Chapter Four
ThistleWhen Amber lived in California and went to high school there, time seemed to pass increasingly slowly; every day dragging to the end where she would rest and start the torture all over again. In China, however, she had the opposite problem; time flew by like it had angels wings. It was already the middle of August, and Amber would have to go back to California in less than two weeks to enroll in UCLA. She was nervous, and for the first time she realized that she didn't want this time to end. Glancing at LuHan as he sat beside her on the steps of the local high school (their typical 'stop and eat ice cream' spot), she realized that her reluctance to leave was largely because of him.
Her Grandma had been great; accepting, sweet as always, a little sassy (which is where Amber probably got it), and exactly the loving embrace Amber had needed after having dealt with her mom not understanding her. LuHan, though...
He had been like water to someone dying of thirst, or food to one starving. He had provided the much needed companionship and non-judgmental friendship she had always wanted. Ever since Henry had left she had felt like something was missing, someone in whom to confide, and looking back now she saw that even in that friendship there had been more of a longing. He had taken her friendship without question, but he had never much given support in return. It had been a one sided friendship, and had Amber not had hearts in her eyes every time she had looked at Henry then she would have realized it then.
Here, now, with LuHan... he was the one who came to fetch her every morning. He was the one who insisted she come along when he played soccer, despite the looks some of the other players gave her. He was the one working to make this friendship into something, and she felt as if she owed him everything.
"Hey LuLu?" She said slowly, the ice cream that had dripped from her cone off of her fingers. She got a noncommittal hum in response, but when it came to the tall boy and the cold treat she knew that was the best she was going to get from him. He was obsessed with sweets. "When I go back to LA, do you think we'll stay in touch?"
There was a long pause in which LuHan's ice cream slowly melted down his hand to drip toward the ground, and Amber was so amazed that he was allowing it to be wasted that she m
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