Chapter One: Sam's POV

Three Years After "Not Like The Movies"

Ages: 17-18

I'd eventually recovered from the incident back when we were all fifteen, but I don't think Freddie ever did. He completely changed. He didn't do anything that had anything to do with technology. It reminded him too much of iCarly. He'd dropped out of A/V club, and refused to attend Computer Lab. His grades suffered immensely.

Carly eventually got better. She met a boy, Adam, that she said made her happy, but I knew she'd never love him as much as she loved Freddie.

Spencer continued to make sculptures a while after, but his art changed entirely. It was as if Carly and he shared part of a brain, and when she was depressed, so was he. Now, all his sculptures revolved around the collapse of humanity.

Carly and I eventually made up, but I knew, deep inside, she no longer trusted me. And I didn't blame her.

Now here we are, a group of "friends" once more, mere months of our senior year left. After this, we'll never see each other again. Maybe once at the grocery store a few weeks after graduation, and we'll nod like we care, then forget three days later. That will be the extent. And it kills me inside.

I know I can't do anything about it.

For a while after the big breakup, people would occasionally come up to one of us and ask, "Hey, why wasn't there an iCarly this week? Is someone sick?" We wouldn't answer. I didn't even have the energy to insult them. I knew I couldn't hide my feelings with anger and violence anymore.

iCarly never went back on the air.

"So, what are we going to do for the end of the year?" Carly asked, not sounding very interested at all.

"Die," I suggested, and Freddie cracked a cynical smile that lasted as long as one-millionth of a second.

"Seriously," she half-heartedly urged. "There's got to be something we could do to celebrate. Sam, you're going to be eighteen the day of graduation, you'll be legal." I was temporarily stunned she remembered my birthday.

"Carly, why are you friends with me?" I asked, twirling my straw wrapper in between my fingers, not meeting her eye.

"W-what?" she asked, looking at the bright florescent "Groovy Smoothy" sign.

"You don't like me. You hate me and everything I do, say or touch. Why do you bother hanging around me? I know I repulse you."

"Sam, you don't repulse me," Carly told me, emphasizing the word "repulse" as if there were a similar adjective she would've used in the context.

"Yes, I do, don't deny it. Why do you even waste your time with me?"

"Sam, I know what you did was wrong. I think we all do," Carly said, and I saw Freddie cringe as if the memory physically hurt him to think about. "But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to forgive you."

I looked at Carly. Was she serious? "Are you trying to say you still like me?" I asked.

"Well," Carly began, "you were the best friend I've ever had, even if you made out with my boyfriend and caused me to spiral into a deep depression. All in all, Sam, despite your flaws, you really are a one-in-a-million person."

Carly's words caused me to do something unexpected. Something Sam never should do.

I wiped the tear from my eye, sniffing and not looking at the two.

"Aw, Sam, are you crying?" Carly asked in her all-too-familiar sympathy voice.

"No," I demanded, "Freddie's just…such a dork it gets me emotional sometimes."

I remembered the sequence from when we were much younger, and we all laughed. And I mean really laughed. As hard as when Carly's terrible bunny was displayed on iCarly. Even Freddie laughed. "Good one, Sam. I think we all needed that," Freddie said.

I looked at Freddie and he looked back, and we practically had a full conversation without saying anything. Carly, seeing this exchange, quickly said she had to go to the ladies' room and dashed off, and I remembered my old friend, having my back once more.