Chapter 37
Still a flashbacks...........................
The first thing Orm did after returning to Thailand was create a private social media account.
No profile picture.
No real name.
No birthday.
No friends.
No trace that could ever lead back to her.
It was an account that didn't exist to be seen.
It existed for only one reason.
To quietly witness the life of the woman she loved from a distance.
She followed only one person.
Lingling.
That was enough.
She never liked a single photograph.
Never left a comment.
Never reacted to a story.
Never sent a message.
Never typed the words she had spent years swallowing.
She simply watched.
Silently.
Patiently.
As though she had accepted that loving Lingling was no longer something she was allowed to do openly.
It became a quiet ritual.
A punishment she willingly carried.
Whenever Lingling posted something, Orm would stop whatever she was doing.
Sometimes she was cooking dinner.
Sometimes she was folding Liam's tiny clothes.
Sometimes she had just finished putting her son to bed.
No matter what it was...
She would unlock her phone with trembling fingers and look.
Just look.
Sometimes Lingling uploaded photographs of Paris after the rain.
The wet cobblestone streets reflected the city lights like scattered diamonds.
Sometimes she shared little cafés hidden between old buildings, where warm lights glowed through fogged-up windows.
Sometimes it was breathtaking architecture.
Old cathedrals.
Bridges stretching across the Seine.
Flower-lined streets.
Sometimes...
It was simply the sunset.
A quiet orange sky melting into the horizon.
No captions.
No explanations.
Just photographs.
Beautiful.
Peaceful.
Lonely.
Orm would stare at every picture far longer than anyone ever should.
She would zoom in.
Notice the smallest details.
The coffee cup sitting across from Lingling that remained untouched.
The extra chair in the corner.
The reflection in a window.
The faint shadows beneath Lingling's eyes whenever she accidentally appeared in the edge of a mirror.
She searched for happiness in every tiny detail.
Desperately hoping to find proof that Lingling had learned how to smile again.
Months passed before Lingling finally uploaded a photograph of herself.
Just one.
Only one.
It had been taken by her mother.
Lingling was sitting on the wooden dock beside the Seine, holding an ice cream in one hand.
The afternoon sun gently kissed her face, wrapping her in warm golden light.
The breeze lifted strands of her dark hair as she laughed at something outside the frame.
She looked...
Like an angel.
Like someone heaven had forgotten to take back.
For a brief second...
Orm forgot how to breathe.
Her thumb trembled against the screen.
She remembered that smile.
She remembered how effortlessly it used to bloom whenever their eyes met.
Back then...
Lingling smiled without hesitation.
Without pretending.
Without hiding the sadness behind her eyes.
But now...
That smile appeared so rarely that it almost felt unfamiliar.
And Orm knew why.
She knew who had stolen it.
It was her.
The realization shattered something inside her all over again.
A broken sob escaped her lips.
Then another.
And another.
Soon she was crying so hard she could barely see the screen anymore.
Her shoulders shook violently.
She pressed the phone against her chest as though holding it close could somehow shorten the thousands of miles between them.
Then, with trembling hands...
She lifted the phone once more.
She gently kissed Lingling's smiling face on the screen.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
And again.
Until tears covered the glass.
Tiny droplets blurred the photograph.
Her fingerprints mixed with the salt of her tears.
"I'm so sorry..."
The words came out as nothing more than a broken whisper.
"So... so sorry."
Lingling would never hear it.
But Orm said it anyway.
Because it was the only apology she had left to give.
She saved every single photograph Lingling ever posted.
Every single one.
They all lived inside a hidden folder buried deep within her phone.
Locked behind another password.
Not because she was obsessed.
But because those photographs became proof that Lingling was still alive.
Still breathing.
Still waking up every morning.
Still choosing to live.
Still finding reasons to keep moving forward...
Even after Orm had destroyed the future they once dreamed of together.
Whenever life became too overwhelming...
Whenever the guilt became too heavy to carry...
Whenever loneliness wrapped itself around her heart so tightly she could barely breathe...
Orm would quietly open that hidden folder.
Usually late at night.
When the entire house had finally fallen silent.
She would sit beside Baby Liam's bed, watching her little boy sleep peacefully with his favorite stuffed toy tucked beneath his arm.
She would gently brush his hair away from his forehead before turning her attention back to the screen.
One photograph after another.
As if she were turning the pages of a life she no longer belonged to.
She smiled through tears.
Every single time.
Then whispered so softly that even the night almost failed to hear her.
"You still look beautiful."
A small pause.
"I hope someone tells you that every day..."
Another tear slipped down her cheek.
"I hope someone makes you laugh until your stomach hurts."
"I hope someone waits for you when you come home."
"I hope someone loves you the way I should have."
She swallowed the sob rising in her throat.
"I hope... you never have to cry because of me again."
As though somehow...
Across thousands of miles...
Across different countries...
Across different lives...
Lingling could still hear her.
Every single night...
After Liam had fallen asleep...
Orm would quietly kneel beside her bed.
The room would be dark except for the pale moonlight spilling through the curtains.
She folded her hands.
Closed her eyes.
And prayed.
Not for herself.
Never for herself.
She no longer believed she deserved that.
Instead...
She prayed for Lingling.
Every night.
Without fail.
"Please let her sleep peacefully tonight."
"Please take away the nightmares I gave her."
"Please heal the parts of her heart I broke."
"Please surround her with people who will love her better than I ever did."
"Please let her laugh without pretending."
"Please let her find the happiness she lost because of me."
By then...
Orm would already be crying.
Her tears falling onto her clasped hands.
Her voice barely audible.
"And if..."
She paused.
As she always did.
Her voice becoming softer.
Smaller.
Almost afraid to ask.
"If You still have one miracle left for us..."
Her lips trembled.
"Please..."
"...let our paths cross again someday."
A long silence followed.
Then she added the same words she had whispered every single night for years.
"But only..."
Her tears fell freely.
"...when she's finally happy."
Amen.
That prayer never changed.
Not once.
Because loving Lingling had never been the hardest part.
The hardest part...
Was learning to ask Heaven for her happiness...
Even if it no longer included Orm.
- -
Six months later...
The house had forgotten what laughter sounded like.
Only silence remained.
A silence so cruel that it had become another person living inside the house.
Orm wandered aimlessly across the dimly lit living room, her bare feet dragging against the cold wooden floor. She had walked the same path countless times over the past six months-from the window... to the couch... to the nursery... then back again.
Six months.
One hundred eighty-three days.
Four thousand three hundred ninety-two hours.
Every single second had been spent missing her.
She hadn't truly slept for days.
Even when exhaustion forced her eyes shut, she would wake up reaching across the bed for someone who wasn't there.
Every morning was another heartbreak.
Every night was another reminder that half of her soul was missing.
From the nursery came the soft, peaceful breathing of Liam.
Her little boy, now a year and a half old, slept soundly inside his crib, hugging the small stuffed bunny.
Even in his sleep, he occasionally murmured a tiny,
"Mama..."
Orm froze.
Her heart shattered all over again.
She quietly walked into the nursery and knelt beside the crib.
Orm gently brushed the strands of hair away from his forehead before pressing a trembling kiss there.
"I'm sorry, baby..." she whispered, tears already filling her eyes.
"I'm so sorry we're not a complete family today. If Lingling and I are okay, I'm sure she'll love you to bits."
Her voice broke completely.
"You've grown so much... and Lingling hasn't been able to see any of it."
A tear slipped from her chin onto Liam's tiny blanket.
"You learned how to walk..."
Another tear.
"You started saying new words..."
Another.
"You keep looking at the front door every evening..."
She covered her mouth to stop herself from crying aloud.
"...maybe because like me, you still think someone is coming home."
Orm slowly stood and quietly left the room before Liam could wake.
The moment she closed the nursery door, she collapsed against the wall, sliding helplessly onto the floor.
She buried her face into her knees.
How much longer?
How much longer could they live like this?
Just then-
Her phone vibrated on the coffee table.
The sudden sound startled her.
Her heart immediately raced.
For one impossible, foolish second...
She prayed.
Please... let it be Ling...
She rushed toward the phone with trembling hands.
The screen lit up.
Hope dissolved into quiet heartbreak.
Lingling's mother had never failed to call.
Every few days.
Every week.
She always updated Orm about Lingling.
Perhaps because she knew...
Orm was dying a little more every single day without hearing anything.
With shaky fingers, Orm answered the video call.