THE ONE WHO RAN AWAY

Chapter 2 — Run Again

Théo's POV

Bangkok, Thailand

My phone had been ringing since yesterday.

I knew without looking.

Noah.

I stared at the screen as I walked — Bangkok rushing past me in every direction, loud and warm and completely indifferent — and I let it ring. Once. Twice. The third time I watched it go to voicemail and kept walking.

Not now.

The fourth time I picked up.

"Hey." My voice came out flatter than I intended.

"Hey?" Noah's voice hit like a slap. "Hey is what you say when you pass someone in the corridor Théo — not when you've been missing for two days without a single message! Where are you? What is going on?"

I closed my eyes briefly.

"If I didn't pick up the phone—" I started.

"Don't." His voice sharpened immediately. "Don't you dare say what I think you're about to say."

"—it means I didn't want to talk."

Silence.

The kind of silence that has weight.

"Okay." Noah's voice dropped — quieter now, which was somehow worse than the shouting. "Okay fine. You don't want to talk. That's fine Théo. But do you have any idea what's happening here? Do you know what people are saying at the company? You disappeared without a word — no leave application, no message, nothing. If you don't come back—"

"Noah—"

"I am your best friend." His voice cracked slightly on the last word. Just slightly. Enough. "I dropped everything every single time you needed me. Every time. And you can't even tell me where you are? You can't give me one message? One call?"

"That's not what I—"

"No." Quiet. Final. "I think I'm done talking."

The line went dead.

I stood there on the pavement holding my phone — Bangkok thundering around me — and said nothing to no one.

That's not what I meant.

The words sat uselessly in my chest. I hadn't meant it like that. I hadn't meant any of it like that. I just — I couldn't explain. Couldn't find the words for what had happened last night in that hotel room. Couldn't open my mouth and let any of it become real out loud.

So I had said the worst possible thing instead.

Classic Théo.

I stared at Noah's name on my screen for a long moment.

Then I put my phone in my pocket and walked back toward the hotel.

I packed in seven minutes.

Everything I had brought — folded or thrown, it didn't matter — back into the one bag I had arrived with. I moved through the room methodically. Efficiently. The way I moved through everything that overwhelmed me — fast, clean, no room for feelings until later.

Later was a place I kept putting things.

Later was getting very crowded.

I zipped the bag. Looked around the room once — Élise's spare blanket on the couch, her plants on the windowsill, Bangkok gold and hazy outside the glass — and felt something tighten in my chest.

I couldn't stay here either.

Not with last night sitting on my skin. Not with that hotel room existing somewhere in this city. Not with the possibility — however small — of turning a corner somewhere in Bangkok and seeing his face.

Whoever he was.

I pulled out my phone and called Élise.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Théo? Everything okay?"

"I need to go." I kept my voice even. Steady. The voice I used in meetings when everything was falling apart internally and nobody could know. "Something came up. Urgent. I have to get back."

A pause.

"...Back to Paris?"

"Yes."

Another pause. Longer. Élise knew me better than anyone alive — which meant she knew exactly when I was lying and exactly when to let me lie.

"Okay." Soft. No questions. "Text me when you land."

"I will."

"Théo."

"Yeah."

"...Whatever it is." Her voice was quiet and certain. "You don't have to carry it alone."

I didn't answer that.

I said goodbye and hung up.

Bangkok's airport swallowed me whole — air conditioned and bright and full of people going everywhere and nowhere all at once. I stood in the queue for the next available flight to Paris and stared at nothing.

My shoulder still ached.

I pulled my collar up without thinking.

The bruises were still there. Dark. Deliberate. Hidden now under fabric but burning like they wanted to be seen.

You can't delete a person, Théo.

The thought arrived from nowhere and I pushed it straight back out.

I handed my passport over. Got my boarding pass. Found a seat at the gate and sat with my bag between my feet and my phone face down on my knee.

Noah's name was still the last thing on my screen.

I am your best friend. I dropped everything every single time.

The guilt settled into my chest quietly — heavy and deserved. Noah had never once not shown up for me. Not once in all the years I had known him. And the one time he needed me to simply pick up the phone and say I'm okay, I'm in Bangkok, give me a few days —

I had said the worst thing possible and let him hang up.

I'll fix it, I told myself. When I get back. I'll fix it.

I was good at fixing things.

I was good at cleaning up messes and deleting evidence and running before anyone could ask questions.

The gate opened.

I picked up my bag and joined the queue.

Behind me — Bangkok hummed and glittered and kept every secret I had left inside it.

Ahead of me — Paris.

Noah. Work. A life that was going to look exactly the same from the outside and feel completely different from the inside.

I stepped through the gate.

Some things don't end just because you leave.

And some people don't stay gone just because you ran.

I just didn't know it yet.