Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
CAMERON
Sunday
The Grand Palace
Bangkok, Thailand
The air shimmers with heat rising off the sunlit marble as I adjust the strap of my crossbody, feeling my shirt cling annoyingly to my back.
The molten-gold spires of the Grand Palace blaze against an almost unreal blue sky, each tiered roof catching the light as if it was on fire.
The rooftops really do look like they are burning, and the mirrored mosaics wink like scattered jewels in the sun.
Beside me, Riley fans herself with a folded palace map. “I swear I’m evaporating,” she groans. “Or melting. Or something.” Even so, her eyes stay locked on the intricate inlays decorating the marble columns.
I wipe a line of sweat from my temple and grin. “I know. We could cook eggs right on this pavement.”
Tourists stream past us in bright, sun-bleached colors, and the air buzzes with the sound of guides speaking a dozen different languages.
Somewhere close, incense drifts through the heat, carrying a faint breeze from the inner courtyard.
Our guide waves us forward toward the entrance of Wat Phra Kaew, where the Emerald Buddha sits high above everything on its altar.
Even from the doorway, I can see the gold-leaf pillars flashing and the deep green of the statue’s robe glowing in the light. Riley snaps a quick photo.
“Have you heard from him?” she asks casually.
“Gregg?” I slow a little without meaning to.
She nods, catching up to the group before she has to jog.
“No,” I admit. “Not since yesterday when we landed.”
“Nothing from Julian, either,” she confesses, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
“Well, they were both going to Gregg’s family’s house,” I remind her. “They’re probably busy. And, ya’ know, the time zones and all.”
“It sounds like a lot of polite conversation and small talk that makes you wish for a fire drill,” Riley teases.
A line of orange-robed monks shuffle past in silence, the soft padding of their sandals grounding the moment. Their saffron robes glow against the palace’s gold and green, and everything seems to slow for a breath.
I pull out my phone and send off a quick flurry of messages, hoping one of them will land—hoping he’ll answer.
CH: You’d lose ur mind here. The Grand Palace is UNREAL. So much gold and jewels. And the heat? Brutal.
CH: I know this is crazy, but I keep catching myself wishing you were here. A lot.
CH: Can’t wait till I’m done traversing time zones so we can actually talk.
“Well, you did a great job of getting rid of Marc.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, looking up from my phone.
“Well, it seems like he got the message,” Riley observes. “He didn’t come near the front of the plane on the last two flights, and he didn’t try to butt into our plans for Mumbai or here. Not since you had that moment with him.”
“Like I said, I just made it clear where we stood. He’s a grown man, and he thinks I owe him some type of explanation about why we were only fuck buddies.”
“Is that really all?”
I hesitate, a beat longer than I mean to. “I feel like he wants to take advantage of me since Drew died. Like he expects me to just… jump into his arms. But I think what really bothers him is Gregg.”
“That’s so wild to me.” Riley laughs. “It’s giving high school drama.”
“I know. And like, I like Gregg. But it’s weird, right? I only just met the man, and Marc is suddenly so possessive?”
Before she can answer, our guide claps his hands together. “Okay, we have everybody here?” he announces in a thick Thai accent.
I shove my phone into my bag, and both of us turn our full attention toward him.
“Good, good. We are about to go into Wat Phra Kaew, also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Please remember that this is the most sacred Buddhist temple in all of Thailand, and photography is strictly prohibited inside. It is very disrespectful.”
Ooh’s and ahh’s ripple through the group as we step inside.
Riley hooks her arm through mine, and the temperature drops instantly, as if the temple itself exhales against our skin.
A cool, sacred balm after the harsh white blaze outside.
The hush is immediate and complete. Not the forced quiet of a library, but something living and ancient settles over us all like invisible silk.
Gold shimmers in the dim glow, every surface whispers with history, with worship, and with the weight of generations. The world outside, the crowds, the chatter, the chaos of Bangkok, it all seems to dissolve behind us, falling away into a reverent softness.
“Remind me,” Riley whispers into my ear, barely audible. “Is this the one where we’re supposed to make a wish?”
I nudge her in the side and snort, fighting a far more inappropriate laugh that rose only because everything around us feels so solemn.
It’s so breathtaking that humor becomes a sort of pressure valve.
We both still instantly when the guide’s voice slips through the heavy, fragrant air, almost ceremonially.
“Historically, this was the private chapel of Thai kings and their courts. And while its name is ‘Emerald Buddha,’ it is made of jadeite. The Buddha is adorned with seasonal robes that are changed by the King three times a year to mark the changing seasons of summer, winter, and the rainy season. This ceremony brings good fortune to Thailand and the Thai people.”
I let the words sink in. A quiet, sacred act of renewal repeated year after year, no matter what storms come, no matter what is lost or rebuilt in the world outside these walls.
My eyes drift, pulled not by the Emerald Buddha, but by Riley.
She’d slipped a step forward, releasing my arm.
Her usual bright and teasing expression has softened into something still and tender.
She bows her head just slightly, hands clasped loosely at her waist as though an instinct had guided them there.
In the golden light, she looks younger somehow, or maybe more ancient.
Like she’s briefly remembered the person she used to be before life sharpened her edges.
I wasn’t close enough to hear what she whispers, but her lips move and utter barely a breath. A wish, maybe? A thank-you? A plea? Whatever it is, it carves a little ache in my chest. Because even Riley, loud and fearless and always in motion, could be humbled by the world’s quiet holiness.
In the stillness, I let myself offer a silent prayer too. For courage to keep changing when the seasons of my own life demand it. For the strength to love, even when it terrifies me. And for the grace to carry the past with me without letting it bury me.
A bell chimes faintly somewhere deep in the temple, and the air seems to tremble just once, as if acknowledging us and our hopes, our smallness, our borrowed moment of peace.
Later that afternoon, with the heat still clinging to my skin, the streets around us hum with motorbikes, sizzling woks, and the chatter of vendors.
The bright blue sky has softened into a pale honey, stretching long shadows across the pavement.
Riley and I weave our way through the crowd shoulder to shoulder, following winding alleys in search of the marketplace from the photograph Drew took years ago.
“You ever get the feeling we’re chasing a ghost?” I ask, dodging a tuk-tuk as it squeezes past us.
“Maybe.” Riley laughs. “But you and Drew would never shut up about the damn pad Thai stall. So I’m determined to find it.”
There was a looseness to her laugh that hadn’t been there in months, a brightness not forced, not put on for someone else’s comfort. Just Riley, unguarded.
“Can I ask you something kind of random?” I say, keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead.
“Always!”
“Earlier, when we were at the temple… did you pray?”
She shakes her head. “No. At least not in the traditional sense.”
“But did you have a moment?”
“I did,” she concedes, glancing over at me with a soft smile.
Her smile holds something heavy behind it, something earned.
“Did you?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I admit. “The idea of renewal kinda hit me. I asked for grace and strength.”
“I like the person you’re becoming on this trip,” Riley states, her smile deepening.
“What about you?”
“Well,” she begins, tucking a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, “I thought about how much of my life I spent waiting.”
I tilt my head. “Waiting?”
“Mhm. Waiting for the right time and the right people. The right version of me to show up. I thought if I waited long enough, the world would give me permission to exist.”
As she speaks, her pace slows, not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for me to feel the shift. The crowd parts around us in a warm blur of colors, but Riley stands suddenly still.
“And it never did, did it?” I murmur. For as much as I know about Riley, there are parts of her journey she doesn’t advertise. There’s a chapter she prefers to remain closed on the shelf, remembered and grown from.
She smirks and sidesteps a group of kids, though her eyes are distant, seeing years I’d never lived with her.
“Nope. Living as Michael was never going to give me permission. So I stopped waiting. And I took it, piece by piece. Some pieces I had to steal back from people who didn’t think I deserved them. ”
Her voice is steady, warm, full of hard-won truth. The kind that’s shaped by scars under long sleeves and nights where survival was a choice made over and over again.
At the mention of her dead name, I feel the air around us move, like the heat softened out of respect. I know exactly what she means.
“But in that temple,” she continues, “I realized that this is it. I’m here. And I’m not here in spite of what I went through. I’m here because of it.”
She lifts her chin in quiet pride, one that’s earned only after building yourself from the rubble of someone you weren’t.
“If you could go back, would you change anything?” I ask quietly.
“Sure I would. With my headspace and understanding now, I wouldn’t have…”
She pauses, rubbing the series of scars on her wrist beneath a beaded bracelet. Her bracelets always moved when she talked. The soft clicking beads like punctuation to sentences she never says aloud. I watch her thumb drift over the raised skin with an intimacy only a survivor can offer.
“I wouldn’t have done what I did,” she finishes, voice low but unwavering. “But I don’t wish for a different life anymore. I’m living this one. I am a strong woman, no matter what some societies think. And I am enough.”
In that moment, walking beside her through the golden-lit streets, I realize I’m not just seeing Riley, I’m witnessing her.
The version of her she had fought to become, piece by piece.
I understand that the quiet moment she had in the temple wasn’t prayer.
It was recognition, reclamation, and renewal.
Without thinking, I wrap my arm around her and pulled her into a quick squeeze. “I can’t imagine you as anyone else, bestie…”
The scent of lemongrass and charcoal drifts from a nearby food stall, and something tugs at me. I slow down, scanning the street ahead, the red, blue, and orange awnings, the way the late light filtered through them. My chest tightens. This was it, exactly like in Drew’s photo.
“Riley,” I say, my voice catching. “I think this might be it.”
I step into the narrow lane, the crowd brushing close on all sides, and I stop where Drew must have stood. My eyes trace the same lines and colors I’d memorized from the photo. The noise of the market fades until all that remains is warm air and a soft, golden haze.
“So, what do you think?” Drew stands there grinning, his camera slung casually over his shoulder. “Do you think I captured the face of Bangkok?”
I swallow, the air is thick in my chest. He looks exactly like he did the day he left for the airport, his eyes bright with that spark he only gets when he was chasing light through a lens.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “You did.” I take another slow look around the market.
“You know, babe,” Drew says gently, taking my hand. “You didn’t need to ask for strength or grace or courage. You already have it.”
I turn back just as he lifts his camera and snaps a picture of me.
“Yes,” he says from behind the lens. “This is how I want to always remember you.” Then he straightens, slinging the camera back over his shoulder and drags a hand through his sandy, tousled hair. “You don’t just survive, Cam. You thrive.”
The crowd surges around me again, the sizzling woks and scooter horns crash back into place, and I let out a breath but don’t say anything. It’s Riley who finally breaks the silence.
“Feels different in person, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I agree softly. “It really does.”
We buy pad Thai from the stall we’d been told about and, minutes later, go back for a second helping.
Riley wanders a few stalls ahead while I linger, breathing in garlic and lemongrass before letting the air out slowly.
I reach into my bag, pull out my phone to snap a few photos of the market from the same angle Drew had.
Without letting myself overthink it, I open my messages and start typing a text to Gregg.
CH: So remember how I talked about that photo I have of a market in Bangkok? Found the exact spot! It’s alive with color and chaos.
CH: Click To Open
CH: Sorry for blowing up your phone, though…
I start off after Riley, we really need to start heading back to the hotel if we want to sleep before our late departure to Tokyo. My phone vibrates quicker than I’d expected, and I am glued to the screen.
GH: Sounds amazing.
GH: Sorry for going quiet. It’s been… a lot here. Just woke up actually.
CH: No worries! Just glad I wasn’t bugging you ;)
GH: You could never. In fact, I wish I were with you.
CH: Oh really?
GH: Yes really. I can’t explain it fully.
GH: You said you end your trip in San Francisco, right?
CH: Yeah. Wednesday morning. Planning on staying a few days and deviating from the reposition flight back to NYC.
GH: Cool. I have a business partner who wants to meet.
GH: Can I ask… Can I see you again?
I stop mid-step and read the words over again.
CH: I’d love that.