Tick Tock.

Tick Tock.

One hour and fifteen minutes left.

I stare at the clock, pencil lazily in my hand as I sit there, the other hand propped under my chin to support it. The constant echo of the ticking clock starts to get on my nerves bit by bit, the sound nearly mocking me because you’re stuck here while you could’ve been home by now.

Another sigh escapes my lips. I’ve been sitting here for the last hour and I’ve already done my extra work, but I can’t let it show or else I’d just get more. Goodness, sometimes I ponder if I just should’ve not done that to Hyuna. But then again, it’s Hyuna we’re talking about, and I don’t feel that guilty. Besides after that incident a couple of days ago, she hasn’t bothered me at all. In fact, she’s barely even looked at me to my pleasure.

Bored with thinking about her, I decide to let my gaze wander around the few people in the room. There is only one other student with me, but since the person is in front of me I can’t really see the face. I’m not really sure if it’s a boy or a girl to be exact, the rough outline of the person’s body seeming almost like a mixture of both. With my pencil in hand I start wondering, but don’t think of it too long as the teacher looks up from his newspaper. My eyes dart down again, pretending to solve some equations like nothing happened.

A couple of more ticks and suddenly I hear movement from a chair. Casually I look up to see the teacher on his two feet, white coffee mug in hand. “I’m going away for a couple of minutes, but don’t even dare leave the room, understood?” the teacher says with a stern voice, his gaze matching it, and we both nod in synch before he exits the room. I let out a frustrated groan before nearly banging my face down the desk in front of me.

I am so done with this.

“You alright back there?” I barely hear the voice of the other student, and I mumble something not even I can comprehend before sitting up again. Nearly jumping I notice that the other student has turned to face me, a cap lazily hanging down a mop of dirty blond hair.

I can’t see much of the face, but when I finally notice the brown, wide eyes of the person I sense an odd familiarization with the other one. My thoughts scan through multiple faces, but I just can’t seem to remember who it is, but I know that I should know.

 “You don’t seem to recognize me, do you?” the person asks again with a somewhat deep voice, but not deep enough for it to be a male. Guessing she is a female with an oddly boyish style, I look at her a little bewildered. I carefully tilt my head to the side in confusion, even if I can’t recognize her, I don’t understand why she would recognize me. The girl lets out a silent chuckle before leaning on the back of the chair. She reaches out her hand towards me with a smile.

“I’m Amber; here for vandalizing school property,” she introduces herself and cautiously I take her hand to shake it.  “Jessica, poured milk on another student,” I barely manage to stutter out whilst I retreat my hand after a while of shaking it. A small cough escapes my lips after that.  “I know,” Amber simply replies and again I look confused towards her. She seems to understand my state of confusion with a slight sigh, seemingly thinking before speaking.

“I knew your sister, Krystal,” she informs me with a smile, but with something hidden behind it. Her eyes flashing an emotion of uncertainty I knew all too well before continuing. “I was her, uh…” Amber doesn’t say anything more than that, and as I look at her I suddenly realize that she’s probably trying to find the right words, yet not finding them. I smile softly before opting to fill her in with what I already knew, suddenly recognizing her from the picture in Krystal’s room.

“…Girlfriend?” I end the sentence for her, and she slowly nods by that. I let out a soft chuckle by that, which earns an amused and slightly confused expression by Amber. “Don’t worry, she told me about you,” I say, the clock on the wall filling in the slight silence between us. “She told you about me?” Amber asks after a while, and I nod in reply. Oh, if she simply knew about the times when Krystal would come home and rant about her, how annoying she was or whatever, but still blushed when I stated the obvious about her real admiration for the said girl. It didn’t surprise me that they started going out; neither Krystal nor I cared about gender when it came to relationships. Although in Krystal’s case she was more open to be with anyone, I was just never caught up with the thought of it before so I never really cared.

“Yeah, she did,” I say instead of anything else, not really thinking it’s in my place to tell her Krystal’s conversations about her. Something flickers through Amber’s eyes again, but I don’t get the time to read it as it disappears as fast as it came. A part of me wanted to believe it was something similar to happiness, almost relief in a way, but I couldn’t quite link it up with the conversation.

“We fought the last time I saw her,” Amber suddenly shares in the midst of silence, and I look at her again, patiently waiting for her to continue. She takes a deep breath, drumming her fingers to the wooden chair. Another moment passes before she dares speak more.  “I said some stupid things to be quite honest, but I always thought I had until tomorrow to clear up those mistakes,” Amber says with an almost lost voice, her thoughts somewhere else as her eyes are on me but not really looking at me.

“But I didn’t know that was the last day I had with her.”

The words that she uttered right there struck deep, in a way that I almost felt she was talking to Krystal rather than me, as if I was her hearing this right now. Inside I slowly feel myself shatter by a sudden sadness, the words hanging deep into my brain. 

“You’re with Tiffany, aren’t you?” Amber suddenly interrupts my thoughts and I look at her. “Yes,” I say with a small smile, the thought of her making me feel a little lighter, despite what Amber told me earlier. A little wider, bigger smile lands on her face this time, but it’s nothing grand. She seems to study me a little before sighing. “You’ve been quite the talk of school; everybody keeps blabbering about you two,” she tells me after a while with a smile, something untold in her eyes though.

As I look more in her gaze and I realize that it seems to be filled with regret, regret about what happened in the past. And maybe she just doesn’t want me to do the same mistake? For a reason that thought enters my head and never seems to leave as we sit there.

People come and go they say, but some of them never truly return. I think as all the words Amber said are running through my head as the teacher returns to the room, and in a blink of an eye Amber is facing her back against me, not sharing another word as we sit there in silence again.

After a long hour we are finally dismissed, the teacher getting up to leave as I start packing my things up. I’m about to place the last book in my bag, until I suddenly spot a piece of white paper on my desk that certainly didn’t belong to me. And as I unfold the piece, reading the oddly familiar handwriting, I suddenly realize who the person sending me those notes was all along.

“I wanted a perfect ending where I’d rather say the things I love about her than stating the opposite. Now I've learned the hard way that some poems don’t have a clear ending and some stories are never written out. I know it’s none of my business, but you just… shouldn’t do the same mistake I did. End each day the way you want it to end, okay?”

And as I stand in the middle of the classroom, note in hand with the lights turning off, my heart beats a little faster as the weight of Amber’s guilt must have been unbearable.  And as I step out of the classroom and down the hall, seeing a smiling Tiffany waiting for me I find myself hugging her tighter than I ever did before, ignoring her surprised remarks and just staying inside the embrace. My heart feels like it’s going to burst any minute, almost as if something kept pressing onto it with guilt.

“Jessie,” Tiffany calls out. “Jessie, you’re crying,” she states worriedly as I look up at her, not noticing any tears until I feel her thumb dry them away. Taking a shaky breath I try to stabilize myself and my emotions. “What happened?” Tiffany asks after a while, her arms still around me as I simply lean on her shoulder.

After a while we finally manage to walk towards my apartment again, both of us lying on the living room floor while staring at the ceiling. My tears had long time dried and all, but the same thoughts never left my head. Not even once.

I want to tell Tiffany about today, about Amber and Krystal. The words nearly slipping out of my tongue, but I don’t, and instead I opt for saying something I didn’t even plan.  “…Tiff?” I call out after a while, a short hum coming from my left side. I move closer to feel more of her warmth, her thin figure close to mine.

“I love your smile,” I say, nothing more and nothing less, before the room turns silent again.