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Chapter 26

Heng stepped into the bar and quickly scanned the crowd for the face he was searching for. He drove all the way to Phuket to get this over with once and for all. His patience was running out. Once he found the person, he slipped into the bar stool beside him.

"Scotch on the rocks? Classic." He commented before looking at the bartender and ordering, "I'll have the same."

The person looks away from the drink in his hand to Heng who smiled at him in response.

"Drowning your sorrows?" Heng asked.

"Liquid courage, I guess." The person commented.

"What do you need courage for?"

Richie looked at Heng for only the second time and kept silent thinking about his answer, "To get through the day. To live." He sighs.

"It's that hard?"

"It is, everytime I come all the way out here."

Heng nodded, before taking a sip of his drink.

"What about you?" Richie asked.

"Oh!" Heng exclaimed, "I'm not a fan of alcohol myself. I'm a simple beer kind of person. But scotch, it reminds me of my wife. It was her go to drink. Somehow makes me feel closer to her."

There was a sudden interest in Richie as Heng noticed, "What happened?"

"Suicide." Heng replied dryly.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too.  I guess you can never truly know anyone, even if it's the love of your life, or you think you know them better than anyone else."

Richie took a deep breath before downing his drink in one go, "Humans are complicated or mostly human mind."

"Can't argue there."

A moment of silence passes before Richie breaks it, "Come to think of it, it's not my go to drink either. It's my sister's. Kind of reminds me of her." 

Heng noticed this earlier that is exactly the reason he brought it up.

"What happened?"

"She's still alive." Richard chuckles. "But she left, ran away. It's been eight years."

Heng furrowed his eyebrows as if to show his confusion, "Mind me asking why?"

"It's complicated." Richie replied before going back to his drink and looking lost once again.

"Seems like you still miss her."

"Obviously."

"Then why let her go?"

This seems to bring out something in Richie, it was anger at first then it turned into something close to sadness.

"She didn't exactly give me a choice. One day she was there and then the next she wasn't. I was so angry at her in the beginning for leaving like that. For taking the easy way out, for leaving me behind. And seeing what it did to our family. It hurt. It hurt so much that I resented her, even the thought of her bought out pure rage in me. It took me two years to finally understand her reasons, to understand her, why she did what she did."

"What did you do then?"

"I wanted to find her and I did."

"And?" Heng asked clearly intrigued.

"That was the last time I saw her, it's been six years." Richie says taking another sip.

"Wondering why?" Richie asked turning back to Heng who was lost in thought thinking about Richie being in Pattaya and seeing Becky. Heng nodded showing his interest.