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Thinking, "Should I wait here or make my way home?"

The girl tucked up her legs and rested her chin on her knees, staring out at the waves that begun from the distant horizon and rippled towards shore to crash against the posts holding up the pier she was seated on. The sun had begun setting behind the line where the sky and ocean greeted each other in a blushing atmosphere of pinks and oranges and reds that cooled into purple and dark blue.

What was she still waiting for? Why didn't she head home already? She tried to convince herself that she was just waiting for the sun to finish setting, or for the fireworks to begin, but Yeonhee knew that she just wasn't ready to go home to a dark, cold, empty house just yet. She wasn't ready to be all alone for the rest of the day.

A few people were also at the beach that day, to enjoy the fresh, salty air or the prismatic sunset, most likely. Loud shouts and laughter blew towards Yeonhee, making her feel even lonelier than she had initially felt. She rested her forehead on her knees and began to cry quietly to herself.

She swung her legs over the edge of the pier carelessly. Perhaps if she just slid off the boards into the crashing sea below, no one would notice. No one would see. No one would care.

Loud footsteps echoed off the boards and neared her, interrupting her contemplations.

A long arm draped itself protectively over her shoulders, and Yeonhee felt someone take a seat beside her on the rough boards. Yeonhee glanced at the hand hanging off her shoulder. Long fingers and a calloused hand attached to a bony wrist dangling out of a plaid flannel cuff.

A heavy sigh escaped her chest and she closed her eyes, not knowing whether to cry again or to feel comforted by the fact that he came.

"Hello, Jake."