Chapter 16 Run, Ling, Run #3
Orm whispered against her shoulder,
"You really ran."
Ling laughed softly.
"I drove."
"Same thing."
"No."
"Emotionally, it's the same thing."
Ling smiled.
"Maybe."
Orm pulled back.
She looked into Ling's eyes.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I think I fell in love with you before I realised it."
Ling smiled.
"When?"
Orm thought.
"Probably when you criticised my proposal."
Ling laughed.
"That was not romantic."
"It was for me."
"Why?"
"Because you were the first person who looked at my work and actually expected me to be better."
Ling's smile faded into something softer.
"I always believed you could be."
Orm's eyes filled.
"That's why I couldn't stay angry at you."
Ling brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
"Go."
Orm nodded.
Then stopped.
She kissed Ling.
It was gentle.
Slow.
Nothing like the first kiss that had happened because they had forgotten to pretend.
This one was different.
It was deliberate.
A promise.
When they separated, their foreheads remained together.
"I love you."
Ling closed her eyes.
"I love you too."
Orm stepped back.
Then she walked toward the departure gate.
Ling watched.
Every instinct told her to follow.
To stop her.
To tell her not to go.
But she didn't.
Because loving Orm meant loving all of her.
Including the ambitious, stubborn, talented woman who wanted a life beyond Veyra.
Ling stayed where she was.
Orm looked back once.
Ling smiled.
Orm smiled.
Then she disappeared beyond the gate.
?
Ling stood alone.
Her phone vibrated.
She looked down.
Orm: Don't look so sad.
Ling smiled.
She typed:
*I'm not.
Orm replied:
*Liar.
Ling laughed.
Then another message arrived.
Orm: I'll come home.
Ling stared at the words.
She typed:
*I'll be waiting.
She put the phone away.
Then she walked toward the exit.
The drive home felt different.
The city looked the same.
The traffic was still terrible.
People were still rushing.
Lights still flickered across buildings.
Bangkok hadn't changed.
But Ling had.
She had spent so much of her life believing that love was a threat to stability.
Now she understood that stability without love could become another kind of emptiness.
She had been afraid of needing someone.
She had been afraid of being vulnerable.
She had been afraid of losing control.
And yet the moment she finally stopped trying to control everything, she discovered that love wasn't the disaster she had imagined.
It was the one thing she had been missing.
?
When Ling arrived home, she walked into the apartment.
The silence returned.
But it was different now.
She still missed Orm.
Of course she did.
The apartment still felt too quiet.
The coffee still tasted wrong.
Her phone still felt too empty.
But there was no uncertainty.
No pretending.
No question about what they were.
Ling walked to the kitchen.
She made coffee.
Then she took out her phone.
A new message appeared.
Orm: Did you eat?
Ling smiled.
She typed:
*No.
The reply came instantly.
Orm: Of course you didn't.
Ling laughed.
She sat down at the kitchen table.
Ling: I miss you.
Three dots appeared.
Then:
Orm: I miss you more.
Ling looked at the message for a long time.
Then she smiled.
The distance would be difficult.
She knew that.
There would be lonely nights.
Missed calls.
Different schedules.
Arguments.
Doubt.
Days when one of them would be exhausted and the other would need reassurance.
But they would face those things together.
Not because it would be easy.
Because it would be worth it.
Ling looked around the apartment.
For the first time, the silence didn't feel like an empty space.
It felt like a pause.
A temporary one.
Because somewhere far away, Orm was beginning a new chapter.
And somewhere here, Ling was beginning hers.
They were no longer pretending.
They were no longer waiting for someone else to tell them what their relationship meant.
They had chosen each other.
And sometimes choosing someone didn't mean keeping them beside you every second.
Sometimes it meant letting them fly.
Trusting them to return.
And being brave enough to wait.
Ling picked up her coffee.
Her phone buzzed again.
Orm: Goodnight, girlfriend.
Ling smiled.
She typed:
*Goodnight, troublemaker.
A moment later:
Orm: You love me.
Ling looked at the screen.
She smiled.
Ling: Unfortunately.
Orm replied:
Orm: Liar.
Ling laughed.
"Yes."
She whispered to the empty room.
"I'm lying."
Because unfortunately wasn't the word.
Not even close.
She loved Orm.
Completely.
Terrifyingly.
Without conditions.
And perhaps that was the greatest change of all.
The woman who had once built rules around love had finally learned that some things were never meant to be controlled.
Some things were meant to be chosen.
And Ling had chosen.
She would choose again tomorrow.
And the day after that.
Until the distance ended.
Until Orm came home.
Until the empty space beside her was filled again.
Until the woman who had once entered Veyra as a nervous new creator returned not as her fake girlfriend, not as her campaign partner, not as the person she had once pretended to love-
but simply as Orm.
The woman Ling loved.
The woman she would wait for.
The woman who had taught her that sometimes the most terrifying thing in the world wasn't losing control.
It was finally allowing yourself to care enough to lose someone.
And then choosing to love them anyway.