Pondering Shi Min's Departure

She's still the same, forgetting the time, flying from conversations to another.
I see that she has good friends. Friends who have come to accommodate her character as I have.
They get dropped off conversations but they smile. They turn to look at each other and there's understanding in their eyes, they spontaneously celebrate Shi Min for who she is.

It's great.

Can I be blamed for enjoying how the guy didn't really get to have his way with her?
I'm glad he didn't. It's good that she's a conservative little girl. It spared her mum the (potential) heartbreak. But her mum was watching, and she's not stupid. I think she knows.

The short hour flew by as I spoke with people I roughly knew, occasionally picking up my camera to take a photo for her and her friends.

As the clock moved beyond 11, groups of people began to leave. In the end it was just me, 3 of her OG friends, her family and her. Even that guy left. She picks up her bag and started for the gate. At this moment the 4th OG friend appeared, sprinting across the stretch of terminal 3 departure. It's 1115. We congratulate him for making it, because no one else but Shi Min would enter the gates so late.

She walks off to the gates, alone, with no entourage. I started for the mrt station, at which I heard that the last train to the west had already left.

But as I edited the photos on my tablet, my mind was awake, awake to one particular moment which just felt strange.

It was the baileys. That the group of us had a cup of baileys each before she left. Having a ridiculously low tolerance for alcohol, I felt like even that single cup inflicted some change on her.
(oh but the funny thing is, she's drunk even when she's not on alcohol, so it's really hard to tell)

Unless, it was when she spoke to me she sounded sober, or was it sad. Her voice strangely restrained. I can't shake off that moment, wondering if I'm missing anything she's telling me about her and her outlook of the exchange programme.
I asked if she was feeling sad, at all, to which she repeatedly replied that she was happy.

but you know, without strength behind the words.

So I went home puzzled.
Maybe:
1. alcohol
2. inevitable pre-exchange sadness
3. the 8 day rush post Myanmar OCIP depression
4. the state of affairs with that guy

lol.