a marigold field, while Ploy was to be whatever of a camouflage that a different breed could still blend in with the other flora. 

Lila would like to embrace the overgrown ecosystem. She loved the idea of being a clear no for some people, so she could be a clear yes for the others.

For many, adulthood unfolds in a dryness, where personal milestones are strategically planned, refusing to take obvious cues from the untamed nature of life itself. There often are not any true cycles, surprises, or new unidentified theories to disrupt the predictable construction the society often lays out. The unspoken expectation can be that women and societal norms do not get a chance to walk side by side, startling or astonishing with alternative tracks.

"What if I’m actually freed from choices?" Lila kept asking herself this question. What about a free will?

A proposal, often posed by her inner voice, provokes the conventional narrative. It encourages her to tap into that wacky, fluid freedom that society often only fully allows for in the carefree abandon of childhood or the wisdom of old age. It is about modifying the rigid rules of what a womanhood should be like, particularly when it comes to family planning.

A call to get a little weird suggested to her a different kind of guide. If she represented being wild, then perhaps the choice to have a kid, with all its unpredictability, and to welcome a childfree life, are equally unique, aligning with this very spirit. A traditional lawn of perfectly timed achievement and societal expectations might be mildly pleasing to most, but deeply resonant to no one.

Instead, imagine a marigold field with plenty of overgrown lilies. This is not about conformity. It is about allowing life to bloom in its own organic way, whether that involves nurturing a new life from scratch or cultivating a rich existence without direct offspring. The decision on parenthood, or not, is an ongoing, and often, bothersome debate. It is tempting to try and take control of the growth once again, to get along with the societal pressures yet ingrain self expectations. But in embracing the loose, mangled, and revelatory environment of her own choices, Lila discovered an alternative of opportunities with deeply personal authenticity.

The beautiful thing about making her future is that every restored plot of distinctive life choice will look and feel completely different. It is about being confidently forging a way that is true to her, regardless of external expectations.

But Lila was still immature and explosive to respond to confrontational subjects.

Lila argued, “You think just giving birth gives you more control? It’s still a gamble. You just want a mini-you to parade around. That’s not love, Ploy. That’s ego.”

It was practically the last real conversation they had.

Time passed, and Ploy got married. Her texts changed. More practical and even more transactional. One day, months after the fallout, she messaged Lila out of the blue. She was not asking how she was doing, but to find out where to buy high-end furniture. Her in-laws were visiting, so she sensed the need to impress. Lila replied politely, but she felt something sink. She knew this version of Ploy as the one who only called when she needed something. A blank canvas who smiled for Instagram, but could not see past her own checklist of needs.

In an alternate universe, Ploy would have become the kind of daughter Lila’s father would love. Dutiful, traditional. She had the job, the husband, the appetite for convention. She laughed easily, ate what was served, and knew how to please the room. But Lila, watching from a distance, still saw the fire in her. The little girl who once burned her house down by accident, the woman who stitched her life together with courage and code. Ploy had endured so much, and maybe she didn’t even know how lucky she was. Lila did.

*

Siree was not someone Lila had chosen to befriend. She was a mutual, only an indirect connection through a high school friend whose circle happened to include Siree's best friend. They were in proximity long before they were in conversation. Siree was one of those girls you noticed before she spoke with sharp features, even sharper posture, always walking like she was late for something important. She carried a seriousness that could easily be mistaken for arrogance.

They both ended up at the same college, not because they planned to, but because neither of their parents could stomach the idea of sending their only child too far away.

Siree compensated for her lack of geographical freedom by choosing a major she liked and applying strategically to one that accepted her early, skipping any extra tests. She had mapped her life like a blueprint. She wanted to graduate in three years. When that didn't happen, she threw herself into side ventures, including a voluntary trip to Ireland as a delegate for Model United Nations. That alone won her an aura of prestige among peers. She was going places, people said.

And Lila believed it. It was hard not to admire someone like Siree. She came from a home that was, on paper, ideal, with both parents working professional jobs, a gated neighborhood, and the kind of financial cushion that softened every fall. She was not just smart. She was capable, competent, someone who could read a room and lead it. She had backup accounts when others only had emergency contacts.

But admiration and affection were not the same.

To some extent, studying at university is indeed only for those who are in a very secure place academically, and financially,

For both art and craft, Lila would need a professional photography lesson in her major. This required not only the individual creative vision and a mastery skill, but also, most importantly and, of course, the tool, the acumen to get the work seen by other humans’ eyes.

In one semester during college, Lila learned how to persuade people into complex ideas and feelings through images. That was when Lila properly studied photography. The campus, Buriram Rajabhat University, had a well-equipped laboratory, but it was only for bureaucracy and not for the public. The professor himself did not stand as a close-knit community for the students who needed aid for the kits. Camera formats, lighting, and photo styling, everyone must have become proficient by their own resource and capacity, for digital and analog.

Lila would never forget the clash in the photography class as they had been assigned to use a professional camera. Something most of them had not even touched before. As a family who believed to be unpretentious of material possessions, a professional camera was never a thing that her family would own.

Siree, of course, had one. Cameras like that were expensive, unnecessary to her daily life, and not something her family could justify buying just for a semester’s worth of assignments. When she mustered the courage to ask Siree if she could borrow hers for a day, Siree actually said yes. It felt like a small victory.

Lila worked quickly, wholeheartedly. She submitted her task the same night, just well before the deadline. When the professor praised her promptness and gave her bonus points for being the first to complete it, Siree's reaction was swift and cold. “It doesn’t count," She said loudly, just a row behind Lila. “She used my camera. It’s not really her work.”

Lila did not turn around. She did not need to. Siree’s voice was loud enough for a friend sitting nearby overheard and later also repeated it to Lila in hushed tones. That night, Lila locked her bedroom door, lay face down on the pillow, and whispered the words she could not say aloud, “I didn’t ask to be born poor.”

After that, they drifted apart. Siree grew more cutthroat academically, isolating herself in the process. Few people got close to her. She was a lone achiever, quick to dismiss others, always veering toward squaring up when things didn't go as planned.

But life has a strange way of bringing people back together.

They reconnected after graduation, bonded by circumstance more than sentiment. Both of them had returned to Buriram, the city they once dreamed of escaping. Siree had tried to build something abroad, moving to London to work in marketing strategy for an investment firm. But it did not work out, for reasons she never disclosed. When Lila found out Siree was back, alone and job-hunting again, she reached out.

It was not quite friendship. It was something more complicated about two lonely women in a city that had outgrown them, trying to fill the silence between jobs and obligations. They went to cinemas. They ran errands. Sometimes they just walked in silence, each of them orbiting the memory of a life they thought they would have by now.

Lila never truly forgave Siree for what happened in college. She remembered the sting of that comment, the way it reduced her efforts to nothing. But over time, she began to tolerate Siree’s presence, even anticipating it. She got used to her domineering tone, her obsession with control, the unspoken hierarchy Siree seemed to place herself atop. Lila did not treasure her as a friend. She tolerated her as a companion. Maybe because Siree was one of the last people left who had not left.

There were moments, though, when their walls cracked. One evening over coffee, Siree opened up.

Her father had always been cruel about her appearance. He mocked her acne and her weight gain. He wished he would turn her into a walking mannequin.

Her mother was not much better. A secretary who once dreamed of doing more but settled too early and too small, she put her unrealized ambition onto Siree. She expected her to be the daughter she was not in the past, so she hated her mom for that, as Siree admitted. 

Lila felt something shift. She had always imagined Siree’s life as cushioned. But here was another daughter surviving a home filled with conditional love and silent competition. For a fleeting moment, Lila even considered the idea of running away with her. Of getting a small place together. Just the two of them. No fathers. No past.

But the thought did not sit right. Their dynamic had always been skewed. Siree, despite everything, still treated Lila like someone to correct or critique. She had a reckless spending habit for buying cute stationery she did not need, or ordering gadgets online just because she could afford to. Lila always saved everything. Scraps of money, scraps of pride.

Siree still operated from a place of abundance, and Lila from fear. And worse, Siree was strict. If things did not go her way, she would rather cancel the plan than compromise. Her approval was conditional, and Lila, already trained under her father’s rule, had learned to contort herself to keep the peace.

She caught herself lying again just to avoid Siree’s judgment. Pretending to agree. Smiling when she wanted to leave. That was not friendship. That was a different kind of survival. And Lila was tired of surviving.

She realized that getting a nod of approval from Siree felt like an accomplishment, just like it did when her father acknowledged her for once. It made her feel worthy, but that was the trap. Lila deserved more than being someone’s emotional punching bag. She deserved to speak without fear of being belittled.

In the end, Siree was not an antagonist. She was Just another girl trying to claw her way out of a childhood that clipped her wings. But Lila was done dimming herself to stay close to people who made her feel small. She had been quiet for too long.

Another thing that comes to light is Lila’s consistent dodging for questions about her availability for Siree.

Hours that are just spent with Ploy, her mother visits Siree’s house, then, to which Lila had always talked about during the college years. After all, she was also the first friend to be notified about Lila’s passing, and her mother asked for her willingness to help with spreading the news.

Lila’s mother sits forward on the couch, hands clasped tightly in her lap, eyes scanning Siree’s face as if looking for a missing piece. Her voice trembles slightly, but she forces herself to speak.

“Lila once told me she worked from a co-working space. One that she rented monthly,” Her mother begins cautiously. “She used to mention you often. Said you both worked remotely and spent a lot of time together.”

She pauses, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Did she ever talk to you about that space? Do you, maybe, know anything I don’t?”

Siree, seated across from her with a mug she has not touched, shifts in her seat. Her brows knit together, and she shakes her head slowly.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” She confesses. “I mean, I always assumed, but now I’m wondering if there’s something I completely missed.”

There is a beat of silence before she looks up, her eyes searching.

“Did something happen?” Siree sounds quite unsure. 

Lila’s mother exhales, almost too softly to hear.

“That’s what we are trying to figure out, Siree.”

Siree nods faintly, rubbing her thumb against the side of her mug, her thoughts racing.

“Just before I see you, Ploy and I… we talked a little. Just about Lila’s job in general. Nothing deep. But even then, I realized there were a lot of blanks I could not fill in. And now, looking back, I think you’re right. There was so much we did not know.”

Lila’s mother looks up again, her voice firmer this time.

“What I do know is, she did not work from home. She always left in the morning. Every single day. Even if she was not meeting anyone.”

Her lips part slightly as if to speak again, but no words came out.

“I never questioned it,” Siree responds, her expression caught between guilt and skepticism. “It just seemed like… her way. Flighting, and doing what she had to do, never making a fuss. And I… I just let it be.”

The room falls into a heavy stillness, the weight of their realization sinking in. Whatever story Lila had been living, it is unraveling now, thread by thread, and they are only just beginning to see how little they had really known her.

Lila’s mother sits with her hands shaking slightly, twisting a tissue in her lap as she tries to keep her voice even.

“Actually, Ploy told me Lila rented a flat,” She says quietly. “That she would leave early in the morning, spend the day there working, and come home after her shift. But I… I thought it was a co-working space. She once said she shared it with you. That you split the rent to make it more affordable.”

Siree gasps for real air while shaking her head hard. Her eyes get big as if they are popping out.

Lila’s mother shifts, almost recoiling from the silence that stretched too long.

“You know, Siree. We’re still piecing things together as a family,” She murmurs. “But I never imagined I would be this in the dark. That I would have to gather fragments of my daughter’s life from her friends just to understand who she really was.”

Siree scoffs and shae, her tone sharp.

“If you’re her mother and did not know what she was doing, why would I?”

The words hit the room like a slap. Lila’s mother blinks, visibly taken aback.

Siree leans back, arms crossed now, restless.

“Listen, auntie. She asked me to hang out a lot, yeah. We both had remote gigs, so it was easy to meet up. And Ploy and I were usually around town, so we had seen each other every now and then. But she never let anyone all the way in. Not really.”

She lets out a bitter little laugh.

“Lila was always rigid about her time. If we met up, it had to be early, or we barely had an hour or two before she had to head back. Said she needed to be home before dark.”

Siree’s voice hardens, sarcasm slipping in.

“Apparently, her dad still gave her a curfew. A grown woman with a damn curfew. Do you realize that? No wonder she kept things to herself.”

Lila’s mother presses her lips together. She does not reply, but her expression tightens with hurt, but not surprised.

“She always said it was not worth the argument,” Siree adds. “So she just played along quietly. Like always.”

They sit in silence again, thin air between them weights with what Lila had never said out loud and what neither of them has thought to ask before it was too late. Lila’s mother can only nod in agreement, and helplessness.

“Look, auntie. I’m sorry about Lila, but there’s nothing that I can do to help since she does not share many things with me that much either, and see, she has a lot to unravel and we can’t do it again now…”

Siree stops herself before splitting harshly about how Lila was already gone.

“Anyway, my last discussion about Lila is about how I want her to be my accountability buddy. I want to pursue a master’s degree abroad, and here’s the thing about the process. It takes effort and consistency, but sometimes I can focus on doing some things for three days straight, and then the next day I will find my brain rot in my bed.”

A master’s degree abroad had become her tunnel vision, her singular strategy for salvation. Finland, France, Germany, as she named the countries with reverence, as if they were not just places but alternate lives, cleaner slates. Her search was obsessive.

She applied to programs, scoured scholarship websites, practiced interview questions until her voice grew flat from repetition. But every time she made it to the final interview stage, the result was the same rejection. Neither offer nor explanation satisfied her hunger for justice. She was just given a covenant email that closed the door.

She told Lila once, during one of their late-night walks, that this path was not just a dream. She said that it was her only way out. Her voice taut, as if holding back something volatile. Siree had her eyes set on escape, not through rebellion, not through love, but through academics. After everything she had done with every class, every internship, and every reference letter, it could not end in her just staying here. She did not want to. Never in her life she had a fantasy of getting married, or even working some random job. 

It was not just something that she worked for. It was desperation disguised as ambition.

Lila listened, but quietly. She nodded in the right places, gave the appropriate hums of understanding. But deep down, she couldn't relate to Siree’s version of suffering. Not fully. Not sincerely.

Because from Lila’s eyes, Siree was already living in the kind of safety net she herself had only ever dreamed of. Supportive parents, a stable household, and most of all, the permission to fail without consequence. When Siree did not get a scholarship, she did not get screamed at, or get locked out. She did not have to carry the burden of someone else's disappointment carved into every sideways glance. She simply stayed home. Her parents still took her to lavish family outings, still smiled with their arms around her in family photos that looked like they meant it.

That was a privilege Lila could not ignore.

To Lila, it almost felt insulting. That Siree, with her soft landings and paid-for failures, could claim hardship in the same breath as she dismissed other people’s lives as ordinary or weak.

Siree lacked empathy. Not because she was cruel, but because she touched the world only through the grass of her own endurance. She truly believed she had it worse than most people, and that no one could understand what it felt like to be stuck. But what she did not realize, or refused to see, was that her suffering did not invalidate everyone else’s. Maybe, what she needed was not a solution, but compassion, that if she could just stop measuring pain like a competition, if she could soften, just a little, to the people around her. She might not feel so alone.

Lila had thought about saying something once. About how pain is not always loud or visible. About how her own house was a daily performance where love was measured. About how Siree’s worst day still came with a warm dinner and the absence of fear. But she did not say it. She never did. Because deep down, she knew Siree would not hear her. And maybe what hurt the most was knowing that someone who had so much could still live like they had nothing, and still want more.

Siree stares blankly before explaining.

“Lila was easily one of the most consistent, disciplined people I’ve ever known," She said, almost to herself. “If anyone was meant to go far, academically, professionally, whatever, it was her. She did not just talk about goals. She lived with them. Like clockwork.”

Her fingers absentmindedly traces the rim of her coffee cup before letting out a faint, humorless laugh.

“I offered to help her so we can go far together, you know. With tracking applications, organizing her next steps… anything she needed. She never asked, but I offered anyway.”

Siree looks down, brows furrowing slightly.

“But she shut it down. Politely, but firm. She said she could not promise anything. Said she never really had control over her life, or something like that within the lines. That planning only led to disappointment, and, even when she wanted something badly, it never felt like she got to decide if it would happen.”

Her voice sharpens again just a bit.

“I told her that was bullshit. I didn't mean to be harsh, but, come on! Everyone’s life is a mess. Nobody has control. You go for it anyway.”

She leans back, exhaling through her nose.

“But with Lila, it felt different. Like she was fighting an invisible force that the rest of us could not see.”

“So, that’s that,” Lila’s mother feels even more saddened.

“I understand. Thanks for your time, Siree. I think what she meant back then because her father still holds the most control of her life. When he says no, she can’t go. Basically, we don’t have free will because of her father’s dictating behavior. Our life is conditional and nothing ever comes free.”

To Phairoj, Lila was a clerk at a private school. That was the version of herself she offered him. It was the same story she told her father, because they both valued the kind of occupation that carried the weight of society’s expectations. To them, success meant stability in a recognizable form, something you could explain in a single sentence and be met with nods of approval.

Lila shaped her narrative not based on truth, but on what she believed each person could accept. With Phairoj, it was not about closeness. It was about image. She wanted him, and everyone like him from her past, to know she had made something of herself. Or at least, something they would consider worth making.

With Ploy, things were different. Lila told her the truth that she worked in customer support roles at All is Flux, Bloom.inc, and eventually, Nativia. Ploy never judged her for what she did. She was the kind of friend who did not require success as a condition for affection. She always asked what Lila had been up to, not to measure her, but because she genuinely was curious.

Around Ploy, Lila did not need to posture. She could ramble about work, vent about annoying clients, or share little victories. The only part she rarely touched on was her family. Maybe because that part of her still felt fragile, still too unresolved to bring into the light.

With Siree, it was more complicated. Lila never told her that she had been hired at Nativia. Not yet. Nativia was a prestigious advertising company in Buriram, a name that carried promise. Landing a job there should have been a cause for celebration. But Lila could not bring herself to share it, not with Siree. Not when, just days before, Siree had been crushed by yet another rejection from her dream of studying abroad.

Their friendship had always been laced with silent rivalry. Lila had never truly forgiven Siree for a moment back in college that seemed so small to everyone else, but not to her. It was the photography class, the borrowed camera, the submitted task, and the early praise Lila received. Lila had not even wanted the spotlight. She was simply trying to survive the course. But Siree saw it as an insult and a theft of validation. She had muttered something bitter that they both never addressed directly, but Lila never forgot either.

That wound never closed. And the silence between them was never just quiet. It was charged.

They also processed anger differently. Lila was easily shaken by unfairness or blunt instruction, while Siree would call it weakness. When a lecturer gave an impossible deadline, Lila would bristle. Siree would scoff at her reaction, calling her unresilient. It was not that Siree meant to hurt her, perhaps. But she did.

So when Lila received her offer letter from Nativia, it should have been a turning point. A sign that she was, after everything, capable and wanted. But Siree had just suffered another setback. And despite the coldness between them, Lila still cared. Or maybe, she was just afraid that sharing her joy would make her a target again. So she stayed silent. She held onto the good news, alone, in a locked pocket of triumph she did not dare speak aloud.

By the time Lila passed, she had never told Siree how much that single comment, about not deserving the credit, had devastated her. She had never explained how deeply it made her question her worth. Nor had she ever stood up to how that moment changed the way she would come to see Siree as someone whose approval she chased, but whose friendship she could never fully trust.

*

What are the things that are actually trying to take Lila away?

Her mother contemplates if she has given her too much freedom, or none after all, to the point that Lila chose to make her own life, and go to a completely unknown path. Nothing should even have to get to a point like this.

Lila is a child of someone, yet she is an adult. A human. Both of them experience how far-off the paternal figure is in the family, but as a mother, she has tried to present her a better idea of life through her support. Or that is just not enough. Lila solely wants to live life as her own.

She can present evidence that she was a good mother so far, and clearly, as a mother she only covers the outer side of her daughter and has not touched her deepest true nature.

She was the one taking Lila to all her appointments, she took care of her belongings at home, and did all the day-to-day activities. She feels like she can prove that without a doubt, and the environment she raised Lila with was safe and gentle. Outside what she could think of, Lila would prefer danger and spontaneity if that means she finally steps her foot outside the comfort zone that is her home and family.

As parents of Lila, she is almost certain that they would want their daughter to succeed, coming from the root of their origins, where she sticks to their culture and religions, and the customs they always cling to to reach this certain point of adult life. She thought they prepared to nurture her in such a manner that they have given the kid’s best interest. 

No parent can never break their child, even a little. With their hopes, with their expectations, of course with their unresolved dreams. So they treat Lila as a hand to pick the star from heaven just because they couldn’t do so. All these people might view Lila in particular, and say, “Why would such a diligent daughter who is treated well go away from the family?” 

Lila just wanted to be alive. No one also thinks she was going to die this early. As a mother, it is an utmost pain to watch the baby go sooner than they do. And she still does not know, if some crazy world where she thinks she was going to leave her fast, she believes she could have offered Lila anything more life to experience. As a mother should to their child. 

Lila was proud of how she had handled things so far. She was in a continuous fight for a battle she did not proudly proclaim to anyone, she had times where she ruined her face by blood in her hands just to wipe the tears. Most importantly of all, she could say that she tried, and even though every moment seemed to always humble her, she showed up again and celebrated her strength with her strangled fists.

Screw forgiveness. She chose to have boundaries and badassery to heal herself. Sometimes, love and light do not come together in a sentence. It just would not cut it. Sometimes, one needed to say no, and Lila took an “absolutely no” as a response.

She needed her boundaries and girlbossery to reclaim what had always been her, but taken away through mantras of mockeries and mediations. Forced forgiveness was like treating an open wound and kept piling it up with bandages, hoping it would heal straight away. Lila simply forgot the itchiness. She might do slightly more damage to her tender growth, but she would never attempt a forced forgiveness.

The thought of letting go of everybody oftentimes occurred, but the strength was only present when her vitality returned, so that was when she empowered herself with her own space, people, and freedom. It was only equal for her, and the ones who never apologized to her.

*

A new message chimes into Lila’s phone.

Lila’s mother is afraid to be slapped with another reality check concerning her daughter, but she wants to give it a chance. The message comes from someone named Lin. When the chat is opened, it has been there all along, messages were never deleted since the first interaction. 

Lin is older than Lila, but joined the company All is Flux later than Lila did. They bonded and talked closely in the chat. Most of the time, the conversation included a mix of long voice notes and lengthy messages from both sides.

What Lila’s mother learns is that Lin is a devoted Buddhist, but has a thick Southern Thai accent from Songkhla, and receives countless gratitude from Lila as Lin was like an older sister to her. It was like, after Lila found her own people in Lin, it made her realize there was nothing wrong with her after all.

She is also a well educated young lady. Her way of speaking is easy to understand. No wonder Lila fell for her approach and had a good time exchanging thoughts with her. 

Lin was a kind of survivor herself. She is the kind who rarely asks for sympathy, but deserves all of it. Life has not been gentle with her either. She has a deceased father when she was still too young to fully understand what absence means, and yet she was forced to grow around the hollow space he left behind. In her place, there was a mother who never works, never tries, and somehow became Lin's responsibility, too.

Each day is stitched with exhaustion. Lin spends morning shift blending into an evening one, and barely a breath in between. She works through weekends like they don’t exist, not out of ambition but necessity. And as if that weren’t cruel enough, she has a brother who is the very embodiment of unreliability.

He vanished one day with the last of their savings, swallowed whole by a gambler’s hunger, and promised nothing but his own survival. He returned not with remorse or redemption, but with news that he had sold the house, the only home they had left. For what? For fast cash and fleeting possessions. For more gambling. Nothing lasting nor earned.

Lin did not cry back then, and Lila seldom caught her showing any forms of desperation when they were together. She packed what remained of their lives into boxes and moved her mother into a modest housing complex, one made possible only through the pity of distant relatives who still had a trace of loyalty left. And even then, the betrayal did not stop.

Her brother would still call brazenly to ask for money, as though he were owed something. He already destroyed their only home that had earned him favors. He did it out of bitterness, some twisted rebellion against a mom who he claimed had lived too easily, and never lifted a hand to build the life she expected others to maintain. “She sits still, looks pretty, and the world will serve her," He once said. And somehow, people did.

But Lin does not speak of these things often. Not out loud. She simply kept going. She carries her anger and exhaustion, silent but solid, as if holding it all together could prevent everything else from falling apart. She has no room for dreams or dramas, not in the way others did. Survival, for Lin, was both the burden and the victory.

They would meet through Google call, on the edge of a rainy evening, the kind that caught the late sun but avoided the crowds. Lila leaned back, a paper cup of chocolate warming her hands, while Lin nommed a bottle of chips she was not really intended to eat.

“You ever feel like... the world’s already full of things that are out of place?” Lila asked curiously, not looking at her.

Lin glanced up, “All the time.”

“I think I spent most of my life carrying other people’s anger,” Lila continued. “Things they did not want to deal with themselves, so they passed it on to me. And I held it like it was mine.”

Lin nodded, as if she understood exactly. “Same. I got tired of that. Tired of trying to fix things I did not even break.”

They sat for a moment in silence, listening to the pouring rain. Just a little background noise.

“That’s why I’m trying,” Lila said. “To just... make peace with it. With myself.”

“Me too,” Lin said. “We made that promise, remember? To stop fighting ourselves all the time.”

Lila raised her eyebrows faintly. “I remember. It’s hard, though. Some days I forget.”

“Then we remind each other,” Lin said simply.

There was another delay before Lila spoke again, this time more interested than sad.

“You know something you said the other day really stuck with me,” She said. “About Buddhism.”

“What part?”

“That there is no heaven or hell. No grand judgment waiting for us. Just the hope that we don’t come back again.”

Lin’s mouth tilted into a half-smile. “Yeah. It’s like a candle. Once it’s burned out, that’s it. You’re not going to be reborn. Us, don’t want to. You just want to be done.”

She shifted to get closer to her laptop’s camera. “And the only thing that matters is if you gave light while you were here,” She stated. “If you were useful, you lit the way for someone else.”

“Exactly,” Lila said. “That’s the only thing that stays. Not the pain, not the past. Just the light.”

Lila looked over, her eyes tender.

“That’s what I want to be, Lin. Not perfect. Not even happy. Just a light.”

Lin nodded, and held a nonexistent cup in a mock toast. “Then, let’s burn well.”

Lila clinked her cup to the screen. “Together.”

The latest message has a huge gap to the previous one, and Lila’s mother finds that perplexing. For two friends who had a record of late-night talkings and intensive chatter throughout the years, there might have been something that caused the sudden stop.

After many scrollings, she obtains the fact that Lin has finally gone for a monastic life to Wat Pah Nanachat, a forest monastery, that was famous for its remote, stricter, traditional way of worship for good. She has always been a committed Buddhist, and finally decided to undergo the process of becoming a nun.

“Hi, Lil. It’s been a while. I got to have short access to my mobile for a while and was meaning to catch up with you.

It’s sad that I won’t be using phones again once the ceremonies are settled, but everything went well for me. So far.

Thank you, anyway, for your company during my application back then. You have always cheered for me to walk this path, and your consideration in taking many things in your life inspire me to go after mine, too.

I will be initiating the formation stage very soon. It allows me to live at the monastery as a guest, so I can have a glimpse of real experience from the community and their daily routines. If I learn well enough about the traditions and spiritual practices, I will step further into monastic life and they will take my temporary vows. Well, not to get too theoretical, but at last, we will see for the final profession and if I am allowed for further discernment. 

Good news is, the place has an occasional schedule to welcome outside people to experience Buddhism, so maybe we can meet somewhere, sometimes. You can see my bald head and saffron robe! Haha.

Anyway, what about things going on in your end? Have you talked a lot more with your parents and pals there?

I know how it’s hard to have someone who’s not finished with his past, and a bystander who doesn’t serve justice. But, you know, I always told you it was okay to start over. Right?

I just want to say again that you are a good friend to me, and a good person. But always choose yourself first, and then choose who chooses you. The stars will align consequently, and the universe will offer you kindness in time.

Miss you. See you somehow!”

 

Throwback to when Lila first met Lin in person. It felt like breaking the fourth wall of life itself. After years of only orbiting each other through glowing screens and stilted time zones, they finally stepped out from behind the digital curtain. It was strange how quickly they slipped into the rhythm of real-life conversation, as if the long silence between typed messages had simply been paused in the same breath.

Lila had turned to Lin unprompted as they waited for their table at a small restaurant. The clatter of plates and low hum of other people’s joy framed her voice.

“Lin,” She said, without irony or drama, “do you think something is really wrong with how the world works, or am I just a very miserable person?”

Lin was half-amused, half-knowing. “That’s a good question," She replied. “I guess we could spend our lives furious if we only focused on how awful things are. But it will not get us very far.”

That was what Lila liked about her. Lin did not dismiss the weight of a question, but she did not drown in it either. Their trip was not meant to spiral into existential discourse actually. They were supposed to see each other, really see each other, in the flesh and motion of the daytime and moonlight. Laugh. Eat gelato. Get sunburned. Escape for a while.

They had made a plan. Italian food first, then gelato. For Lin’s favorites, and yet somehow the heart always found its way into the conversation.

“What always upsets you, Lil?” Lin asked as they sat down with their pasta. “The climate? Politics? Or just… being you?” Her tone was playful, but not unserious.

Lila laughed, one of those rare, unguarded laughs that came from deep in her chest.

“Tricky one! At some point, anger becomes part of my reality. It drives me to challenge things, but then, I spiral back to the same place. Like, what if I am the problem? What if I’m just projecting it all outward instead of facing what’s within?”

Lin leaned back in her seat, blowing lightly to have a bite of croquette before replying.

“Well, at least you’re not the only one surrounded by fools. We’re all dodging insults from the universe.”

They shared joyousness, the kind that acknowledged both the absurdity and the tragedy of being alive.

The next day was Lila’s turn to plan. Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo in the morning, Chinese food for lunch. But even between the elephant enclosures and the steam rising from bamboo baskets of wontons, their conversation never really left the realm of life’s larger questions.

“Have you ever heard of Stoicism?” Lin asked, picking at her rice.

Lila looked up from her plate, “You’re really going there? During lunch?”

“I’m just saying,” Lin grinned, “it’s a philosophy that helped people survive the worst times. We’re talking Ancient Romans with real disasters.”

Lin started to get theatrical despite the hot temperature. The electric fan was her only backsound.

“Empires crumble, people starve. And yet they managed to come up with a worldview that made sense of it all. It's useful for daily life too. Like emotional armor.”

Lila raised an eyebrow, “So we’re talking about being philosophical on purpose now?”

“Exactly,” Lin said, her tone serious. “Think about it. The ocean pounds the shore every single day. But the rocks do not flinch. They let the waves break and keep standing. That’s what Stoicism is. You don’t pretend the sea is not violent. You just choose not to let it move you.”

Lila’s expression softened. She rested her chin in her hand and stared across the table at Lin, admiration flickering behind her eyes.

“That’s actually... beautiful, Lin.”

“Right?” Lin smiled. “Life is already full of onslaughts. We might as well learn how not to be undone by them.”

Lila nodded, slowly, “Maybe we can’t change fate, or dodge the pain. But we can change how we meet it, with our attitude and managed expectations. That’s a kind of freedom.”

“Exactly,” Lin said. “It’s never about avoiding the storm, Lil. It’s about learning how to endure it without losing yourself.”

There was a stillness between them then, something grounding. They were not just two people on vacation anymore. They were mirrors, reflecting back a deeper understanding of each other. Sitting at a plastic table in a modest café, they found something sacred in the mundane.

With Lin, even small pleasures expanded. Waiting in line for tickets, admiring how the room lights danced across shop windows. These things felt more alive, more consequential. The world did not shrink from Lin's presence. It went deeper. Ordinary moments became footholds against the chaos.

Lila had always feared that her life was slowly becoming numb to simplicity, dulled by the weight of the relentlessness of adulthood. But with Lin, things meant more, not less. The happiness was fuller, the commonness more generous.

People came and went. So did distractions, tasks, and deadlines. But not everyone stayed long enough to change the climate of your inner world. Lin had. And in a life full of static noise, that clarity mattered more than spectacle.

Lila had found her kind of people. And maybe, for a brief moment in her life, she had found herself too.

Lila’s mother believes that, whatever reason the relationship between the two continues to blossom, is something to be cherished. They found solace and growth in each other, and that is the most important thing.

She agrees that, maybe, Lila cannot be as raw and vulnerable as she has been with her friends because the chance was not available in the family at all. It is not a reckless conclusion, or enabling dissidence. Rather, she wills to understand as she had never been when Lila was there. However Lila did things until now could still go sideways, flipping upside down unruly, way worse than it already is. So she is ready and embracing the prevailing truth to her arms as if she gives Lila one last hug to rest easy.

She chooses to focus on Lila’s character. Every single person she met outside highlights how Lila is an agent of kindness. To general standards of people and human beings, she is a good kid. How can she blame her for any reasons Lila did not talk to her about, when she realizes Lila has already done what she could to be at the level of what her parents want?

At least that she can hope, if as a mother she had not been there long enough to watch for Lila, there were people who witnessed Lila’s smile, and Lila was even the reason for everybody else's happiness in return. Lila had a lovely relationship with people. She learned to find peace and acceptance from them. She created a life that she was proud of living thanks to her maturity. 

Lila always had the dilemma in her to be known, but remained mysterious. She projected a way in protecting her image and peace by going all out in social media, posting pictures, tweeting feelings, and then removed herself from existence by shutting down the notifications. She would stay away as long as she could, even after a session of only minutes online. The thoughts of how many likes she got, or how her followers would react or jump in to her opinions, scared her. 

She enjoyed her solitude, but wanted to be together with people. It must have been nice to have someone, she thought to herself. In contrast, she could not think of a single person to share her good news with.

She thought it was too much of her to want to be famous for her fight, but when someone mentioned her struggle, she would rather stay unknown. It was a constant hide-and-seek for her to truly acknowledge her need, of having somewhere she called a home. A place she would look forward to going back to. Yet, she strived to become a wanderer, exploring all the open windows to open when the air was too heavy for her to breathe. Most of the time, Lila felt like her bold boiling, and her bones scratching out of her skin, crawling to get out and live the life she believed she was rightful to have. 

On a short date with a guy friend from college, Lila found herself talking about what it meant to grow up an only child. She spoke carelessly at first, almost playfully, about the little tricks she used to carve out slivers of selfishness, just enough to feel like she was allowed to take up space, like everyone else.

What surprised her was his response. If he ever had a daughter, he said, jokingly but far too proud, he would not let her go out on her own at all. “She would be safer that way," He added, as though safety was synonymous with control. Lila did not push back. She just noted the comment, and filed it away like she did with so many other disappointments.

Still, she left an impression on him. He later thanked her for being struck by how precisely she managed her finances. Lila never thought of it as remarkable. It was merely how she survived. If she had not developed the instinct to stretch every dollar, to save for tuition, for emergencies and for her parents, she would not have been able to function. Budgeting was not a skill for her. It was her necessity. A meticulous calculation she did each day so everything could keep running without relying on anyone else.

No one ever really knew the life Lila was funding behind the scenes. No one asked what kind of invisible weight she carried, or how many versions of herself she had to support just to stay alive.

Amidst all of the people, Lila still felt homesick in the crowd. She built companions, but nothing or no one had ever come close to the idea of connections. She was not even sure that she existed in the place she was at that time. Sometimes, she thought that her heart was full, and people finally could put an effort to like her. But the other times, her surroundings never really understood her, nor did she want them to get her after all. 

Lila was an enigma. A paradox. She deserved happiness. She screamed for a feeling where she felt at ease, but her mind kept on repeating the scenes where she was hurt. She had visions, but everyone and everything that had happened in her life wore her out. She did not like the way she was, but she loved who she was. She always appreciated enough attention, but when her personal space was broken, she rejected intimacy. 

She was a conflicted contradiction, that she herself still could not figure out about. So would not anyone else.

How Lila perceived herself from her point of view jumbled with other peoples’ eyes. It was always nice to hear everyone calling her pretty and smart, but she would like to achieve the rareness. She would like to be remembered as someone who was content and present.

She was always compassionate, but she did not know if it made people really fine, or just to make her better. She just helped to make her feel better, maybe. Or since Lila knew how it was to be in need, she put everything by sacrificing her sanity. She went for miles, for sure, and high and beyond. She tried becoming someone beneficial and indispensable for others because that was the only way she knew that people would do the same for her.

That’s the piece that Lila is willing to hand to other people. Even though it's never a complete puzzle itself in the first place.