This is just something really short I thought about and wrote in about twenty minutes. I just...can't stop writing! I'm, like, on overload or something. It's crazy. Anyway, enjoy!
Amber didn't mind that they put on a show for the world. She didn't complain that she had to dance with him on television, or kiss him as they waited for the school bus. She didn't mind that sometimes he would grab her hand in front of her friends, and cause her to lag behind the crowd.
She never minded it when their friends cooed over them, or when her mother automatically assumed that they would be doing anything together because they were a couple. When she heard someone refer to her as "Link's Amber," she never let it bother her. She didn't care that there were dirty things written about the two of them in the back of their textbooks, by other students. She didn't care that when they were in her room studying, her mother assumed they were studying each other, and not their homework.
His hair was dark as coal with eyes the color of cornflower. Hers was so blonde that it was almost white, and eyes that were as clear as glass. He wore button-down sweaters and suits that were just a little too short for him. She wore elegant dresses that had been tailored especially for her, with fur trimmings and pearl earrings that made her earlobes the envy of all the girls in school. He was rational, and somewhat pompous, without ever realizing it. She was completely insensible and made a purposeful effort to make others feel badly about themselves. And yet, somehow, it worked between them. People liked them together, for the most part, and they quickly became the envy of teenage Baltimore.
It wasn't anything they had intentionally done, of course. Her mother had simply informed her one day that Link was her 'boyfriend', and that was it. They'd been thrust together spontaneously, bound with an invisible rope that kept them dancing, sitting, eating, everything together. She had resented it at first, the fact that he was always there, always offering to carry her books, or to give her his jacket, but that resentment soon turned into a tacit understanding between them; one that they created out of somewhat twisted necessity.
No, Amber Von Tussle didn't mind at all that Link Larkin was her boyfriend. She didn't mind sharing her seat with him on the bus, or whispering things into his ear that only he could hear. She didn't mind eating, sleeping, breathing everything Link.
She didn't even mind that it wasn't real. She didn't mind that it was all for looks, all for the vanity that neither of them could stand to live without. She really didn't care when he would pretend to kiss her in front of her friends, though that's all it really was; pretend. She didn't mind that he only smiled at her, only held her hands when others were watching them.
She didn't mind that he was only pretending to be in love with her.
But sometimes, when he was holding her hand, whispering sweet words to her, brushing the white-blonde strands of hair from her face, she began to wish it was real.
And that was the one thing that bothered her.