Sarawat's POV (January 2020)
I left the apartment in the morning just a few minutes after Tine left for college. Dim had called me to remind me of a shoot that was scheduled for today — but it was the last thing on my mind. I only had a few hours may be, before the future changes again and I needed to use those hours to find out as much information about the accident and Tine's family.
I knew the future would change for sure because I had just told Tine about his mom's involvement in the accident.
In the current timeline, Tine did even learn about his mom's death until a year later, and then he died in December 2019, almost two years after that.
Now that I had told Tine about his mom possibly dying in the accident, he'll know exactly when that happens — he would know where to look for her and he would know where to look for me.
I knew it was risky to tell Tine about his mom's involvement and I thought about it a lot. I also knew there was a chance, it could possibly bring his death a year too early, but I didn't know what else to do. I didn't think it was right to hide this information from Tine. The only way he could change the future in the right way is by knowing what happens when things go wrong.
I just hoped now that he knew about the possibility of his own death, he would seek help and create a support system with his friends — and may be even me.
But all of that also meant the future was definitely going to change, probably as soon as Tine meets his friends and — and I only had a small window to look into details about the accident.
"Hey Dim?" I picked up the phone and called the only person I could. The new timeline had somehow made me more famous than I ever was. Being one of the most recognizable faces in Thailand now meant I couldn't really go out there and investigate into this on my own.
"Hey, I'll just be picking you up in half an hour."
"I need you to look into Tine's father and his mother too."
"What? Come on, Wat, I thought you were doing better with the new album and everything. Why do you suddenly want to look into Tine's family now."
"I just do. I don't care if you need to hire a private investigator. I don't care how much money it takes, but I need some information in 2 hours."
"Wat, why are you doing this? I know you are heart broken over Tine's death but Wat... doing this won't bring him back."
"Dim, I really don't have the time to argue with you over this right now. am not asking this as a friend. I am asking this as your boss. I am not going to go into any schedules if you don't do this — And I mean it."
Dim sighed. "Okay, give me sometime, I'll find who Tine's father is and look for some private investigator. But I am really not sure we can find someone who can give you details in 2 hours. Lets wait for a few days may be?"
"No I don't have days to spare. Throw as much money at them as they ask. But I need information in 2 hours."
"Fine. I'll see what I can do. But you are going to go to all of your schedules and finish up these album promotions just like we promised. Got it?"
"Yes, I promise."
Exactly half an hour later, Dim was at my building's lobby, waiting to pick me up in his car. I sat inside, to be taken to a shoot that I didn't even remember agreeing to. But all I had to do was get through this three hour shoot and possibly come home before the future changed all over again
"Hey Dim, did you find a good private investigator?"
"I did. I also called up Tine's friend Fong and asked for his parent's names and their residential address to give those initial details to the PI, along with a hell lot of money, as you instructed. He said, he'll try to find as much information as he can in two hours. But guess who Tine's father is?"
"Am I supposed to know him?"
"Pat Teepakorn, the CEO of Waze Industries."
"Wait what???!"
Waze Industries was one of the biggest companies in Thailand. They had ventured in almost every industry they could profit from. If you lived in Thailand, there was no way you would have never heard of the company because it was quite literally everywhere. I knew Tine came from a well-off family just looking at the clothes he wore, but I didn't know his family was that rich.
"That guy's a fucking millionaire and he left Tine to fend for himself?"
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Dim find everything you can about this guy. Everything. Pay the investigator whatever he asks for. I want all the details about what Pat Teepakorn has done in the last five years and what he is doing right now."
"The guy said he would look into it. Teepakorn's a rich guy, it won't be easy finding details about him this soon. Why are you even looking into this Sarawat?"
"I have my reasons."
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The shot got over exactly three hours later as Dim promised, and I practically raced back home, hoping to see Tine-- but he wasn't home yet. And the private investigator hadn't got back to us either, he needed one more hour to compile information, and I was keeping my fingers crossed he got back to us on time.
So I sat down on the sofa, pulled out my laptop to find more details about Tine's father — At least whatever was available online. I didn't want to do it in front of Tine because god only knows what I would find. It was better to give Tine filtered information instead of everything at once.
Looking through the articles I found online, I discovered that their family business was actually bigger in size when Tine's grandfather was heading it. When he died and Tine's father took on, it was surprising for many because everyone expected his mother to take over the company.
"That's exactly what Tine said. His mother was meant to take over but she couldn't because of her issues with alcohol."
Apparently, right after Tine's father took over the company, he sold a bunch of subsidiaries away and even his shares — But why?
Not much was available about Tine's mother online except for her old pictures with her father — who was once named one of the biggest businessmen in Asia. It was speculated he'd be one of the few Asian billionaires with his booming businesses and acquisitions, but then he passed away suddenly and his son-in-law just couldn't let the company going in the same force.
There wasn't much information online about Tine's mother's death either — Just that she passed away sometime in 2017 and her family was 'heartbroken.' Even this was announced a whole year after her death. No wonder Tine had no idea his mother had died in an accident.
There have been no stories about Tine's father's personal life since then — and there was absolutely no trace of Tine in any of those news articles. It's like he didn't even exist.
Scrolling through the pages of Google's search results, I somehow stumbled upon Tine's old Facebook profile that hadn't been updated in two years. May be that was when he learned about his mom's death?
I looked through all the pictures of Tine — He was always smiling in all of them. Checking all the pictures Tine was tagged in, I found a group called 'Sarawat's Wives' that had posted a picture of Tine and me.
"God, I absolutely forgot about that stupid Facebook group that literally stalked me in college. But why did they put up Tine's pictures too?"
I clicked on the group, scrolling through the old pictures — and then I finally came across the picture of me and Tine together where Tine had been tagged.
Zooming on the picture, I looked at it carefully. Even though I didn't live through these memories or experience them in first person, I remembered them all too well.
I was putting a bandaid on Tine when we were sitting in the car together when this picture was taken. There was another picture where I was leaning into Tine in the car and it almost looked like we were kissing.
All those memories in my head, never really felt real to me. It felt almost like a distant, alternate timeline that could never be true, but looking at the picture now in front of me, it almost felt real. Almost.
I sent the picture to my phone so I could keep it with me as a good memory, and set it as wallpaper. It was a good memory — A fleeting memory where both Tine and I were happy.
Suddenly, my phone started to ring. It was Dim.
"Hey Dim. Did that guy finally gave you some information?"
"Yeah he did. I'll email you all the documents to but I wanted to give you a quick rundown too. I think I am finally understanding why you wanted to look into him."
"What did you find?"
"So, this Pat Teepakorn, officially remarried in March 2019, just a month after his wife's death. His new wife is 25 years old, which means she was 22 when she married this 55-year-old guy."
"This bastard really married someone his son's age? But there are no news articles about it — I already tried to check."
"The marriage papers were confidential, which is why the press never found out. Marrying someone half your age just a month after your wife's death — The wife who handed her own company to you, would undoubtedly be very, very bad for press, I am guessing. Oh by the way, the company belongs to his wife's father. He just took over it instead of his wife, because apparently, she had some health issues."
"Yeah I know that part already. What else did you find?"
"He has a son too, from the new wife, a son who had his fourth birthday a month ago. The Private Investigator hasn't found his official birth record yet, but he did find details of a lavish fourth birthday party that was thrown by Pat Teepakorn last month.
"Fourth birthday? Wait does that mean.."
"The new wife, or rather the mistress was already pregnant when Tine's mom was alive or she had possibly already given birth?"
"Wow. So this guy is a complete sleaze, huh?"
" The private investigator says he can't find the birth certificate anywhere in Bangkok or even in Thailand. He thinks the son was possibly born in Macau because that's where this new wife spent a lot of time before moving here. He could find the birth certificate from Macau too but it would take a few days and a lot more money. Do you want him to look into it?
I looked at his clock, I was running out of time.
"What difference does it make? Either way, he was cheating on her. The fact that he remarried a month after the accident and didn't even care to tell Tine his mom had passed away proves it all. Did the investigator find out something more about the accident though?"
"Almost everything that was already mentioned in the police report, but he did notice something weird"
"What?"
"It was mentioned in the police report that a truck was also involved in the collision too."
"Yeah I remember reading about it too, but the truck was all okay — possibly because of its size."
"That's true but the police never looked into the truck — Or even wrote down its details. The investigator couldn't even find out its license plate number ot the owner details because it was never added by the police three years ago."
"Why?
"He doesn't know. He also said it was weird that the victim's family never looked into this. Imagine your wife dying and you didn't even care about what the police were doing? Pat Teepakorn had enough power and influence to do it."
"I think we already established that man did not care at all about his wife or son — That is, his first wife and son."
"True, no wonder he did a quick funeral without even telling Tine, and dismantled her car."
"He got the car dismantled too?"
"Yeah, that's what the investigator said. Almost like he was trying to remove all the signs of his ex wife? May be because his new wife asked him too?"
"Or may be because he was trying to hide something. Call the investigator and ask him to look more into it? May be I have more time."
"Time for what Wat? Okay so Tine's father was a complete asshole and—"
"And he is possibly the reason why Tine died. If he was a better father or if he had just let Tine mourn his mother's death the right way, all of this wouldn't have happened."
"But it happened Wat and Tine isn't with us anymore. Why look into all this now? What are you even planning to do with this information, Wat? Seriously?"
"I just want things to change."
"Change how? Wat, things can't change anymore."
"Just tell the private investigator to look into it Dim. I'll check back later. Bye."
Putting down Dim's call, I scrolled through the email that Dim had forwarded me from the private investigator which included all the detailed documents about Tine's father proving everything Dim had just told me. It also included a picture of his new wife and kid.
I wasn't someone who picked up fights with people, but god, did I have the urge to beat the shit out of this asshole and leave him for dead.
Finally, I put my phone down to focus back on my laptop. But staring at the laptop screen open in front of me, I realised, something had changed — There were more pictures of Tine and me, pictures that definitely weren't there five minutes ago.
"What the hell?"
There were pictures of us in a cafeteria, And then pictures of us whispering and smiling in a corner of a cafeteria — Tine was wearing the same clothes that he stepped out wearing today. I checked the timestamp, it was uploaded around 3pm, 25th January 2017, so exactly three years go.
It was 8pm right now, that means these pictures were uploaded around 5 hours ago in Tine's timeline.
"Does that mean.. Ouch, fuckkk"
I closed my eyes, feeling the all too familiar headache along with a pile of new memories that felt all too puzzled up for me to piece them together right away. And right then, like magic, things started disappearing around the apartment — Tine's thing to be specific.
His coffee mug, his college notebooks that were usually lying around on the table, his clothes that he forgot to put in the laundry. Everything disappeared.
"What the hell?"
I stood confused running around the apartment trying to look for something that belonged to Tine, but it was all gone. Tine wasn't anywhere and everything he owned disappeared like he never existed.
And just like that, it felt like I had lost the one real thing I'd ever known
"This cannot be happening right now?"
I was still pacing back and forth around the house hoping for everything to appear back again, waiting for my head to piece together the new memories, when my phone started to ring. And a name that I never thought could ever come up on my phone — suddenly flashed in bright lights.
Tine calling...
"What? No..."
I stared at the phone for a few seconds to make sure I wasn't just going crazy and seeing weird things. When the phone continued to ring and I realised I wasn't just imagined things, finally, with shaky hands, I slowly picked up the phone and put it to my ear.
"Tine..?"
"Why did it take so long for you to pick up the call? Are you at some shoot? Or are you just ignoring me?"
It was definitely Tine's voice. It was most definitely Tine's voice.
"Tine, god, its really you."
"Who else would it be, Wat? I am bored, come home."
"Home? I—I am home."
"Not your home. My home, Wat."
"Where—where is your home?"
"Why are you being like this Wat? If you don't want to come see me, you can just say it, you know. You don't have to make up weird excuses that don't even make sense. You know what? Nevermind, sorry if I even called—"
"No, no, no, wait Tine. I'll come home. I'll come home soon. I promise."
There was a silence on the phone.
"If that's what you want. Bye."
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—A/N: I keep going back and forth for the title of the chapter. I just couldn't find the right title which could do justice to this chapter without giving away the cliffhanger.
The next chapter is also from Sarawat's POV where he finally comes face to face with Tine in his own world and we learn what really happened — why/ how Sarawat broke his promise. Its a very important chapter because it really pivots the story in the right direction.
Now, why do you think Tine's things disappeared from the apartment and Sarawat suddenly couldn't see it? Any final guesses?
This chapter is inspired by Taylor Swift's Cornelia Street
And I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends
That's the kind of heartbreak time could never mend
I'd never walk Cornelia Street again
And baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name
And baby, I'm so terrified of if you ever walk away
I'd never walk Cornelia Street again