● Amber Erin Anderson ●

It wasn't a normal glow of gold and shimmers and all, no, it was far more darker that that. It was glowing, yes, but not brightly - but darkly as dark specks protruded out of my birthmark, which was, a small minus sign.

What in the world?

I immediately clamped my other hand against my wrist, grabbing it hard, my eyes widening and making sure no one takes a look at it and thanks to everyone's attention being on the procession of me losing my job, it was easy for me to hide my glowing wrist.

When Mr Gray noticed I wasn't paying attention to what any of the things he was saying, he let out a sigh and raised his voice.

"You know what?" he said, scoffing as I waited for the worst to happen. "I'll just cut to the chase," and with that being said, he smiled and said the words I had been dreading.

"Amber Erin Anderson, you're fired." Everything went silent when Mr Gray said those words.

Finally it ended.

The whispers about me stopped.

I felt relieved and was about to run away from this suffocating room but my best friend's sudden intimidating voice stopped me.

"Mr Gray, it's not Amber's fault. I told her to do my work because apparently, today we are short of workers and I couldn't do everything by my own. Because she was doing my work, it was too much for her to handle," Nathan came forward and explained while I gave him a what-the-hell-are-you-saying-dumbass? look.

I tried to speak and tell them the truth but Mr Gray spoke before me. "Mr Cameron, if you're trying to defend your friend, then that will only bring harm to you. She's fired and everyone, please, mind your businesses." Mr Gray said sternly and Nathan being the stubborn person he was, he talked back.

"If you're firing someone just for this petty reason, then I'm happily resigning from a workplace like this. Now." This time, Nathan said sternly, his emerald eyes looking oddly dangerous.

"Nathan, have you lo-"

"You didn't speak anything the whole time so shut your mouth and let me handle the scene that you've created," Nathan hissed at me.

I felt a lump in my throat. "Did you just-"

I couldn't finish my sentence as he ignored me and returned his attention to Mr Gray. He wanted to handle this by himself, right? Alright, then.

While they were busy arguing among themselves, I took it as a golden opportunity to take a look at my glowing wrist and I was surprised to see that there was nothing. My birthmark was just there, normal, not glowing and looking like it didn't just burned and itch. It was just there like always, making me frown and concluding this situation by telling myself that maybe, this was just a weird hallucination of mine.

But it looked too real to be just my imagination.

Snap out of it! Handle the situation you are in right now!

"What? What do you mean? You're going to resign because of her? You're so much better than her, Mr Cameron!" Mr Gray protested and I mentally agreed with him.

Though my best friend acted like a total idiot at times, but I couldn't ignore the fact that he was always three steps ahead of me. Always. Always better at academics than me, always better at socialising than me, always better at works, always better at everything he did.

There were times in my childhood when I felt down because of that but as I grew up, I realised that doesn't matter, as long as he was my best friend. That's the only thing mattered for me.

But it hurt whenever I was compared with Nathan. He tried his best to not let that made me feel down and sometimes he'd do things slowly and wrongly; just to make sure to let me do it.

"You want me to work here?" Nathan raised an eyebrow, eyeing Mr Gray sternly, the atmosphere quiet and almost eerie.

Mr Gray nodded and coming closer to him, Nathan said, "Then let her work here. If she works here, I work here." Nathan smiled at him and Mr Gray was speechless for a moment.

Mr Gray understood what Nathan was upto, so he played along and of course, he declined to do what Nathan wanted. I sighed, knowing this would've happened anyways.

Giving one last death glare to Mr Gray, Nathan took off the apron that he was wearing and tossed it on one of the tables while grasping my wrist and saying curtly, "We're leaving."

And with that being said by the great Nathan Cameron who had the audacity to talk to an owner of a restaurant like that ladies and gentlemen, we left the restaurant with our chin held up high.

"Just why the hell did you do that? You needed the job. You needed the money. For you, for your university, for paying your rent, for buying stacks of books!" I fired in one go, once we were out of the restaurant and was walking back to our apartments.

Luckily, it wasn't a public place and it was only us, so I yelled more loudly that I should've.

"You're welcome," he rolled his eyes and continued walking. It was odd to see Nathan being angry.

"This isn't the time to joke, Nathan! You lost the job because of me and now we are both jobless!" My voice was quiet this time and I stopped walking and dropped my head into my palm, suddenly guilt and anger--both taking over me.

I bent my head down, truly ashamed. I should've been careful. I shouldn't have tripped over. I should've taken my job more seriously like Nathan. And now he lost his job because he was defending me.

I should've talked instead of Nathan. But I was too tired after what happened that I couldn't even stand up for myself. Nathan didn't deserve what happened to him. He didn't even do anything wrong. He needed the job more than me.

It's all my fault.

As these thought started roaming in my head one by one, soon, I found myself tearing up. This wasn't my plan. I didn't want to crack up here. I wanted to vent all out in my bed and in my pillow. Not like this.

I tried to stop the tears that were flowing down from my cheeks but couldn't as I recalled how I got fired and how Nathan also lost his job because of me.

By the time Nathan realised his best friend wasn't walking beside him but was actually cracking up behind him, I was trying my best to hide my tears with my forearm.

"Amber? What happened?" he rushed to me and asked worriedly.

I wiped my tears with my sleeves, trying to not start weeping again.

Nathan looked at me, studying my face and sighed. "Come 'ere," He came closer to me and pulled me for a warm and affectionate hug and to be honest, I needed that.

As he patted my back consolingly, I rested my head on his shoulder and cried which felt like hours but I needed a shoulder to cry on.

He continued to pat my back without saying anything as if he read my mind because at the moment, all I wanted was just to vent out. Nothing more. No words, no assuring words or anything.

"I. . . want to give it a rest," I finally spoke, getting hiccups. "I keep failing. Again and again. I got this job after so long and I lost it,"

He remained silent and just nodded, not trying to interrupt but just let me talk.

"I just wanted a fucking decent life with a decent job. But I didn't have a decent life to even begin with." I chuckled humourlessly, my arms still wrapped around his neck and my tears slowly drying.

He again nodded and hummed in response. That was Nathan's way of supporting his friends. His warm hugs, hums, nods and then lastly, his supportive words that always cheered me up.

.