Amber stared at the pictures of Krystal and JongIn, feeling slightly disconnected. For weeks she and Krys had been hanging on razor's edge and she'd known that soon something would fall. It was her fault. She knew that. She knew it. She wanted to turn off her phone, close her eyes, and forget she'd seen the pictures. Hoped they were a misunderstanding. The two had been friends for years after all. But she and Krystal didn't really have anything. If she decided to move on by herself, who was Amber to try to stop her? She knew she couldn't be what Krystal really wanted anyway.

She grit her teeth and grabbed her skateboard, wanting to clear her head. The wind rustling through her clothes and the vibration of gravel beneath the wheels of her board was always relaxing.

Swish. Swish.

Why had she turned away when Krystal reached to kiss her in front of Jessica? She knew Jessica was aware of their relationship. The disappointment and hurt in Krystal's eyes had been almost too much to bear. She'd felt they were in a good place to be themselves and Amber had...done what she'd always done...ruined it.

She wanted to be back where she'd been four weeks ago, squished into a corner of the dance studio with her head on Krystal's shoulder, watching the dancers run through reformations for their performance on Krystal's laptop.

There was a feeling. A warmth. A comfort.

And she'd thrown that all away because she'd been scared. She was always scared.

"What are you so scared of?" she asked herself aloud, kicking against the ground to pick up speed.

"Are you sure this is what you want?"

Krystal rolled her eyes, trying to ignore her sister. She gave great advice, but sometimes Krystal just wasn't in the mood to hear it. To hear that Jessica was right and she was wrong.

"I'm not trying to say -"

She threw her bag over her shoulder and stormed past her sister.

"Don't do this."

She closed the door tight behind her. Her shoulders rising and falling quickly with her breath, she darted into the car waiting for her.

"Hi," Jongin said softly. He started the car. "Are you okay?"

The two had been friends for years, but Krystal hadn't told him about what had happened between her and Amber, the reason she'd finally said 'yes' to seeing if they could take their friendship to the next level. He was cute. He was kind. They had plenty of common interests to talk about.

The problem was when he reached over to hold her hand...she felt nothing.

Why is she staring at me? Amber wondered, fiddling with the long sleeves of her golden top. She knew she shouldn't pull at the threads, but Krystal was making her nervous They hadn't seen much of each other since Krystal had started dating JongIn outside of a few dance practices.

They hit the carpet, waved at the crowd, posed for pictures, signed a wall.

They sat down at a table together. Krystal on her left, Luna to the left of her.

Everything is the same but so different. How many times have we gone to award shows together? Sat down next to one another? Chatted about the people around us?

She felt Krystal run her fingers through her hair, pulling it out of her eyes. Foolish words nearly dripped from her tongue, but she held them in.

"I'm happy for you," she whispered instead.

"What?!"

She shook her head and merely repeated it with a bitter smile. Krystal cupped Amber's chin in her hand so she could look her in her eyes. She was angry but she didn't say so.

Is it really that easy to pretend we've never held each other bare in the middle of the night? Krystal wanted to ask, but she didn't. There are so many things we never say to each other, and I'm done with all that.

"Amber, what are you doing in there all day?" Kim asked, banging on her bedroom door. “You’ve barely been out the last few days, what’s going on?”

Amber shoved on her headphones, trying to work on a chord in a new song she was writing, but nothing seemed to be going right. She could talk about being bold and straightforward all she wanted in the songs she wrote, but she was the exact opposite when it came to relationships of her own.

She tossed her pencil across the room and scrubbed her hands through her already mussed hair. She wanted to call Krystal and tell her she missed her, but that would be unfair. Krystal had given her every opportunity, had forgiven her more than once for being so damn timid about certain things. And now Krystal was with someone else.

“Call her,” she told herself. “Just call her. You can at least talk to her. You’re still friends…sort of.”

They had a few more events as a group coming up anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to get rid of the awkwardness now rather than to let it fester?

She pulled out her phone and just stared at it. She didn’t know what to say. Call? Text?

She finally settled on texting, feeling like a coward even as she did so, but she knew she’d just choke up and say the wrong thing if she heard Krystal’s voice on the other end of the line.

>I’m so sorry, she typed. >I was scared. I still am, so I’m not asking for anything to change. I’m sitting here writing music and I can’t get you out of my head. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since the first time you touched me. And that scared me so much. You made me feel special and needed, which is something I’m not sure I’ve ever felt. I was terrified of feeling special. I’m not special. What do you even like about me? I didn’t want to feel needed. What if I couldn’t live up to the image of me you had in your head that made you want me because…there’s just no way…you could just want…me….

Parts of her reflection gleamed back at her from her phone screen and she couldn’t help wondering what Krystal found so attractive. Her shoulders were boxy, her s non-existent, her waist straight as a ruler, and her nose slightly too large for her too small head. She had a hard time with some words in both Korean and English so she didn't really like reading. While Krystal…was perfect. Even though she wasn’t perfect, those imperfections made her even more perfect.

“Just singing about being beautiful, saying it out loud, coming to a realization can’t change the way you feel deep down inside,” Amber murmured.

She sent the text before she could change her mind, then turned up the volume in her music editor, sound clips distracting her brain from what she’d just done.