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She’s been unbelievably stressed for the last month and you’re honestly not sure how much longer she can go on like this. The studying is endless, her sitting at her desk hunched over, her sitting on the park bench buried in her books, her literally falling asleep on any given surface at any given moment and you worry constantly.
You’re not sure how to address this with her, her being so close to burnout, because you know the pressure she’s under, know how her mother can be because she’s cried on your shoulder, curled in your lap, more times than you can count with the stress and pressure of it all. She’d never admit it to anyone else, she sees it as a personal weakness, but… you’re pretty sure she doesn’t actually want to be a doctor.
And for someone as brilliant as she is at absolutely everything, her specialty has been a struggle.
It’d taken a while for her to open up to you about it, you think it might have been partially your fault because when you’d first met you’d been so enthusiastic about her being such a beautiful doctor, but when you caught a glimpse of one of her exams and it’d been a lower grade than possible, and you started to wonder what was going on, why her heart didn’t seem to be as in it anymore.
With a looming graduation and a future already predetermined, you imagine the pressure she's been putting on herself, the worry and the anxiety of change as you move out of your pretty little bubble abroad together has to be immense and you don't blame her for a second.
“I’m so happy with you.”
“Aw! P’Mor!”
It's music to your ears until she sighs so deeply you can hear it over the water from across the apartment.
“No, you don’t understand.”
You’re on the couch reading through your notes before your class tomorrow, full and cozy and comfortable, and if you didn’t have a presentation tomorrow you’d be snuggled up with her under a blanket by the fire helping her forget about school altogether.
She’s across the room scrubbing the dishes leftover from dinner and you suspected, with how long it’s taken her, she’s clearly working through something in her mind and needed a little space.
Turns out you were right.
It takes her all of a minute to get to you and collapse down next to you and you quickly tuck her under the blanket and wrap her in your arms and run your fingers through her hair, giving her time to gather her thoughts.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy.”
“But that’s a good thing, tee rak.”
You press a kiss to the top of her head and squeeze her shoulder, trailing your nails down her arm to soothe her so she knows that you’re present and listening and here to support her in whatever she’s trying to confess to you right now.
She’s struggled with vulnerability since the beginning, it’s something you’ve been working on together as your relationship has progressed and things have felt… more significant as of late, and while she’s normally less touchy in everyday life, when she needs you you’ve learned exactly how much physical support she craves.
Without her having to ask.
Her parents seem nice enough from what she’s told you about them, especially her dad, but you don’t get the inclination that they were very hands on or particularly physically affectionate. That they were more praise worthy and proud of her achievements and how visible she was in her status and beauty rather than who she is as a person.
It'd been an adjustment for her to be in a relationship where she’s desperate for everything without feeling like a burden or knowing how to ask for it.
It took meeting your own mother for her to realize that most people are hugged and doted on and want to be near their parents and it’d been a hard wake up call for her, seeing all that she’d missed out on being sent off to boarding schools and raised with legacy and duty rather than... just growing up happy. She knows they love her, but she’s not sure if they genuinely like her simply for who she is.
She’d told you how much closer she and her mom had gotten after a health scare when Lada was younger, and she never felt unsafe being affectionate, but there was always something missing that made her feel like being asked without it being offered made her too much. It was more expected than desired, given from her rather than received by her, the illusion of a happy, close-knit perfect family.
By the end of your mom’s first visit, even though she didn’t have all the information about your relationship, Lada was holding her hand and reciprocating her hugs and trying to spoil her almost more than you were and it was honestly one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen. She came alive when your mom asked about what she liked and they’d talked about art and music and food and her obsession with the guitar.
You'd even come home from work and the kitchen was full of all your favorite things, Lada elbow deep in dishes, laughing harder than you'd ever heard her and your mom watching her with wine at the island grinning from ear to ear, proud, and it felt...
Like one of those defining little moments where you just know.
You were grateful your mom understood what Lada needed and welcomed the affection, offered her the attention and the care without question, no matter how hesitant Lada was. Because she could see how good Lada was to you, how much she cared, how happy you were now.
How the only thing that mattered was both of your happinesses.
“Nong Earn, I don’t know if I’ve ever been happy.”
It guts you, absolutely breaks your heart because how is that even possible? From the outside she seems like she has everything, even from the inside sometimes too, but given some of her reactions to your own unbridled happiness and enthusiasm, it dawns on you that maybe she’s right.
“Come here.”
You pull her fully into your arms and she clings to you, peppering slow lingering kisses to her head, tracing her temple slowly with your thumb, giving her time to process, to tell you more, to give you an indication of what she needs from you. When she says nothing more, snuggles deeper into your arms but you can feel her start to detach, you decide to try and push her just a little.
She feels safe enough now to tell you what she does or doesn't need in the moment and you’re grateful for the newly formed language of intimacy you share.
“Or did you just not know what happiness meant for you?”
Her body tenses and she turns to look up at you, doe eyed and sad and you press a kiss to the tip of her pretty nose for good measure, because you can and because the softness of your affection with each other is paramount to your success as a couple.
At the end of the day, you have become a big part of her happiness and you want her to feel it, even if she’s struggling to understand why she never did before bumping into you on that random Thursday afternoon.
“What if I don’t want to practice medicine forever?”
You knew it was a possibility because of how overwhelmed and stressed she’s been for every assignment and every exam and every lecture she’s attended. It almost feels like the weight of expectation has stripped her of any sense of pride and excitement she once had about practicing, that the chase of perfection has stripped any potential joy from the future, and honestly you can’t blame her.
“Then you’ll find something you do want to be and be that.”
“Is it that simple?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
She turns her face away from you, staring at the ceiling, gripping onto you as she traces over the shape of your hip with her fingertips. “You love that I’m a doctor, remember?"
You turn her by the chin, encouraging her to look back up at you. She sighs, pressing a kiss to the crook of your arm. "You thought it was so cool when we first met.”
"I'm just a barista studying management, of course I think you're the coolest person I've ever met."
"You're not just anything." It's upsetting and sad because she obviously is telling you that she's afraid her entire identity is attached to her profession, to her legacy with her parent's hospital, and if she's not a doctor, or maybe doesn't love it as much as she should, could maybe envision her future doing something else, she thinks you won’t want to be with her, that you won't love her no matter what and it devastates you.
"I love that you're Fahlada and I'll love whatever you choose to do, as long as you're happy."
She meets your gaze with wide, shocked eyes as if no one had ever said that they love her just because she's Lada, where nothing else matters except that, and she finally settles more fully into your arms, presses a kiss to your bicep and hums softly in acceptance of your words.
"But I'm still going to call you P'Mor because you're cute and I respect how hard you've worked to become one, so it can be just for me."
It was the right thing as she pinches you and smirks at you and loves you with that glowing, gorgeous smile. "My stubborn girl."
----
It’s almost Christmas and everything about this season abroad is breathtaking, especially Lada in it. She’s extra snuggly and extra bundled and layered and you love getting to be wrapped up inside of her coat when you hug her because you’ve never felt more loved than being shielded from the world cozy and safe in her arms.
This holiday season brings an extra shroud of mystery because it's your first one fully together, fully devoted, and fully in love. And in getting to know that love day by day, you've been racking your brain trying to figure out ways that you can spoil her.
With things she doesn't already have or experiences she's never had with her face buried in books, with things she needs but would never admit, because you love this woman more than you thought was humanly possible and you want to show her. You've been on the hunt for the perfect capstone thing for weeks.
Like the scarf embroidered with your initials, intertwined so effortlessly, so beautifully; together.
She deserves something to hold onto that's just hers like that too.
Most of your money goes home to your parents to help them make their ends meet. Your tuition is so expensive and they've always made sure you never went without. She knows this, respects it, and has never expected things from you, especially considering that’s one of her love languages.
So instead you speak and show your own love in multitudes of other ways and somehow with her the alignment just… works.
And you're grateful.
The month of December is different.
This year, after her lavish birthday surprise for you, you wanted to find little ways every day to show her how adored she is, how well you know and understand her, and that there's not a minute where you aren't thinking of her.
She loves you with a lavish abundance, gifts and brilliant smiles and an enthusiastic and almost desperate yes to everything you ask of her. Has given you a home with her and even though you offer constantly, has refused any and all help. Says it's her honor getting to share life with you, more of a gift than anything physical you could ever give.
It feels special, being beside her, choosing her, with the calm you offer her and the need she has for you that cannot be given a price tag, a perfect blend of give and take.
You're still not used to being able to ask, don't even know how to most of the time because you don’t want things from her, just memories, just life, just her love, but she goes above and beyond trying to give them to you regardless.
Caring for you so wholly fulfills something deep within her and you'd be remiss if you didn't allow her the indulgence because of how she lights up when you do.
You'd never really wanted anything before her. Not in the way that she answers every question, every doubt, every hope for a future just by being near you. You've always been selfless, been given things but been grateful enough to give back just the same. And in you she found something that couldn't be bought, only cherished and nurtured. Through you she learned that love and money and status can be separate, can be intertwined, can be part of the story but not the entirety of it.
----
She’s in lectures from six in the morning until ten in the evening on Wednesdays and you always pick up extra shifts so you don’t have to be alone in the massive apartment without her; with the views and the warmth and the intoxicating smell of home and her.
Except, without her there to share them with, you feel out of place because you've quickly learned that a house is just a house but that she is what makes your home.
You get off work and rather than going to her class and waiting to walk home with her for another two hours, like you usually do, you decide to stroll through town and pick up ingredients to make her something for a late dinner. She gets too stressed and anxious to eat on long days and you’ve learned the way to care for her is to have something prepared and the aroma of her favorite dishes perpetuate the entire house when she arrives.
There's a bakery she loves down the street from your cafe and you slip in right before closing and grab a few treats, grab a loaf of bread and some coffee to keep you warm too, and the owner greets you warmly, throwing a few extra things in the bag just because she thinks you and Lada's love is cute, having watched it unfold through dates and held hands and quick trips like this to spoil each other.
You rip off a piece of bread as you wave goodbye and make your way down the street, smiling at those that pass you by; everyone seems to know each other here and it's cozy and you absolutely love it. Even if it's lonely sometimes without more Thai people around who understand you in your mother tongue and can share in your culture.
And then you see it.
It's a silly little wooden music box, hand carved and customizable and it speaks to you immediately. It's nothing lavish, but there are different figurines that you can attach to the heart base and they spin around to Bach's Minuet in G. Trees and a dog and cat and a Christmas decorated fountain. You feel her between the notes of the melody and feel the two of you and your three fourths time romance the second you turn it on, her and you and an infinite journey, and it feels right.
Where you are opposite and different in every way, until you come together and then you are beautifully elegant and composed; in perfect sync.
You dream of a home with her, somewhere away from the world with dogs and kids and a place where you can grow together and belong, how real it all feels like it could become one day. How hopelessly you want it to.
And it's that moment, standing in a little shop looking at a silly music box where you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with Fahlada Thananusak in the most real and forever kind of way. In the way that makes you want to rush home and propose and never, ever look back.
You surprise her with it a little while later because you're incapable of waiting, desperate for her happiness, for her affection, and she beams, holds it reverently, speaks softly to the figure with a childlike wonder and your heart expands. She treats it like it's the most significant and beautiful gift she's ever been given and sometimes when she's alone in her study and you're making her something to eat, you can hear the lullaby and know that she's smiling. You've never felt like you've done something more right in your entire life.
What she doesn't know is that you have more additions tucked away in your dresser drawer. A puppy and a little blonde version of you that you'll wait for the perfect moment to give them to her. When the moment is right and the meaning more significant, when she needs a little something more to get through, to hold a smile a little longer. So that she knows that the little fantasy world of the music box is actually a dream you want to share with her, beside her in real time.
----
You give her the last piece earlier than you'd anticipated.
She's asleep at her desk when you get home from the store, surrounded by notebooks and textbooks and highlighters, her music box playing softly beside her and your heart aches at the scene. It was still early and she wasn't due home for another few hours because you'd planned on making her dinner, but she looks utterly exhausted. You could never be a doctor because the hours she keeps astound you, the work she puts in and the stress she endures to help other people, it's commendable, really.
It's a constant fear of your own that she won't realize she doesn't have to do it all alone. Obviously you're around all the time now, but there's only so much permanence that comes with 'be my girlfriend' when someone is struggling with anxiety and the weight of the world on their shoulders.
There are only so many ways for you to show her just how much you adore her, how proud you are of her, how badly you want to spend the rest of your life taking care of her, even in her darkest, scariest moments, when all you want is to be loving her through them. Hopefully with this gesture she'll fully understand.
So you grab the little blonde figurine from the back of the closet, press a kiss to the top of her head for luck, and head into the study, ready to show her that no matter what she's going through, from now on she'll never have to be alone again. You'll be beside her.
The music box cuts off and she startles awake on her own accord, adjusting herself and the items in front of her with a deep sigh because she clearly hadn't intended to fall asleep. You announce your presence softly so she isn't blindsided after just waking up when she fell asleep in an empty house.
"P'Mor, kha?"
She turns and smiles softly at you, as if you were exactly what she needed in exactly that moment, like you were a dream of hers she manifested and brought to life.
"You've been working so hard, can you take a break?"
She shakes off a yawn, placing one hand on her open textbook and the other to pinch at her nose as she blinks back into reality again, realizing she still has a lot to do and then scolds herself with the palm of her hand, you can tell. So you reach for her, wrap your arm around her shoulders and brush the hair away from her face. She shrugs you off and reaches to cup your face instead, looks at you so warmly, like you were the energy boost she needed to keep going.
"Are you studying?"
"I am. Exams are coming up and I still don't feel ready."
You understand, but she can't keep going on like this, with very few breaks and even less sleep. She's quickly creeping up on burning out and you don't want that to happen because she'll be a thousand times harder on herself if she thinks she's failed due to her own lacking.
"Do you want to eat something? Go for a walk with me? Something outside maybe?"
She shakes her head, sadly, because you know there's nothing else she'd rather do or anywhere she'd rather be then next to you doing anything but this. "I guess I'm just overwhelmed by stress."
You don't push the issue because you know if she's admitting to being overwhelmed and feeling unprepared she's probably much closer to a full blown anxiety attack than you thought and you absolutely don't need to add pressure onto her. So you decide it's time she knows, unequivocally, that no matter where she is mentally, or professionally, you'll always be by her side supporting her and loving her.
You kneel down and she watches you, curious and hesitant and maybe a little hopeful, which says to you that she's as ready as you are for a moment similar to this, even if this isn't the moment. The realization from her shows that you're on the right track and she's definitely on the same page and you make a mental note to start making some more concrete plans rather than just daydreaming.
The doll is presented and she smiles at you in the way she does when she's inexplicably fond of you, surprised by you, in awe of you, and you grin at her just the same as you reach to add to her little display, placing the representation of you and your love beside her on the music box.
"Whenever you feel overwhelmed, all you have to do is look at this music box and it'll remind you that I'll always be here for you."
You play and tease each other and laugh and it pulls her out of her head long enough to share a genuine moment, one laden with intention and understanding because this is real and you want this forever and you're now almost completely certain she does as well. Especially when she tells you that she loves you so much she could die, making sure you know she means it.
It's easy to let her baby you and easy to banter and make her smile and you do, back and forth about death of all things, but it's the truth, and you're both making tiny promises to each other without saying the actual words and you've been doing this dance for a while now, gauging each other's reaction to the idea of for the rest of your lives and til death do you part.
Someday the real words will come. When both of you graduate, when the stress and the worry and the pressures release, the actual words will come.
She leans forward and cradles your head with the utmost affection and care like she always does when she can't believe you're real and can't believe you're here choosing to love her. And, pressing the lingering kiss that always makes your body relax and you fall a little more in love with her to your forehead, she solidifies just how much she adores you.
The melody plays and you watch her, happy and at ease, and she is breathtaking. Her beauty is unparalleled, of course, but when happiness adds a sparkle to her eyes and she holds her smile a little longer just for you and then she turns to look at you, you can't take your eyes off her. You hold eye contact with her, completely overwhelmed with the moment and with the love you have for her. You cannot believe she's real and cannot believe that she's here loving you like this.
Where you must have done something so good in another life in order to keep her.
You've never loved anyone this much or this way. You're not sure anyone has ever loved anyone as much as you love her and your heart races and the world falls away in her gaze and if forever could be held in a moment, this is definitely one of them.
If fate would have been kinder and this moment had gone on a little while longer, you're not sure what either of you would have done, captivated by one another, wordlessly committing to a lifetime of loving each other exactly like this.
But the universe is cruel and in what it gives, it also takes away.
The call comes, your dad, and if you'd have known how it would change absolutely everything, you'd maybe have let it go to voicemail and prolonged the time you had left with her like this and maybe, just maybe, something magical would have happened.
You tell her it's your dad and she gets as excited as you are because she loves your parents. They always ask about her and you put her on speaker and she's so genuinely sweet to and with them and it's always such a lovely experience for you. You never dreamed of having a partner who enjoys having a relationship with the people in your family in the way that she does.
She meant what she said when she asked you to be her girlfriend for the first time, she's really been preparing to be a good daughter-in-law all along.
Because she's perfect.
But this is not that type of call and with just a few words, your entire world comes crashing down around you, shattering a perfect moment in the most perfect life with the most devastating news.
She soothes you and holds you and calms you down for the better part of an hour and makes you promises you know she'll absolutely keep. Having her here, having a doctor holding your hand and helping you try to make sense of all of this is the only thing holding you together. Her calm strength is everything and you're so grateful for her in every moment, but especially ones like this.
You fall asleep in her arms, exhausted and tear streaked and she never waivers in her support. She drops everything, even with exams right around the corner and the worry and stress of being unprepared hours ago, she lets go of it all to be there for you, loving you through your pain and confusion and fear.
She cannot lose your mother in the same way you cannot and she shows you and the support of being fully in this together means more than you ever could have imagined.
By the time you wake up all the arrangements have been made. She's booked you a flight and packed you a bag and gotten your mom a suite at her family's hospital, arranged for a car and driver, and even called your dad and made sure he was in the loop and knew you were coming as soon as you woke up. You're overwhelmed in your gratitude, overwhelmed with her care and attention to detail because you are in no shape to have done it all yourself.
She's genuinely devastated that she can't come with you, but her exams are in two days and they wouldn't let her reschedule and you'd begged her not to sacrifice something she's worked so hard for for so long, just to sit in a hospital room and look at your mom with you, much as you know you’ll need her. She promised she'd be on the first flight out as soon as she could because you suspected she needed to be there as much as you needed her to be.
At the airport she wraps you in your scarf and holds you so tightly you can barely breathe. She kisses you and tells you everything will be okay and she's only a phone call and flight away if you need her. While her exams no longer seem important to her, she's already done everything you could need of her and it's enough. The two of you have a future to look forward to, after all, one that can only truly begin once school is over and your mom is healthy and you both can be free.
If your world is going to stop, change irrevocably, at least she can keep the one you share moving forward temporarily while you figure out what's going on back home.
You part with a hundred I love you's and kisses and hugs that never stop; promises to call every step of the way and you walk backwards to your gate, waving and crying and she looks like she's about to follow you if you don't turn around and get out of her line of sight.
She sends you two texts in succession as soon as you are.
I love you, we're going to get through this together.
If you need anything, my mom will take care of you.
She's never been more wrong.
----
Your instinct is to get as high as you can, away from the sick, away from her horrible mother, run as fast and as far as your legs will take you. There's a private executive terrace that overlooks the city that Lada told you about before she put you on a plane, gave you the code to access it in case you needed some time away from your parents, where you could call her and have total privacy.
She told you how when she'd visit the hospital she'd go up and relish in the view of the city and the skyline and allow herself to decompress, cry sometimes away from judgement, allowing herself to have a moment with her own humanity and feel everything to keep her emotions at bay during her shifts, the stress and sadness of people fighting for their lives, just a few floors down. A way for her to let go of the weight of the responsibilities of having people's lives in the balance. Of working towards owning something with such a massive impact. Because she wasn't just a doctor and she didn't just get to go home at the end of the day. The hospital would become her life's work.
It felt paradoxical being there and realizing that the life you planned, the life you dreamed of, the life you wanted so desperately it ached inside your bones, would come to an end in the same place that would become her legacy. The same one that was supposed to become part of your future with her.
You cling to the scarf that she wrapped you in before she flew you back to Thailand, assuring you that everything would be taken care of, that you and your family would have the best care, and she'd be there as soon as she could; sooner with just a phone call, everything else be damned.
You wonder by her reaction, by the strings she pulled and the fear in her eyes as she tried comforting you if she was just as petrified of losing your mom as you were. Losing you to your grief, losing everything that held meaning to her.
The sun starts to set as you cry the last tears your body is capable of. You're exhausted, devastated, unbelievably confused, in no way able to process any of this. But have to get back to your mom and have to get on a plane to collect your things and ruin absolutely everything for both of you. Her mother had given you explicit instructions, a time table for all of this to unfold or else yours wouldn't be treated and the life saving procedures wouldn't be offered.
Your mother will be okay, she'll survive this the doctors have assured you, but ending your relationship with Fahlada means the casualty will be all your own. Because there is no living without her, no happiness, no future. For the rest of your life it'll just... be.
----
There's a split second as you're throwing your most important possessions into your suitcase where you wonder if you could get away with just... disappearing and sparing her the heartbreak of an actual breakup, leaving things unresolved and undefined whether you're together or broken up. It'd be easier for you, but more devastating for her. More cruel than even this. She deserves closure, she deserves the respect of a goodbye, you just don't know how you're going to get through it.
Her rounds ended half an hour ago and you know that she'll be excitedly rushing home and through the door any minute. It's the longest you've been apart since you started dating, since you fell in love, and in her calls she'd been ecstatic to have you back in her arms, had fallen asleep with you on the line telling you you were never allowed to go that far without her again. It hurt, the weight of knowing, but you wanted to offer her any comfort, any love possible before it was too late. You couldn't bear to crush her like that over the phone.
She rushes in the door, grin and glee plastered all over her face, calling out to you like she'd never been happier in her life because you're home and you're hers and she missed you so hopelessly, and as she's talking about picking you up at the airport and when she walks towards you, everything stops. Your stomach turns and your throat burns and the tears are already welled and threatening to fall. You can't do this, you have to do this, this is the worst day of your life. If it had been anything else except your mother's life you would have told her mother to go to hell, run immediately home and tell her everything and never, ever let her mother get away with something this heinous.
Breaking two people for some plot to purify her bloodline or purify the hospital's image, a cruelty you cannot even fathom. But what she doesn't realize is that whether you're in the picture or not, whether she marries some snobby man to help her run the hospital, Lada will always be gay, has always been gay.
Getting rid of you, of her happiness, will only effect how she runs that hospital. Whether it be as a robot or as someone who loves life enough to fight for every single person there to keep theirs.
You try and soften the blow in ending this by repeating the words her mother said about her to you, back to her, because while it might be their truth, you couldn't be more blindsided by it, and if you have to do this in order to save your mother... you're not going to break her with your own words, even if they're disguised by your voice. They're not real, couldn't be farther from the truth and she knows they aren't and you struggle to sell it, struggle to make her understand, struggle to even get the words right.
She knows you, everything about you, every person you've been with, every silly little crush, and gaslighting her intensely over a hypothetical man is even more cruel. You hate every word as they fight their way out of your mouth because you aren't even a little convincing, she doesn't believe you, can't believe you. Everything sounds like a lie.
Her mother never said you had to be convincing, just that you had to do it.
Because she may be engaged to a man, and this may have all been a palate cleanser before she moves home and gets married for real, but it was absolutely everything to you and you won't allow her loathing to be the result of anything but her mother in case somehow, someday she finds out.
Maybe one day she'll learn the truth and realize that you never stopped loving her, protecting her, spared her the loss of the relationship with her mother while trying to save your own. Even if it's too late and she's already married to him and there's nothing either of you can do. At least she'll know.
You watch her soul leave her body, feel her cling to you and throw her whole weight at you to keep you from leaving her. As if her entire life hinges on not letting you slip away. She knows if she lets you go it'll be forever and in the trauma of what you're inflicting, you really can't blame her. You'd take the pain away from her, take the full force of yours and hers and carry it fully within yourself if you could.
She won't let you go, sobbing and grabbing and hanging and screaming so loudly your ears are ringing and if this goes on any longer you won't be able to take it and you'll give in. You'll tell her everything that happened, vilify her mom in the way that she's forced you to become the heartless villain of Lada's heartbreak and fix everything.
So you try to dislodge her, disengage with her, get some separation from her body and yours because the desperation to hold her and help her is ripping you into two. But the longer you stay the more cruel this is for both of you and you have to get out of here, your home, your world, where the promises of your future was born and nurtured.
You know she loves her mom, know how much needing to be seen and loved by the woman has molded her into the woman that she is, know that if you break that bond, toxic as it may actually be, she'll never forgive you anyway.
You will lose her one way or another.
The lesser of two evils is a clean break rather than a drawn out wound that will eventually lead to her resentment and the end of your love anyway.
You could never ask her to choose you over her family.
Because she would.
You know she won't be able to see how much pain you're in, even with how desperately you beg her with your eyes to see how excruciating this is for you. The pain will blind her, harden her, and the you she loves so hopelessly will die. She won't be able to see how much you don't want to do this, how much this is killing you. You will become her enemy, someone heartless and cruel, but you understand her. You know what's at stake, not just for you, and you're going to be selfless in this, write one last line of a love letter you thought would never close.
Goodbye.
You're drowning in her screams, drowning in the knife that keeps plunging into your heart as she digs her nails into your skin as she clings to you, being pulled down deep with no hope of ever being able to breathe again without her. She pulls you and you push back and you're saying words that you don't even hear anymore, desperate for her to let you go and she just keeps asking what's wrong and begging and your soul feels like it's being severed and shattered. You've triggered something deep inside of her, an abandonment wound she never knew existed and you feel like a monster for adding even more layers to her pain. She'll think something is fundamentally wrong with her because of this and you're terrified she'll never recover.
You feel trapped and her weight is cumbersome and you start to panic, start to detach and get angry because you knew this wouldn't be easy but she's not listening to you and you actually can't breathe as the tears and overwhelm and heartache become too much. She keeps getting louder, less coherent, the words are distorted and muffled in your ears and she's flinging herself at you and you can't escape and she's so goddamn strong and your instinct is to run as far and as fast as you can.
You turn and use the leverage to get her off of you and she falls to the ground with the momentum, harder than you'd ever intended and your stomach turns that your own hands have betrayed you in such a way. You shoved her away from you when all you wanted was to pull her into your arms and never let go.
Everything feels out of body, nothing makes sense, you don't make sense; you have to get away from her, have to save everyone, you have to finish this, even if it ends you.
Somehow you make it out of the house. She's screaming violently, calling your name and begging you not to leave her, confused what she did wrong, confused by the words you said, devastated and falling apart because she's not enough and you make it to the driveway before you throw your suitcase and fall to the ground because how can any of this be real.
Three days ago you were planning how you were going to propose, wondering if she'd beat you to it, and now... there's nothing else to live for because you've broken the best thing to ever happen to you, in order to save your mother's life. And it's excruciating because you would have found another way, you would have figured it out and saved everyone, spared her this pain... if she weren't already engaged. Already taken and full of her own little lies.
You can't even blame her, and you don't.
The engagement doesn't sting as much as it should, you could have figured it out together, but the loss of her like this hurts more than a betrayal ever could.
But you still feel it, raw and confusing and you use it to wallow in your own hurt and process any way that you can, wondering why she couldn't just tell you about what was waiting for her after graduation. How she could put you in the position to have to do this? How could it have ended like this? How could it have ended at all.
You wonder if someday you'd have been in this same situation, except with her heading to the airport alone, packing her bags, blindsiding and walking away from you. You wonder how much more time you would have had together and you ache.
How could this happen?
Nothing will ever hurt this badly.
----
You aren't sure how you’re going to survive the rest of your life with this emptiness inside of you. You're grieving her, albeit slowly. There will always be some ounce of hope you hold onto that someday you'll have the chance to heal her heart and start over again, even if you know it's impossible, know she'll never forgive you. Know you can never forgive yourself.
But you've never wanted anything more.
You can feel her, sometimes in your lowest moments, holding you when you're curled in bed alone, the strength of her grasp, the smell of her perfume, her breath on your neck and her lips pressed to your shoulder, the subtleties of her. Loving her, being loved by her is a language you will forever be fluent in, clinging to the dark corners of your heart, the ghost of her pulling you back to remember.
It's still as excruciating as it was then.
Through it all, time passes, because of course it does, but it does not heal a single wound. There's plenty of distraction while your mom goes through treatment and through the journey to her recovery, but you're reminded every time you step foot in the hospital, with the faces of Lada's family pasted in the lobby and the story of their rise to success time boarded throughout the halls, mocking you.
Lada used to talk about them, how one day you and she would be up there too, for the whole world to see, welcoming her into the same legacy with you by her side. But it was never meant to be, her mother made sure of it. So instead of what you lost, you focus on your mom, because if she doesn't survive, all of this would have been in vain.
You think of her every day, less so every moment now, but there's always something that brings you back to her; there isn’t a day that goes by where she doesn’t enter your mind, occupy the same spaces she held while you waited for her to get out of class or while you were at work. A limbo of existence, getting by without her instead of thriving; surviving. Sometimes it's easier to pretend that this is all a bad dream and you'll wake up and she'll have been off on another lavish tour of the world and you'll welcome her back with open arms, ready to restart the rest of your life by her side.
Lada had begged you to help her run the hospital when you graduated. Her, focused on the medicine and you on making everything run smoothly behind the scenes, two sides of the same coin working towards the same goal, just like her powerhouse parents. A thriving business, an everlasting love, and the world at your feet, celebrating you both. It was the perfect dream, you could be together and still be fulfilled doing things that mattered, and then go home at the end of the day and exist only to fulfill each other.
And so you did the only thing that made sense, got as far away from those dreams and that hospital and the life you could have made together as you possibly could.
It was an easy decision when the opportunity had presented itself, as far from the world of medicine and of the Thananusak dynasty as you could get. You turned to the entertainment industry because you knew, even if you made waves and became successful, she'd never have to see you. She never watched tv and never went to see movies, didn't believe in following celebrities when there were real people with real needs that she had the power to help. She was far too busy buried in books and learning absolutely everything she could so one day she'd be worthy of the title her parents would bestow upon her.
She never had time to have fun. You bet even less now.
It was a safe bet... until it wasn't.
You think it might make life a little easier being able to throw yourself into the characters you play, live lives that aren't yours and love people for the duration of your projects without forcing yourself to get over the love of your actual life. Exist in a hundred different realities because the only one that made any sense, the only one you actually want for yourself, is impossible without her.
The work is easy, fun sometimes even, and you're happy as your career takes off in ways you certainly hadn't intended. You meet the right people and fall into the right connections and soon enough you're one of the most highly anticipated and most sought after rising actresses and you grow to love every minute of it. And you're sure she's none the wiser, living her perfect life with her perfect future husband taking over the healthcare industry just the way her mother envisioned.
By getting you as far away from her as she could.
Until an opportunity presents itself one ordinary day, sitting in your house with P'Suzie, to shoot a commercial in a very specific hospital, owned by a very specific family. She says the name and your stomach drops because this cannot be happening. You refuse immediately, much to your manager's protest, until, as if fate finally, finally intervened, your iPad notifies you of a broadcast, an interview with the fiancé, who apparently isn't the fiancé, and your heart swells in a way it hasn't in two years. With hope.
You're going to get her back and rewrite your ending, even if it destroys you in the process.