Amber woke up with a weight on his chest; Jessica’s caramel hair covered the side of her face. He slowly got up, supporting her head in his hands and placing it on top of a pillow. He her cheek gently which made her stir in her sleeping position. Careful not to wake her up by accident, Amber backed his hand away and held his breath, he smiled when she moved slightly searching for a comfortable spot to sleep. Amber lifted his head and saw the time, 12.14am, he had stayed there long enough, his mother might be worried. Amber quickly fished out his phone from his pocket and checked his notifications. Three missed calls from his mother and a couple of texts from his friends. Amber grabbed a piece of paper and sat by the coffee table, “I had to leave but I couldn’t bring myself to wake up such a beautiful angel. I’ll see you at school tomorrow, okay” Amber left the note on the coffee table together with his phone number, before reluctantly leaving her place.

“Amber Liu!! Where have you been?” His mother was outraged when he pulled in the drive way. Amber immediately switched off the engine and exited his car. “Mum, I can explain” with that his mother’s expression changed from a stern one to a sly smirk. “Were you with this girl?” she was holding up a picture of him carrying Jessica by the beach. Amber was shocked and just stared at the picture, “Where…did you get that?” in attempt to take the picture from her hand. She merely hid the photograph behind her, “So, aren’t you going to introduce her to me?” Amber was aggressively blushing, “I don’t know what you mean?” his mother scoffed, “Come on Amber, you can’t fool me” she pulled him into her embrace and pushed him into the house. “I can see the love in your eyes son, I know you like her” Amber snickered nervously and mumbled, “Her name is Jessica” she put the picture on the dining table and cupped her hands on his cheeks, “Ohh, my boy is all grown up”

He took the picture to his bedroom and taped it to his bathroom mirror, that way he would always see her in the morning, every day. Amber dropped himself on the bed and before long his phone started ringing, excited that Jessica might be the one calling, he dashed to his phone only to be disappointed. “Hey Am, did you get my present?” Amber sighed and responded “What present? I didn’t get anything” puzzled Jonghyun replied, “Really? I swore I left a picture of you and Jessica by the front door this evening” Amber sat up and practically shouted into the phone mic, “You what?? So that’s how my mum got the photograph” he could hear Jonghyun’s voice quiver in the background, but Amber was more happy than angry that he did what he did, “Thanks to you, I don’t feel so pressured in telling my mum about the girl I like anymore” Jonghyun let out a breath of relief. They had a bit of small talk before going to bed themselves. Amber placed his phone on the side table and mumbled to himself, “I can’t wait for tomorrow” dozing off to sleep with a smile.

The alarm buzzed at 6.30am in the morning, Amber reluctantly got out of bed and immediately entered the bathroom. The cold water wasn’t helping his tired eyes stay open, but once he lifted his head to the picture. Energy started rushing in, today was the day Amber is going to ask Jessica to be his girlfriend. He wanted to do it straight after their heated encounter yesterday but she was sleeping so soundly that he just could not. Amber got into the shower and prepped himself up for school before going downstairs greeting his mother good morning. “Why are you so happy?” Amber just looked at his mother and kissed her forehead, “Nothing, I’m going to school, see you later” and with that he left the house. Instead of going straight to school, he detoured towards Jessica’s house; his nerves could not calm itself down. Amber got out of the car and knocked on her front door; he waited and waited but nothing. “Hmm, maybe she went to school already” checking his wrist watch, it was only 7.20am. Amber went back into his car and left for school.

Amber came to class with a spring in his step, the wait was getting intolerable, a pang of disappointment ate away at him as each person came through the door and it wasn’t Jessica. The clock 8am and class was about to start, still no sign of Jessica. Amber sank deeper into his seat and that made his friends worry. “Hey Am, maybe she is sick. Or just running really late” all the reasons his friends were coming up with did not register in his head. But then a figure standing by the classroom door caught his attention; no it was not Jessica, but her cousin, Suho. The homeroom teacher left the class for a minute and moved outside to talk to Suho. Amber’s eyes never left the two, a bad feeling started to form in his stomach. The homeroom teacher came back and before Amber could look back outside to where they were before, Suho was gone. Amber shrugged and turned his attention back to the front of the class, that was when his world started crashing down. “Okay kids, I just received news that one of our students, Jessica Jung had to leave the school for personal reasons”

Everyone in class started mumbling and chatting towards each other, but Amber merely sat in his place motionless. Kris looked at the other boys and back to Amber, concerned with what the news would have meant for the two potential couple. He shook Amber, “Are you okay?” with that, Amber came back to reality and immediately got up from his seat and dashed to find Suho. He ran with all his strength towards the front gates of the school, stopping Suho by the car park. “Where is she? There is no way she would leave without telling me” Suho stared at Amber with apologetic eyes. “She is gone, I don’t know if she is coming back” enraged Amber balled up his fist and punched Suho to the ground before running into his car, heading towards Jessica’s house.

He walked up the stairs and knocked on the door multiple times, again there was no response, frustrated, he turned the door knob and to his surprise it was unlocked. He ran upstairs to what seemed like her bedroom and opened all the cupboards and drawers, there was no sight of her belongings anywhere. The ache on his heart grew and tears threatened to fall from his eyes. Exhausted, he walked back downstairs with lifeless feet and dropped himself on the couch. He could still smell her there with him as he buried his face on the pillow where he left her last. Amber sobbed, unable to control his emotions any further. “How could you? How could you leave me Jess?”