Chapter Text
"Do you believe in fate?" a girl from Pran's new school asked.
"No," Pran answered curtly, hoping she would take the hint and leave him the fuck alone.
He hadn't come to the party to make new friends. He didn't deserve any. He’d only tagged along because he wanted to get drunk and try to forget about her.
Because if he thought about her, then he'd just be reminded of how fucked his current life was. Of how much he fucked up. Of how he lost everything. And everyone. All because of a stupid mistake.
"Why not?" she pushed in spite of his internal turmoil. Why not?
Maybe if he was slightly more intoxicated, he would have been honest. Maybe he would have allowed the crowd of drunk teenagers surrounding him to crack his chest open.
They might have found out the truth then. See how rotten he was on the inside.
But he wasn't that drunk. And the only thing that got spilled was the mix of drinks he had earlier that night. Directly on her shoes.
"Oh my god. Oh my god, " the girl screeched, rushing to the bathroom.
And that was Pran's cue to sprint to his dorm, fully ignoring the loud music and laughter bouncing off the walls. He made a mental note to apologize to Nim the next day, before passing out on his bed.
He might have to buy her a new pair of shoes, but that was the least of his problems.
I don't believe in fate because I don't want to think it can be this cruel to me.
See, Pran's life hadn't been that messy before the accident. He liked to think of his life as the before and the after .
They used to be a tight-knit group of friends; him, Pat, Ink, and Pa. Their parents were neighbors and close friends, thus the four of them had grown up together, inseparable pretty much since birth.
They were supposed to go to school together too and they did until after the accident when Pran's mom transferred him to another school and the whole family moved house.
It wasn't like Pran said no to the move, though. On the contrary, he had begged his mom to take him as far away from that neighborhood as possible. Staying would have been too painful. The guilt was eating him alive. He could never look him in the eyes again. He could never breathe near any of those people again.
She couldn't breathe because of him either.
So yeah, he had cried and screamed and begged until his mom took him away.
He hadn't managed to make any friends at his new school, except for his roommate, Wai, who refused to leave him alone because he was freaked out by Pran's frequent nightmares.
"Dude, maybe you need to see someone about this," Wai suggested the second time it had happened, his hand on Pran's shaky shoulder.
"You can ask for a new roommate if it bothers you," Pran choked out, trying to get his breathing under control.
"Does someone screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night bother me? Sure. But I'm more worried about you. What happened to you to make you have such bad dreams?"
If only you knew.
"I'm fine," Pran muttered under his breath, shaking Wai's hand off. "I don't want to talk about it."
"You don't have to talk to me about it, but I still think you should talk to someone. The school counselor or maybe one of your old friends? Someone you've known for longer, that you trust?"
Wai was not going to give up, no matter how cold Pran acted towards him. Pran could tell and he hated it. He wasn't ready to display his ugly festering wound yet. He might never be.
"I'm not talking to any of them anymore."
"Why?"
"Can you just let me go back to sleep, please?" Pran sighed, pulling the duvet over his head.
"Whatever." Wai shrugged, making his way back to his own bed.
Classes, lunch, sleep – or more like lack thereof, due to the nightmares – and repeat. That's how his school days went. Weekends were for avoiding Wai, getting drunk, and apologizing to girls whose shoes he puked on. Okay, that might have only happened once, but it was mortifying enough for him to lock himself in his room for the rest of the week.
Days turned into months and months turned into years and he was suddenly supposed to pick a university to go to when all he wanted to do was to dig himself a hole and crawl in there until he died, suffocated by dirt.
"Pran?"
What does it feel like, not being able to breathe anymore? He wondered sometimes, when he didn't have schoolwork to bury himself in. He had experienced it for a few minutes, but he also got to feel the oxygen entering his lungs again when he was pushed to the surface. She didn't.
"Pran?"
Did she die quickly or was it a long process of trying and failing to breathe underwater? Did she struggle? Did she try to fight it, to swim to the shore? Did she feel alone? Did she blame him like her family did? Had she already moved on to another life? Was she still human? Or maybe a cat? She loved cats. Was she out there, laughing at his misery? Celebrating it? Because he deserved it.
"Hello! Were you even listening to what I said?"
No, she would never. She was too nice for that.
"Pran!" Wai yelled, snapping his fingers in front of his friend's face.
"What? Sorry, what were you saying?" Pran blinked, taking in his surroundings. He was in the cafeteria, right. How and when did he get there?
"I said, do you still want to pursue architecture, like me? Because I found the best university. We'll be classmates again."
"That's great." Pran nodded, playing absently with his food. Sticky rice tasted like nothing when it wasn't made by Pat and Pa's mom.
"It's in Bangkok."
"Bangkok?" Pran spluttered. "No, I can't go there," he declared, taking a sip of water.
"Why not? I know your mom wants you to go there too."
"You talked to my mom?"
"Maybe." Wai grinned, as if that was a totally normal thing to do.
"You know Aunt Dissaya loves me. She thinks I'm a good influence on you. She says that every time she visits! And we both think you can't waste your potential just because you might run into your old friends that you had a fight with when you don't even know if they're still in the city."
"Is that what she told you?" Pran raised his eyebrows. "That I just had a fight with some old friends? That I'm scared of them or something?"
"Well, that's what you told me too, is it not?"
"It's complicated," Pran replied, feeling sick to his stomach at the mere thought of facing his childhood friends. He can't do this.
"I'll think about it. And stop talking to my mom behind my back, please. It's fucking weird." He got up, leaving a flabbergasted Wai behind.
"I don't know about you, but I feel like going for a swim!" Ink exclaimed, not giving the others a chance to protest as she started taking her clothes off.
"You have no shame! P'Pran is here!" Pa chuckled, covering her eyes while a blush crept up her face.
"So what? Are you scared of a bra, Pran?" his friend giggled and Pran rolled his eyes in response.
She was doing it on purpose. She knew he was probably gay and harboring a crush on their other friend, Pat. And he knew she had a thing for Pat's younger sister, Pa.
Ink was showing off and Pran couldn't possibly blame her. He would have done the same had Pat been there. But he wasn't, the poor puppy was sick in bed, so it was just the three of them hanging out by the river, like they always used to.
"Come on, don't leave me here alone!" Ink shouted, splashing them with water.
"Hey! That was my good shirt!" he yelled back, inspecting the damage.
"Come on, grumpy face, it's just water! It won't kill you!"
He shook his head in disbelief.
"This calls for revenge!" he answered, running after her in the water. Pa reluctantly joined them shortly after that, despite not being the best swimmer. None of them were, really. But they weren't going to venture too far. At least, that's what he told himself until he was challenged to do so. And he did, because he was a stupid teenager.
"Hia can swim further than that!" Pa commented, blissfully unaware of the disaster that was about to unfold before their very eyes.
"Oh yeah? Watch me!"
In retrospect, he had no idea why he acted the way he did. He might have felt like it was a challenge because people always used to compare him and Pat, for some reason. They had a weird competition thing going on that no one really understood, but everyone liked to make fun of. Apparently, pushing his and Pat's buttons was entertaining.
"There's some serious tension going on between you two," Ink had said once. Maybe that was it.
One minute. One minute was enough for him to realize he was in too deep. One minute was all it took for him to start sinking, much to his friends' horror.
It all happened so fast. He didn't even have time to register the gravity of the situation before he felt two frail arms pull him back. And then he was being carried by another set of arms and someone was screaming into his ear, urging him to breathe. He only fully came back to Earth when his butt touched the sand and he choked out all the water he had swallowed, emptying his tired lungs.
He opened his eyes to Ink's terrified ones and all he managed to mutter with his scratchy throat was, "Did you–"
"No. Pa went in after you. I just dragged you to the shore."
"Where is–"
"She was just behind–" Ink turned her head around, but there was no one behind her.
And that was the last time any of them saw her. Alive, that is. Divers managed to find her body later that day.
It wasn't fair, really. She got to play hero while he was left behind to deal with the consequences, when she could have just let him die.
He knew she did it to repay the favor because he had also saved her from drowning when they were kids. But it wasn't fair that they'd both made it out alive then while only one of them did this time. And why did it have to be him? He would do anything to go back in time and switch places with her.
But no, Pran had to be the one to explain what had happened to her brother and her parents. He had to listen to the adults blame him, despite Ink's insistence that it was no one's fault. He had to watch everyone cry at the funeral, fully knowing she wasn't there because of him.
It was too much for a 14-year-old to bear. That's why he did not believe in fate. He refused to think that what had happened was anything other than a cosmic mistake. An unfortunate glitch in the universe. There is no way a 13-year-old was fated to die the way she did. No way.
Fate was too cruel if that were the case.
"I brought you this. You're legally not allowed to be mad at me anymore!" Wai bribed him with a chocolate bar.
"Legally?" Pran questioned, accepting the peace offering. He was only human.
"Yes, because it's chocolate, come on! I promise not to talk to your mom again. And in my defense, she only called me because she was worried about you not picking up her calls."
"I don't care. Just don't answer next time," he said, munching on his dessert.
"Call her then. Don't be a dick. Not everyone has a mother to be angry with, you know." Right, Wai didn't have a mother. Or a father, at that. He had been raised by his grandparents, who were now very ill. Their classmates were his only family. Pran had to be more mindful of that.
"I'll call her right now. But give me five minutes of privacy."
"All right, keep your secrets. And tell Aunt Dissaya I miss her famous curry while you are at it."
"Weirdo!" Pran said, throwing the packing after his friend.
I can do this, he told himself as he grabbed his phone from the nightstand.
"Pran! Do you take pleasure in making me worry?"
No, I can't do this.
"Hi, Mom. I'm fine, thank you for asking. And how are you?" Pran asked, making himself comfortable in bed.
He knew from his mother's tone that this would be a long phone call. Much longer than the five minutes he requested from Wai. Or maybe if he was lucky, the little shit would barge in and interrupt the conversation before the questions got too invasive.
"Cut the sass. I did ask. In multiple texts. That you so rudely ignored."
"I'm sorry." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I was just really busy with schoolwork." Lie.
"Too busy for your poor old mother?" She was starting to get on his nerves again.
"You're not old. And listen, I still have a lot to do, so–"
"No, don't hang up. We have something important to discuss. Did you talk to Wai?"
"I did, actually," he replied, straightening up his back. "I heard you two really like talking about me behind my back."
"Pran… I'm just worried about you."
"You have no reason to be. I'm doing great." Another lie.
"Have you started therapy like I asked you to?"
"Yes… No." There was no way he could keep up that lie when his mom could easily contact the school counselor to find out the truth.
"That's it. You're coming back to Bangkok. And you can't say no."
"But–"
"You'll go to university with your friend Wai and that's the end of the discussion."
"You can't force me. You have no right!" Pran exclaimed.
His limbs were starting to turn to jelly. He hated that his own mother was capable of making him feel like that.
"Pran! I didn't raise you to talk to me like that!"
"Yes, you did. And that's why I'm like this!" He raised his voice.
Tears were already pooling in his eyes. Goddamnit. Why am I so weak? He hoped he hadn't been too loud. The last thing he wanted was to find out his classmates had heard him and made a queue in front of his door.
"Try to be reasonable and see things from my perspective. It's my job to worry as your mother. I don't like knowing you are suffering alone, so far from home. I want you to get better. And you can't do that if you don't even give therapy a try. You can't spend your whole life blaming yourself for something that was out of your control."
"Do you have to bring that up every time we talk?" Pran asked, squeezing his fingers into a fist and bringing it to his mouth to bite it. That was the least he could do to stop himself from screaming.
He knew he was fighting a losing battle. His mother was as stubborn as a mule. He could threaten to get a job to financially support himself and leave the country, and she'd still find a way to drag him home. Rebelling was out of the question when you had Dissaya as your mom.
"Yes. Because you're not getting better and I am worried. Listen, I haven't seen any of those people since we moved. You might not even see them again. And if you do and they are rude to you, I will have a word with them."
"Mom!"
How was he supposed to tell her that he deserved all the anger and cruel words they might target him with because it really was his fault? He was the reason someone was no longer alive. He hadn't meant to, but he’d killed her. And her family and friends, through grief.
"And what if I can never get better? What if this is it for me?" Pran blurted out in tears, regretting his words as soon as they came out of his mouth
"Love, you're scaring me. Please, just come home."
"Ok. Ok, I will." He sniffed. "But I have to go now. Bye, Mom." He ended the call before she could say anything else, throwing his phone across the bed.
He said that. He did it. And there was no going back now.