It was Lalin's first time sleeping over at Anda's place. Their relationship hadn't yet shifted into official "girlfriend" territory, but they trusted each other enough to visit freely and spend the night without anything crossing a line.
Anda fought off the drowsiness from staying up too late the night before and dragged herself downstairs to see Lalin off at the parking lot. The morning light spilled down across the concrete, bringing an unlikely warmth to what was usually a quiet, lifeless space.
"If your condo were closer to my university, that'd be perfect. Look at us... having to wake up this early."
Lalin grumbled softly, a faint smile on her lips as her slender hand reached over to ruffle Anda's sleep-messy hair with quiet affection.
Anda laughed under her breath. "If that's the case, maybe I should just transfer to your school? That way I won't have to wake up early, and we'd get to go to university together every single day." She said it playfully, then circled back to the unfinished conversation from the night before. "Tomorrow, if you change your mind about modeling for my clothing brand, just say the word. I'll always be waiting."
Anda hadn't given up on the idea of asking Lalin to model for her brand, even after getting turned down. Lalin had claimed she'd gained weight, which Anda found completely baffling, because as far as she could see, Lalin's figure was still delicately slender and worth showing off. She couldn't help feeling a tiny sting of disappointment that Lalin kept refusing.
"No. I still feel like I'm fat."
"Fat where? You're tiny."
"No, thanks. P'Anda should model for herself, she has a much better figure than I do."
Anda pulled a face. "But I want you to model for me."
Lalin laughed at that, then reached over and pinched Anda's nose once, thoroughly.
"Not happening. I'll come help out behind the scenes tomorrow instead, okay?"
She flashed Anda one last smile before getting in her car and driving away.
It had been a brief exchange, just a moment in the early morning, but it was full of the warmth they had built between them. Anda watched Lalin's car until it disappeared from sight, then turned and walked back inside. The moment she did, her expression shifted. The soft smile from just a moment ago faded as if it had never been there at all.
Anda knew this wasn't simple. Kunlapat still occupied every corner of her heart, filling every inch of it with no room to spare. She was using Lalin as something to hold onto, and she could only cling to the hollow hope that starting something new with someone else might finally help her erase that best friend of hers from her mind.
If anyone wanted to call her selfish... Anda was prepared to accept that. Because right now, she was just a coward who desperately wanted to escape the private hell of being in love with her own best friend.
***
On Lalin's end.
The moment her car pulled out of the condo complex, the smile slipped off her face. The brightness that had colored her lips pressed into a flat, tight line. She wasn't heading to university like she'd told Anda. She was going somewhere else entirely... somewhere she'd arranged to meet someone.
Kunlapat.
The one person she needed to settle unfinished business with, once and for all.
Inside a well-known shopping mall in the heart of Bangkok, Lalin sat waiting at a corner table in an upscale restaurant, her stomach knotting with dread at the confrontation to come. But when Kunlapat actually appeared, the nerves hit her harder than she'd anticipated.
"What is it? Why did you need to meet in person?"
Kunlapat's voice was flat. She lowered herself into the seat across the table with a composed exterior, though underneath it her chest was churning with confusion and pain. Lalin had specifically asked to meet face to face like this. It had to be about Anda.
Lalin looked exactly the same as ever. Those sharp eyes, feline and quick. That bright smile, the kind that made her look too innocent to be capable of causing harm. But Kunlapat knew full well that smile no longer belonged to her.
"I wanted to talk to you about P'Anda."
"Why, are you afraid she'll find out we used to date?"
Lalin glanced away from those cutting eyes.
"That's all in the past, P'Pat." She paused for a moment. "I just... wanted to ask you to forgive me for everything that happened. And... please don't tell P'Anda about us."
Kunlapat closed her eyes for a brief moment. A storm of thoughts raged through her head. Fragments of old memories with Lalin surfaced alongside the ache of having been betrayed, a love that had once felt beautiful now reduced to something sharp and barbed lodged in her chest.
"Listen to yourself, Lalin. Don't you think you're being a little selfish?" Kunlapat said, her voice cool. "You think what happened between us is that easy to just... forgive?"
Lalin lowered her head.
"I'm sorry..." she said, barely above a whisper. A tear dropped onto the table. "I really did hurt you. I know that."
Kunlapat turned her face away, eyes stinging. The pain rippled through her chest in waves. She wanted so badly to ask whether, if Anda hadn't been involved, Lalin would have ever come to apologize at all. Lalin was scared of Anda finding out. That was the only reason she'd rushed here to ask for forgiveness.
All this time, Lalin had left her drowning in her own tears, left her clawing her way back up from the wreckage of being betrayed, without ever offering so much as a single apology.
"Or is it that P'Pat still loves me?"
The question made Kunlapat go completely still. She could barely believe she'd just heard those words come out of the woman sitting across from her...
Kunlapat's jaw tightened. She chose not to answer that idiotic question. Instead, she let the pressure that had been building inside her finally burst out.
"Did you break it off with that Jin girl or something, is that why you can go around talking to my friend now? And your family... are they suddenly okay with you dating women? Don't you dare tell me you did terrible things to me and now you're going to turn around and do terrible things to my friend too. Do you have any conscience at all, Lalin?"
Kunlapat had no idea she was stoking the other woman's anger right along with her own. Lalin's eyes hardened as the words hit. She clenched her fists under the table.
"Things change, P'Pat. I've grown up... I'm old enough to make my own choices. Unlike you, who's still stuck in the same place."
Kunlapat let out a short, bitter laugh. "You've grown up, have you? People who've actually grown up don't go around making grand announcements and demanding attention from everyone." She smiled, but there was nothing kind in it. "That's what children do."
Lalin glared at her.
"Then it just means P'Pat still can't forget me. That's why you keep picking at me like this."
Those words found their mark.
Kunlapat felt herself go numb, as if she'd been slapped hard across the face. She lifted her gaze to meet Lalin's, her expression hardening to stone. The eyes that had once shone with love on this very person now held nothing but cold contempt.
"Don't flatter yourself."
"All I remember... are the terrible things you did."
She left those words where they fell and stood abruptly, walking away without looking back. She left Lalin sitting in silence, with nothing but the fading sound of footsteps.
Lalin watched Kunlapat's retreating figure, and the pain she felt was no less than what she'd caused. Those last words still rang in her ears, as if they had been carved there. She knew her past was a wound she had cut into Kunlapat deeply, a mark that couldn't be undone. But somewhere in a small, selfish corner of her heart, she had still quietly hoped that the other woman might have held onto some small piece of tenderness for her... but there would never be a day like that again.
***
A soft breeze carried the cool mist from the little pond on campus, brushing against Anda's face as she sat on the same old wooden bench, swinging her feet idly. She reached over and cheekily helped herself to Kunlapat's drink, taking a sip through the straw before glancing over.
"What's wrong with you, Pat? Your face is sourer than week-old leftovers."
Kunlapat sat with her arms folded tightly, trying to hold down the storm of emotions still churning from the secret meeting with Lalin earlier. The bitterness hadn't loosened its grip. She worked to keep her face neutral, to look indifferent, but her eyes gave away everything.
"Nothing. I'm fine." She said it shortly, avoiding her friend's gaze.
Anda studied her for a moment, then set the cup down on the table. "I'm only asking because I'm worried about you." She said it sincerely, though the look in her eyes held something that ran a little deeper than just friendship.
"How are things going with Nong Lalin these days?" Kunlapat asked, her voice carefully even, trying to keep the ache buried beneath her composure.
"Good, actually. She's going to take me to meet her mom next week." Anda answered with a bright smile, completely unaware that those words were carving a clean, ragged tear right through Kunlapat's chest.
Kunlapat's eyes went wide. The hands resting in her lap went cold and clenched together without thinking. "What?" she asked, her voice unsteady. She almost didn't trust her own ears. It felt like being hit squarely in the face.
Anda frowned, thrown off by the reaction.
"What are you so shocked about? She's just taking me to meet her mom. What's so surprising about that, Pat?" She asked, genuinely baffled, before following it up with words that cut straight into an open wound without even realizing it.
"Actually, Nong Lalin told me she's never taken any of her past girlfriends to meet her mom before. I'd be the first one, and we're not even official yet. So being taken to meet her mom like this... it does make me happy."
Anda's happiness was like a poison-coated blade dragged slowly across Kunlapat's heart. That truth drove itself in like a nail, making her understand with devastating clarity that every excuse Lalin had ever used to end things with her, every word about family, about what they couldn't accept...
had been nothing but lies, from the very beginning.
.
.
Don't Talk About the Ex (English version)
by Hojicha