Jessica couldn't stop thinking about the boy she saw earlier and his dark brown eyes that stared back at her with such intensity like he was trying to read her or see right into her soul. 

She had never felt something remotely close to what she was feeling at that moment. For some reason, she needed to see that boy again, know more about him, hear his voice, know what was in his black book, and what he was thinking when he was looking at her. 

There was a light conversation being held again at the table she was at, but as usual, her mind and body were in two very different places nowadays. 

However, something her mother said caught her attention. Eunji was talking about the wedding again, trying to make other women jealous of them when in reality, Jessica wanted to be anywhere else than where she was right then, and it flashed before her eyes. 

Her entire life and the way it was going to be when she marries Jaejoong would become an even bigger expectation for everyone who knew her. All the parties, the meaningless talks, the kids she would be expected to have, the same narrow-minded people at the same events for the rest of her life, and Jessica felt like she was standing on a great cliff with no one to pull her back, no one to save her because no one cared enough to notice.

 Suddenly, the need to run away was greater than before, and she needed to escape before it was too late.

 "Excuse me," she said as she stood up from the table, and her mother barely noticed her leave, and Jessica's heart sank a bit lower in her stomach. Not even her mother cared for her. Eunji only cared for the family name and what other people might or might not say about the wedding.

 To anyone who happened to see her walking down the corridor, she looked like the perfect put together lady she was expected to be. She was screaming on the inside, and for the first time, she didn't feel capable of holding it back anymore, and the sting of tears was felt, and she cried. 

She didn't care anymore. She was not going to pretend anymore. She was freeing herself that night, and there was no going back. She picked up her pace, fisted her dress in her hands, and ran down the deck. Her hair due was slowly falling because of the running, but she didn't care.

 Tears were streaming down her face at a rapid pace, and she was angry, angry because she didn't own her life, but she couldn't. She felt desperate and furious, she didn't want to marry this guy, she didn't want to have his children, and she most definitely didn't want her mother's life, and so she ran faster and even pushed a couple of her mother's friends on her way, but she didn't care anymore.

 She didn't even know where she was going, just that she needed to escape, and the ocean was the only scape she saw fit that night. 

-

The sky was clear of clouds, and the stars were shining magnificently above Yoona, who was laid back on a bench gazing up while she smoked a cigarette. 

The things she could do in New York, the list was endless in her head. The opportunities will arise, and she'll be ready to take them all. She'd never felt more ready to take on the world than she did at that moment. The smoke mixed with the cold air of that freezing night. It was a beautiful sight. 

Her trail of thought suddenly went to her work, her painting, and the pencils she would use to paint this particular evening, even if that wasn't what she usually painted. She heard hurried footsteps and the sobbing of a lady as she ran by the bench where she was laid, and Yoona sat up just in time to watch the lady crash against the flagpole on the edge of the ship. 

The lady's sobs stopped abruptly as she stared at the dark water beneath her as she leaned forward, and Yoona stood up and started to walk closer without a second thought, but she was still far. She was not as fast as the lady, and she saw the woman climbed the rails with much difficulty because of her long dress, and then she saw the woman turn around on the other side to face the ocean. 

Her arms starched behind her back to hold her in place. Something very close to panic rose within Yoona, and she walked even closer and faster to the lady hanging from the rail of the ship. She realized who the woman was when she was only a few feet away, and her heart jumped to because the last thing she wanted to see that night was this particular woman dying in front of her, and suddenly determination rose again within her. 

"Don't do it," Yoona softly said, and Jessica's head wiped around at the sound of her voice, and it took a second to recognize the boy standing behind her. 

"Stay back! Don't come any closer!" Jessica ordered, and the brunette raised her arms with obedience, but her eyes were still focused on the beautiful lady in front of her and her tainted tear-stained cheeks and red eyes.

She didn't stay away for long, and when she took a step closer, and Jessica gave her a look, she motioned to her cigarette and how she wanted to throw it. Jessica was completely appalled by the fact that this stranger found her here, and it's the same stranger that's been occupying her mind all day long. She didn't need him there. 

"Come on, take my hand and, I'll pull you back in," said the brunette. "No! Stay where you are. I mean it. I'll let go," 

Even her threat sounded weak, but it was only because her resolve quickly melted away by the mere presence of this boy, and she couldn't deny the fact that the water looked furious from where she was standing, and it scared her to no end.

 "No, you won't," said the boy with the feminine voice, and Jessica saw red, not for the first time that day.

 "What do you mean I won't? You're not going to presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don't know me!" 

Her teeth were chattering together because it was so cold out, but she wasn't going to admit that, and why was this boy so interested in saving her sorry life? He didn't have the slightest idea of why Jessica wanted to end this. No one did. 

"You would have done it already. Now come on, take my hand," the brunette offered her hand one more time while Jessica was processing his words in her head. 

"You're distracting me. Go away," she said back, but the boy only sighed before he took off his jacket. 

"I can't. I'm involved now. If you let go, I have to jump in after you," he said like it was the most obvious and reasonable thing to do. "Don't be absurd. You'll be killed," Jessica retorted, but Yoona only shrugged, and the blonde thought that was the most adorable sight she's ever witnessed. Her heart fluttered inside of her chest, and her stomach twitched in a weird but yet pleasant way.

 "I'm a good swimmer. I was in my high school's team a couple of years ago," the brunette told her with a fond smile and then started to unlace his shoes. 

"The fall alone will kill you," Jessica thought out loud. A shiver ran down her back and not only because of the cold but because she realized that her words were very much true and she was the one hanging off the rail. 

"It would hurt. I'm not saying it wouldn't," the brunette said, his laces undone by his feet. 

"To be honest, I'm a lot more concerned about the water being so cold," he said, and Jessica's resolve completely broke with that sentence.

 "How cold?" she scarily asked. 

"Freezing. Maybe a couple of degrees over," 

Yoona took off her left shoe and shrugged her shoulders, hoping that she was getting through to this woman. 

"Ever been to Wisconsin?" she suddenly asked but was met with a perplexed expression from the rich lady.

 "No,"

 "Well, they have some of the coldest winters around. My father took me there once to visit his sister, and she lived near Chippewa Falls. We went ice-fishing once, well he and my aunt's husband went, but I was around, and you know what ice-fishing is. It's when you chop a hole in the...," 

"I know what ice-fishing is!" Jessica cut her off, and Yoona raised her hands in surrender once again. She bit her bottom lip.

 "Sorry. It's just that..., you look like the kind of indoor girl to me," she shrugged and took a deep breath. She had advanced and was resting her elbows on the rail beside the lady, and considered that an accomplishment already. 

"Anyways, I went through some thin ice, and I'm telling you, water that cold, like that right down there,"

 Her thoughts went back to that day and the way she felt. It always made hurt.