There's a difference between tomboy and lesbian. It's what she's claimed all through her life. She's a tomboy, but that doesn't mean she actually wants girls. Hell no. But then, she's never really wanted boys before. Boys want to protect her and be possessive and buy her things and she can manage that stuff on her own. She's a girl, she's not a helpless kitten. But she doesn't want girls. Until, of course, she does.

She's seventeen. She's been best friends with fifteen year old Krystal Jung since Krystal joined her junior high and mistook Amber for an older boy who could show her the school. Amber had, because here was a damsel in distress, and half an hour in, Krystal had clapped her hands over and whispered that she'd thought Amber was a boy, and that was she was so sorry! Amber laughed it off. It happened a lot; you get used to it. That meant she'd been friends with Krystal for over four years, and yet she'd never met her older sister, Jessica, before.

Jessica had been studying in Korea for that time. One year to get used to lectures in Korean, then three years of the actual degree course. Rather than come home during the summers, she'd chosen to take summer intern jobs in Korea to improve her language skills and to get some job experience. Now, however, she had graduated and returned to America. It was May, and Amber was invited to her welcome home party. Krystal, it seemed, was super excited for this. "You'll love my sister," she gushed on the phone, the night before the party. Problem was, turned out that Amber really would.

Jessica was a little smaller than Amber, with hair dyed an orange colour that caught the sun when she turned to smile brightly at her. "Hi," she said, in a voice softer than Amber thought it would be, holding out her hand. "I'm Jessica. I've heard a lot about you, Amber."

Amber took Jessica's hand in her own, covering slim, tiny fingers with her own hands, hands which suddenly seemed too big and clunky, and shook it a little, hoping her hands weren't sweating too badly. It was California in May; it was plenty hot enough to explain away sweating hands, right? "It's nice to meet you," she said, just a second too late. She blushed, recognising her awkward pause. She surged on ahead. "I've heard a lot about you too, Krystal is always talking about you."

"All good, I hope," said Jessica, with a slight smile, sliding her eyes across to Krystal, who beamed and nodded her head enthusiastically.

"Of course," said Amber earnestly. "She told me all about how you were studying in Korea. I think that's amazing, really."

Jessica's smile grew a little wider. Amber blushed just a little harder and clamped shut. "Are you Korean too?" asked Jessica. Amber shook her head.

"She's Chinese," said Krystal, who luckily didn't seem to have noticed that her best friend was acting like a complete spazz. "But she's taking Korean in school, same as me."

"That's good," said Jessica. "Do you speak Chinese too, Amber?"

Amber nodded.

"Well, it was nice meeting you finally," said Jessica, and turned away to say something to her mom, and Amber simultaneously breathed out a sigh of relief and hit herself mentally, because she had honestly sounded and acted like a complete moron.

It was just that Jessica was one of the most stunning women Amber had ever seen, one of the cutest, one of the cleverest, smartest, nicest. She was kind to her sister and good to her parents. She took stray cats home and tended to them. Actually, she probably didn't do that, but Amber was idolising her so badly that she believed that it was going to come out that Jessica learnt Korean by day, fought crime by night dressed as Sailor Moon. She lay in bed thinking about it. Somewhere along the lines, dreams about Jessica dressed as Sailor Moon ended up with a fixation on mini-skirts and smooth, slim legs, disconnected fingers that were possibly Amber's running up the insides of creamy thighs, Jessica out "Am--" And then Amber flipped over and buried her head in her pillow.

"Hey, Krystal," said Amber about a week after meeting Jessica, interrupting Krystal mid-flow about the cute boy in her freshman Lit class. "How old did you say your sister was again?"

"Sica?" Krystal didn't seem thrown off by the sudden change in subject. "She's twenty-two."

Five years. Amber let Krystal ramble on, too lost in her own thoughts to pay attention. Five years wasn't really that much of a gap. If Amber had been twenty-five, Jessica would have been thirty and no one would have even blinked at eyelid at that. Still, there was the problem of Jessica being a girl. That was awkward. That was awkward even for Amber, who was suddenly stuck with what she thought might have been a budding crush on her best friend's sister, and no way of knowing if that was what it actually was, the stuttering around her and the blushing at the mere mention of Jessica's name. Amber had never crushed on anyone before. She had nothing to compare her feelings to.

And was this just a crush on an older girl, something everyone claimed was natural? Was it just respect for an older girl taken a little too far? Or was it something more than that? Was it actually a sign that Amber wasn't as straight as she'd always thought? Judging by the increasingly ographic dreams she was having, it was a distinct possibility.

"I'm a lesbian," she told her reflection in the mirror one morning, just passing through, as a joke, and then stopped. "I'm a lesbian," she repeated, and felt a small amount of weight lift from her shoulders. "Oh," she then said. "Oh, , I'm a ing lesbian. Oh god."

She wanted to just go hide in her bed for the rest of her life, where she didn't have to think about anything other than kissing Jessica with an open mouth and being able to do it without having to think about any consequences or reactions. Instead, she had to go over to Krystal's house, because they had a sleepover planned. It was their tradition, though what happened there was usually up to the night. Tonight they took over the TV room and watched an endless amount of films where nerdy girls got revenge on the y cheerleader and/or got with the popular boy. These kinds of films were their favourites because Krystal enjoyed being shallow and Amber liked liking girly films when everyone had her pinned down as a guy. There was irony or something. They liked them in an ironic way. Actually, they liked them in a totally shallow teenage-girl kind of way.

Turned out that Jessica did too. Halfway through She's All That, Jessica put her head around the door to find out what they were doing, a can of Diet Coke in her hand. "Hey," she said, taking a sip. Krystal hushed her, eyes fixed on the screen. Amber tried hard not to stare at the way Jessica drank, lips around the curve of the metal and literally sipping, so that the can was barely even tipped. It was beyond adorable. She tore her gaze away, but suddenly Freddie Prinze Jr being a dickhead didn't seem like such an entertaining thing to watch. Not as entertaining as Jessica.

"Don't just stand in the doorway," admonished Krystal. "Either come in or go out."

Jessica chose to come in. She sat in the armchair to the side of the sofa Amber and Krystal were curled up on, nearest to Krystal. This just meant that Amber had a perfect angle for staring. Which she did. Through the rest of She's All That, and Bring It On, and Mean Girls. Then as the credits began to roll on that one, Jessica put her can, now empty, down beside her and jumped up. "Can I pick one?" she asked eagerly.

"Sure," said Krystal, waving her hand at the pile of DVDs they'd stockpiled for the night, and Jessica practically threw herself at them. Her casual summer dress seemed a lot more sinister when the hemline was pulled up to the tops of her thighs, and when she was kneeling on the floor like that, Amber had to look away. Jessica turned, grinning over her shoulder at them, waving a DVD.

"I love this film," she said. Amber squinted to look a little closer. Legally Blonde. She felt a spark of something run through her, making her shiver.

"That's one of Amber's favourites too," said Krystal happily. "Isn't it, Amber?"

Amber nodded. "I like that she can hold her own in the male-dominated legal system, even though no one really believes in her," she mumbled. Jessica laughed.

"I like it because I write on pink paper too," she said, wicked through and through. Amber laughed, possibly a little too loud, but it was okay, because Krystal did too. Laughing at jokes was a normal thing, right? It didn't scream too loudly that she was very, very gay for Jessica. It just meant that she had found it funny. She missed the first ten minutes of the movie worrying about it.

"Krystal," said Amber impulsively, as she lay in the dark on the mattress in Krystal's bedroom. "Have you ever thought you liked a girl?"

She saw Krystal sit up in the dark, and watched her head turn in her direction. "Huh?" she asked, sounding more sleepy than disgusted. Still, Amber blushed.

"Never mind," she said quickly. "We should go to sleep."

"No, I haven't," said Krystal. "Why, do you--"

"Go to sleep," said Amber firmly. She turned over so her back was now to Krystal.

"Um, okay," said Krystal, now sounding sleepy and confused. She seemed to follow Amber's orders, however, which was good, as Amber didn't think she could quite speak. What a fool she was. Even if Krystal had been okay with her uality, chances were that she wouldn't be okay with Amber's feelings for her sister. It was just a strong infatuation, really, and there was no need to act on it or even let anyone know, because that would risk her friendship with Krystal. Her friendship was far more important to Amber than anything she might be feeling towards Jessica.

She dreamt that night of kissing Jessica, who then went running in tears to Krystal, who started raving and ranting about betrayal and how disgusting Amber was. Then her hair had turned into snakes and because Amber didn't turn to stone, they set about biting her. It was all very weird and left her feeling disorientated, so the next morning she stumbled along to the bathroom that she'd always used when she slept over at Amber's, the one that had always been unoccupied. Only, now she knew why: it was because it was Jessica's bathroom. Without thinking, without knocking, Amber opened the door and stepped through.

Her hand was still on the doorknob when she froze. Over the top of the plate of frosted glass, she saw Jessica's head spin in her direction, horror on her face. "Amber!" she squeaked, and then tried to cover herself up, even though Amber could see nothing through the glass. Believe her, she'd tried.

"Ah!" said Amber. "Ah, I'm -- sorry!" Then she slammed out, a little clumsily, and slumped back against the bathroom door, hand pressed to her heart and a flush spreading up what was probably her whole body. That had been embarrassing. So embarrassing. She was never going to be able to look Jessica in the face again, would never be able to talk to her ever again. She would have to avoid being at Krystal's house whenever Jessica was home and would never, ever, ever be able to confess now.

But that -- that had also been completely hot. The way Jessica's hair had been stuck to her face, dark because it was wet. Her calves and feet where the frost stopped on the glass of the shower stall. The way she'd blushed across her nose and said Amber's name, so similar to the way she'd said it just two nights ago, when Amber had dreamt about her hand between Jessica's thighs. A squeak, unable to help herself, helpless. Amber groaned. Why had it had to be frosted glass?

Her first plan was to get the hell out of the house and not venture back in until ten years down the line, at which point Jessica would have either moved out or have forgotten about what Amber had just done. When she returned to the bedroom after getting dressed in Krystal's bathroom which had since been vacated, she was foiled in her plan because Krystal wanted help with her Math homework, and as Amber could never resist a cute pouting face, as Krystal knew very well, she agreed.

She was sitting on one of the high stools at their kitchen table, eating one of the cookies Krystal's mother had left out for them and waiting for Krystal to finish writing something down when Jessica came into the room, dressed only in a low-cut white t-shirt and a pair of pale pink . Amber breathed in at the wrong time and a crumb went on a joyride down her breathing tube. She doubled up, coughing, which caught Krystal's attention.

"Are you okay?" she asked, thumping Amber on the back. It was a good job Krystal had no muscle mass to speak of, otherwise Amber would have been choking and seeing a doctor about a slipped disk. A couple of tears running down her face, she straightened up, and Jessica pushed a glass of water into her hands. She made sure that as she took it, she didn't come into contact with Jessica's hands, and then sipped at it gratefully.

"Hey," said Jessica, when it was believed Amber had recovered enough. "What are you two up to?"

"Math homework," grumbled Krystal. "I know you majored in economics, Sica, but I just don't understand any of it."

"I help her," said Amber, more to get on Jessica's good side than anything else. "I did this class two years ago, after all."

"Let me have a look," said Jessica, and she leaned over the kitchen table to see the book. This meant that she was directly in front of Amber, who glanced at the wrong place and then realised that she could see down her top. She let out a whimper which seemed to go unheard, and was just about to stop looking, when Jessica shifted a little closer for a better look and her s practically fell out of her top.

It was just too much for Amber, who tried to stop staring and instead tried to look at the white towel over Jessica's shoulders, there to catch any drops from her hair which was still wet, but towels made her think of featherlight kisses across skin, and the white made her thinks of tossed sheets, and inevitably, her gaze was dragged back to Jessica's cleavage.

This was becoming a disaster. How was she supposed to keep this a secret when she couldn't even stop herself from staring in the most obvious of circumstances? Her gaze kept flicking from Jessica's mouth to her chest, and she was probably bright red. She was forced to stand up, a little shakily, and go to the fridge to get a drink, anything to distract herself.

Unfortunately, while she was standing at the fridge, she glanced back at the sisters and then did a double take, choking on her own tongue. She'd forgotten that a) Jessica was only wearing her underwear, and b) that she was leaning over the table. She was on her tip-toes, making her bare legs seem much longer and graceful; her underwear had ridden up so that the sides of her just peeked through. The material disappeared between her thighs, where Amber would quite like to...

She took a sip from her drink to stop herself from going over and putting both hands on Jessica's , and then, as Jessica leant in further and her t-shirt rode up so that the base of her back was showing, Amber said hoarsely, "I think I should go home."

Krystal looked up, an unhappy pout on her face, but her expression changed when she saw Amber's face. "Are you okay? You sounded weird, and you look really flushed."

"I'm--" Actually, her voice really was huskier than normal. She could work with this. "I think I might be coming down with something. I was just going to go home and have a lie-down."

"Here, let me--" Jessica tried to put her hand on Amber's forehead to feel for her temperature, and Amber flinched away so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. Jessica stared at her, and then understanding bloomed over her face. "Is this about earlier?" she said softly, so that Krystal couldn't hear. "Don't worry about it, Amber. It was a mistake. It can be our little secret." She smiled, but Amber wasn't smiling back. Great. The last thing she needed was a secret to give the two something to link them together.

"I'm going to go home," she said firmly, a little too loudly. "I'll see you at school on Monday, Krystal."

"Sure," said Krystal, looking a little worrried. No wonder: Amber was probably acting like a headcase. "I'll call you, okay?"

"Sure," muttered Amber. Really, she didn't like the connotations of 'fleeing', but that's probably what she did, considering how fast she left that house.

A week passed, then two, and she managed to avoid Jessica completely. She thought that by doing so, she could get over her middle-school crush -- not that middle schoolers could have dreams like the ones she was still having. By the end of the two weeks, however, it looked like her plan had failed, because when Jessica came to see Krystal after school one day, Amber really did have trouble breathing.

She was dressed in a short, pale yellow pleated skirt, with a white t-shirt and a yellow cardigan thrown over her shoulders. The t-shirt made Amber think about that time in the kitchen, with the and the legs, and judging from the faces of the boys around her, she wasn't the only one who was being distracted by said legs. She felt a rush of anger: how dare they stare like that? Jessica wasn't a piece of meat, and she certainly wasn't going to be interested in stupid boys, like they were.

"Ah, jealousy," she said vaguely, earning a strange look from Krystal. Well, one thing was for sure: she hadn't managed to get over her crush. Damn.

"Krystal!" said Jessica, giving her sister a tight hug. She smiled at Amber, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Hi, Amber."

"H - hi," said Amber. God, did Jessica even know how beautiful she was? It was beyond ridiculous.

"I was going to take Krystal shopping," said Jessica. "Do you want to come?"

"Amber doesn't like shopping," said Krystal, in this low voice like she was imparting some information of great importance and scandal. It had been a source of great annoyance to Krystal throughout their friendship. Amber would shop, but she didn't like shopping.

However, if going shopping meant being around Jessica a little longer? She knew she shouldn't, it was counter-productive to getting over her crush, but she couldn't help herself. "No, I'll come," she said.

"No complaining," said Krystal severely.

"No complaining," agreed Amber, a wry smile on her face.

"Yay," said Krystal, beaming at Jessica, who was smiling at Amber, who was trying to not bite through her tongue while stopping herself from grinning back in a stupid way. Only when Jessica's back turned did she allow herself to do so, feeling a little light-headed. Walking a little behind the two of them, she stared at Jessica's back and legs and the flash of her neck when her high ponytail swung from side to side. Maybe it should have been awkward, as the two sisters chatted together, but Amber didn't feel left out or a spare part in any way. When Krystal disappeared into a changing room to try a skirt on, Jessica sidled up to Amber.

"Don't you wear skirts, Amber?" she asked. Amber looked down at what she had worn to school that day, black jeans and a grey t-shirt, and shook her head. Jessica looked at her thoughtfully. "They probably don't suit you, do they?" she said, less of a question towards Amber and more to herself.

"They don't," Amber answered anyway. "They make me look like a drag queen."

Jessica laughed, a little burst of amusement that she covered with her hand. "I'm sure that's not true," she said, eyes bright.

Amber nodded her head enthusiastically, probably looking like a nodding dog. "No, it is true. Just ask Krystal."

"They don't," said Krystal, when she came out of the dressing room and Jessica asked her. "Amber actually looks good in dresses, it's just that she doesn't think she does."

"I don't," protested Amber.

"You do. It's because you're so slim and your legs are so long. Also, you have a really swan-like neck, so you look good with low necklines."

"Yeah," said Amber. "If I had a chest."

"I give up on you," said Krystal. Jessica was grinning. Amber walked on air: she'd made Jessica laugh.

After a month, she gave up on trying to give up on Jessica. Whenever she went over to Krystal's house, Jessica was there, hanging out with them. "I like you, Amber," Jessica said one day, and Amber had a moment of sheer confusion, heart leaping, before she realised that Jessica didn't mean in that way. Still, it was a seal of approval.

Jessica influenced what they did during sleepovers and went shopping with them and took them for nice meals. She had a job working as a sales manager for a electronics store, just for the summer because she was thinking of going back to Korea to get a proper job, and sometimes Amber would go in and pretend to be interested in buying a new mobile phone, just so she could talk to Jessica without Krystal being there, without having to be too careful with her words. Every time she made Jessica laugh, she fell a little bit more, helpless, because she made Jessica laugh a lot.

She had it pretty bad. There was something about Jessica which just screamed out to her. Sure, Jessica was older, but she wasn't taller, she wasn't stronger, and sometimes Amber thought about what it would have been like if she'd been born a boy, whether she'd have had more of a chance with this woman. But she wasn't a boy. Being a tomboy didn't mean she was a boy. Still, she wanted this woman who seemed so worldly wise and mature, but liked teen flicks; wore pink underwear like an eight year old but had a body formed by angels; sang when she made lunch in a soft but gorgeous voice. Oh yeah, Amber had it pretty bad.

Which was why she thought it was a good idea to ring Jessica one night after a party, where she'd had her first drink and wasn't used to it and was therefore smashed because she hadn't known her limits. She couldn't ring her parents, who would murder her, and flicking through her phone in what probably looked like a drunken stupor, she stopped on Jessica's number, the only other person in her phone book who could drive. It seemed like a good idea. She was drunk and Jessica was pretty and the world was full of roses.

Jessica was vaguely disapproving on the drive home, Amber slumped in the passenger seat. "What were you thinking?" she asked, turning her head ever so slightly in Amber's direction.

"Eh," said Amber, who hadn't really been thinking anything, and wasn't too sure what Jessica was talking about. Did she mean about the drinking? Or did she mean about calling her? She really did look very beautiful when she was angry.

"I'm just glad Krystal wasn't here," said Jessica.

"Wouldn't let Krystal drink," said Amber vaguely. "Officially too young for it."

"So are you," said Jessica, voice a little louder. "You're only seventeen, Amber."

"But I'm old for my age," said Amber, sullenly. She wasn't talking about the drinking anymore.

"Not old enough to drink," said Jessica firmly.

"I wasn't talking about the drinking," said Amber.

"Well, what were you talking about?" asked Jessica, as she pulled into the drive of her house and cut the ignition. She turned to look at Amber, and really, her name was fitting, because that was the colour of the streetlights on Jessica's hair, amber, her eyes practically black, skin pale, perfect nose, perfect mouth.

"Am I too young for you?" Amber asked impulsively.

Jessica's mouth fell open. "W-wha--?"

"Because I think I look old for my age, and I can act older, so I don't think it's that much of a problem, really."

"Amber, I really don't know what you're talking about." Jessica got out of the car and slammed the door shut after her. Amber was quiet. Jessica had sounded a lot more angry than Amber had realised. When she opened Amber's door, she took Amber's arm quite hard and practically dragged her out. "Now you're going to sleep and get all this alcohol out of your system and in the morning you're going to promise me that you'll never drink again until you can do so legally."

Amber pulled Jessica back. She fell against her, looking a little startled. "The back seat looks comfortable," she murmured, head bowed down. "Want to make out?"

"Amb--" said Jessica, then Amber cut her off by kissing her. There was one long moment where Jessica curled her fingers around her wrist and seemed to fall into her, then she was desperately pushing her away and wiping at . Amber fell back against the hood of the car, vision blurred. "Come on," said Jessica, without looking at her.

Amber had been a little too drunk to really think about what she'd been doing at the time, but when she woke up the next morning, she remembered. She groaned, stomach cramping in embarrassment, and pulled the covers up over her head. Then she realised that they weren't the covers on her bed at home, nor were they the covers that she usually used when she slept over at Krystal's house. Turning over slowly, a little scared of what she would find, she came face to face with a sleeping Jessica, who had apparently slipped under the covers too.

Amber held her breath. She didn't want to wake Jessica, after all, not when she had this time to study her in peace. hung slightly open as she slept, breathing as soft as her voice. She was wearing a pale blue silk nightdress, which had become tangled around her thighs as she had moved in her sleep. Her hair was all over her face; Amber reached out before she could reign herself in, and pushed it away. Jessica's eyes opened slowly. Then she yelped in shock.

"Amber! God, I was so scared!"

But not scared enough to move away, Amber noticed. Sure, last night had been embarrassing, but now that she looked at it closely, hadn't Jessica been about to kiss her back? And wasn't she now blushing as Amber stared at her intently? Experimentaly, Amber put her hand on Jessica's cheek. Jessica shot away, turning onto her back and pulling the covers down.

"Amber, you probably don't remember what happened last night," she said, voice a little shrill.

"I do," said Amber lowly.

"But I just think that you should know that it's perfectly normal to feel some confusion about your uality, and that while I'm flattered, I don't--"

Her breath caught as Amber suddenly swung herself over on top of her, resting on her forearms. She nudged Jessica's nose with her own, and watched Jessica's eyes flutter shut. "Don't what?" asked Amber, teasing a little.

Jessica's eyes opened again. "Don't think that you should--"

"And for the recond," interrupted Amber, "I'm not confused. There's nothing confusing about this."

"I understand what's it's like to have a crush on an older girl," said Jessica, her older-sister-advice routine ruined by the fact that she was breathless. "But you get over it, really, Amber."

"But will you get over it?" Amber softly kissed Jessica's jaw and heard the exhalation. "Did you get over liking girls?"

"No," whispered Jessica. Amber put her hand on Jessica's thigh, thumb . Jessica put her hands over her own to try to get her to stop, even as her legs fell a little more open.

"I like you, Jessica," said Amber, looking her directly in the eye, voice calm and sincere.

"Urgh," said Jessica, and raised for Amber to kiss. It was cotton candy in and firecrackers in her bloodstream and endless, endless tingling in her limbs. Jessica's hands were against the spot where her neck met her spine, clutching her a little closer. Amber moved her hands up to Jessica's waist, and so what if she pushed Jessica's nightdress up as she did so? That was just coincidence.

Jessica pushed her away, laughing. "You stink of alcohol," she said.

"Mmm," said Amber, nudging her nose against Jessica's neck. "You just smell nice."

"Go brush your teeth," said Jessica. Amber sat up.

"And then we can go make out on your backseat," she said.

"It's a date," said Jessica. Then, as Amber clambered off the bed, she said, voice full of mischief. "Bags not telling Krystal."

Amber stared at her in dismay. "That's not far!" she said.

Jessica wriggled, pulling her nightdress back down. "I'll make it up to you," she said and paused with her hand against her thigh. "Just as soon as you turn eighteen."

Her mother had never seen her so excited for her birthday.