With all honesty, Amber didn’t really expect much else.

She knew she should’ve seen it coming; in fact, she should’ve seen it from miles away. She probably could’ve stood on the moon and seen it coming, but Amber is oddly good at lying to herself.

In another world, her lies would have been considered hope.

Eric folds his arms behind his head, pursing his lips and staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom walls. He’s laying on the floor, Amber sitting near him on the ground, her back against his bed. He’s thinking hard, eyebrows furrowed, and Amber just has to wait a few moments before Eric finally blurts it out.

“If we weren’t idols...do you think Amy and I could work out?” he asks, and Amber’s breath catches. She wishes someone would catch her heart; it’s sinking lower and lower, and she has to swallow a lump in , schooling her expression so quickly and so well that she swears she deserves an award.

Not that Eric would notice anything, anyway. He’s as dense as it gets, Amber has learned.

“I don’t know,” she answers at last. “I guess so. You guys have a lot in common.” So do we.

He hums, his eyes sliding shut. “It’s a shame,” he says. “A relationship is so difficult to keep as an idol, and she’s told everyone she doesn’t want one until she’s not, you know, touring everywhere all the time anymore. It’s a shame,” he repeats, sighing. “I think we could’ve been good.”

Amber feels suffocated in his room. There’s a hand on her heart squeezing tighter and tighter, and Eric has no idea.

“Yeah,” she agrees quietly. “A shame.”

--

They’re all right, in the end. Best friends like them can never be just best friends. Somebody is bound to fall, and Amber is unlucky enough to be the only one with no one to hold on to.

--

Eric is braver than Amber thought he was, because it’s a few days later that he confesses to Amy.

Granted, he’s lame enough to do it over a text, but he does it anyway, and Amy runs immediately to Amber, frantically texting her, at a loss, but undeniably happy.

Amber knows how Amy feels. Amy is her best friend too, and both of them are aware that they have something towards Eric that is bordering painfully close to love. They’re too close to let it tear them apart, and close enough to understand that if Eric ever makes a move, the other will back off.

Amber hates to know that she’s the one who will have to take a step back.

But she’s also grateful. Amy won’t be the one getting hurt. It’s a bittersweet feeling to have, and all the worse because Amber can feel the cracks forming in her heart, and she can’t even run to her best friend for it.

She won’t do that to Amy. Amy will feel guilty, and Amber can’t bear to let her feel that way.

So she lets the hand around her heart squeeze a little tighter, and neither Eric nor Amy will ever have to know.

--

They agree not to date.

Eric and Amy agree not to, and just to wait instead, because relationships are difficult for idols. They’re constantly apart, they’re constantly busy. There’s no time.

But there was enough for you to fall for each other, Amber can’t help but think, and she scolds herself for it.

Her heart hurts, but she won’t allow it to stain her mind.

--

Eric grins at her, and Amber’s heart startles. She stares at him with wide eyes, a smile slowly forming on her lips as well, because there’s no way she can resist smiling when he looks at her like that.

He reaches out, ruffling her hair and laughing. “You’re such a kid,” he chuckles, and the realization in the next two seconds punches the air straight out of her lungs. It’s too late. It’s all too late. Amber’s given her heart away, unwillingly, unknowingly, to a boy who’s next words will break her heart.

“I should just kick Eddie out of the family. You can replace him. I always wanted a little sister,” he laughs, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. Amber smiles back, and prays he doesn’t hear her heart shattering in her chest.

Little sister.

Of course.

--

She tries to be a good friend. She tries so hard. But Amy is caught up in the excitement of knowing that Eric reciprocates her feelings, and forgets that Amber is still in love with Eric. Amber gets every detail of Amy’s not-relationship-thing with Eric, and each message Amy sends hurts a little more than the last. But she doesn’t have the heart to tell Amy to stop, to remind Amy that Amber loves Eric, loved him first, so she lets it go.

She hides the pain. She hides the bitterness.

She hides the tears.

Because it makes sense. Amy and Eric make sense. They’re only a year apart, and they have so much more in common. They fit so well together that Amber can’t even argue that she’s better for him the way she selfishly did with all his ex-girlfriends, because that would be a lie. It was like Amy was built for Eric.

She knows that she never stood a chance from the start. But she was just so hopeful, so caught up in Eric’s blinding smiles and the little touches he left on her shoulders and the lingering warmth he had whenever he hugged her - because Eric gave the best hugs - and-- and--

Amber knows.

She really never did stand a chance.

--

She doesn’t cave. Amber is proud of herself for that, but it’s the kind of pride that stings, considering the pain that keeps clutching at her heart, every text Eric or Amy sends shooting another jolt of hurt straight through her, regardless of what the message says. But she doesn’t cave, doesn’t tell a single person about Eric and Amy and their not thing thing, and she’s so good at keeping it a secret that Henry has to approach her first.

“Hey,” Henry says, sliding into the booth across from her. “What’s up?”

It figures that Amy would tell Henry, or maybe it was Eric who told him - Amber doesn’t really know, or care to find out who told Henry. Henry, for his part, acts casual, but he’s not good at hiding his feelings, and Amber can see the sympathy in his eyes.

It only takes a couple sentences here and there, and by the end of it all, Henry is sitting next to Amber and pulling her into a hug, Amber furiously trying to hold back tears, because Amber Liu will not cry over a boy, goddammit all, but Henry’s warm and he keeps saying it’s okay, and the tears come.

--

Perhaps Henry isn’t as bad as hiding his feelings as Amber thinks he is, because she hates herself even more as she’s leaving the restaurant, Henry’s gentle, understanding smile weighing heavy on her shoulders. He was never the king of good timing, but the offer is there, and just as hard as it hit Amber when she realized she loved Eric, it hits her that Henry loves her maybe twice as much.

But Amber can’t give her love to Henry, no matter how much she knows she should. Because even if Henry has always been there for her, there’s a small voice in the back of her head that reminds her that Eric’s always been there for her too, and she cries one more time without the comfort of Henry’s stupid understanding, stupid patience, stupid, “it’s okay if you say no.”

Her life is a mess, and she wishes she could bring it back to a simpler time when it was just her and Amy and Eric and Henry, minus the pain of loving someone who doesn’t love you back.

--

“I’m sorry.”

Amber finds herself saying that a lot more often these days, to Henry specifically, and Henry, good-natured Henry, just laughs it off and asks her what the hell she thinks she’s apologizing for. But she supposes there’s something in her voice this time that stops him from doing that again, because he turns to look at her, and just gives her one of those smiles that aren’t really smiles, because they don’t reach his eyes, and Amber hates those smiles the most, but figures that if he’s gonna smile that kind of smile, he may as well do it now.

“Stop,” he says gently, resting a hand over hers. “It’s okay.” And he means it too, because that’s the thing about Henry, is that he always means what he says, and it’s so damn infuriating.

“I’m not over him,” Amber says weakly, but it’s really a whimper and she doesn’t want to admit it because she’s already choking up again and how many more times is she going to cry over Eric stupid Nam?

“I know,” Henry says softly, and he’s looking right at her, in a way that makes her feel like he’s looking right through her, and when he smiles, it’s a sad smile but one that promises her he won’t leave even if she thinks she might love Eric forever.

“It’s okay,” he repeats. “I get it. Really, I do. I know what it feels like to think you stand a chance, just a little bit, this tiny inkling of hope that gets stamped out just like that. And you realize that you shouldn’t have been hoping to begin with, because it was stupid, but you know nothing was gonna keep you from hoping anyway. I get it, Amber,” he says, leaning his head back against the wall of the practice room. “But I promise you it stops hurting. One day, you’ll look at him and think, this is okay. It kind of , fine, but it’s okay.”

He turns his head to look at her, and now he’s holding her hand, gripping it because it’s a vow he’s making to her. “You can love him forever. He can be with Amy forever. But things will end up being okay, and I swear to you, I’m gonna be here forever, too.”

And that’s the thing about Henry, Amber thinks, even if it’s three in the morning, even if it’s two in the afternoon, no matter when, no matter where, no matter what, Henry always means what he says.

And if she can depend on anyone, it’ll be Henry, who doesn’t care if she loves Eric, doesn’t care if she cries into his shoulder at four in the morning because god, it hurts, but if Henry says it’ll be okay, then it’ll be okay.

It’s not her, in the end, by Eric’s side. And she doesn’t know if it’ll be her, in the end, by Henry’s side.

But she figures, now, that it really doesn’t matter at all. Because friends like them, can be just friends. And it might hurt a little. It might hurt a lot. But no matter whose hand she’s holding, she knows they’ll have her back, even if they aren’t able to catch her heart.

i am so sorry about the lame ending LOL

thank you for reading! comments are appreciated!

also ps here are my henber one-shots that i haven’t updated in like five billion years