It remains one of the greatest mysteries of human existence, how a soul comes to be brought into the world.

No one remembers the moment they entered life, nor were they consulted in advance. Most people agree on one universal truth. No one chooses the family they are born into. And if that’s so, it follows that everyone ought to treat one another with more compassion. Every person is a stranger to this place at first, thrust into a set of circumstances they never selected. No one enters life with memories of past existences, nor with a blueprint for what happiness should look like. Life is, for all its pain and wonder, a first attempt. Every success and failure, every stumble and breakthrough, is simply a part of the trial.

Each person carries silent battles. Some visible, some others are buried deep within the folds of their private world, shaped by the environment they were raised in. But if no one had a say in their origin, then what right does anyone have to pass judgment?

No child selects the emotional climate of their household, the beliefs whispered through its walls, or the ghosts it has yet to exorcise. In that randomness lies a strange kind of equality. It is a gamble everyone took, or perhaps was forced to take. Thus, envy loses its foundation. No one has truly earned the place they began from. It was all drawn from the same spinning wheel.

And yet, some propose an alternative theory. One far more surreal, but no less compelling. This idea suggests that birth is not an accident at all, but a choice, made before memory begins, in a realm that sits opposite the afterlife. In that pre-existence, before the first breath is drawn, souls gather like stars waiting their turn to fall.

There, in celestial council, the Gods or benevolent beings of light may have offered each soul a glimpse, scenes from the life they were about to enter. Perhaps only the best moments were shown: the laughter, the beauty of a dawn sky, the warmth of love in unexpected places. Maybe that alone was enough to tempt them. Or perhaps, they saw it all already. The cuts on their fingers, the heartbreak, the unbearable losses. And yet, they still chose to go. To leave a heaven of limitlessness for the chance at something fragile, but finite.

Still, the idea haunts. What could have made a soul give up paradise? What did they see that convinced them life on Earth was worth the price of suffering?

In this view of natality, the right to regret one's own birth becomes not only understandable, but valid. If a person knowingly agrees to descend from perfection into pain, then the resentment they feel later is merely the echo of a promise that life failed to keep. They may ask about what made them choose this life, these people, or this struggle? What moment in the womb of time led them here, and why does it feel like a mistake?

For Lila, these questions linger without urgency.

She has made peace, at least for now, with the not-knowing. Perhaps, she thinks, God simply placed her with her family, no questions asked. Or perhaps she did choose them out of love and sympathy. Her parents, having waited long and aged slowly without a child, may have stirred something in her spirit. Maybe she felt needed. She does not dwell on what her life could have been, nor does she weigh it constantly against the concept of happiness. Sometimes, things simply are, and she allows them to be.

Yet, during darker times, when everything feels like too much, Lila dreams of other beginnings. Of being born into a different story, and of not being born at all. She wonders if there was another version of her, one who made different decisions before the descent, one who lived a better life. Or perhaps, this is already the brighter one. Maybe her previous self begged for this chance, this very life, believing it would be worth it, even if only to try again. The irony still stings. What if this was always the second chance?

The themes of birth, suffering, life, and death circle endlessly in Lila’s mind like constellations that never quite align. And though the answers elude her, she keeps going. Perhaps that is enough. In the end, someone, something, trusted her with this miracle. And she is still trying to honor it.

*

Whenever something in life went wrong with an emotional collapse, a failed attempt, a sharp moment of cruelty she did not recognize as herself, Lila would reach backwards, as though her memory were a map to some hidden origin. She searched the past not for comfort, but for cause. If she was, by some measure, becoming unkind, bitter, or broken, then surely there had to be something in the foundation that explained it. She could not accept that failure or emotional ruin had bloomed solely from her own doing. There must have been a starting point. A crack in the ground that led her to fall through.

And often, her mind would wander back to a seemingly small, but quietly seismic moment. One that might not register as trauma to most, but had carved something irreversible in her.

Lila had been young then. Young enough to be guided, old enough to observe. She remembered standing in the living room of their small house on a bright morning, dressed and ready for a company outing hosted by the local bank where her mother worked. These were regular events that were mildly festive, mildly formal. Employees were encouraged to bring their spouses, partner, parents, and children. It was a display of unity, of prosperity, of families standing as extensions of the company’s success.

Lila’s mother, meticulous and image-conscious, paused to assess her husband’s choice of clothes. A navy, worn out t-shirt, paired with loose army training pants. She made a comment, brief but sharp, about how tacky he looked. She was not even yelling. It was casual, just a passing critique. But Lila saw it happen. The moment her father’s pride deflated. Her father did not shout back, either. He did not protest. He simply turned away from the window where he had been standing. His face was unreadable, his silence was deliberate. He did not look like he planned to come along anymore.

Her mother coaxed him, lightly at first, then with growing irritation. But he refused to turn around. He stood like a monument of stubborn silence, his back facing Lila and her mother at the threshold. Lila, despite having the ability to speak at that age, said nothing. She felt it in the air. A shift, a small breaking. She did not yet understand how damaging words could be when they cut someone down in front of others, how dignity can fold in on itself when a man feels dismissed inside his own home. She did not have the tools to fix what was lost in translation that day.

From that moment on, something in the family dynamic became skewed. Her father, once mildly reclusive, began withdrawing more obviously. He was a homebody, yes, but only when it came to time with them. Strangely, he could still spend hours at the tennis court with colleagues, disappear for long evenings, engage in boisterous conversations with friends. But at home, he seemed to unravel into something unmotivated and brittle.

One night, Lila recalled waking to a soft, eerie crackling sound. The electricity had gone out, and the only source of light came from a candle slowly drowning in its own melted wax. Her mother was there, putting on an all-nighter just because no adult was present at that place. Lila’s father was not. He had gone out without explanation, returned after midnight, wordless, and headed straight to bed as though his absence needed no justification.

Over the years, holidays became rituals of absence, too.

When other families visited relatives, celebrated sacred days with warmth and extended kin, her father often refused to go. He would say it felt wrong to leave the house during prayer times, or that such outings wasted time and drained energy. But inside the house, he contributed little. He would sit alone, absorbed in his phone or reciting endless prayers as if trying to win a private contest with God.

Lila began to wonder. If true devotion to God required building good relationships with fellow humans, how could he believe his practice was enough?

She began to see it as fear, masked as righteousness. Her father disliked being in situations where others might outshine him. He was not the smartest in the room, nor the most articulate, most importantly, not the most successful. His rejection of social gatherings was not spiritual. Lila felt certain of that, that it was defensive. A refusal to be outdone. At home, he could posture as the dominant one, the moral compass, the final word. But beyond those walls, he was just a quiet, aging man who did not know how to cope with a world that moved too fast for him.

In time, the outings that were meant to be for families were only attended by Lila and her mother. Her father’s absence became an understood habit. There was no drama to it, no apology. Just the same silent retreat, time after time, until it no longer felt like a choice, but a fact of life.

Lila did not blame him, not entirely. But she carried these fragments like pieces of a larger puzzle, trying to form a picture of why certain parts of her life turned jagged. When she felt ugly or harsh inside, she would ask herself, “Did it start that day?”

Their house was always quiet, and pride turned into a wound.

She still did not have the answer. But the loop of memory kept playing, like an old tape she could not quite turn off. And in that repetition, she searched for the justification she was not sure she needed, but could not stop needing anyway. But, could it also be the way her mother spoke, that was so out of this world, that drifted their family apart?

One time, while working on a math assignment, Lila was scolded. Not for getting the answer wrong, but for how she wrote the question, the equation, and the final answer on the page. Her handwriting, her layout, the visual presentation of her work, it was all, apparently, unacceptable. Not by any academic standard, but by one her mother had set, one rooted in image and discipline, not learning.

Her mother, a woman who had always taken pride in her academic achievements, her spotless employee record, and her rise from poverty to becoming a provider, had unknowingly constructed a rigid and often unrealistic standard. A standard that was, in truth, very complicated for anyone to follow, even her own daughter.

If she was overwhelmed with work or house chores, Lila’s mother would have barely paid attention to what her child was doing, even if it was school-related. But the moment Lila took a break, just laying down to rest her tired eyes or watching cartoons for a few minutes, she was met with yelling. Accusations of laziness. Indifference. Lack of ambition. Her mother would berate her for not caring enough, for not writing neatly enough, even if it was just math scrap paper. She said it would be embarrassing if anyone saw such messy work, as though perfection was always expected, even in private.

In many ways, her mother had achieved what others only dreamed of. The house, the car, the bulk of their family’s possessions. All were bought under her name, paid for through years of discipline and service at the bank.

While Lila’s father worked as a nurse in various small clinics, pharmacies and hospitals, it was Lila’s mother who could cover large expenses upfront. She was the one who showed up for Lila’s school performances, report card days, and drama recitals. And yet, her success as a daughter from a poor background transformed into a sense of control. A belief that, because she paid for everything, she had the right to dictate everything.

Was that all?

Could these small, scattered moments really explain the brokenness Lila now felt? The sense of incompleteness, the persistent self-doubt, the feeling of being somehow fundamentally wrong as a person?

The more Lila thought about it, the more it hurt. Because to uncover the root of her pain, she had to reopen wounds she had long tried to numb with distraction rather than healing. Yet sometimes, there was a strange comfort in the realization that people, especially parents, make mistakes, too. Maybe she was not the only one who had failed to live up to expectations. Maybe, just maybe, it was not all her fault.

She even felt a kind of quiet triumph when she noticed her ability to empathize, to see things from someone else’s point of view, even when others could not do the same for her. Perhaps that came with growing up. Perhaps it was the slow maturity of someone who had spent years being misunderstood and decided not to pass that pain forward.

Over time, as Lila reached adulthood, she noticed something else. Her parents’ power to correct, to criticize and to control, had faded. Whether from age or exhaustion, they no longer had the same energy to nitpick. But Lila, ever observant, realized something even deeper. They had not stopped because she had become the perfect daughter. They had stopped because they no longer had the strength to push their dreams onto her.

She remembered something her biology teacher once said, that human life follows a cycle, a curve that bends backward in the end.

We begin as infants. Small, innocent, dependent. We surge into adolescence and adulthood full of energy, emotions, desires. We reach the peak with the earning, achieving, and building. And then, in old age, we return to a childlike state. We become forgetful, needy, in search of attention and care. The body slows down, the mind drifts, the ego softens or hardens in desperation.

Are my parents like that now? Lila pondered.

When she was young and her parents were at their peak, strong, capable, financially secure, they expected her to match their strength, to move at their pace. They made little room for her needs, her growth, her confusion. Now that she had grown into a woman with thoughts of her own, and they were aging, the power had shifted. The time was hers now. And they responded not with peace, but with complaints. With longing. With a sort of helplessness disguised as disapproval.

It was not that Lila had finally lived up to their expectations. They had simply run out of force to impose them. What remained was not pride, but a reluctant tolerance. An acceptance that was born not of admiration, but fatigue. So when her father whispered, “I’m proud of you,” or her mother muttered, “You are a blessing,” the words rang hollow. They were too late and thin. Not rooted in true recognition, but in surrender.

Lila did not want to be praised as a product of success. She wanted to be seen as capable, thoughtful, as her own person. She wanted to be understood not as a reflection of her parents’ sacrifices, but as someone worthy in her own right. Someone who, like them once, was simply trying to figure it all out.

After all, her parents were once young. They had been teenagers, and had stood in the middle of their twenties and thirties with questions and contradictions of their own. So why had they forgotten what it was like? Why did they treat her like a wild thing to be tamed, rather than a soul slowly forming, like a diamond from pressure, not from punishment?

Was it truly necessary to tame her so harshly just to help her shine?

Another early memory from Lila’s childhood had always lingered in the corners of her mind, tender and awkward, like a bruise that never quite healed.

It was a rare school event that, for once, included both of her parents. The occasion was a community walk, organized to celebrate the school’s anniversary. Families were invited, alongside siblings, parents, anyone close. The students were to walk around the neighborhood, dressed casually, celebrating not just the school, but the small world they were growing up in.

This time, her father came along.

It was unusual, even slightly exciting, to see her, her mother, and her father together. A complete unit for once. But rather than joy, Lila felt an odd sense of discomfort stirring inside her. As they walked, she became visibly timid around her classmates. She laughed more softly, kept her hands to herself, avoided too much interaction, especially if her parents were within earshot.

Eventually, her father noticed.

"Why are you acting so awkwardly?" He asked, his voice half-curious, half-accusing. "Are you embarrassed to be seen with us?"

Lila did not respond.

She kept her eyes on the pavement, quiet. Not because she did not want to speak, but because anything she said felt like it could backfire. She knew this kind of moment too well. The question was not truly a question. It was a test.

Her mother chimed in, only making it worse. “Can’t you be more like your friends? Look how close they are with their parents.”

Then her father again, a little sharper this time. “Show us some respect, Lil. It’s not like we’re criminals or thieves, something for you to be ashamed of. If it makes you more comfortable, then fine. Go ahead, go play with your friends instead.”

So Lila did. She drifted toward the other children and let herself be pulled into the consolation of laughter and silly jokes. Things that did not carry weight or require explanation.

What her parents did not understand, or never had, was that this awkwardness was not rooted in shame. It was the product of long-standing distance, of rarely doing things together, of not knowing how to be a family outside the closed and structured walls of home.

Lila had spent most of her childhood going to events with only her mother. Her father was usually absent, physically and emotionally. So when he suddenly was there, standing beside them in a space that demanded warmth and unity, it felt like stepping into someone else’s story. She was not embarrassed by their presence. She was startled by it.

Because for years, it had only been her and her mother at every school gala, every parents’ meeting, every classroom celebration. Her father had never seemed to like those settings. He rarely came, and if he did, he looked out of place, as though enduring something he had not signed up for. And now here they were. Her mother played the role of the supportive wife, defending him in front of others, when Lila could still recall the old arguments, the condescension, the way she used to cut him down at home. The sudden show of unity did not feel right. It felt like theater.

Lila wanted to feel what other children felt of the simple, untroubled joy of walking beside their parents without overthinking every word, every gesture. She wanted to belong in her own family the way her friends did. To be held, introduced, and celebrated as someone her parents were proud to call their daughter. Not because of what she achieved or how well she behaved, but simply because she was theirs.

She wanted to be someone her parents hugged openly in public, regardless of her math scores, her job title, or whether she was doing something productive that day. She wanted to be their daughter in the truest sense in being seen, loved, and accepted as she was. And just as she longed, she wished they, too, would want to be accepted by her. Not for the parts they played, but for who they really were, who are aging, flawed, sometimes harsh, but most of the times funnily kind. She never asked for perfect parents. She just wanted real ones.

Lila could only imagine. Was it really necessary to act like a perfect family, when the cracks were always so visible?

In the end, she did not need a performance. She did not need them to show up as a polished version of themselves just for others to see. All she had ever wanted was for them to meet her where she was, to sit with her honestly in the space between expectation and reality, and say, “We love you. Just as you are. And we’re here not to judge you or fix you, but to know you.”

That would have been enough.

Lives are intricately woven tapestries, with threads reaching back into the earliest moments of an existence. For many, the initial years are not a carefree idyll but a crucible, shaping the very core of who someone becomes. This is particularly true for those who, through no fault of their own, experienced significant childhood trauma. Such experiences range from overt abuse and neglect to more subtle, yet equally pervasive, forms of emotional deprivation or the constant anxiety of living in a volatile home.

The impact of these early experiences for Lila is profound.

It is not just about how she perceived and dealt with specific events, but how she wrapped her head around the perception of herselves, and her place in the world.

Imagine growing up with a persistent, nagging feeling of being not good enough. This sense of inadequacy had become her companion, whispering doubts and undermining her poise in every new endeavor. It had not always been a conscious thought. Often, it manifested as an instinctual avoidance of challenges, and a reluctance to fully commit.

This feeling is not born in a vacuum. It stemmed from her childhood where, most likely, her efforts were met with criticism rather than encouragement, where her burgeoning identities were stifled, or where she learned that expressing vulnerability led to pain rather than consolation.

She implicitly might have absorbed the anxieties of her caregivers, or simply been brought into circumstances where their own unresolved traumas casted long shadows over her development. It is a bitter irony that sometimes, the very people meant to nourish her, unknowingly inflict some of the deepest torture. She looked unfazed by cruelty at first, that people would mistake it for being composed and content.

The original unfulfilling bond with the parents, who should have been the ones warning her from a future turmoil, instead imposed a compelling magnet for her to recreate the feature in her life. The sadness echoed, not circumscribed to place and time, but indeed gravitated her to a dimly familiar form of a situation that mirrored their earlier screwup. For Lila, she always sought a sense of home, only, home was a place of persecution and grief.

As a result, children, who were supposed to run a quest to untangle the world, can’t think straight especially, as they were forced into being radically detached from being dynamic. They are bound to be at the mercy of others. What has to be done above all is conform. 

Lila also learned to put up with poor treatment in practice. She over-explained when not needed, she asked for testimonies of her, she challenged any judgements with the others’ incapacity in putting the same dedication like how she was expected.

It is all natural to explore cause and effect in life. There are a lot of “why”s being asked.

Why is the sky blue? Why do birds chirp? But, what happens when the fundamental "why" questions about their aching and doubts go unanswered?

Why was I mocked for being sensitive over a sad book? Why did my parents fight so much? Why did I feel so alone, even in a crowded room? Lila urged.

When these crucial questions are met with evasion, the child is left to construct their own answers. And often, these self-made explanations are far more damaging than the truth itself.

In the absence of a clear, genuine explanation, a child's mind, seeking to make sense of inexplicable suffering, will often default to self-blame. "It must be me," Lila’s own unspoken conclusion became.

"I must be bad, or unlovable, because if I wasn't, then these terrible things would not be happening."

The insidious self-blame is not a fleeting thought. It solidified into her core belief, an internal operating system that dictated  how she interacted with the world for her whole life.

The self-attribution of blame was not a conscious choice either, but a desperate attempt by Lila’s mind to exert some form of authority over an otherwise frightening reality. If she could find the reasoning, even a false one, for her suffering, then probably, she could change it. This led to a life where she constantly strived to be good enough, often sacrificing her own needs in the process. She became adept at anticipating others' desires, and at suppressing her true selves at the same time, all in a desperate bid to feel okay. She got used to being under an overworked command to not notice that parts of her were being robbed. The parts that count, anyway.

Of course, it was never right to have a father who constantly pressured, although they shared a similar level of valuing people. Ideally, the mother should’ve not been so mocking and regulative, but it seemed to her it was just the way things are, more or less because it was raining so the laundries were not dried up in time, or there were a lot of errands to do. Her father was not mean, just tired. And her mother was adorable, just sometimes under pressure.

In the end, the malevolence had to do with something she did not do well, almost certainly. Had it not been that, she would not have this nasty thought of generously thinking of her parents, they who injured her. She started to rationalize things, too, that it might have been the parents not knowing things, so she was declared a fool, or was getting bullied. It was easier to believe that the fundamental deal of it all was her being gratuitous and hostile.

What this means when she reached adulthood, is that she carried these unresolved burdens into her relationships, careers, and fundamental sense of self-worth. She might find herselves perpetually seeking approval, constantly striving for perfection, or unconsciously sabotaging her own win out of a deeply ingrained belief that she did not deserve it. She struggled with intimacy and trust, from something that she could not quite pinpoint.

Lila finally took the first crucial step towards healing, lying in revisiting these fundamental "why" questions from a place of adult benevolence.

This is not about blaming her parents or sticking to the past in a resentful way. It is about recognizing the patterns, understanding the origins of her deeply held beliefs, and offering herselves the empathy she never received as a kid. Her tolerance was a blessing. It helped her survive and served a sensible purpose for not being a liability and ruined her life then.

It is about gently peeling back the layers of self-blame to reveal the affected person underneath, who, in her vulnerability, simply tried to make sense of a massive world. It is about saying to that inner child, "It wasn't your fault. You did the best you could with the understanding you had."

The act of self-solicitude is revolutionary. It breaks the cycle of self-criticism and opens the door to genuine healing. Just like when a friend asked for advice about a situation that she had been in. She would use a more objective lens to determine what they were facing, and consider if a verdict was only of someone else had made.

This requires courage, for it means confronting uncomfortable truths and revisiting painful memories. But in doing so, she began to dismantle the internal structures built on misinterpretations. She began to see that her past does not define her present all along. It merely provides context. And with it, she gained the capacity again to rewrite her personal narratives, reclaim her value, and to step into a future unburdened by the echoes of childhood. It is her journey of liberation, and ultimately, a journey towards a life lived authentically and with tenderness.

Lila’s greatest aspiration was never graduating with flying colors, finishing tasks by deadlines. It was choosing life over again, and knowing that she had already won every time she did not give up.

Another bewildering experience of the human condition is the feeling of a missing self, a pervasive sense that something fundamental within someone is absent or incomplete.

It is a subtle ache, an underlying restlessness that can push through a life in an unwitting search for something one can not quite name. Wandering through hills and grounds, yet the core part remains elusive, just beyond the grasp. This sensation took place from Lila’s childhood where the swelling identity was not fully seen, or allowed to flourish.

It was never the question of, “What do I like?”. Instead, she was programmed to be more curious about “What should I like?”. Not “What I think is funny?”, but “Why do I find this funny?”, or “Can I laugh over this?”

Sometimes, she would watch and like a movie genre over the others, and then she would arbitrarily shift her preference into anything else. Same for her love of this athlete, and certain political takes. She was not trying to absorb it all. She tried to get a grip from being terrified of what she really liked, they should not be, and how right were they for her to think about from the beginning.

Her natural inclinations were deemed frivolous. She learned, perhaps unconsciously, to suppress herself and emotions, believing that acceptance is contingent for not being ridiculed by others. Her parents could not attune to her as a kid, so she could not attune to herself.

In such environments, her natural curiosity about her own nascent identity was stifled. She was taught, directly or indirectly, that her true self, with all its peculiarities, was somehow too much. The pursuit of the predetermined agenda led her to construct a persona, a carefully curated version of herself designed to elicit positive responses. This eventually became her primary mode of operation, a survival mechanism that, while initially protective, ultimately estranged her from her own essence.

These foundational experiences create a deep-seated tendency to seek agreement from the others, even when it is the inner self to assess. If the internal compass for self-approval is never properly developed, then one becomes reliant on the reactions of others to tell us who they are. They become people-pleasers, constantly adjusting the behavior to fit the perceived desires of those around them. Or, they might become overly result-oriented, believing that a string of successes will finally fill that internal void.

The problem, of course, is that the crowd is a fickle mistress. It can be exhilarating in the moment, but its effects are fleeting. No matter how many accolades she accumulated, or how much admiration she got, the emptiness within persists. It is like trying to quench a thirst with salt water. The more consumed, the thirstier. Lila was always searching for the next affirmation, trapped in a cycle where the self-love was constantly held hostage.

This pursuit often leads to choices that are not aligned with the deepest and realest selves. Professions that offer prestige but no passion, or being engaged in something that provides security but no genuine connection. She had spent her life chasing an image, a reputation, or becoming a materialist, believing that these markers from the outside world will finally bring a sense of completion. Yet, the missing self remained, a quiet sentinel observing her frantic efforts.

The most poignant aspect of this experience is the unseen beauty that remains locked within.

Lila, as an individual who felt this missing self, was, in fact, incredibly empathetic. She inhabited unique perspectives, and her inherent kindness had been prolific. But because these qualities were not recognized or valued in her formative years, they remained hidden, even from herself.

But way before that, when she lost herself, she still pointed her finger to anyone she deemed responsible for her downfall. She just knew that she was being prevented from manufacturing the best version of herself because it was the others stifling her. She scorned being overpowered, when instead what she meant was, “I could not draw the line between being praised and being controlled because my parents were more interested in the latter.”

Life was like dropping a stone. As for Lila, she just did not know enough what her instinct was and who she should trust for it.

Consequently, she shied away from expressing these parts of herself, fearing disdain. The world missed out on the richness and depth that her hidden aspects could bring. It was a tragic loss, not just for the individual, but for humanity as a whole. Her journey to finally reclaim the missing self is a powerful one, often sparked by a moment of euphoria. It began with introspection, a gentle turning inward to ask, "Who am I, beyond the roles I play and the expectations I fulfill?"

As goes the courage blooming against the protective walls she had built, to revisit the moments to acknowledge that there never was a need to foist yet another set of views on her. This was not about blame, but about understanding. It was about recognizing that the people who failed to see her were often operating from their own unresolved wounds, unable to give what they themselves did not receive.

The real problem had been she was raised by parents who were just surviving themselves, so she was familiar with only survival, not life. Her parents did not sit with her to calm her down when she cried, or even explain how to work on a tax slip, and how to walk away from a relationship that hurt. She had no clue of what an emotional safety looked and felt like, so she redeemed her feelings, hustled harder.

She once at a moment, a phase, where living was done on an autopilot. Spiraling in job descriptions, portraying burnout for durability, and calling depression a personality. Lost, crippled, Lila always ratioed why she was broken, when in reality, she was just not built to have the basics of being whole.

Against all odds, her self-discovery was a deliberate exploration of her inner landscape. It was about developing an inner compass, a sense of stability that was independent and unbiased. When she began to truly know herself properly, the elusive self emerged, not as something found, but as something remembered, a fundamental part of her that was always there.

Lila moved from living a life dictated by a script to one guided by her souls by doing this. She cultivated a curiosity, enthusiastic about who she was at her core, and how she could contribute her gifts to the world. It was often a messy, but ultimately freeing process. For in making peace with her past, she welcomed her own demand to rewrite her future, finally living a life where the missing self was no longer missing, but present, vibrant, and fully alive.

*

The neighborhood is foreign. A bit too narrow, a bit too chaotic for her taste. Lila’s mother hesitated in front of the half-rusted gate, painted in a shade of black and gold that had long surrendered to dust and time. It does not look like a place a daughter of hers would stay. Not for long, not on purpose.

But the landlord confirms. The name on the rent slips matches. Every payment has been timely, even early.

"Such a quiet girl," She says. "Kept to herself, but decent and always said thank you."

When Lila’s mother finally steps inside, the room makes her unsettled. Not because it was dirty, but because it was so modest. Just a bit smaller than Lila’s room at home, but so much warmer with intention. Roughly three by five meters, though the comparison ended there.

She gets in like she is stepping into someone else's memory. A life that had bloomed in secret.

The air smells faintly of soap, jasmine maybe, and something else. Her daughter's perfume, the one she had never seen her wear.

Where her room at home had the stale of being owned by Lila’s mother, this space feels like a temporary refuge in every sense of the word: dim, hot and barely ventilated. The windows are old and smudged, their wooden frames softened by time and weather, barely sealing in the neighbor’s noise. The door creaks when opened, and the lock gives just enough resistance to remind her how little separated her from the world outside.

It has its own bathroom, technically a luxury, but in reality, it is just a cubicle. The water that sputters from the faucet runs cloudy at first, needing a few seconds to clear. A plastic hanger swings from a rusty hook above the toilet, and a narrow ledge is crammed with her some soap and camphors. Everything is functional, nothing feels clean.

Her bed is a narrow single, the metal frame groaning at every turn. One pillow, one bolster. The bedsheet clings loosely to the mattress, patterned in oversized florals that looked like something repurposed from a discount store, its fabric slightly rough against her skin. Tacky, perhaps, but it was hers. At home, Lila would prefer plain fuchsia silky sheets. At this place, maybe she wanted to go for something merry to accompany her and light up the room.

She looks around. The laundry rack by the window, still holding a few pajamas Lila brought from home that are clean, hung with pride and know no sin. A calendar on the wall, marked with deadlines and quotes about bravery. A cup with one pen, one marker, a cutter, and a charger cable curled like a sleeping snake.

Every corner had been claimed with discipline, devotion, but solitude. Her mother whispers, as if Lila were still there. “You lived well, didn’t you?”

Still, the heart of the room lays in the small desk and modest cupboard pushed against the wall. This is where Lila kept the pieces of herself she could not bear to leave behind. Just in case she needed to flee for good.

Inside, she the suitcase, the very suitcase that went missing from home, had packed with deliberate care: her favorite black-and-white striped t-shirt, a light-washed jeans soft from repeated wear, and a set of neatly folded, professional-looking nude blouses, simple, but enough to pass for confident competence in an office. She brought a handful of neutral-toned trousers, too, that could carry her from job interviews to everyday errands, and her newly treasured Adidas Samba shoes, barely scuffed, tucked next to a dark cherry sling bag she had bought with her first real paycheck.

Her toiletries were lined up like trophies. A gentle soap she trusted for her sensitive skin, its soft, white lather and faint scent offering a kind of fragile soothe. A jar of sulfate-free shampoo, chosen with care. A compact cushion foundation that matched her olive undertone perfectly. Lip balm, lip tints, and glosses in warm reds and dusty roses. Each one a small claim to feeling celebrated.

Then came the practicals. Her laptop, a dog-eared book, some snacks stashed in the drawer. It was not much, and certainly not ideal. But in the middle of the chaos of home, the pressure of appearances, and the loneliness that never seemed to let go, this space, imperfect but hers, was enough. It was, at the very least, a place she could close the door. A place where Lila could breathe, if not fully exhale.

Lila had actually planned to run away. Really run.

If she could, she would disappear to Pattaya. Maybe Chiang Mai, or even Bangkok. The dream had lived inside her for years, postponed with every condition she placed on herself. Once she got a job. Once she earned and saved enough. Once she was brave enough. But every time the house felt calm, she hesitated. She found comfort in the familiar: the city of Buriram with its rituals and rhythms, the predictability of her days. It was not that her life was perfect, but her problems were still manageable.

Except for one: her father. Everything else, she could tolerate. The underpaid freelance gigs. The loneliness. The shamble of having no one to text good news to. But she could not thrive under the shadow of a man who micromanaged her existence. That singular fact shaped her entire reality.

Then, one day, he collapsed. An eye surgery was scheduled. Her mother left town to accompany him. And just like that, Lila was alone in the house for the first time. Free. “This is it,” She whispered to herself.

She spent the first day letting the silence wash over her, relishing the absence. On the second, she began to pack.

Even her father’s surgery was not a one-time thing. It unfolded in long, quiet installments, visits to the hospital every week, check-ups that stretched the waiting hours, plane rides filled with tension. For nearly two months, her parents lived in a tempo of appointments and recovery, a cycle that demanded Lila’s presence but gave her something unexpected in return. A space to think.

In those liminal hours, between the hospital corridors and the plane windows smeared with dust, Lila, left at home, began to wonder again what it might mean to go. Not forever, perhaps. But away. Somewhere no one expected her to be. But then, like every time before, she waited.

Because there were good days, too, days when her father, perhaps dulled by exhaustion or softened by medication, stopped commanding the world and simply existed in it. Days when the house was quiet, when her mother smiled without flinching, when Lila almost believed that everything could stay like this. Still, tolerable, proper. On those days, leaving felt unnecessary. Ungrateful, even.

But what Lila did not yet understand, or what she had not been allowed to name, was that when you grow up afraid, the brain learns a different kind of survival. It learns to monitor. To anticipate danger even in safety. Her mind was not trained to act with force. It was trained to flee in secret, to seek escape in manageable doses of small errands, long walks, whispered dreams between dishes and bedtime.

She did not need violence to feel trapped. She already had the weight of being watched and judged. Expected to fit into someone else’s script. So she exchanged her idea of freedom again and again with something else. Not because she didn’t want it, but because she had grown so skilled at pretending she didn’t.

Her house never had locks on the doors, but the real cage was in her nervous system. One that flinched at loud voices, that recoiled from arguments, that avoided direct confrontation like it would a burning stove. Her body, even now, still believed that disappearing was gentler than demanding to be understood. And so the planning continued in the margins of her mind. 

She eventually did not run in a dramatic storm of rebellion, but in calculated trips back and forth from home to her tiny rented flat. Quietly, efficiently, as if she were making grocery runs instead of staging a personal revolution. She packed her most essential belongings. Anything that helped her feel like herself. Even if everything fell apart, she was ready. She had her work backpack, her tools to survive a day or two. That was all it took. Just a day or two of freedom to remind herself she still had a choice.

Her desk in the flat bore witness to it all, even more faithfully than any person in her life. It saw the panic in her keyboard tapping when the neuropathy flared. It heard her soft laughter when a small victory lit up her day. It held her as she typed out dreams she had not dared voice aloud. She had already gone global through that desk. Through that device, she had broken the fourth wall of her life and reached a future once deemed impossible.

There are no framed paintings in the room. Nothing ornamental. And yet, it pulses with a kind of dignity, of claiming. It sure is not pretty, but it is hers.

Lila had carved out a life between cement walls and a stuffy room, a quiet space of her own choosing. She had let go of luxury, of safety, to finally feel like herself. This is the one place where Lila was not a daughter under rules or a girl asked to smile or explain. It hits her, sharply. She said to herself, “I never knew her here, and yet this place knows her better than I ever did.”

This is her daughter.

A girl who chose to live not by fleeing, but by planting her own two feet where no one thought she could stand. A daughter who dressed well even when no one was looking. Who prayed in a room with no one to see. Who earned money without asking. Who wanted independence not to betray, but to protect her own delicate sense of peace.

Her mother is sorry. So sorry. Not because Lila left, but because their house had never felt home, like a place where she could arrive.

The truth was, Lila’s escape did not begin with that rented room.

It began years earlier, after college, when she would fake job fairs just to wander the city, rest in a public library, and figure out what she wanted.

During Covid, she worked for All Is Flux with underpaid and uncertain situations, but grateful to be home while illness wracked her body. Thankfully, this moment could be used as a shield that she could stay and work from home. Then again, this was also the moment where she got the stomach reflux. At this point on, Lila even did not think of a future life because the pain made her feel like surrendering. For a while, she stopped planning the future altogether. She simply woke up, each day a small miracle, and survived it in pieces.

Things improved when she joined Bloom Inc., a company she could be proud of, at least in theory. The pay was better, the name impressive. She used the momentum to fly quietly arranging for the flat, masking her independence behind the lie of a demanding job. She was trying to live, not lie, but no one could understand the tightrope she walked between control and collapse.

She fought for that space, even when her body betrayed her. Her hands trembled. Her breath shortened. Her chest tightened every time an email felt too big to answer. But she kept working. She could not afford not to. The flat became her sanctuary.

She built her routines with care, from early mornings, lists of tasks, to strict budgeting for meals. She wore tailored blouses and slacks, dressed like a woman with a corner office, just to fool her parents into believing she was what they wanted her to be. Every evening, she returned “home” on schedule, getting into the same bus in the neighborhood to buy herself the time before stepping back into the performance.

She passed a woman at a lamp shop that was always empty, but the lights were always on. She noticed the man with the vintage bicycle, collecting recyclables in the dusk, always pedaling as though the street had something more to offer. Lila did not envy them or pity them. She noticed them. Because now she knew that it was not the grandeur of life that made it worth living. It was the beat of trying. Of showing up again. Of choosing even the smallest actions that said, “I’m still here.”

There was a moment, sometime between Lila’s sixth lap on the public bus passing by the lamp store, and a half-eaten sandwich by the garbage man finally all eaten, when she asked herself a question she had never dared voice aloud: If this were a film, what would the main character do next?

It came to her not like a thunderbolt but more like the hum of a broken fridge, persistent in the background of her brain. She was not proud of asking it. It felt indulgent, even childish. But she asked anyway. And once she did, something shifted. Slightly. Softly.

She imagined the cinematic version of her life. The camera would pan in on a young woman sitting in a dim flat, her back to a pale wall, her face lit only by the glow of a screen. There would be no dramatic music. No inspiring montage. Just her. Her thoughts. Her indecision.

In the real world, she was simply stuck. Unsure whether to keep pushing or to fold her dreams quietly under the bed like last season’s clothes. But the character version of her, the Lila the audience had come to root for, was different. She was stupid, yes, but she had depth. People wanted her to get out of this.

The audience would not want her to call her father again and apologize for her act that he never really understood. They would not root for her to go back to comfort if it meant a life lived half-asleep. 

And it was not that Lila knew what "going" even meant. Not exactly. But she had to believe that turning in circles was not the plot twist she deserved. So she sat up a little straighter each time, cracked open the notebook she had nearly abandoned, and began writing again. Plans, thoughts, even half-spoken ideas. Not for a grand future. Not for a clean resolution. But simply to remind herself that she still had agency, and maybe even a storyline.

She began applying the film lens to more than just her career. When her phone buzzed with a message from someone she once loved, someone who had left without looking back, she paused. Would the audience want her to reply? To ask why? To reopen the wound?

She laughed. The audience would scream. They would beg her to move on. To delete the number. They would want better for her, even when she didn’t yet.

And so she began pretending, day by day, that she was the central figure in something worth watching. She did not need to be charming all the time, or certain, or even right. She just needed to be brave enough to take the next step. Even if the step was tiny. Even if it was just walking outside and feeling the sun touch her face. Sometimes, what you need is not an answer. It’s a perspective. And as it turned out, the most useful voice she had heard lately was the imaginary audience in the back row of her life, saying, “This isn’t the end. It’s just the part where you find out what you’re really made of.”

And on hard days, she would ask herself what the audience would want from the story of her life. If this were a movie, would they root for her to give up? To return to a house where she was only safe as long as she obeyed?

No. They would want her to stay. To decorate that room even with mismatched furniture. To work for gigs until something better came along. To create a song playlist, take a walk, apply for a new role, even when the world felt indifferent. The audience would whisper from the darkness to her to keep going and make something of this.

And slowly, everything made sense in her mind. It was not that something was wrong with here, this city, or this life, she was just never home. Her real reason for running? Freedom.

That, and the illusion of being the perfect daughter. People envied her for having two working parents, a stable roof, no urgent needs. But they did not see the rules. The curfews. The lectures. The fear of saying the wrong thing. Religious guilt. The way any attempt at independence was seen as betrayal.

Her father once tried to force an arranged marriage on her. That sealed it. She knew then that everything she had done in this hidden life, with this private rebellion, was necessary. Not easy. But essential.

She had always thought obedience was enough. That silence, like her own mother’s silence, was survival. Her husband ruled the house with a voice that swallowed doors, plans, and futures whole. And her mother had always stayed, thinking her endurance was protection. But Lila had tried a different path. Half lies, half truths, but all stitched together with the thread of survival.

Lila’s father had believed Lila worked at a nearby school. He even bragged about it to friends, proud of her supposed servility. Her mother had known the other half, that Lila worked online, something to do with support, technical problems, copied documents, and clients she never fully understood. But she had not asked where. She had not thought to. Or, she had chosen not to know. And now, she sits inside the answer.

When Lila finally left her parents’ house, there was not a parade of banners or a grand farewell. It was quiet. Unspectacular. Her packed belongings did not look like the makings of a new life. They were more like leftovers from a life she never really felt was hers to begin with. A shabby backpack, and the ordinary weight of a girl who had always done what she was told.

This was not solely about being rebellious for rebellion’s sake. It was about necessity. An Instinct. When your basic needs are not met, when your safety is conditional, you stop reaching for dreams and start securing ground. Lila did not want to be heroic. She just wanted peace.

In moments of doubt, and there were many, Lila reminded herself of something she once read: “We may not be able to overcome our burdens themselves, but it lies in our power to alter what these burdens mean to us.”

Her burdens had not disappeared. They traveled with her, and her father’s rules, her mother’s silence, the weight of guilt that clung to her like a second skin. But in the solitude of her flat, she could look at them differently. Not as punishment, but as proof she had tried. Proof she had endured. It was not happiness she sought anymore. It was a life she could call her own.

She was not a hero. She wasn’t extraordinary. But she was becoming someone who did not abandon herself. That, for her, was more than happy. That was interesting. And perhaps, in the quietest corners of her seclusion, interesting was enough. She did not sin. She was just exhausted.

She had always been taught to chase a happy life with the right degree, reputable job, and well-mannered behavior. But somewhere along the way, she realized that happiness was not the same as meaning. The effort to stay cheerful, agreeable, manageable, had turned her into a supporting character in her own story. And she was tired of smiling through it. The move was not a declaration of revenge. It was an acknowledgment that her life was not supposed to be calm. Maybe not even conventionally joyful. But it could be curious, expansive, full of lessons, riddled with contradictions. It could be real.

She had played the role for so long, followed every rule, that her parents believed she had nothing left to hide. That gave her the freedom to lie without suspicion. She pretended to work in a school. Wore business casual. Let them believe she was everything they ever hoped for.

Every day felt like a gamble, like slipping chips onto a table without knowing the rules of the game.

Lila put her life on the line in the smallest, most ordinary ways by stepping out the door, by driving her car or riding the bus to go somewhere, by returning home before anyone noticed she had gone. Each move, each breath outside the confines of compliant, was a risk. A prayer. A fragile coin toss.

She lived as though she were spending from an invisible bank of luck. Drawing from it slowly, every time she dared to make herself real. And perhaps that’s why she never won the lottery. Why no great prize had ever dropped into her lap. No miraculous opportunities, no sparkling grand gestures. Just survival.

Because she had already used it all up, every ounce of her fortune, for mundane, ordinary things others never had to gamble on: walking freely, speaking without quavering, finishing her statement without guilt. Things others were handed without question, she had to steal in strain. Her luck had not disappeared. It had been traded, piece by piece, for the barest freedom. She never held the winning ticket, but she was still here. And maybe, for a girl like her, that alone was the biggest stroke of luck she could hope for.

In truth, her flat was her first real home. A space where she could laugh without censoring herself. Where she could play music without earbuds. Where she did not need permission to exist.

Lila never hesitated to step out from her rented flat. Not because she was particularly outgoing, but because she finally could. She could walk through the breezy afternoon to pick up lunch, browse through racks of discount clothes without commentary, shop for a phone with the specifications she needed and not the one someone else approved of.

These were little luxuries, both material and intangible, that would have been impossible back at home. There, her father would demand justifications for everything. Why she needed a new device, why she wanted another top, whether her purchases were dignified enough, necessary enough. Even her mother, quieter in approach, would cast remarks laced with suggestion. Won't that be too much? Didn’t she already have something like that?

Here, no one asked. Here, Lila could walk out the door without answering to anyone. She learned to scrub the tiny bathroom herself, hung clothes with awkward pride in a corner of the flat that barely caught sunlight. The water did not always run clear. The space was hot, tight, and loud with the clatter of nearby neighbors. But it was hers. When she wiped down the mirror or folded her towels, it felt like placing a tile in a mosaic only she knew the shape of.

It was from this room that she began attending pilates and swimming classes again.

Once, when she had shown interest in such routines, her father ridiculed the idea, questioned the intent behind women taking part in activities that showed off their bodies, hinted that it was vanity, that the culture was laced with frivolity and show. He mocked the sleek sets, the postures, the exposure. But now, Lila attended quietly. She booked classes under a different name, and chose a flat where her father would not know anyone. Her teacher, kind but sharp, recognized in Lila not just physical strain but the kind of internal discipline that comes from hiding. 

This life was not glamorous. It was ugly, and sometimes suffocating. But it was hers. She managed it all with the meals, rent, and other responsibilities. And in that space, she began to feel like herself again. Maybe for the first time.

She went to work every morning at seven, acting like she had a strict office job. Her parents never asked questions. She did not care if the others truly saw her for what she was. They saw what they wanted to see, and she gave them the version of her she let them see. And that gave her the room to build the life they never let her imagine.

In the end, Lila never actually left. Not because she was not ready. She had gained courage and been ready for years. Bags packed in her head long before she ever folded a shirt. Routes mapped out in her browser history. Drafted resignation letters. Phantom notes. A hundred imagined departures, rehearsed like lines for a stage she never stepped onto. But still, she stayed. It was not the fear of starting over that tethered her. It was the fear of being looked for.

What if her mother started calling around, asking her old friends where she was? What if they opened the tightly-sealed box of their family’s silence and started naming things out loud. About how Lila had been lying for years, living a life between shadows and smiles, pretending to be someone she never was? What if her father lost face over a daughter who ran away without saying goodbye, like a thief of dignity in the middle of the night?

There were worse things than being trapped, she thought. Being found and exposed, and that was unthinkable. Because to be found was to be seen. And what would they see?

A scandal. A daughter who played pretend at the dinner table, nodded at blessings she no longer believed in, carried company laptops to places she did not name. A girl who dressed the part but rewrote the script in secret. If they searched, they would find not only where she was, but who she was. And Lila was not sure they wanted that. Maybe it was a shame. Maybe it was control. Or maybe, it was the scream of not wanting to be rescued. The hope that she could finally own something without anyone coming to claim her choices.

She told herself she stayed because she did not want to disgrace her parents. But on days when she spent a day alone in the flat without a sound, when the walls felt like they were breathing her thoughts back at her, she wondered if it was something else. Maybe she just did not want to be found. Or maybe she did, desperately. She was afraid of being found out more than she fears the pain. She did not know anymore.

All she knew was that staying felt safer than fleeing into a storm of consequences she was not sure she could survive. So instead of running, she stayed halfway gone. Out the door but not down the street. A runaway with a return address. A ghost that still responded to texts. A girl who never left, because she still hoped she might one day be let go.

Even her final disappearance was not grand. It happened on an ordinary Friday. No screaming or slammed doors. Just a quiet absence. The bags were still packed in her flat. She had not even gotten the chance to explain it all.

That flat, her quiet, hard-won space, was proof. Not deception, but resilience. Of the simple but divine truth that she, too, had the right to dream.

There was still something defiant about her departure, even if she had not screamed or banged, threw her stuff on the floor. The defiance was in the stillness, in the decision not to explain herself anymore. It was in the way she shut her new flat door that first day and stood in the heat of that space, sweating in a room no bigger than a storage unit, with poor circulation and squeaky floors. It was far from the neatness and curated comfort of her family’s home. But for once, it was hers. Every flaw and echo belonged to her now.

There was a muted sense of interest. Of tension. Of finally stepping into the uncertainty she had postponed for years. She had been surviving for so long that people mistook her silence for satisfaction. But inside, she was humming the melody of her own life. And when the music finally played, she danced. Alone and unapologetic. 

Sometimes the silence in the flat pulsed too loudly, though. On those days, Lila filled it with music. She turned the speaker up just enough to drown the echo of her own thinking. Some songs reminded her of who she might be without all this weight. Others kept her company even when she didn’t know what she was doing.

Her mother once asked, casually but with eyes that pressed too hard, where exactly Lila went every day. She had passed by the co-working space Lila claimed to use. There was no trace of her there. Lila froze for a moment, then said nothing. It was easier not to explain. She just did not want to be known that deeply. She became even more careful afterward by deleting her browsing history, setting up a decoy schedule, and ensuring no packages were delivered to anywhere assumed. Every thread of her whereabouts was combed for loose strands.

Still, none of this made Lila a liar in the conventional sense. She was just layered. She had to be. Whether she was at the family house or in the flat, she remained the same person. Hurt, anxious, worn. But she had accepted the cost of masking.

She was willing to absorb the exhaustion that came from being a fragmented version of herself to different people. At least, that way, everyone got what they needed. Her colleagues saw a competent worker. Her friends saw someone calm, slightly distant, but doing fine. Her parents saw their daughter: respectful, employed, present enough. The only person who saw Lila whole was Lila, and only when she was alone.

The flat was both a finish line and a halfway house. She had not moved across the country. She had not vanished. But emotionally, she had left.

Some nights, she still dreamed of leaving for real. To somewhere she did not have to dodge questions or code her presence. Yet, she always delayed.

She had chosen this small, imperfect space for a reason. It wasn’t meant to be permanent. It was a pause. A hope that maybe things would get better at home and she could return safely without having to stage a revolution.

Her landlord, a kind woman in her early sixties, never asked too many questions. In fact, she supported Lila’s quiet independence. It was not unusual, she said, to see young people like Lila, renting places to work remotely, to breathe away from family. It was common now. But that normalcy would never be granted by Lila’s father. To him, living alone was either rebellion or shame. Possibly both.

Each item Lila brought into the flat was a chapter. The leather jacket she bought to attend a concert she never made it to, the photo strip of her laughing with Ploy, Siree, and Lin in a photo booth downtown, the rattan storage basket she impulsively bought when she first allowed herself to imagine leaving.

Back at home, her mother fielded questions from curious neighbors about where Lila worked, what she did all day. “A private company,” She would say. Enough truth to seem convincing, enough vagueness to deflect interest. They had dodged so many bullets, her mother and her, they were now made of scar tissue.

One random night, Lila had said it. Not tearfully. Just a dry sentence over dinner, “If one day I don’t return or come home, please don’t look for me.” Her mother did not say back, but her hand paused ever so slightly over the table. And they both knew. Something in that sentence was already true.

In the final hour of her visiting Lila’s rent, her mother wants to take something. Anything. Just a scrunchie, a note, a handbag. But she doesn’t. She knows what it would mean to carry a piece of Lila back into the same house she had run away from. It will be betrayal. It will be a real lie. So instead, she chooses differently.

She keeps the address to herself and tells no one. If her husband asked where Lila worked, she said, “A remote place, near the university.” And if he asked what she left behind, she said, “Nothing.” She lets him stay in his version of their daughter who was proper and mythical.

Meanwhile, she quietly sorts Lila’s belongings. She donates the clothes to a local girls’ shelter, gives the laptop to an orphanage that taught computer literacy, and passes anything else unopened to women in the neighborhood who had known hardship and joy in equal measure.

When she returns the room key to the landlord, she thanks them for keeping the rent steady. She does not ask for anything back. The room, she said, was ready to welcome someone new.

Just before leaving, she looks one last time. The sunlight falls on the empty bed, and the air, though still humid, has begun to move. As if the cramped room could finally exhale. And for the first time in years, so can she.

*

Lila liked going out with her mother.

Especially on the weekends, or at night, when the house grew livelier in the absence of her father, who went off somewhere else, wrapped in his own routines, his moods. Those brief escapes, just the two of them in the car, became a kind of ritual. Their rendezvous.

Lila’s favorite part of the drive was watching homes along the way. There was something deeply human in the glimpses of strangers' lives. Small moments framed by windows, porches, front steps.

In the afternoon heat, doors would be propped open, children sitting on the stoop with their toys or sitting on the plastic chairs to talk with their siblings, catching a breeze. At night, the doors were closed, but the lights glowed gently from within the living rooms flickering with TV screens, silhouettes moving across dining tables.

What were they talking about, she wondered? Were they laughing, arguing, or simply passing time? Did they feel safe with each other? Or did they, too, sit in silence, waiting for the day to end?

When rain came, some people, strangers to the homeowners, would pause under the eaves for shelter. Others slipped on plastic raincoats and kept walking, unfazed. The world never stopped. It moved, endlessly, toward its own destinations. And maybe, Lila thought, we are all like that. Just passing through, trying to reach whatever place we have decided to call our next stop.

With her mother, she did not have to gamble her luck for stability. She was safe.

Then again, luck never came in the form of miracles, but in routine.

Lila woke before the alarm, before the sun spilled into the city. The air was still, warm, humming faintly through the cracks of her small room walls. No one had called. No knocks on the door. No missed requests from her mother to do stuff. No questions. Just stillness. A day untouched.

She made a cup of warm chocolate milk and sat on the floor of her second level at home, instead of her creaky chair behind her studying desk in her room. Through the open patio, a neighbor’s wind chime sang like a lullaby returning home. Her feet brushed against the woven rug they bought secondhand. Her cup steamed gently. No chaos, no guilt.

It was not a lottery win, no shiny car or plane ticket to a better life. A day when she did not feel like a fugitive. A day that did not demand her to lie or run. A day where she simply existed and was not punished for it. It did not mean the war inside her had ended, but for once, the universe folded its arms and let her be. And in that softness, Lila felt the rarest thing of all. Not joy, but rest.

With her mother, the drives were not grand adventures, but it was were their moment. And they were enough.

Over time, she grew not just tolerant of her mother’s quiet presence, but quietly fond of it. It wasn’t just love. It was recognition. Reliance. The fragile alliance of two women navigating around the gravity of one man’s dominance, finding companionship in the spaces he did not occupy.

They tried new restaurants when they felt curious, or returned to old favorites when comfort mattered more than novelty. Sometimes they did not talk much. Other times, they lingered over salad or steak and let the day unravel between them.

Yet, the kind of day Lila loved most was when nothing happened.

Just ordinary existence. No emergencies, just time passing gently. She never quite understood how the hours disappeared, or where they went. Often, she felt she had not gone anywhere at all, trapped in a place that looked the same, year after year. No major departure nor a magnificent return. 

But sometimes, when she stopped long enough to watch the sky or the Chao Phraya River, she remembered that everything moved. The clouds shifted. The water flowed, even if she did not see where the source or end of the stream was. And so did time. And so did she.

A soft smile would form on her lips of a quiet affirmation. When she looked back, she realized she had gone farther than she gave herself credit for. She had adapted, endured, grown. She had lived, in ways she had not always known how to name.

Time with her mother was no different.

No single day was remarkable, but they stitched together a kind of survival. They shared food, split burdens, reached across their silence to meet in small kindnesses. And whenever the heaviness of failure returned, they had only to glance at one another to remember they had tried. And that, sometimes, was everything.

As a daughter, Lila has always been a child of vibrant imagination.

From her earliest days, she saw fairies dancing in sunbeams and whispered secrets to the rustling leaves of ancient trees. As she grew older, however, the world began to press upon her with its insistent logic, its demand for proof and empirical evidence. She started to question her own magical thinking, and her mother saw a subtle shadow fall across her bright eyes.

One of their earlier discussions was about astronomy.

"Mom," Lila would ask, her brow furrowed, "Grandpa says that the alignment of our planets has nothing to do with luck. And Mrs. Nittha at school says angels aren't real, it's just superstition."

Her voice carried a hint of shame, as if her beautiful beliefs were suddenly a flaw.

Lila’s mother understood her struggle. In a world that prizes cold, hard facts, there is a powerful pressure to mock anything that cannot be neatly dissected and explained. Rational people, as they like to call themselves, are quick to dismiss the unseen, the intuitive, the hopeful, as mere folly. They would have anyone else believe that human events are solely shaped by the movements of celestial bodies or the inventions of spirits, as if our inner desires and the profound power of positive thought count for nothing.

But that time, she gently told Lila that she could, indeed, miss the most crucial point.

The self-congratulatory rationalists, in their relentless pursuit of what they deem intellectual superiority, often overlook the deeper truths that lie beyond immediate proof. Humans’ ability to hope, to find meaning in the inexplicable, to feel a surge of gratitude for what seems like sheer good fortune. These are not signs of intellectual weakness. They are, in fact, hallmarks of our humanity. They are the beautiful, sometimes illogical, ways we acknowledge a larger universe, one that often defies our neat categories.

"Think of it, Lila," Her mother would explain, "Grandma never once felt lonely, despite her husband being gone for years. She believed he was always with her, in spirit. She would talk to him, write him letters, and feel his presence in every breeze. Was that 'superstitious'? Or was it a profound way she kept her love alive and found comfort in unimaginable grief?"

Her mother saw a flicker of understanding in Lila’s eyes.

"Or Uncle Bank," She would continue, "whose cat was given only days to live with a terminal virus, and that it could not grow older.” She said softly.

After two weeks of intensive care at the vet, the cat made it and thrived until years later. The doctors have no explanation. Uncle himself would call that a miracle. Others would say it's just  a ‘science we don't understand yet’. But for him, it was his unwavering faith, his refusal to give up hope, his belief in something beyond human understanding that sustained her and gave her strength to fight."

"Superstitions," She would tell her, "are often just the dreams of those who dare to imagine more. They are the stories we tell ourselves to find meaning, to connect with something larger, to inspire hope when logic offers none. Those who mock them simply limit their own capacity for wonder and bliss. They believe only in what they can see, what they can touch. But the most profound truths, the deepest feelings of love, hope, and connection, lie far beyond the reach of a microscope."

The origins of our capacity for belief, for credulity, do not lie in irrationality. They lie in a fundamental truth, that, to truly live, people must be able to trust, to have faith.Humans must trust that their bodies will function, that the sun will rise, that the people they love will be safe.

Credulity, in its truest sense, is not a flaw. It is a measure of hope. It is the willingness to believe in possibilities even when they defy immediate explanation. It is what allows one to step into the unknown with courage, knowing that even if they cannot see the path, a light will guide them.

"So, Lil," She would finish, holding Lila’s hand, "never let anyone diminish your wonder. Your imagination, your intuition, your capacity to believe in the unseen, these are not weaknesses. They are gifts. They are the threads that weave the magic into the tapestry of your life. Keep asking 'why,' keep seeking answers, but also, keep believing in the beautiful 'what if' that lies beyond the logical. For in those whispers of the unseen, you will find true magic, and perhaps, the deepest truths of all."

Growing up, they did not talk about constellations of miraculous cat stories anymore. 

They sat together in their parked car. Finally home but never really intended to go inside that fast. That night, they wanted to spend their time alone together.

They watched the city pass them by like a film blurry, distant reel. The engine was off, but the air between them pulsed with thoughts.

Lila broke the silence. “Why is father like that?”

Her mother did not answer right away. She looked down at her hands, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“He grew up in a strict, stern family,” She said at last. “And… I see it in you too, sometimes. That same sharpness. That way you burst when you are cornered.”

Lila did not respond. She let the weight of that observation sink into her bones.

“When do you think it all started to fall apart?” Lila asked, shyer this time.

Her mother sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe it was never whole to begin with. Maybe it was already wrong from the start, but I know, that does not make our suffering right.”

She looked out the window before continuing.

“I earned more than him, even back then. We both worked in the same company, but I was on a different level. A different pay grade. Then, a week before the wedding, I saw his payslip showing barely a hundred and fifty a month. I remember thinking, how could a man support a family with that? But, if I wanted to cancel the plan, then it would cause a messy scene. It would bother all people involved in it. I couldn’t.”

Lila blinked. “I never knew father was… that poor.”

“He didn’t act like it, did he?” Her mother gave a tired chuckle. “He paid for his siblings’ needs, grandma’s funeral, and treated his sisters to holidays like he was royalty. Maybe it wasn’t pressure from his parents. Maybe he just liked the applause.”

Lila stared ahead. “He always acted like he was the provider. The one carrying us all. But he wasn’t.”

“No. He wasn’t,” her mother agreed. “When he had to go back to school for his specialization, I was the one who paid the tuition. Almost all of it. He kept asking for more for rent, groceries, and fees.”

Lila frowned. “Then why did he always preach about money? About not being blinded by possessions, about devotion over wealth?”

Her mother laughed again, bitterly this time. “Because he didn’t have it. So he sanctified the idea of having nothing.”

“He’s just ashamed,” Lila said, almost to herself. “He hides it behind being generous to others and acting devout. But at home, he’s cruel.”

Her mother nodded. “He once called us devils. Remember that?”

Lila let out a dry chuckle. “I do.”

“I even talked to your uncle once about it. Told him I was raising this family alone. He used to complain that his wife didn’t bring in any money. But at least she got to stay home. I had to do both: provide and survive.”

Lila looked down at her lap. “If we were struggling that much, why did it look like we were fine? We had a car. We went to Bali when I was little. The furniture at home wasn’t cheap.”

“That was me,” Her mother said simply. “I managed it. I wrote everything down on a book to note his income, mine, what we could afford. If there was any extra, we’d buy something nice. I wanted you to taste comfort. Even if just for a little while.”

She smiled faintly, touching the dashboard, and continued. “The car… your uncle once told me to never let go of it. It’s my only big possession. A second home. If we ever needed to run, like, really run, this could be our way out.”

Lila swallowed. “I’m sorry I never learned to drive. I should’ve taken over.”

Her mother shook her head. “I understand. The streets are getting more and more crowded these days. And I still have the strength, for now.”

Lila hesitated. “And after all this… all the years you spent with him, after how he’s treated us… did you ever think about getting a divorce or leaving him?”

“I did,” Her mother said. “Many times. But only in thought. Never in action.”

She paused.

“I know women who could help. They are some of my friends or colleagues. But divorce isn’t easy. Not in this country, not in this economy. Especially for women, Lil.” Her tone was getting serious.

“A man can leave a marriage both legitimately and illegitimately. But a woman? She needs proof. Either bruises bank statements, starvation. And your father, for all his faults, never hit us. And he gave just enough money for it not to count as abandonment.”

Lila’s voice was steady now. “It’s never been a fair fight, has it?”

“No. It never has.”

They sat with that truth a moment longer. The air from the opened window nudged against them like a whisper.

“One day,” Lila said, “when we’re ready… Let's go somewhere. Just you and me. Like a holiday, or better one, an escape. For good”

Her mother turned to her with a small smile, eyes bright with something mystical.

“Yes,” She said. “Let’s go.”

When both of Lila’s parents retired, she had hoped, perhaps naively, that transparency would finally have its moment. That, with fewer demands and distractions, her father might open the black box of their life, show where the money had gone, and offer his version of the truth. But the truth never came. It never had a place in their household. Only assumptions, and carefully concealed ledgers.

Lila learned, too slowly, that it was a privilege to know whether your parents were truly rich or poor behind closed doors.

Many families, like hers, performed modest abundance. No private schools, branded watches, or occasional trips while quietly scraping behind the curtain just to survive. It was not about mindfulness or thrift. It was contradictory, systemic and emotional.

One day, she would be sent to school with barely enough change to buy a snack, and the next, they would buy her a new pair of shoes just because the old ones were still damp from yesterday’s rain. There was no sense to the spending, and even less in the explanations.

This lack of honesty about their financial ecosystem bled into everything. It made Lila question reality. It shaped her instinct to do budgeting, her guilt over desire, and her suspicion of comfort. Money was always there and never enough. Her parents never fought openly about it, but it was the quiet battlefield she grew up on.

During their working years, Lila’s father reportedly earned around THB7500 a month. Of that, he gave only THB500 to her mother, who then had to stretch it for everything, including food, water, electricity, and Lila's tuition. When the numbers did not work out, and they often didn’t, her mother used her own earnings, money she had hoped to save or spend on herself. Eventually, she had had enough. She asked for equality. At least, a glimpse of fairness. From then on, when her father received his THB9900 per month in retirement pension, he finally gave her THB1500 to manage.

Her mother said she always knew how much he made. Not because he told her, but because he kept records just like she did. The same neat rows of income and expenses. Only, unlike her, he did not consult anyone when deciding where the money should go. He spent it on those who praised him, who kept his ego fed.

His younger sister, Lila’s aunt, the same one who once proudly helped set up Lila’s proposed arranged marriage, was one of those beneficiaries. A woman he still called his Little Angel. She had married twice. The first ended in divorce, the second in tragedy that her husband died of a heart attack. Now that she lived alone, she continued to be self-concerned, and never self-reliant. And still, she leaned on Lila’s father for support, despite having her own pension that, by some accounts, ranged to even THB15,000. She had more than enough, yet never treated Lila’s family with grace or generosity. Not as a guest. Not as kin.

But she was not the only one.

Over the years, Lila’s father had become something of a silent patron to the idle men back in his home village. Jobless cousins and retired elders, whose biggest contribution was singing his praise, always conveniently in his presence.

They would flatter him, call him generous, wise. He paid for their compliments. When a neighbor asked for capital to start a rice farming business, he gave it generously, without hesitation. But the investment turned into the purchase of a second hand tractor, rusted and barely functional, with wheels that later required expensive repairs, also covered by Lila’s father. And when the rice finally came in, the return on his grand gesture? One kilogram of raw harvest. Just enough for one meal. The rest was unaccounted for, vanished like the promises.

Lila’s mother had witnessed it all unfold as a bystander. She had stood in the background of a marriage where she made more but remained invisible, where generosity was performative and selective, where her own family was left to ration honesty and hope in equal measure. In the end, it was not about the money. It was about the narrative. Who got to shape it. Who got to own it.

Lila’s relationship with her mother was not exactly safe, either, at least not in the traditional sense. It was a push-and-pull of survival, something between codependency and kinship, tenderness and quiet harm. As much as she resented her father, and she did, deeply, she could not claim that her mother had done less damage. They had both played their parts. But with her mother, Lila did not have to pretend that much. There was no act. No false reverence or masked obedience. Over time, what began as a strained co-existence hardened into something more solid. A bond forged through tolerance and mutual trauma. Fellow victims. Fellow believers in the smallest reserves of kindness.

Lila never called her mother a savior, but she stayed. She was not always soft, nor gentle since the very beginning. At times, her mother’s silence hurt as much as her father’s fury. Still, Lila did not need to mold herself into the shiny version of a daughter. Their relationship was not pure, but it was honest in a way the others were not.

Some days, it felt like they were on the same team. Not because they chose to, but because they had to be. Trauma did not make them allies. It made them cellmates. And even in that kind of confinement, Lila found flickers of comfort. Her mother never held her when she cried, but she did not walk away either.

It reached a point where Lila could imagine giving up everything. Her dreams, her job, her city, even her name, but never her mother. She could surrender anything but her. The woman who stayed, the woman who endured. She was the only part of home Lila still chose to carry.

Even with her meager income, Lila always remembered the things her mother once said she needed. Things she could never have in her younger years.

Every small amount Lila earned came with a promise stitched inside. If her mother once mentioned needing something, Lila stored it in her memory like scripture, so she worked silently, not just to survive, but to return these offerings. Her love came in the form of bags filled with practical gifts. A whispered apology for not being able to change the past.

A pair of fancy running shoes, for instance, because walking around the neighborhood was her solace. A foldable broom to brush dust off the ceiling corners with less pain in her arms. A perfume she remembered from a rich girl in school, smelled like sweetness, and being unreachable. Lila had made a promise to herself that she would buy them all for her mother. That her mother’s wants, no matter how small or superficial, would be honored.

Whenever they managed to escape, even briefly, from the storm of Lila’s father, they would speak in a more intimate language. Not loud or dramatic. Just two women, pausing from the war.

One day, Lila asked again, “Do you really want me to get married?”

Her mother did not answer right away. Perhaps, she still wanted Lila by her side as a daughter, as a friend, as company in her aging solitude. But certainly, she did not want her daughter to be handed off to another family without knowing where she was being sent, and with what kind of man. They both knew, unspoken but understood, that a poorly planned marriage was not a step up, but a lateral move between hells. Especially if the man resembled Lila’s father, in manner or mind. In that case, the script was already written. The ending, already known.

Her mother stared ahead, hands steady on the wheel. “Maybe I just don’t want you to end up with someone like him.”

“And if I do?”

“Then I failed again,” She said, almost laughing, almost crying.

They did not need to say her father’s name. He was everywhere in their silence.

Whenever they managed to take off from her father’s orbit, be it a day at the market, or a late-night drive, they found fragments of peace. These were not extravagant moments. They were quiet breaths in between storms.

Lila’s mother kept her eyes on the road, even as Lila’s question lingered like fog on the windshield.

Her hands tightened on the wheel, but she said nothing. Couldn’t. Not because she did no’t feel something, but because she felt too much, and did not know how to shape any of it into words that would not betray her. She had spent most of her life saying the right thing at the wrong time, or worse, saying nothing at all.

I wanted a better life for you. I just didn’t know how to give it without breaking something. She thought.

That was the truth she never spoke not to her husband, not to herself in the mirror. She loved her daughter with desperation, the kind that made her try to protect Lila by pleasing the man who controlled everything. But somewhere along the way, the protection became permission, and then submission. And now she sat beside her daughter, unsure whether silence was kindness or just another form of betrayal.

She longed to reach across the console, to say, of course I would still support you, but the words turned to ash before they could rise.

Then Lila asked, “What do you want from me, as your daughter?”

Her mother took a moment.

“It’s natural,” She said, “for parents to hope their children give something back. Maybe even more than what they received. But if not, just to see their kids happy, and not make the same mistakes. That’s enough, I guess.”

Lila looked at her then. “You always told me that a parent’s love is boundless. It goes high into the sky, deep into the ocean. It brings down stars and hands out diamonds. And that a child’s love, in return, is small, temporary, and conditional.”

Her mother nodded.

“So…” Lila hesitated. “Would you still love me if I’m not who you expected me to be, Mom?”

Her mother said nothing.

Lila did not look at her directly. She kept her gaze on the road ahead, but her peripheral vision caught it all. The way her mother’s hands tensed on the steering wheel, knuckles paling, grip tightening. A small, involuntary twitch of the jaw. Silence, not because there was nothing to say, but because too much had already gone unsaid. So, Lila waited.

She counted the seconds between streetlights. The silence stretched so long it began to settle into her chest like shame, thick and unmoving. It wrapped around her ribs, coiling down her spine, turning the air between them into something sharp.

She told herself she was not expecting an answer. That it did not matter. That she was used to this kind of pause. But the truth was, she was hoping. Hoping for something human. A denial, even. A weak, maybe. Anything other than the cold, practiced stillness of someone trying not to flinch.

She looked out the window at the blur of houses passing by. Other families in their terrace, under warm lights. Other daughters who did not have to ask that question. She wondered if they ever knew how lucky they were. Her fingers curled into her sleeve. She could feel her pulse in her wrist. Maybe her mother was too focused on the road while driving. Or maybe, there were just questions that her mother still did not know the answer to. 

Because, here is the truth that Lila had come to learn.

Children love their parents unconditionally. From birth. From breath. Even in the face of pain. They absorb the cruelty and rename it care. They tolerate the silence and call it strength. Because survival requires it. Because there is no one else to run to. The unconditional love starts from the child, not the parent, and that is what makes it so brutal, so irreversible.

Love, for a child, was unconditional by necessity. One did not question whether they were kind. One did not demand apologies for bruised feelings. One just loved because they had to. Because if they didn’t, where else would they go? But at some point, that instinct began to fracture. They began to measure. To wonder and hurt. And to finally ask: did they love you too? Did they show up when you did not ask for help?

Lila remembered it clearly. She was seven when her Sunday school teacher told the class, “God watches all. Be good, and you’ll be loved.” The words were soft, even kind. But to a child already tuned to perform goodness like a recital, they settled into her like law.

She did not question it back then. She came home and tried harder by keeping her room clean, helping without being asked, memorizing the prayers. When her father scolded her for spilling water or talking back, she apologized quickly, afraid of failing both father and God. The lines blurred early. Obedience became virtue. Only years later did she realize how much of her worth had been measured by compliance.

That is what conditional love felt like. It dressed up as discipline, disguised itself as care. But goodness, Lila came to learn, was often confused with invisibility.

She loved freely. She always had. Friends, strangers, broken things. She offered them her attention without needing them to be perfect first. That was the kind of love she wanted back. Not something earned by ticking boxes. Not something revoked the moment she deviated from the story her parents had imagined for her.

Sometimes, alone in her rented flat, she would stare at the ceiling and think about that old saying.

God watches all. She used to believe it was comforting. Now, she wondered, if being seen required perfection, what did it mean to be loved at all? Was it ever truly love if you had to hide pieces of yourself to keep it?

Her rebellion was not loud. She did not scream or run away. She just rewrote the script. She told the truth selectively. She gave different versions of herself to people, not out of deceit, but to survive the weight of expectations. That was her quiet heresy to keep living without asking for permission. And still, some part of her ached.

She wanted her mother to love her even if she failed. She wanted her father to love her even if she was not obedient. She wanted God to love her even if she was lost. But love, in her family, was something you had to be good for. And she was tired of being good.

Lila realized she had been loving on borrowed time. That most of her affection had been currency for survival. They call it devotion, but it is dependence. They call it loyalty, but it is fear. It becomes how they understand the world. It made her grow up mistaking coping for connection, attack for affection. And by the time she was an adult, she carried an ache she could not name. The ache of unrequited love. Of needing to be loved back in the way they once gave foolishly, fully.

And maybe her mother, in her silence, was asking the same question. Could she still love Lila if she turned out wrong? If she lived in sin, by religious standards? If she chose not to marry, lied for a living, existed in defiance of what she had once been born for?

These were things her mother never said aloud. Maybe she never would.

Maybe her mother did not know the answer because she did not know herself. Or maybe because Lila no longer fit the dream she once had. Of a daughter neatly married, religiously pious, socially approved. If Lila was a sinner in their doctrine, was she still her daughter?

The silence stretched, unresolved.

Somewhere in that silence, Lila realized that love in their house was always a transaction. The price was surrendering. Now, she had none left to give. According to Lila, ome answers were not missing. They were just never meant to be known.

*

The car was too cold. The air-conditioning hissed softly from the vents, making the space feel sterile, distant, like a waiting room no one wanted to be in.

Outside, the sun was too bright for the tone of the drive, glaring off the windshield until Lila had to squint to avoid its sharp reflection. Her back stuck slightly to the vinyl seat, sweat trapped under the cotton of her shirt despite the chill.

As they slowed to a red light, she glanced out the window. An old house sat at the corner, its yard overgrown with wild grass and sunflowers left to tangle with weeds. It looked like something once carefully tended, now quietly surrendered. A breath caught in her throat. A life left unspoken still grows into something, she thought, even if it’s not what anyone planned.

When they pulled into the driveway, her mother did not say a word. She did not touch her arm. She did not try to explain. But when Lila stepped into the house a few minutes later, there was a small plastic bag on the kitchen counter with her favorite brand of mochi, the soft one she used to eat on school breaks. No note. Just the gesture.

And it broke her heart a little more. Because that, more than anything said in the car, was the answer. Not acceptance. Not rejection. Just a muted attempt at care that came too late and still not quite close enough. She sat down, peeled open the package, and ate in silence. The mochi was sweet. It stuck to the roof of her mouth.

And still, her mother never came into the room.