Update. This is't Jade. I'm just her friend. I'd just like to inform (to anyone whom this may concern) that you shouldn't be angry with her. She was having a really tough time and I guess I'm just so ignorant and stupid that I didn't realize how much she'd changed. I don't want to make this any more painful than this has to be, so I'm just going to say it. Jadelyn is no longer with us.
I'm reposting her stories so this can be a nice way to remember her. Because writing always seemed to make her really happy (what would I know anyway)...
-Mia
Too Many Miracles / Photographing Snowflakes
Summary: "Sam…please? Why won't you come back?" "I'm photographing snowflakes falling… (And slowly losing my mind) There's so many of them, Freddie… they're falling all the time"
It was a cold day when Sam Puckett finally left. She'd been on her way out a while. And she loved to make things painful for Freddie, so of course she had to drag it out. It was twenty nine degrees below zero. Snow was falling sideways. And Freddie was the last one left. He'd stayed out there for at least six maybe seven hours? The chocolate eyed boy leans back on the strong trunk of the willow tree he'd been leaning against for the past hour and a half. For a second, in the distance, he'd thought he'd seen her. Dancing in the snow. He'd even heard that musical sound he knew to be her laughter. It was like a chorus of bells, sounding off in his ears.
His eyes fluttered shut and he thought back to a kind of happier time, just three months ago.
Her eighteenth birthday. Everyone else had given up by then. They'd claimed watching her preparing to jet off and leave them in search of whatever she could see was too painful. Even Carly had long since stopped trying.
She squealed in delight as he had handed her a bulky box. Not wrapped in anything special, but she tried to save the wrapping just the same. Because it was from him. (They never did completely admit it, not until the very end anyway, but they were completely in love with each other). Her eyes widened as she saw what awaited her. It was an old fashioned Polaroid camera.
"You didn't have to do this…nub, I told you not to make a big deal out of my birthday…"
She punched him playfully on the shoulder and smiled as she said it, but there was an underlying sadness to it. She knew why he had gotten her this.
"I don't want you to forget…ever…"
She flashed her signature smirk in an attempt to cover the hidden message in the camera. The chocolate-eyed boy was desperate to do anything that might make her forget about IT for a while.
He remembered the day he had first learned of it. It was what destroyed everything. It made him realize exactly how much he depended on her. He hadn't realized it before, but she kept him sane. Without her, he didn't know who exactly he was anymore… that horrible thing ruined his world.
"I'm leaving in three months, Freddie… and it'll… well I'll never be the same…"
"What do you mean leaving? You mean for NYU with me… right?"
He knew in his heart that she didn't mean leaving for college with him. The chocolate-eyed boy just wanted to hang on to any shred of hope that things would be perfect for once. That just one time in their lives, things would go right for just the two of them. This was supposed to be four of the best years of their lives… and if she left, he'd never get to tell her. She'd never know that he thought she was the single most beautiful thing he's ever seen… she'd never know that he would do anything for her, go anywhere to be with her… or she'd find out too late.
"Fred-o… you know that's not what I mean…"
And there's that feeling in his gut again… the on that makes him feel like he's being torn apart inside. He knows he's going to hate what he hears next, but that's not really why he's upset about it. He knows it's about what's wrong with her. She'd been acting odd lately. Saying things along the lines of, "You should appreciate the sunrise while it's still there," etc., etc. He'd wondered what all that was about, and now he wasn't all that sure if he wanted to know.
His voice choked when he finally gathered the courage to spit out his next words…
"What do you mean, Sammy?"
Her eyes fluttered to a close for a moment before she spoke. When she opened her eyes again, she looked like she was on the verge of tears.
"Freddie… I have a tumor…"
"Can't they just remove it? Chemo-therapy? Can't they do anything?"
"They can't remove it without rupturing a blood vessel… "
There was a sinking feeling in his stomach… he could tell that she was withholding information.
"Why do I feel like there's something a lot worse that you're not telling me?"
The golden-haired girl sighed in despair. She couldn't put this off any longer.
"This tumor…it's causing irreversible damage to the part of the brain that holds my memories… in about three months; I'll have no idea who you are."
The boy couldn't comprehend what he heard. Three months? But she's SAM. She's beautiful, devious, invincible, fearless, Sam.
"No, you're fine! You're turning eighteen, you're perfect and you'll be fine, goddammit!"
"Freddie…I know it's hard to accept, but let's act like I'm fine as long as we possibly can. We'll enjoy what we have left."
"How can you say that? In less than three months, you'll forget me…"
He turned away from the golden-haired girl and leaned on the wall. He didn't want her to see him in his weakness. He had to be strong for her while she belonged to him and him to her. She didn't know how to comfort people. Hell, it had taken her months to get to the point where she could speak of IT. But she tried her best because it was all they could do. Try their best to live normally even though she'd leave him.
She didn't speak for a while, and when she did, he almost missed it, she was so uncharacteristically quiet.
"If it makes you feel better… I'll try my damnedest to remember…"
It never was the same from there on out. Occasionally, she'd have a meltdown and she would forget momentarily. The worst one was right after Carly had 'officially' dubbed the golden-haired girl a lost cause. He was disappointed in the brown eyed girl. Somehow, he'd known she wouldn't be able to take it. That the brunette couldn't handle her best friend slowly forgetting everything. It was about two months after he had found out about IT. There was a freak snow storm in the beginning of June. And Carly had just walked out on the golden-haired girl.
The snow was falling sideways. And she was bawling her eyes out. He didn't know what to do. He had attempted many times to comfort her, but she was having no part of it. She sat on the floor of his apartment curled up against the wall to the right side of the door when she snatched her camera off of the side table and took off out of the apartment. He had run after her, trying to weave his way through the crowd of people in the elevator, trying to find her. She wasn't there. As soon as the elevator hit the ground floor, he pushed through the masses of puffy jackets and out to the front lawn. He sighed in relief when he saw the blonde under the bows of the tree, snapping photographs of everything around.
"Sammy… you should come back inside."
"No… and how do you know my name?"
"Sam, it's me… Freddie?"
A look of confusion was painted on her face. It was one that he hated with all his heart because every time it showed, the expression reminded him of how he was going to lose her.
"Doesn't ring a bell, sorry."
And she continued with the click of the camera, her small frame trembling from the cold.
"Sam… please? You'll freeze. Why won't you come back in?"
"I'm busy…Freddie? That was it, wasn't it?"
The boy simply nods his head and lets out a quiet murmur to confirm the blonde's question.
"I'm photographing snowflakes falling…"
(And slowly losing my mind)
She whispers the last part to herself, but he hears. He realizes that soon the forgetting won't be temporary. And time is moving too fast. It flies by faster with each passing second. And he hates it.
The boy doesn't know how to respond to it, so he wraps his jacket around her and listens.
"There's so many of them, Freddie… they're falling all the time…"
He remembers that day clearly as being the day he hit the wall. (That wall being reality). It was the day it finally sunk in. Sam had been losing control, fast. And soon the girl he was so desperately in love with wouldn't remember him at all. He laughed bitterly as he'd thought that her not remembering would be the worst thing in the world. How wrong he'd been…
He felt the tears hit his face as he recalled the last memory associated with that camera.
It was a week before she…left.
It was a quiet Saturday. They just kind of moped around the apartment, doing nothing. Watching old reruns of iCarly, laughing about times they had together while they still could. They had just finished laughing about that time Sam had filled his history teacher's car with bees. "If he can give you b's, why can't I give him bees?" He had been so angry about it at the time, but looking back on it, it was pretty funny. That silence there always is after a moment with someone fell upon them, but it wasn't uncomfortable. They just sat there and enjoyed each other's company. The boy wondered why she had to have a life-threatening medical condition for them to finally be able to spend time together like this. He'd known that he'd miss her dearly when she was gone, but just as the reality of their situation had hit him, it became clear just how much he wanted- no needed to have her around. He knew it would be hard to watch, but at the same time, nothing could have prepared him for it. Without realizing it, he had been playing with her hair as she lay her head on his chest. He didn't know why, but the time seemed right. He wanted to tell her.
"Sammy?"
She turned her head to look up at him, revealing the crystal blue eyes he adored so much.
"Yeah, Fred-o?"
"You're beautiful…"
The chocolate eyed boy felt his heart beating out of his chest as he tried to gather enough courage to say what he wanted to.
"…and whether you remember me or not… I love you and I always will. I'll take care of you, Sam…."
Her eyes widened in a combination of joy and shock at what she had heard. The golden-haired girl felt the tears threaten to spill over.
She buried her head into his chest and let them fall.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
Her voice cracked as she delivered the last words.
The boy didn't know what to say to her so he simply leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.
They laid there together, wordless. Tears streaming down both faces.
When the blonde heard the boy's breathing slow she whispered into the darkness.
"I'm sorry. Freddie, I love you too…"
The boy heard, but he didn't dare move. Hours later, he felt her weight lift off of his chest followed by the click of a camera.
That night had been a good night for her.
Usually, by that point in time, she only remembered his face. Then, the camera wasn't just to take her mind of things. When she saw a photo or anything with people she didn't recognize, she took pictures of things she'd completely forgotten. Like Spencer. She'd seen him in videos with her, but she had no memory of who he was. And then Carly. And he didn't know how, but she had forgotten what iCarly was…well she had known it was a popular webshow, but she didn't remember being half of it. When she was finally asleep, he walked over to the table where she kept her pictures.
The last photo was of him.
She'd forgotten.
The boy despised that memory the most. It was the last good memory he had of her, but at the same time, it was the worst. Because if everything had gone right, he could be with her and they'd be happy, but the universe must have hated him because everything was wrong. Then he reminisced the day everything had gotten infinitely worse.
She had seemed fine that morning. She had even briefly remembered his name, (or rather, one of the many nicknames she had for him). But everything wasn't as it seemed. That night, she slipped away in her sleep. He had gone to wake her up …
"Sammy?"
Nothing. She laid there motionless.
He shook her again.
"Come on, I made bacon AND ham…"
The one thing that would get her out of bed in the morning even now was pork. That usually worked, but that day it was to no avail.
He noticed her breathing was kind of shallow. The chocolate-eyed boy brought to fingers to her neck. The blonde's pulse was still there, but just barely. He sprinted to the phone and dialed the number for the ambulance, frantically trying to get them to show up sooner.
"Sorry sir, the fastest we can get there is in five to ten minutes…"
"Fine."
He breathed into the phone. Couldn't they try harder? This girl was everything to him. And they just did 'the best they could'. Well that WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH.
He tried to calm down, but it was pointless to bother. His hands were curled into fists and shaking violently. He didn't want to cry. He didn't but as with calming himself down, it did him no good to attempt to stop it.
.~`-_.~`-_.
He didn't remember the ride to the hospital. It was all a blur until he was suddenly here by her side, where the girl of his affections was shoved carelessly into a hospital gown and thrown onto one of those stiff, cold hospital beds with a feeding tube taped to her nose and an IV needle in her arm.
Of course, it was then he chose to remember something she said before he'd known about the tumor.
"Freddie?"
"Sup, Princess Puckett?"
"I need to say something kinda serious."
"Okay…"
He must have had a skeptical look on his face. She had been saying all sorts of things that were weird for her considering how wild and carefree she normally acted.
"If something ever happens to me, and I have to stay plugged into feeding machines, and breathing machines and all that junk to stay alive, please just let me go… I don't want to be a living vegetable. I want you to think of me as up and about, doing crazy things, actually living. Not hooked up to machines in a pointless effort to hang onto a life that can't be saved…"
"So you'd want me to pull the plug if it came to that?"
"Yeah…that's basically it, Fredwardo."
"I know it's none of my business, but why say that now? It won't happen for a long time…"
She simply shrugged and said, "You never know… life could be running out sooner than you'd think…"
He shook his head in frustration. Why hadn't he picked up on all the hints she was leaving? Was he that oblivious? His head was buried in his hands when Dr. Swanson reentered the room.
"Excuse me young man, are you Fredward Benson?"
"Yes."
"In Miss Puckett's medical papers, you're listed as family. You're the only one listed, actually."
The boy of the chocolate eyes lifted his head in surprise.
"Me? Wait- that means…what does that mean?"
The boy's heart skipped a beat in his chest. He knew what it meant. He knew why Sam had told him what she'd wanted. Somehow, she'd known he'd stick around.
"Well, as the only listed family of Miss Puckett, we need your permission to hook her up to the machines needed to keep her alive as long as possible."
His vision got blurry. She wouldn't want to live like that. She'd left it to him to, in a way, kill her.
"Sam wouldn't want that… can I please have a few moments with her?"
"Okay, Mr. Benson. Press the red button to call me in when you're ready."
The boy hated how the doctor had talked about ending her life like it was a game. As if he could start a new one whenever he felt would be a good time. The boy resented it so. He knew there would never be anyone just like the girl and he hated the fact that he was the one that had to do this. He despised that he had to do it alone.
The boy grasped the girl's hand in his, kneeling close to the bed.
"Sammy… I know you can hear me somehow. I just want you to know that I meant what I said. You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I'll love you whether you remember who I am or not. I just wish you were awake to hear me…"
Suddenly her eyes fluttered open and for a second, the boy thought he had finally been given a miracle.
"Freddie?"
He hit to red button to alert the doctor. He was overjoyed. He thought that maybe, his Sammy was coming back to him. Until her heart started get slower and slower until-
The boy couldn't bring himself to look at the monitor. Looking meant accepting the fact that she was dying and he refused to accept it.
He leaned into her, silently crying until the doctor rushed past him with a defibrillator in hand. In one-two- he pressed the defibrillator into her chest, once, twice, three times… but her heart remained dormant.
"Sorry, kid."
The nurse said on the way out of the room.
The boy was there when they put her into a body bag. He was there when the room was cleared for another patient. Clean, cold, just as if she had never been there.
He felt like punching a hole through a wall. Like screaming until his voice left him. But he couldn't because of the eerie silence. Because he couldn't bring himself to disrupt it. Around three in the morning, he was kicked out of the room, forced into the harsh reality that without Sam, he didn't really have anyone. She had been the one who comforted him when his mother died in a freak train crash on the way to an Aggressive Parenting Conference in Fresno. For the past three, months, she'd been the only living thing he'd talked to at all. He couldn't bring himself to talk to Carly because of what she had done to Sam. He couldn't talk to Spencer either because of Carly. He was alone…
The boy had organized the funeral himself. He had been the only one to speak, so it was a short ceremony. It was over within a half an hour, but the chocolate-eyed boy couldn't bring himself to leave. And as if she were sending him reminders of her from somewhere in the stars, that day. (Today) There was another freak snow storm. In the middle of July. He looked over at the black marble stone that marked her resting place.
Samantha (Sam) Puckett
-`*.~April 17 1993 – July 13 2011~.*`-
You will be dearly missed.
The boy smiled at it, almost bitterly. As if he knew something that the stone didn't.
"I can't live without you, Sam…and it's not just that I can't. I don't want to. So, I hope it's nice where you are… I'm going to see you soon…"
The sound of a gunshot rang throughout the cemetery. The snow that was so innocent and pure was tainted by a flash of dark red.
And a chocolate-eyed boy lay under a tree, eyes open, with a wide smile on his face.
He was with her in the stars, where they both remembered… photographing snowflakes.