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.
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.
Eric was her friend, after all. She had given him nothing close to the ease or courtesy he deserved. The imbalance left a dull exhaustion behind.
Time passed before she finally admitted it to herself.
Feelings, in the end, only complicated things.
She didn't blame anyone.
No one had done anything wrong.
No one had crossed a line.
And yet—
she was already paying for something that hadn't even happened.
An imagined possibility, and the cost was real.
That, to her, was a warning.
Later that night, she arrived at a clearer truth.
It wasn't that she couldn't feel.
She just couldn't afford what came with it—the loss of control, the way it slipped past reason and rearranged everything.
Tonight had made things obvious.
The jealousy had named it for her.
And with that clarity came a decision, just as precise—
Let it go early.
That had always been her strength.
And her safest choice.