The next morning, we followed our own routines determinedly. We had breakfast, read the newspapers, and put away the dishes. One thing we did not do was talk about what had happened, as if nothing was amiss. I did not want to ruin the trip, I rationalised; we would have time to talk about this soon enough, just not now.
There was nothing to stop me from punishing Cody with my silence. On the morning of Christmas Eve, we met Ai Ling and Wei Xiang at the airport to check in together. At the time, I was still not talking to him, distracting myself with the usual drivel with Ai Ling, leaving Cody to Wei Xiang. On the plane, I plugged my earphones into the inflight entertainment system and turned away to look out the window. At one point, Cody leant in to check whether I was asleep and lowered the window shade. When we were waiting for the mini-bus at the airport to take us to the hotel in town, Ai Ling pulled me aside and asked whether everything was okay. I pulled out the excuse of my inability to sleep before an overseas trip, and gave a tired smile. She looked at me, unconvinced, but did not probe further.
In the hotel, after we had got the keys to our adjacent rooms, we arranged to meet half an hour later for a walk to Bangla Road, a few streets away. Alone with Cody in the hotel room, I was unable to face him. It felt like a century had passed since I sat at his work table and read the messages on his laptop; my anger was still there, but somewhat diluted, its edge blunted, and I could not work up the energy to fuel it again. I did not know what I was supposed to feel and act, and so I did nothing.
“Let’s not do this,” Cody said, coming out of the bathroom, his face wet from a wash.
“I’m not doing anything.” I tore into my luggage, tossing pieces of clothes on the bed.
“I mean, let’s don’t fight. I know what I’ve done and I’m really sorry, I am.”
“Sure, that’s easy. Just say sorry and everything is forgiven? It’s not that easy.”
“Then what do you want me to do?” Cody came up behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder. I flinched and pulled away.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you can do.” I looked into Cody’s face, hoping to find something there to defuse my rising anger. He stepped in front of me and placed his hands at the back of my head, pulling me into the proximity of his body. I fought to break away but he kept his hold on me, his arms tight around my back. I felt suddenly worn out, drained.
“It’s not over,” I said.
“I know. Let’s just do this a step at a time. You can take it out on me later on, if you want. I understand.”
Cody pushed aside the luggage on the bed and began to peel off my clothes. Wordlessly, I let him. He nuzzled my neck and kissed my ear. Whatever I felt—anger, resentment—quickly receded into the background, replaced by an inebriating rush of sensations. With little resistance, I yielded, not just to the physical act of sex and its pleasures, but to the familiar, restorative comfort of a lover’s touches, a return to safer shores. Perhaps, I sensed, Cody was trying to redeem himself, to assuage his guilt by offering the very thing that I needed—the refuge of his body, its irrepressible hold and heft.
Yet, barely had we finished, after Cody left the bed to shower, that the old feelings came sweeping over me again, like ghosts that had always haunted the dark passageways of my mind. Everything felt forced, useless—my thoughts, our actions, the need to salvage what was lost. In looking for some sort of respite, a truce, I came up blank, hitting a wall. The sounds of showering came to me from the open door of the bathroom, along with the broken snatches of a song that Cody was humming. I stared at my palms, unable to master what I was feeling.
When Cody came out of the bathroom, I got to my feet and started to dress. We were already running late. Ai Ling and Wei Xiang must have been waiting for us in the hotel lobby. Time to move on.
Ai Ling wanted to check out the Banzaan market at Sai Kor Road while Cody and I were keen to head down south to Karon Viewpoint, a short taxi ride away. Ai Ling gave us the address of the hotel, just in case. “Don’t get lost,” she said.
The taxi driver, sensing that we were new in town, haggled for an exorbitant fare that we managed to cut down by half, and hastily dropped us off a few streets from our destination. With nothing to guide us, we fumbled our way to the location through a maze of small lanes that wound past corrugated tin-roofed houses that hugged close to one another and open plots of knee-high grass where chickens and small dogs wandered, searching for scraps of food. At one of the ramshackle shophouses, we bought two bottles of mineral water and asked the shopkeeper for further directions since there were no signs to indicate where we were. A pack of boys stopped their game of football to watch us pass; one of them lifted an arm to salute us, which Cody returned with a similar gesture. The rich smell of frying food wafted out of windows, along with staccato sounds of canned TV laughter and sudden explosions from action movies. Mosquitoes buzzed around us like a party of persistent, unrequited suitors.
We would have walked past a side entrance leading to the viewpoint if I had not noticed a mangy dog limping out of it, emitting a low, unthreatening growl. A gravel path led upwards into the shaded enclosure of tall trees with signs pointing to different routes. We took the route which would lead us to the promontory that overlooks Kata Noi Bay, and beyond that, the Andaman Sea. Cody went ahead of me and we walked in tandem, breaking the silence when one of us spotted something interesting—a heavy shrub abloom with star-bursts of white-petalled flowers, a patrol line of shiny-shell ants each the size of a fingernail, the sighting of a brightly-feathered bird resting on a branch. From time to time, we would stumble into a clearing, and the sudden touch of sunlight on our sweaty skins felt salubrious. Later, when we slipped back into the comfort of the shade, it felt like we were entering the shallow end of a pool, cool and curative.
When we reached the promontory, the sun was dissolving over the far horizon. The sky was a riot of warm smudgy reds, yellows and oranges. A flock of seagulls clung to the craggy surface of the cliffs, among the rocks jutting out of the coast; from where we stood, we could hear their faint cries. A strong sea wind ruffled the unruly patches of grass that sprouted out of the dry, clayey soil.
We drank from our bottles of water and stared out into the sea. Given the time of the day, nearing evening, we were the only people at the observation point. The silence around us deepened. Cody drew near and stood beside me, his shoulder touching mine.
“I’m glad we did this,” he said.
I kept my silence. The trek up the hill was tiring, but it had at least distracted me from my thoughts. Cody’s hair was whipping manically in the air, and he tried to placate it with little result. Then he reached for my hand, gripping it. He opened his mouth but before he could say a word, I cut him off.
“No, not now, let’s not talk about it now.”
In that moment, looking out into the sea, everything seemed impossibly clear, every thought fallen into its rightful place. This glimpse of clarity had a sobering effect on me before it quickly passed, leaving behind a wearying sense of sadness, a new weight in the pit of my gut. But for the moment it lasted, nothing else mattered—my life, Cody’s, our relationship.
“This won’t last forever, will it? What we have before us now?” I said, nodding my head at the view. The sky had already darkened into heavier shades of its original colours. The winds were getting stronger now, and the air cooler.
This time, it was Cody who remained silent. He released his hand from mine and stepped to the edge of the promontory, looking down at the sea. He picked up a small stone and threw it down. I strained my ears to hear the stone hit something—a rock or the water—but of course, at this height, it was impossible to hear anything. Cody straightened up and turned to me.