I was sitting on the fire escape when she put her hand on my shoulder.
I didn't look up. I didn't have to. I knew who it was.
She didn't say anything, just took a seat on the ledge where we'd kissed so long ago. We sat in silence for a few minutes. Cars passed below us, their engines humming. When the last one breezed on by, I took my eyes off of the sky long enough to look at her.
She was wearing a pink striped shirt, her hair was curled, and there were grease stains all over her pants. No surprise, there. She had probably just drowned herself in a bucket of chicken.
"I'd tell ya' to take a picture to make it last longer, but my second cousin did that and he hasn't seen the light of day since."
I smiled. She always had the ability to make me smile, even when I felt like throwing myself off of a fire escape.
"Lookin' for Carly?" she asked when I didn't respond. My eyes had been glued to the sky for the past twenty minutes, widening at every plane that happened to whiz on by. I kept imagining Carly in one, flying thousands of miles away from me. She had always been so close - a step away from my door, literally. It seemed so strange to think that someone you'd seen everyday for half of your life could just be gone. Here one minute, gone twenty later.
"I want to be mad that she left, but I just can't force myself to feel anything but happy for her." Sam said when I didn't reply.
I took my gaze off of the sky long enough to stare at her incredulously.
"You, Sam Puckett, lord of all things vicious and hateful, have a heart?"
I could almost hear her eyes roll. "Yeah, but my stomach's a heck of a lot bigger."
"Ain't that the truth."
An airplane peeked out from behind a cloud and Sam smiled. "There she goes."
"What makes you think she's in that one?"
She closed her eyes. "I just know. Best friend intuition."
A cool breeze tugged at my scarf. For the first time since Carly's departure, I thought about Sam. I didn't even think about how she would feel. I just thought about how sad I was that Carly wouldn't be around anymore. It didn't hit me that Sam was losing her best friend, too.
I watched the airplane zip across the eastern sky like a star dying out and felt the goosebumps rise on my arms.
She was right. Carly was gone.
:(
Ten minutes later, when the temperature had dropped a good five degrees and she was still on the ledge, coatless, I asked the question I'd been wanting to ask since she first stepped outside.
"What do you want, Sam?"
She crossed her arms. "Why does everyone always ask me that? Can't I just sit next to my nerdy friend on a fire escape without having ulterior motives?"
"I don't know. Your record seems to prove otherwise."
She laughed a laugh I haven't heard in some time. It was a mixture of wind chimes and hyenas. She was doubled over and slapping her knee. Before I knew it, I was laughing, too, and our faces were turning red and her hand was intertwining with mine and we were kissing.
Just like old times, I thought.
And after all we'd been through - all the laughs, the tears, the losses, the fights, the screams, the goodbyes - I knew we'd always have this.
Us. We. Eachother.
Well,there goes my childhood out the window. It's strange to think that it's all over. I'm sad. It was thanks to iCarly that I even started writing on here in the first place. I feel like a chicken with its head cut off. Maybe that feeling will fade... but I hope my love for this show never will. Thanks for the memories, the laughs, and the shrill shrieks of pure excitement at every Seddie moment along the way. Thanks for the many stories (some deleted) that this wonderful show inspired. This shouldn't be my last iCarly fanfic. I'm sure I'll be back when inspiration strikes. I may even take up another show. It's possible, I guess.
Who knows, maybe this isn't the end... it's just a beginning that started with goodbye.
See ya' soon...
(Oh, and did you SEE that Seddie moment in iGoodbye?! They're deff. getting back together... hehe.)