Back at the hotel, Yeh didn't turn on the lights. She sat on the edge of the bed, the city of Bangkok glowing faintly beyond the window.
She tried to replay the dinner—line it up, make sense of it but she couldn't. What stayed were fragments——
Lin's easy smile.
The way Eric looked at her—open, unhidden.
And herself—quiet, almost absent.
She hadn't handled it well tonight. Eric was her friend, after all. She should have given him more courtesy and reaction rather than silence. The imbalance left a dull exhaustion behind.
Yeh finally admitted it to herself: feelings and emotions, in the end, only make things complicated.
She didn't blame anyone.
No one had done anything wrong.
No one had crossed a line.
But she was already paying for something that hadn't even happeneB which is an imagined possibility, and the cost was real.
That, to her, was a warning.
Later that night, she concluded at a clearer truth.
It wasn't that she couldn't fell in love, she just couldn't afford what came with it—the loss of control and rationality.
Tonight had made things obvious.
The jealousy had named it for her.
And with that clarity come to a decision—
Let it go as early as possible.
That had always been her strength and her safest choice.