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She felt suffocated.
Her fingers gripped at the back of the chair as she took long, steady breaths, trying to slow her racing heart. She felt as if her skin was on fire, and her clothes were too coarse, rubbing and itching in the wrong way.
Her eyes caught the form of her husband, who was laughing at another gentleman’s comment. He was surrounded by several clients (she thought, she was never quite sure), standing tall and seeping in their attention like a sponge. He had always had a miraculous way with people — it was one of the reasons she fell in love with him in the first place.
She, however, was not made for this life. She liked quietness. Her small flower garden was quickly becoming her safe place, because it was the only place she could be truly alone.
She rubbed at the velvet on the chair, inhaling and exhaling sharply to calm her breath. From where she stood, hidden behind a satin curtain in the corner of the ballroom, she could see people munching on food and sealing business deals. At the opposite end, Gorya leaned against Thyme, chatting with another unknown couple.
Kaning had, on many occasions, asked Gorya how she maintained this role. She didn’t understand how anyone could live this way, but Gorya seemed to flourish, picking up Thyme’s slack willingly.
She drew her gaze back to Kavin, who was beginning to crane his neck, searching for her. She checked her watch. “Only ten minutes,” she whispered. Usually it took him much longer to realize she was gone.
She watched as he excused himself from his group of random people, and made his way slowly to her corner. She crouched behind the chair, hoping he would miss her, and leave her in peace until they could leave.
No such luck.
Drawing back the curtain, he towered over her, an eyebrow raised. “Hiding again, little one?” He asked, reaching a hand to rest it on her head. “At this point, I should call you chipmunk.”
She glared at him, and he chuckled. In one swift movement, he pulled the chair back and squatted next to her, letting the drapes fall back to cover them both.
Kaning elbowed him, and he grunted. “When can we leave, Kavin?”
He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back, making himself very comfortable in her space. With how tall he was, she was surprised he fit in her little corner. Taking her hand, he rested them on his knee, and she unwillingly leaned towards him. “Whenever you want to,” he replied.
Just briefly, annoyance flickered through her, but it was squashed abruptly by her appreciation for his actions. While he wasn’t one to tell her he loved her on the daily or talk about his feelings at all, really, he showed his affection through small acts, and it was enough to make her heart flutter. Just him being here, sitting on the dirty floor in his new suit so that she could calm down easier, showed how much he cared about her.
“Can we leave now?” She knew she was being selfish, but honestly, he had enough money already, so why worry about one or two lost business deals.
“Sure.” But he didn’t move, and neither did she, content to just breathe in their little space and ignore the whirlwind outside.
His thumb traced her skin soothingly, and after a minute or two, she touched his knee. He glanced at her. “We should get out of here,” she said. “People are going to think we’re doing something naughty.”
He grinned, and leaned close to her. “Why? Do you want to?”
She flushed and pushed him away with her free hand. “You’re disgusting.”
Before he could retort and win this quarrel as he always does, the curtains swung open, and Gorya looked down at them, waggling her eyebrows. “What’re you doing?” Disappointment soon clouded her eyes when she realized they were, in fact, doing nothing, and she pursed her lips.
Kaning rolled her eyes, and jabbed Kavin in the ribs. “I told you,” she muttered.
Looking up at Gorya, who was watching them expectantly, he reached a hand to grab a handful of her dress and tugged softly. “Want to join?” He smirked, scooting a bit to the left.
Gorya slapped at his hand, glowering. “I know you think you’re funny, but you’re not.” She extended a hand, and Kaning grabbed it, replacing Kavin’s freezing hand with Gorya’s sweating hand. She shivered as a chill ran down her spin from the sudden switch.
“Hey, what’s with the abuse today?” He called after them, and Gorya flicked her middle finger up at him as she pulled Kaning through the crowd. Kavin’s laughter followed her, slightly easing her mind as she again prepared herself for the onslaught of socialization that awaited her.
They were sitting together on their couch, swaddled in a large blanket, with two steaming cups of tea placed before them on the coffee table. It was one of those strange days in Thailand when the weather dropped below thirty degrees, which was considered basically freezing by Kaning’s standards, and therefore, she refused to step foot outside. Kavin’s fingers tangled in her hair, brushing through the strands again and again absentmindedly as he scrolled through his emails, and Kaning flipped through a novel she’d read at least a thousand times.
Kavin sighed, and his hand left her scalp to type a response. Kaning’s head tilted towards him, the only indication of the absence of his touch, but otherwise didn’t say anything.
He reached forward and pressed down lightly on her book until it lay in her lap. She huffed and looked at him out of the corner of her eyes in annoyance. “What?”
“There’s a conference this weekend in Florida. Do you want to go?” He held up his phone, where the weather app glared at her. “It says there’s high temperatures for Saturday and Sunday.”
Her brow creased. Florida weather was tempting, but joining him just meant long days of talking to other wives and significant others, where they complained either about their partner’s long hours or how bad the spa and pool were. She shook her head. “I have a job too, remember?”
He tugged her ear fondly. “Come on, you don’t have to teach on the weekends.”
She sighed inwardly, racking her brain for any possible excuse not to go. “I promised Mona we would go out for lunch on Saturday. We haven’t seen each other for ages.” She knew it was a low blow, but she was willing to use any ammunition she had to avoid one more party.
“You’re really picking Mona over me?” He groaned. “That’s just insulting.”
“Sorry,” she said, laughing and poking his nose, returning to her story and mentally adding a note to make lunch plans with Mona on Saturday.
She wasn’t sorry, though.
Kaning sat behind her desk in the elementary school she taught in, grading her children’s assignments from that week, when her phone screen lit up. She glanced at it, surprised to see Gorya’s name, and swallowed the bite of her lunch that she’d taken before answering. “Hello?”
“Kaning!” Gorya answered excitedly. “Did you see that the hospital is throwing an appreciation party for F4, since they’ve donated so much to the different wards?”
Kaning looked up suddenly, dropping her pen. It fell right on the student’s paper, drenching the top corner on a boy’s paper with red ink. She cursed, reaching for a napkin to dab at it. “Really,” she said, returning none of Gorya’s enthusiasm.
Gorya’s voice crackled. “Do you want to go dress shopping later?”
Kaning rolled her eyes. Gorya had always loved to play dress up with fancy clothes, more than Kaning had, but now it seemed she always needed a new dress or outfit for some event she was attending with Thyme. “Gorya, I…”
“Wait, Kaning, I’ll call you back,” Gorya responded, cutting her off. “A patient just walked in thirty minutes before their appointment.”
She hung up, and Kaning’s classroom was enveloped in silence once again.
She gave up on grading and trying to clean the red mess, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. Hot tears pricked at her eyelids, and she pressed the heel of her hands against them to stop the inevitable. She hated crying, especially in public. It made her feel weak and small. Plus, Kavin had told her that crying wasn’t for someone like her. She knew that he had meant to comfort her, but she had always been insecure and looked into people’s comments too deeply. To her, it meant he thought she wasn’t pretty when she cried, and it was important to her that he always thought she was beautiful.
She crossed her arms over her knees, rocking herself slowly in her chair, trying to suppress an oncoming panic attack. When she had started dating him, she didn’t think twice about his extravagant socialite life, or the fact that rich people became rich through connections and secret business deals made during parties or plays. She didn’t care that they were different — he, a loud extrovert who thrived through other people; her, a small quiet introvert who only needed her bed and a book to be happy. She was happy just to be with him, to have him and his full attention.
And by the time she realized she wasn’t fit for such a lavish life, it was too late. They had already gone public with their relationship, and both Thai and international paparazzi followed her around, invading every semblance of her life, and making her feel uncomfortable even in her own home.
Now, after they had been together for almost six years, the paparazzi had died down, but she still didn’t feel comfortable. It was like her mind and heart were just waiting for the next invasions, and she was so…
She was so tired.
Her screen lit up again, this time showcasing Kavin’s face loudly. She stared at the picture until it went away, proudly announcing that she had a missed call. It was an old picture from their first date, where he was sitting on a railing, waiting for her to come. She had snapped it just as he had spotted her, when his whole face lit up and his eyes crinkled into little crescent moon shapes.
Her eyes welled up as he called again, and she waited for him to hang up before picking up her phone with shaking hands, texting a message to him. He replied with a thumbs up and a “call me later, please”, and she wished, not for the first time, that they could just run away to somewhere where no one knew who he was.
When she arrived home that night, later than usual, she found Kavin asleep on the couch, her book laying across his stomach. She kneeled next to him, brushing his hair out of his eyes as he puffed a breath, his breathing rhythmic. His ear twitched, and she knew immediately that he was dreaming. She hoped it was a happy dream.
She brushed the pad of her pointer finger down the bridge of his nose. He refused to sleep in their bed alone; therefore, whenever she came home later than she was expecting, she found him curled in a fetal position on the couch, with no blanket and usually holding something that belonged to her.
When she asked him about this, he liked to play it off nonchalantly, but she knew it was because of his separation anxiety. It’s not uncommon for a child to develop this, especially if his parents always threatened to leave him.
His hand rose and took hers, threading their fingers together on top of his chest. “You’re home,” he mumbled.
She pressed a kiss to his forehead, touching her nose to his skin. “Mm,” she murmured. “You want me to carry you to bed?”
His eyes opened sleepily. “Can you?”
She gazed at him fondly. “Come on, get up, you big baby.”
He obliged, his hand clasping hers tightly. She tugged at his silken pajama pants, trying to get him to move faster.
Laying him down on the bed and pulling the blankets up, she moved towards the bathroom, desiring a hot shower after her long day, but his fingers caught on her belt loop. Turning to him, she waited for a second, not sure what else he wanted.
He peeked at her, and she could see his insecurities. “You never called me back.”
She soothed a hand down his scalp. “Go to sleep, Kavin. I’ll be right back.”
As soon as the water from the shower hit the tiled floors, the floodgates in her eyes opened, and she cried for the first time that day, because their relationship was doomed and she was the only one who knew it.
She woke late that morning. Sunlight already peaked through the curtains, and she drowsily rubbed her eyes, searching for sleep sand in the corners.
Sometime during the night, Kavin had pressed her close to him, fitting her against his side. Their wedding bands were interlocked from where he still held her hand captive, and she turned to look at him. She remembers, then, a comment she once made at the flower shop, about how he looked like a royal. It still held true. He was the prettiest person she’d ever seen, and she knew lots of handsome people.
His eyes fluttered open, and she flushed as he caught her staring at him. He smirked at her, and she immediately regretted those thoughts. He definitely did not look like a prince — he looked like an asshole. How dare he laugh at her.
But then his grip tightened on her, and he relaxed his face muscles, his fingers playing with the ends of her hair. She had decided years ago that his love language must be physical touch, factoring in how he used to pull her nose or pinch her cheek long before they started dating, and when he was drowsy and contented, he latched on like a huge, annoyingly warm koala bear.
Usually, she enjoyed early morning snuggles with Kavin.
Today, she was too conscious of her greasy hair and the pimple beneath her nose, and rolled away from him. “Where are you going?” He asked, his voice hoarse with sleep.
She pulled her hair into a low ponytail. “I have to pee, Kavin.”
He hummed. “Come back after.”
When she returned, feeling more refreshed than before, he had propped himself up with pillows, his glasses perched on his nose as he stared at the screen of his phone. She folded herself into his side, and barely caught a glimpse of an old picture before he tilted his screen away. “Are those the pictures of me crying about Tesla?”
He nodded, coiling his arm around her and pulling her tightly into him.
Her eyes widened. “You kept those?” She cried, reaching for his phone.
“Of course.” He pulled it away from her, looking at her expectantly.
She narrowed her eyes. “If you’re planning to use those to blackmail me, I’ll hack your balls off with scissors.”
For a second, he looked genuinely terrified, and chuckled nervously. “When we were in high school, I used to always look at these pictures when I tried to convince myself I didn’t like you.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Why?”
“Because you were crying, and I used to think girls were ugly when they cried,” he replied. “I guess these pictures changed my mind.”
She stared at him incredulously. “I look horrific in those pictures.”
He waved her off. “You don’t.” A notification popped up on his screen, and he clicked it, instantly worlds away from the conversation that had just occurred while Kaning tried to process this new information. “Apparently, the hospital is throwing a party for us.”
Kaning’s mood immediately soured, and she pulled away from him slightly. He didn’t seem to notice.
He looked down at her, cocking his head slightly. “Do you want to go?”
She tugged her arm back to herself, and rose off the bed. His brows creased together, and she fought the urge to smooth the skin between them. “I have to go to work.”
While she was at work, he called at least a dozen times and texted her endlessly, and she ignored every single one. He must not have enough work running his company for him to be so excessive about everything.
But she also knew, subconsciously, that she desired an argument. So she elongated her hours, refusing to go home until the custodians pushed her out the doors, complaining about not being able to clean her room so they could leave.
She took the long way home, purposely extending the time by driving the speed limit, and when their house came into view, she sighed. Her heart felt heavy, like it was going to burst if she kept her feelings locked away any longer. Walking slowly to the door, she felt a headache forming beneath her temples, and her eyelids drooped.
Kavin was sitting on the couch, his head in his hands. She could tell that he was stressed and suddenly, guilt overcame her like a wave, but she squashed it down.
Hearing her keys jingle, he looked up, his mouth gaping. “Are you okay?” He asked, scanning her from head to toe, his hands fanning out around her head. “Nothing happened?”
She sat opposite of him, shaking her head. “Why would you think that?”
He pointed at his phone. “All of my calls went to voicemail.”
She blinked. She hadn’t meant to make him so worried. “I’m sorry. I was busy today.”
He nodded once, very slowly, and she was once again astounded by his level of trust in her. “Well, originally I was calling to get confirmation for the party. We’re supposed to reserve the number of people, so I wanted to tell Thyme that we were going.”
“I don’t think so, Kavin.”
He pursed his lips. “Do you have something else going on that night?”
“No.”
He smiled, though it seemed forced. “So why can’t you come?”
Instantly, resentment for him and his stupid parties clutched her heart, freezing it ice solid. She stood abruptly. “Because I don’t want to.”
He followed her into the kitchen, pausing on the other side of the island. His lips were pursed, and he was staring at her in confusion. She knew he had no idea what was going on, and that everything that was about to occur was her fault, but she couldn’t stop it. “Why? I can’t go alone.”
“Why not?” She spun towards him, and he visibly took a step back.
“Did you have a bad day?” He asked softly, pressing his hands into the counter. He looked like he wished he could disappear or turn back time. He hated arguing with her. It reminded him of his parents, and reverted him to a child who could never escape the loud debates, full of hatred and violence.
Even so.
“No, I just don’t want to go, Kavin.”
His eyes flickered up. “It’s embarrassing if I don’t have a date.”
She tilted her head, snorting a laugh. “Who do you think actually cares?”
“Why are you being like this?” He racked a hand through his hair, and she could tell he was bordering on frustration. “Are you mad at me?”
Her eyes narrowed, and she slammed her hands against the counter. “Can’t you understand Thai?”
“You’re being unfair.” A muscle in his cheeks twitched.
“Whatever,” she replied, grabbing her keys off the counter and starting for the door. “I’m staying at Gorya’s. Don’t follow me.”
Kaning sniffled, and Gorya pulled her head down so it was resting on her shoulder.
She had calmed down a little on the ride over, and guilt had begun pressing at her gut, making her feel like she was going to throw up.
Gorya, the most wonderful person in the world, had immediately begun fawning over her when she knocked on their front door, worried sick by just seeing her red-tinged eyes.
Thyme, however, sat in a chair in his boxers, more than peeved at her late night intrusion. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he glared at her openly.
Gorya carded a hand through her locks, soothing her as Kaning sobbed into her shoulder. No one said anything until Kaning’s breath stabled and her grip on Gorya’s pajama shirt had loosened.
“Did you fight with Kavin?” She could barely see Thyme through her teary eyes, and swallowed, feeling the lump in her throat bob up and down. He sighed. “That was a rhetoric question. I know you did.”
“Rhetorical,” Gorya muttered as Thyme held up his phone where M.J. was spamming “SOS” in their group chat over and over. Gorya stole his phone, scrolling up to the top of the conversation and scanning the messages quickly. She looked at Thyme exasperatedly. “You didn’t want to tell him Kaning is here so he isn’t worried?”
“He…” Kaning stuttered, fighting to keep her voice even. “He knows.”
Gorya kissed her brow, pressing her forehead into Kaning’s cheek and closing her eyes. “Kaning, you have to stop bottling your feelings up.”
Kaning nodded, wrapping her arms around Gorya’s waist. Thyme’s eyebrow twitched, and through the haziness of her misery, she felt vindication. She still didn’t think he deserved Gorya.
“So you did explode at him?” Gorya puffed out a breath, and it landed on Kaning’s cheek, tickling her.
“I think so.”
Gorya pulled her head back in order to look at her properly. “You know, whatever it is that is making you so bitter, he would probably do anything to fix it.” She rested her head on the back of the couch. “He loves you.”
Kaning nodded again, tears falling from her eyelids for the second time that night as she closed them, and craved Kavin’s arms instead of Gorya’s.
Gorya drove her home the next morning, and after ensuring that her mind was stable again, ushered her inside the house, ordering her to have a decent discussion with Kavin.
The door creaked as she opened it, and she frowned. Slipping off her shoes, she made her way to the living room, hoping he hadn’t waited for her all night and had gone to bed. Upon seeing the scene, she gasped, and tears pricked yet again. She rubbed her eyes furiously, hoping she was imagining it.
M.J. looked up at her, placing his finger on his lips in a shushing motion. “He just fell asleep,” he whispered, pointing at Kavin. His head lay in M.J.’s lap, and his hair was mussed, matching the dark marks under his eyes. He was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, and as she approached him quietly, she could tell he had been crying.
Her heart broke.
He had been hurt so many times in his life, but he still catered to her and treated her like she was the only person who mattered. His only fear was that she would leave him, just like his parents and Mona.
She was the one who didn’t deserve him.
She was staring at the television hard, not truly understanding anything that was happening in the show, as the door pushed open. Kavin glanced at her once before moving towards the bathroom, and a second later she heard the pitter of the shower. She sank back into her pillows, closing her eyes and formulating in her mind every possible scenario that this conversation could result in.
But she must have fallen asleep, because when she awoke, it was dark in the room. Kavin sat next to her, the sheets under him still made up, and she wondered if it was because he was unsure if he was allowed to join her.
She turned towards him, and he jolted. “You’re awake?”
She hummed.
His hand twitched at his side like he wanted to touch her, but was restraining himself. “Little one,” he started, then looked away. “I will not let another sun set on your hatred for me. So tell me now or…” he choked. “Or I can leave.”
Her eyes widened, and she sat up, turning his chin to force him to look at her. “I don’t hate you,” she stated, and his whole body shivered. “I’m sorry I made you feel like I hated you.” She closed her eyes, trying bitterly to stop the oncoming tears. “I’m sorry.”
He pulled her into him, and she could feel his heart beating furiously beneath his skin. He didn’t say anything, and she suspected he was waiting for her to finish.
She clutched at his shirt. “I hate this,” she exhaled, finally feeling a weight being lifted off her shoulders. “I can’t do this anymore, Kavin.”
“Do what?” He murmured into her scalp. “Be with me?”
“No!” She exclaimed, her grip tightening. “The events, the parties, the stupid conventions. I feel like there’s constantly one more, one more, and I’m so sick and tired of parading around and talking to every person so superficially.” Her cheek rested on his chest, and his shirt was becoming soaked very quickly. He didn’t seem to mind. “And I hate how nobody even cares about me. Nobody even knows me for me anymore, they only care that I’m your wife.”
He sighed.
“Being your wife is exhausting, Kavin.”
For a minute, he said nothing, and she knew he was trying to sort out the different puzzle pieces in his head. “How can I fix it?” He breathed into her hair.
“I don’t know,” she weeped. “I’m more comfortable talking to my students than I am with those people. They don’t care who my husband is.”
He snorted. “You do know that those people are just jealous of you, right?”
She sniffed. “Yeah, yeah. They want to know how a nobody like me ended up with you.”
“So, just don’t pay them any mind.”
She huffed. “It’s not just that, though. I’m sick and tired of going to these socials all the time, and I wish that you weren’t so famous, so we could just live a quiet life.”
He lifted her chin so she would look at him. “I can’t change who I am,” he said, and she started to speak before he cut her off. “But I can probably get over my awkwardness and just go alone.”
“You? Awkward?” Her chin dipped as she chuckled at the thought.
He grinned, and she realized that he had tear streaks of his own trailing down his cheeks. “Or maybe I’ll just bring M.J. A fine replacement.”
She blinked. “Wait, really?”
He nuzzled his nose into her hairline. “I’d do anything for you, little one.”
And as her heart melted, she pulled him down and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head on his heart and waiting for the beats to spread out. “Thank you,” she said softly.
He was everything, she realized in that moment. She would be okay if the sun crashed into the planet right then and there, if she died enveloped in his warmth. His magic wasn’t that he was rich or beautiful or even that he doted on her at every possible chance. It’s that he understood her perfectly, and that he was willing to leave his comfort zone if it meant making her the tiniest bit happier.
To know him was to know sparks and enchantment. To love him was to know the meaning of life, where he became the entire center of the universe. But to be loved by him…
That was to know pure happiness and bliss.
She swore she couldn’t love him more than she did in that second.
(But when the sun rose the next morning, and she gazed upon him, she admitted to herself that she had been wrong — she always loved him a little bit more with every second that passed by.)
I lost my way all the way to you,
and in you,
I found my way all the way back to me.