"Say it was a lie," she demanded. "Say it was revenge and you still care. Say something that makes this survivable."
Ling's silence was the final blow.
Rhea's face crumpled.
She slid down the wall again, clutching her hair, rocking slightly as if her body remembered older pain too well.
"I can't live with this," she whispered, voice hollow now. "Do you understand that? You didn't just break my heart you broke how I see myself."
She looked up at Ling, eyes swollen, red, begging without dignity.
"If this was revenge," she said softly, "then punish me. Yell at me. Hurt me with words. But don't make me feel like I was nothing but a step in your plan."
Her lips trembled violently.
"Please don't make my love feel disgusting."
For the first time, fear overtook love completely.
"What am I supposed to do now," she whispered. "Every place you touched me—every memory how do I live inside my own skin after this?"
Her voice dropped to a broken murmur.
"You didn't just leave me," Rhea said.
"You took me with you."
Rhea stood there for a long moment before she moved.
It wasn't strength that lifted her to her feet it was numbness. The kind that comes when crying has exhausted every muscle and even pain feels heavy to carry.
She walked to Ling slowly, like each step might be her last.
Then she hugged her.
Not tight.
Not desperate.
Just… final.
Her forehead rested against Ling's shoulder, and when she spoke, her voice was hoarse, scraped raw by hours of breaking.
"If this was your revenge," Rhea whispered, tears soaking into Ling's robe, "then congratulations."
Her fingers clenched weakly at Ling's back, like muscle memory refusing to let go even when the heart already had.
"You won."
She let out a breath that sounded more like a sob than air.
"You didn't just hurt me," she continued, voice trembling but steady now in a terrifying way. "You broke me in a way no one ever even imagined doing."
Her lips curved into something that wasn't a smile bitter, shattered. "You made me into the girl I hated the most."
She pulled back just enough to look at Ling, eyes red, swollen, hollow but still honest.
"The weak one," Rhea said. "The stupid one. The one who believes love fixes everything." A broken laugh escaped her.
"Congratulations, Miss Kwong," she said softly. "GOAT, right? No one else managed this. Not my past. Not my fears. Not even the people who tried."
Her voice cracked for the first time again.
"You did it."
Her hand slid down from Ling's shoulder slowly, like even touch was too much now.
"Tell me something," Rhea whispered, staring at the floor. "How am I supposed to survive this… when no one else ever destroyed me this completely?"
Her breath shook, uneven.
"I lived through everything before you," she said. "Everything."
She looked back up, eyes glossy but empty.
"But this?"
A pause.
"This feels unlivable."
She stepped back fully now, arms wrapping around herself instinctively not dramatic, not theatrical just someone trying to hold together pieces that no longer fit.
"I hope it was worth it," Rhea said quietly. "Because whatever you took from me tonight… I don't know if I'll ever get it back."
Rhea's voice came out low. Flat.
"Get out."
Ling paused, fingers still on the buttons of the clothes from last night.
Rhea didn't look at her.
"Go," she repeated, louder now, her chest rising too fast.
"Before I do something I can't undo."
There was a sharp edge beneath the words not anger, not fear something darker. Something frightening even to herself.
Ling watched her for a second longer. Not to comfort. Not to apologize. Just to see the damage she'd caused.
Then she finished changing.
The sound of fabric sliding over skin felt obscene in the silence. Every movement felt loud. Deliberate. Cruel. Ling straightened, adjusted herself like nothing irreversible had just happened.
She didn't say goodbye.
The window opened. Closed.
Gone.
The room felt wrong immediately — too big, too empty, too quiet for what it now held.
Rhea stood there for a few seconds after Ling left, as if her body hadn't yet been informed that it was alone. Her knees finally gave out.
She slid down the wall slowly, back scraping against it, until she hit the floor.
And then she broke.
Not prettily.
Not silently.
Her hands went to her hair, fingers digging in hard, nails scraping her scalp as if pain there might drown the pain everywhere else. She rocked forward, then back, breath tearing out of her chest in uneven, choking sounds.
Her other hand came up to her face — not to wipe tears, but to hit herself. Once. Twice. Again.
"Stop," she whispered to herself, even as she did it again. "Stop being like this. Stop. Stop."
Her sobs turned raw, animal, ripping through her throat. She pressed her forehead to her knees, shoulders shaking violently.
"I knew better," she cried. "I knew better."
Memories slammed into her without mercy Ling's touch, Ling's voice, the way safety had felt so real it rewired her instincts.
How she had believed it. How she had offered herself thinking love meant protection.
Her breath hitched hard, painfully, like her lungs were forgetting how to work.
"I gave you everything," she sobbed into the empty room. "Everything."
Her nails dug into her arms now, leaving red marks she didn't even notice.
"I trusted you."
The word sounded foolish now. Weak. Childish.
Her crying grew quieter not because it stopped, but because it sank inward, collapsing into her chest where it hurt the most. Tears soaked into her dress, the floor, her hands but her eyes stared blankly ahead, unfocused.
Something inside her shifted.
Not healing.
The girl who believed love made people safe didn't exist in that room anymore. She had been left behind with the echo of a wicked grin and a sentence she would never forget.
——
Ling drove without knowing where she was going.
The city lights blurred into long streaks through the windshield, red and white bleeding together, her hands clenched so tightly around the steering wheel that her knuckles ached. She told herself not to stop. If she stopped, she would think. If she thought, she would feel.
And feeling was dangerous now.
At the first red light, her chest finally caved.
Her breath hitched once sharp, humiliating and then the tears came, sudden and violent, spilling before she could stop them. She laughed at herself through it, a broken sound.
"Idiot," she muttered, swiping at her face angrily. "You won."
She said it again, louder, like repetition could turn it into truth.
"I won."
But her body betrayed her the way Rhea's had earlier.
Her hands started shaking. Her throat burned. Her vision blurred until the road disappeared completely and she had to pull over.
The car went still.
And everything she had been holding back crashed into her at once.
Rhea's hands.
Rhea's warmth.
The way Rhea had looked at her — not guarded, not proud, not sharp — but open. Trusting. Soft in a way she had never been with anyone else.
Ling slammed her palm against the steering wheel.
"Stop," she hissed at herself. "Don't you dare."
Her mind replayed it anyway Rhea's voice breaking, the way she had begged without dignity, without defenses. The way she had said we can make this better like love was still something they shared.
Ling's chest twisted painfully.
"That was the point," she whispered harshly. "That was the whole point."
Revenge completed.
Balance restored.
Justice served at least that was what she had promised herself.
She had sworn she would do it the same way Rhea had done it to her: make her feel safe, chosen, cherished and then take it all away in one brutal moment.
And she had.
So why did it feel like this?
Her tears fell harder now, hot and angry, her jaw clenched as she fought them like an enemy.
"You deserved it," she told her reflection in the dark windshield. "You didn't break me alone."
Her voice cracked.
"You don't get to feel bad now."
She remembered the way Rhea had clung to her like she was the only solid thing left in the world. The way her breathing had gone uneven, panicked, when Ling moved away.
Ling pressed her forehead against the steering wheel, shoulders shaking despite herself.
"I won," she whispered again softer this time. Less convincing.
Her chest hurt in a way that had nothing to do with guilt and everything to do with loss.
She hated that part of herself the one that still remembered how Rhea fit against her, how natural it had felt, how frighteningly real it all had been.
She hated that even now, after everything, her body still reacted to the memory of Rhea's touch.
Anger flared sharp and defensive.
She straightened abruptly, wiping her tears roughly, almost violently.
"No," she said aloud. "This is weakness. That's all."
She started the car again, forcing her spine straight, her face into something cold and composed.
She would not let this crack show.
She told herself Rhea was naïve. That love was leverage. That trust was a currency meant to be spent or stolen.
She told herself she had won.
But the truth followed her silently through the streets, settling heavy in her chest, impossible to outrun:
Revenge had been completed.
And yet, somewhere between Rhea's tears and her own shaking hands on the wheel, Ling Kwong had lost something she hadn't planned on losing at all.
——
Rhea kept crying.
Not loudly anymore that part had already burned her throat raw but silently, the kind of crying that shook her ribs and stole her breath without making a sound. She sat where she had slid down, back pressed to the cold wall, knees pulled to her chest, fingers knotted painfully in her hair as if holding herself together was the only thing keeping her from disappearing.
Her mind wouldn't stop.
It dragged her back again and again.
Ling's smile from the night before lazy, playful, so sure of her place.
Ling's voice, teasing her, calling her dramatic, calling her hers.
The way Ling had flirted so casually, like love was effortless, like it belonged to them naturally.
Rhea squeezed her eyes shut, but it only made it worse.
She remembered the warmth not just physical, but emotional. The way Ling had looked at her like she was something precious, chosen. The way Rhea had believed it without hesitation.
Those eyes, she thought, choking. Those were the safest eyes I had ever known.
And then the shift.
The same eyes, suddenly colder. Sharper. Watching her not with affection, but with calculation. As if the girl she had trusted had stepped aside and left someone else wearing her face.
Rhea gasped, a broken sound escaping her chest.
"No," she whispered to the empty room, shaking her head. "You were real. You were real with me."
She pressed her palm over her mouth as another wave of sobs tore through her. Her body curled inward instinctively, like it remembered older fear, older hurt the kind that taught you that safety could vanish without warning.
Her heart replayed the contrast over and over, unable to accept it:
Last night Ling brushing her hair back, laughing softly, teasing her until she smiled without thinking.
This morning Ling standing away from the bed, tying her robe, wearing that wicked grin like armor.
The cruelty wasn't just in the words.
It was in how sudden it had been.