Hey. So this is my first fic so please read and review! write honest opinions only ;)
I never wanted to love him. I never wanted to look at him and find anything inside me other than distaste. I never wanted love anyone really. I had watched my mother "find love" and lose over and over again through out my childhood. From what I could tell as a child, it sucked. There didn't seem to be any benefit: it made a perfectly strong person act like a total daffodil, and frequently ended in crying. These are both things I hate. That's another thing love does: makes me a stereotype. I suppose I'm a little ahead of myself though, aren't I? Let me bring you back a little to this whole thing started.
I never even wanted to know him to be honest. I was more then fine with just my best friend. I didn't need anyone else. Even the first day I saw him I did not like him. Perhaps it was out of resentment towards him for "stealing" my best friend. I met him, and if I do recall, the first words I said to him were, "you're such a dork." He was scared of me; just like most of the kids I knew who were my age. But there was a different quality to him too. Sometimes, before I would hit him, I would here him insult me back. I respected him for it. Slightly. He was a total nub and I knew it. But every now and then I would think about him, even in the smallest way, and for a moment I would smile at the thought of the three of us. Then of course I would snap myself back to the reality of my life, the one where I needed to hate him.
After awhile, I only hated him because I was supposed to. It was convenient and easy. My mother had taught me from a young age that there was a certain way I was supposed to act and hold myself just because I was me. A Puckett. I decided it was easier to pretend to hate him then to rock the boat in our already screwed up friendship. And that's what we were by that point I guess. Friends. There were little things done to show companionship: A smile after a jibe, a light punch rather then one that would leave a bruise, and, after awhile, we started having normal conversation. He was still the kid that stuck to my best friend like cling wrap, and we didn't really spend time together away from her. But still, through our show, and endless hours spent working on it, we became closer, and eventually we didn't need Carly there to facilitate our conversations or to make sure there was no awkwardness. Sometimes she would come a little late and I would just talk to him about anything. School, the show, occasionally he would tell me about something incredibly technical, and I would find myself becoming interested. That, of course, does not mean that I did not immediately respond with some sarcastic remark or some stupidly hateful thing.
That was where this started I suppose.
It was a rainy night in Seattle. (See, again with the stereotypes) I got to my best friend's apartment and let myself in. She told me not to pick the lock anymore, but it was unlocked so I wasn't breaking any rules. I really needed her that night and so I went to wait for her upstairs. Now, I'm not really going to go into it, but let's just say that Melanie was on boyfriend number 15 and I was feeling just a little bit down. (Don't judge. I have had one and he hit on my best friend) I went upstairs only to find just the person I didn't want to see there. He looked up from his laptop.
"Sam? What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," I said. I really didn't want to talk to him.
"Okay then, I know I'm going to regret this, but what's up? You seem a little…down."
"None of your chizz Fredork."
"Sam, you know you can talk to me. I mean, we're friends."
That's when I lost it. I broke a perfectly good 15-year streak of never crying in front of people (excluding my mom of course. But I was little) And, of course, it had to be in front of the person I least wanted to talk to in that moment.
"Sam, are you, crying?"
"No," I sniffled while trying to cover my face with my hair. That's when he did something unexpected. He walked over to me, and sat down right next to me. And then he hugged me. That was when it first happened for me, I suppose. In that moment, with my head on his shoulder, I felt that cliché warm fuzzy feeling. And that was it. I had no idea of it then, but after that moment nothing would ever be the same for me.
After I was done, I of course had to punch him in the shoulder, but I also thanked him. He looked shocked which I guess I couldn't blame him for. He never mentioned it though, not even to Carly. It was sort of like our secret, I guess. I liked having a secret.
Soon after that is when I figured out he hadn't kissed anyone. I couldn't explain why it made me so… happy. I hated that it made me happy. I passed it off as excitement over a prank waiting to happen and that's how we got to that one awful iCarly episode. The most memorable part of that for me was my best friend screaming," SAM! You ruined Freddie's life!" I expected not to care. I hoped with every fiber of my being I wouldn't care. But, I knew myself better then that. I knew even as I was doing it that it would hurt him and that I would regret it. But I kept my poker face; I pretended to enjoy his misery. All the while, I might just have been as miserable as he was. You know how they say that misery loves company. So, there's yet another thing that this nub has made me: regretful. I never wanted to experience that; I never had before him. That's night's iCarly, I told everyone that I hadn't kissed anyone either. Sure, it was partially due to guilt tripping but I genuinely felt bad regardless. So, I went to see him. He was hiding from his mother on the fire escape at his and Carly's apartment complex. I can't blame him. I would hide too. I knocked on the window. He waved me out. He was playing some cheesy sad music.
"What's up?' I said
"Nothing," he said. He sounded almost defeated. It was sad.
"Meatball?" I said, trying to lift the fog of awkward that had settled.
"No thanks?" He sounded confused. His face always contorted in the same way when he was.
"That was really brave, what you said."
"You heard?" I was a little surprised I don't know why.
"You didn't think I'd miss iCarly." He was smirking. Good sign.
"I'm sorry about telling people you never kissed anyone. And about putting blue cheese dressing in your shampoo bottle. And about-" You know, I'm just going to stop here and say I listed a bunch of the mean things I did. Our conversation from that point was almost nice. He said how weird it would be if I didn't make his life miserable. That almost made me sad. We talked about how stupid it is how people make this huge deal about your first kiss. He suggested (sort of) that we just kiss each other to get it over with. I couldn't explain why, but I was excited for it. Then it happened. I closed my eyes, because that's what they always do in movies and on TV, but I didn't expect anything that happened next. It was like fireworks. It made me think of every good thing that has ever happened to me. That's why my eyes shot open. I assumed that that was how all kisses were; it had nothing to do with whom you were kissing. After a brief 8 seconds of bliss, it was over. There was a bit of an awkward silence. I tried to ignore how much I wanted to do it again and tried not to look at him too much. He began to speak.
"Well, that was…umm…."
'Nice?" I muttered. Understatement of the century.
'Yeah, nice, uhh…" I think this is the most tongue-tied I had ever seen him.
"Nice work," probably one of the stranger things I could have said.
"Yeah, you too," he said. At least I wasn't the only one who liked it. I started to leave when his voice made me turn around.
"Hey Sam?" I really wanted to get out of there. I had too much to think about. "I hate you," he said with a smirk. I guess for him everything was back to normal. If only I could say the same.
After we kissed, it became increasingly harder for me to pretend to hate him. I didn't hate anything about him. It got to the point where I would take things that I liked about him and try to make them negative. Needless to say, that didn't work very well. I really did like him. And deep down I knew that there was no way I was going to get around it. I tried to deny, but then something happened, something that made it so undeniable that there was nothing I could do.
When Freddie pushed Carly out of the way of the taco truck, it only made me like him more. I hated that. It was just something so sweet and kind and, well, him. But that got me to thinking: Would he have done it if it wasn't Carly? What if it was me? Everyone knew that Freddie had been in love with Carly since he saw her, and that was one of the many reasons why I tried unsuccessfully to convince myself that I wasn't into him. When he started dating her, I almost broke. I remember a conversation we had where he said, "You just can't stand the idea of Carly and me as a couple." He had no idea how right he was. He thought it was just my best friend dating someone that I "hated". Every time I saw them together I felt like some obnoxious girl from a teen movie sitting and pinning after some guy. I don't do pinning. What made it worse was that I couldn't even hate the girl he was with for 2 reasons. One, she was my best friend, and I needed to try my hardest to be happy for her as long as she was happy. Two, she hadn't really done anything wrong; she had no idea that I liked him. At the time I didn't really know that I liked him. I needed to keep my mask though. I retorted with a snarky comment and told him without knowing it at the time the thing that would ultimately break them up. After they broke up, my world was somewhat balanced again. It wasn't like girls never liked him, they did of course. It was just assumed by most of the female population that he was hung up on Carly. I did too, but it still benefited me in that girls generally didn't bother to try with him. It kept getting harder and harder to be like the old me. I had to actively think about what Sam who hated Freddie would do or say so that I didn't make my friends suspicious. I hated having it bottled up, but there was no one for me to confide in anyway. I thought so many times about telling Carly, but how does anyone ring up something like that? Hey Carls, so for the next iCarly I was thinking maybe a potato salad ball and by the way I have a crush on Freddie. Plus, I knew that she would try to like set me up or something and all I really wanted was to not like him at all. Weeks went by and I kept trying to not like him. I kept telling myself all of these negative things about him that would turn into me thinking about good things about him. It didn't help me at all when he started working out. Good god, then it got to the point where I couldn't stop staring at him, which just made me feel like more of a cliché. All I ever wanted to do was be around him and I couldn't stop myself. I actually tried to be sort of nice to him while maintaining appearances of old me. That's probably when my friends (who are a bit thick not to notice sooner) first started noticing that I was acting different. When we interview interns, I knew that Court was the kind of guy that Carly would find hot, so I played along in hopes of annoying Freddie. It worked well. He was annoyed beyond belief, to be honest so was I. The guy was so stupid you could probably convince him to do almost anything. When Freddie brought in his own intern, I found myself feeling so jealous. Of course, the girl he picked would be my polar opposite in the looks department. She was, of course, fake, but that still stuck with me. One good thing did come out of our search for interns: Freddie met Brad. They would go and do things together without Carly and me. It seemed like the perfect opportunity. They would tell us that they were going to a movie or something and I would jump at the opportunity to spend time with Freddie. I officially belonged in a teen novel.
Right after Brad's first iCarly episode, we were all hanging out and talking about the lock-in that was coming up at our school. As Freddie told us about his project, I sort of zoned out looking at him. It was such a daffodilish thing to do, but I can't deny that it happened. This was just another opportunity.
"Hey, can I work with you guys on your project?" Everyone was shocked. They couldn't believe I had offered to help. After a moment, Freddie squeezed my arm. It took everything I had not to visibly react.
"Feels like Sam," he said. Then, Carly smelled me.
"Smells like Sam," she said. I tried to get them to move on from the shock.
"So can I help or what?"
"Sure you can help," Freddie said. It embarrasses me to admit that I was excited to work on a science project. With a nerd. I had no idea how I had gotten there.
One day, after we were working on our project Brad and Freddie said that they were going to a movie. I had plans with Carly, but I didn't want to give up the chance to spend more time with him. So I asked if I could come. Freddie somewhat suspiciously obliged.
That Saturday night, we were at the lock-in, working on the project. I had gone to go get some things and decided to bring back some food to be nice. Wrong choice. Old Sam wouldn't do something nice for Freddie. He remembered that instinctively and brought me to the side. He questioned my weird behavior. Here I thought I had done such a good job at concealing it. It seems I was wrong. I brush him off and propose we get back to work. After they test the mood face app on me however, Freddie grabs his laptop and runs out. Peculiar. I kept trying to think of why he had run out until I saw Carly later on. She accused me of being in love with Brad. It had been such a random thing. I had no idea where she would have gotten that idea. Naturally I was eager to hear when she offered her source. I was told the mood face app was to blame. My brain was in shock. I was not in love with him. I had barely come to terms with the fact that I even liked him. This was not real. I denied that thing worked even though I knew it did. Freddie made it, of course it would work. Crap. But she wouldn't let it go. She kept telling me how I should go for it and that I should tell him how I feel. If only she knew. If only she had some inkling of an idea as to how wrong things could go. My whole life would combust if I told him. Especially then, when I was apparently in love with him and everyone in our circle knew. I don't know how it got here. She wouldn't even believe me when I denied it. I walked way somewhat in a daze. Half and hour later, Freddie and Carly came in the room saying something about a two headed frog. As everyone started following Freddie out, Carly told me and Brad that there was a head exaggeration. I knew what was happening. When I went to confront her about it later, Carly kept telling me to admit my feelings. I kept my cool until I could leave, but I couldn't take anymore. I went to one of the courtyards and sat on a step alone. And that brings us to the present, I guess. Sitting on a step in a school courtyard, thinking through everything going on in my life. There are so many things that confuse me and are way off from how I thought that they might be. I feel helpless. So that's the one thing I can hate about him I guess. How he makes me act like some waiting by the phone, teen movie watching daffodil that gets hung up on guys. Maybe someday, there will be some explanation for all of the ridiculousness and I can come to terms with it but for now, I'm a cliché.
So, that was my first fic so please review so I can know how I did :) Sorry it was soo long
