The door slams shut.
The sound echoes too loud in the empty driveway.
Ling grips the steering wheel so hard her knuckles go white. For a few seconds she just sits there, staring forward, chest rising too fast, breath uneven.
Then she starts the car.
She pulls out roughly, tires screeching against the pavement.
The road blurs.
Her vision blurs faster.
"No—no—no—" Ling shouts suddenly, voice cracking as it tears out of her chest.
She hits the steering wheel with the heel of her hand.
"Why did I love you like that?" she screams into the empty car.
"Why did I give you everything?"
Tears spill freely now, uncontrolled, streaking down her face as she drives too fast, not caring.
"I ruined myself," she sobs, voice breaking into something almost feral.
"I ruined myself for you."
She laughs through tears — sharp, hysterical.
"My mother begged me," Ling cries.
"They all begged me."
Her voice drops into a whisper as another sob tears out.
"And I chose you."
She pressed her forehead briefly against the steering wheel at a red light, shaking.
"I would've died for you," she whispers.
"And you wanted me fall."
The light turned green.
She drives again, faster, tears still coming, shouting once more into the night like it might answer her.
"I'm still alive," Ling screams.
"So why does it feel like I'm already gone?"
The city lights streak past her windshield.
She keeps driving.
She doesn't know where she's going.
She just knows she can't stop.
Rhea's room
The silence after Ling leaves is worse than any scream.
Rhea is still on the floor at first, knees pulled to her chest, shaking.
Then her eyes lift.
The bouquet on the bed.
Still perfect.
Still untouched.
She crawls toward it like it might hurt her if she looks too closely.
Her fingers brush the petals.
She breaks.
A sob rips out of her so hard it steals her breath.
"I didn't mean it," Rhea cries.
"I didn't mean to kill you."
Her gaze shifts to the emerald blazer Ling left behind.
Over the chair.
Proof she was here.
Proof she's gone.
Rhea grabs it and presses it to her face, breathing in desperately like she might still find Ling there.
"I was going to tell you," she sobs into the fabric.
"I swear I was."
She collapses onto the bed, clutching the blazer and bouquet to her chest like lifelines.
"I love you," Rhea whispers into the empty room.
"I love you. I love you."
The candles flicker low, wax pooling like tears.
The proposal lights still glow softly, mocking her.
Rhea curls inward, crying harder, body shaking uncontrollably.
She finally understands what she lost.
Not forgiveness.
Not trust.
A living person who chose her over everything else.
And somewhere on the road, Ling screams again —
while Rhea cries into the proof of a love that arrived too late and left too deep a wound to survive.
Ling goes back to the places she swore she'd never enter again.
The clubs don't recognize her pain — only her face.
Lights flash.
Bass pounds.
Bodies press in.
It's loud enough that she doesn't have to think.
She drinks.
Then drinks again.
And again.
Glass after glass, burn after burn, until her throat is numb and her hands stop shaking.
Someone offers something she quit a long time ago.
She doesn't hesitate.
She doesn't even ask what it is.
Because the point isn't escape.
It's erasure.
The music blurs.
The lights smear.
Her laughter comes too easily — sharp, reckless, wrong.
People think she's back.
They don't see that she's hollow.
Ling dances like she has nothing to lose — because she doesn't.
Her body moves on instinct, muscle memory from a life before love ruined her discipline.
Someone touches her waist.
She doesn't flinch.
Someone whispers her name.
She doesn't care.
Inside her head, Rhea's voice keeps repeating everything will be alright — warped, echoing, cruel.
Ling laughs suddenly, too loud.
"Liar," she mutters to no one.
Another drink.
Another hit.
Her vision tilts.
For a moment — just a moment — she feels light.
Not happy.
Empty.
And emptiness feels like mercy.
She stumbles out to the balcony at some point, city air cold against her overheated skin. She grips the railing, breathing hard, heart racing wrong.
Her phone vibrates in her pocket.
She doesn't check it.
She already knows who it would be.
"I'm still alive," Ling whispers to the night, eyes glassy.
"Isn't that enough?"
The city doesn't answer.
She goes back inside.
Back into noise.
Back into poison.
Back into the version of herself that survives by not caring whether she survives at all.
Because loving Rhea made her soft.
And this — this numb, reckless spiral — is the only way Ling knows how to exist without believing again.
Not healing.
Not moving on.
Just functioning while broken.
And somewhere far away, Rhea sleeps clutching an emerald blazer, unaware that the woman she loved is drowning herself slowly — not because she wants to die,
but because living hurts too much.
Ling doesn't know when it happens.
That's the worst part.
Somewhere between the strobe lights, the drinks stacked too high, her head tilted back in careless laughter — someone recorded her.
Not a fan.
Not a stranger.
A Kwong business rival.
They know exactly what they're doing.
The angle is cruelly perfect:
Ling on a VIP couch, glass in hand, eyes unfocused, someone leaning too close, powder visible on the table for just a second too long.
Enough.
More than enough.
ONLINE
"Isn't this Ling Kwong?"
"Didn't she clean up years ago?"
"Kwong heir spiraling?"
"Guess discipline was just a brand."
Shares multiply.
Screenshots freeze her worst moments into permanence.
People don't ask why.
They never do.