Ploy's POV
The gallery smelled of fresh paint and possibility, undercut by the faint bitterness of the espresso machine in the corner that never quite worked properly. Ploy Walchanon stood before a massive canvas, her arms crossed, head tilted as she studied the explosive reds and oranges that dominated the piece. The artist had called it "Rebirth," but all Ploy could see was destruction. Fire consuming everything in its path, leaving nothing but ash and memory.
She'd been staring at it for twenty minutes, and still couldn't decide if it was brilliant or pretentious.
"You're doing that thing again," Pan's voice came from behind her, warm and familiar as a favorite sweater.
Ploy didn't turn around. "What thing?"
"The thing where you psychoanalyze the art instead of just deciding if we should hang it or not." Pan's footsteps approached, soft on the polished concrete floor. She came to stand beside Ploy, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. "It's just a painting, Khun Ploy."
"Nothing is just anything," Ploy murmured, still studying the canvas. The longer she looked, the more she saw—hints of gold beneath the red, suggestions of green fighting to emerge from the orange. Maybe it was about rebirth after all. Maybe she was projecting. "What do you think?"
Pan was quiet for a moment, giving the question the serious consideration she gave everything Ploy asked. It was one of the things Ploy appreciated most about her assistant—Pan never dismissed her, never treated her questions as rhetorical even when they were.
"I think it's angry," Pan said finally. "But anger can be honest. And people respond to honesty, even when it's uncomfortable. Maybe especially when it's uncomfortable."
Ploy felt a smile tug at her lips. "So we should hang it?"
"I think we should hang it in the main gallery, right where people will see it when they walk in. Let them decide if they're brave enough to keep looking."
"You're getting better at this."
"I have a good teacher."
Ploy finally turned to look at Pan, taking in the younger woman's neat appearance—black slacks and a crisp white button-down, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail that somehow made her look both professional and approachable. Pan Anongchai had been working at the gallery for almost two years now, since shortly after Ploy and Earn had broken up. Ploy still remembered the day Pan had walked in for her interview, all nervous energy and passionate rambling about art and community spaces. She'd hired her on the spot, desperate for a distraction from the raw wound of heartbreak.
Now she couldn't imagine running the gallery without her.
"Help me move it?" Ploy asked, gesturing to the canvas.
They worked together in comfortable silence, carefully lifting the heavy frame and carrying it to the main wall. The gallery was small by Bangkok standards—a converted warehouse space in a neighborhood that was still deciding if it wanted to be trendy or traditional. But it was hers. Every exposed brick, every track light, every square meter of white wall was a testament to years of dreaming and months of renovation and the kind of stubborn determination that ran in the Walchanon family.
Her mother had thought she was crazy when she'd announced she was opening a gallery instead of joining the family's import business. Her father had simply written her a check and told her to make something beautiful. She thought about him sometimes when she stood in this space, wondered if he'd be proud of what she'd built. Wondered if he'd understand why she needed to create something entirely her own, separate from family expectations and predetermined paths.
Anda understood. Her little sister had always understood.
"Perfect," Pan said as they stepped back to admire their work. The painting dominated the wall, impossible to ignore. Angry and honest, just as Pan had said.
Ploy's phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out to find a text from Anda.
Nong Anda:P'Ploy! Still on for dinner tonight? I'm thinking that place near the river you like. The one with the terrible service but amazing pad thai.
Ploy felt warmth bloom in her chest. Anda had been trying to see her more often lately, and Ploy knew it was because her sister worried about her. Worried that she spent too much time at the gallery, too much time alone, too much time existing in the carefully controlled space between moving on and staying stuck.
Ploy:Sounds perfect. What time?
Nong Anda: Seven? I have to stop by the bakery near Siam first to get something, but I'll meet you there.
Ploy:See you then. Love you.
Nong Anda:Love you too, P'.
Ploy tucked her phone away and found Pan watching her with that soft expression she sometimes wore, the one that made Ploy feel simultaneously comforted and guilty in ways she didn't want to examine too closely
"Anda?" Pan asked.
"Dinner tonight. She's bringing me something from that bakery I like."
"The coconut cookies?"
"Probably." Ploy smiled. "She's a good sister."
"You're lucky to have her."
"I know."
The morning dissolved into the familiar rhythm of gallery work. They updated the website with photos of new pieces, responded to emails from artists and potential buyers, rearranged the smaller works in the second room to create better flow. A couple came in around ten and spent forty minutes debating whether a sculpture of intertwined hands belonged in their living room or dining room before ultimately buying it for their bedroom. An older woman browsed for fifteen minutes without saying a word, then left. A university student asked if they ever hosted exhibitions for emerging artists, and Ploy spent twenty minutes talking to him about submission processes and deadlines, watching his face light up with hope.
This was the part she loved most—the intersection of art and people, the moment when someone connected with a piece in a way that transformed both the viewer and the viewed. She'd fallen in love with this feeling years ago, during a college trip to a gallery in London where she'd stood in front of a painting for an hour, unable to articulate why it moved her but certain that it did.
That was before she'd met Earn. Before she'd learned that some forms of beauty carried hidden thorns.
"Khun Ploy?" Pan's voice pulled her from her thoughts. "The supplier called about the new frames. They'll be here Thursday instead of tomorrow."
Ploy pushed away thoughts of the past and focused on the present. "That's fine. We don't have anything urgent that needs framing right now anyway."
Pan nodded and made a note on her tablet, her fingers moving efficiently across the screen. She was always like this—organized, competent, anticipating needs before Ploy had to voice them. Sometimes Ploy wondered what she'd done to deserve such loyalty, such consistent presence. Pan had stayed through Ploy's worst days, the ones right after the breakup when she'd come to work with eyes swollen from crying and a heart that felt like shattered glass. Pan had brought her tea and handled clients and never once asked for details Ploy wasn't ready to give.
The lunch hour arrived with the usual lull in foot traffic. Pan went out to get food from their favorite som tam vendor while Ploy stayed behind to mind the gallery. Alone in the quiet space, surrounded by other people's expressions of joy and pain and everything in between, Ploy let herself drift.
Two years. It had been two years since she'd last seen Earn Siriniu. Two years since the worst morning of her life, waking up with a pounding headache and a stranger in her bed, turning to find Earn standing in the doorway with flowers in her hands and devastation on her face. Two years since she'd screamed and Earn had screamed back, since accusations had flown like weapons, since love had curdled into something ugly and unrecognizable.
She'd tried so hard not to think about those eyes—dark and deep and capable of such tenderness. Tried not to remember the way Earn's hands felt, steady and sure whether they were holding a scalpel or holding Ploy. Tried not to wonder if Earn ever thought about her, if those memories haunted her the way they haunted Ploy.
The rational part of her brain knew it was over. Knew that even if the misunderstanding about Tawan could be explained, even if the cheating could be forgiven, too much had been said in anger. Too much trust had been broken. You couldn't rebuild a house after you'd burned it to the ground.
But the heart, Ploy had learned, didn't care much for rational thinking.
Her phone rang, jolting her from her reverie. Her mother's name flashed on the screen. Ploy considered letting it go to voicemail, then felt guilty and answered.
"Hello, Mae."
"Ploy, darling. How are you?" Her mother's voice was warm but carried that undertone of concern that had become permanent over the past two years. "I haven't heard from you in days."
"I'm fine, Mae. Just busy with the gallery."
"Always the gallery." A delicate sigh. "You know, Khun Somchit's daughter just got engaged. Such a lovely girl. I was thinking perhaps you might like to meet—"
"Mae." Ploy closed her eyes. "Please."
"I'm just saying, darling, you're twenty-eight years old. You spend all your time in that gallery, you barely see anyone. When was the last time you went on a date?"
"I have dinner with Nong Anda tonight."
"Your sister doesn't count." Another sigh, more pronounced this time. "I worry about you, Ploy. Ever since that doctor—"
"I have to go, Mae. There's a client here." It was a lie, but a necessary one. She couldn't have this conversation again, couldn't explain for the hundredth time that she was fine, that she was healing, that just because she wasn't actively dating didn't mean she was broken.
Even if sometimes, late at night, she felt exactly that broken.
"Alright, darling. But think about what I said. And call your father sometime. He misses you."
"I will. Love you, Mae."
"Love you too."
Ploy ended the call and set her phone face-down on the desk, as if that could somehow prevent any more unwanted intrusions into her carefully maintained equilibrium. The gallery felt too quiet suddenly, the white walls too stark, the art too loud in its silent expressions of everything she was trying not to feel.
Pan returned with lunch—som tam for both of them, sticky rice, grilled chicken that smelled like heaven. They ate at the small table in the back office, Pan chattering about a new restaurant that had opened down the street, about a movie she wanted to see, about her mother's insistence that she needed to dress more femininely. Normal things. Safe things. Ploy listened and made appropriate responses and tried not to notice the way Pan's hand lingered when she handed over the water bottle, the way her eyes held something more than friendship when she thought Ploy wasn't looking.
She noticed. She'd been noticing for months, maybe longer. And she did nothing about it because Pan deserved better than to be someone's rebound, someone's distraction from a love that refused to die despite being dead and buried.
The afternoon brought more visitors—a serious young man who bought three pieces without haggling on price, two women who giggled over the abstract nudes in the corner, an elderly couple who reminisced about the warehouse this used to be, back when the neighborhood was different. Ploy smiled and sold and talked about art, all while part of her mind counted down the hours until dinner with Anda.
Her sister had always been her anchor. Seven years younger, but sometimes it felt like Anda was the older one, the way she worried and fussed and tried to take care of Ploy. When their mother had gotten sick three years ago—the cancer that had brought Earn into Ploy's life in the first place—Anda had been the one to hold Ploy together. Had been the one to sit with her in hospital waiting rooms, to make her eat when food tasted like ash, to remind her that their mother was strong, that she would survive.
And she had survived. The cancer was gone now, their mother healthy and meddling and trying to set Ploy up with every eligible person in Bangkok. But those months in the hospital had changed everything. Had brought Earn into their lives like a comet, bright and beautiful and ultimately destructive.
Ploy wondered sometimes if she'd ever stop measuring her life in befores and afters. Before Earn. After Earn. Before love. After heartbreak.
At six-thirty, she started closing up the gallery. Pan helped her cover the pieces that needed protection, turn off the lights in the right sequence, set the alarm. They walked out together into the early evening heat, Bangkok wrapping around them like a familiar embrace—the smell of street food and exhaust, the sound of traffic and conversation, the sight of the city transitioning from day to night in that magical hour when both existed simultaneously.
"Have a good dinner with Nong Anda," Pan said as they stood on the sideled.l, and there was something wistful in her voice that made Ploy's chest ache.
"Thank you, Pan. For everything today."
"It's my job, Khun Ploy."
"It's more than that. You know it is."
Pan smiled, small and sad and understanding. "Get home safe. I'll see you tomorrow."
Ploy watched her walk away, disappearing into the crowd, and felt that familiar guilt rise up. She should say something. Should address the elephant that had taken up residence in every interaction they had. Should be honest about the fact that she cared about Pan, valued her, but couldn't give her what those lingering looks asked for.
But honesty required courage Ploy wasn't sure she possessed anymore.
She hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of the restaurant by the river. Traffic was thick, the crawl through Bangkok's evening rush giving her too much time to think. She watched the city slide past her window—the gleaming shopping centers and the weathered shophouses, the monks in orange robes and the teenagers in designer clothes, the temples and the skyscrapers reaching toward the same sky.
This city had given her so much. Her gallery, her independence, her dreams made manifest. But it had also taken from her. Had brought her love and then ripped it away, had shown her happiness and then taught her how thoroughly happiness could be destroyed.
Her phone buzzed. Anda.
Nong Anda:Got the cookies! Heading to restaurant now. Traffic is insane.
Ploy:Same. See you soon.
The taxi inched forward. A motorbike wove between cars with reckless confidence. Someone's radio played a song Ploy recognized but couldn't name. The sun painted the sky in shades of orange and pink, beautiful and temporary, like everything else.
She thought about the painting she'd hung that morning. Rebirth. Fire consuming everything, but hints of gold beneath. Maybe that's what healing was—not the absence of fire, but the slow emergence of something new from the ashes. Maybe she was rebuilding without even realizing it, one day at a time, one small choice after another.
Or maybe she was fooling herself, and the fire was all there was.
The restaurant appeared through the taxi window, its lights reflecting off the river. Ploy paid the driver and stepped out into the warm evening air. The smell of food and water and city life wrapped around her. She checked her phone—no new messages from Anda. Her sister was probably stuck in traffic somewhere, cursing the buses and the cars and the general chaos of Bangkok rush hour.
Ploy found a table on the terrace overlooking the river and ordered a Thai iced tea while she waited. Boats drifted past, their lights beginning to glow as dusk deepened into night. Across the water, the city sparkled with a thousand lives being lived, a thousand stories unfolding simultaneously.
Somewhere in that vast sprawl, Earn was probably finishing up at the hospital. Probably saving lives with those steady hands, probably making patients feel safe with that calm presence. Probably not thinking about Ploy at all.
And that was fine. It had to be fine.
Her phone rang. Anda's name flashed on the screen.
Ploy smiled and answered. "Hey, where are you? Still stuck in traffic?"
But the voice that responded wasn't Anda's.
It was young, female, panicked. Words tumbling over each other too fast. "Is this Khun Ploy Walchanon? You're Anda's sister? There's been an accident—she's—we're at the hospital—you need to come now—"
The world tilted.
The river kept flowing.
The city kept sparkling.
And Ploy's life split clean in half—before this moment, and everything that would come after.
She was already running before she even realized she'd moved, her phone pressed to her ear, a stranger's voice giving her directions to a place she knew too well. The hospital where her mother had been treated. The hospital where she'd met Earn.
The place where her life had changed once before.
The universe, it seemed, had a cruel sense of poetry.
And as Ploy ran through the streets of Bangkok, her heart hammering and her mind refusing to process what she'd just heard, she didn't know that in a few short hours, she'd see Earn again for the first time in two years.
Didn't know that her sister was fighting for her life.
Didn't know that everything was about to change.
Again.