Fork In The Road: What Might Have Been & What Is
A/N: Fork In The Road was intended to be a one-shot angst story about love lost and letting go. It was also a debt to a friend and fellow writer Princess-Warrior 17. Somewhere, somehow it has taken a life of its own. I thank you all for the kind reviews and PM's.
It seems like everyone wants to see Sam's side of this story. After debate, chats, and some amazing backstage events here we go.
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The sound of a little boy yelling "dude" brought Samantha (Sam) Puckett Hostel's head around from the Ice Cream cart she stood at with her four children. For a split second everything and everyone fell away and she was twenty years old again. She had a wide open future and the love of the only man she would ever love back. She smiled and then the moment passed and the reality of her existents fell in on her.
Freddie Benson sat on a bench in the courtyard of the terminally ill Seattle World Mall with his mini-me on his lap. It was what followed behind the boy that crushed what little spirit she had left.
The woman had long blonde hair, blue eyes, a smile that was so bright that sunglasses needed to be worn to look at it, and a swell in her abdomen that said she wasn't far from giving birth again. It wasn't the woman though that snuffed out her spirit, it was the smile the woman was getting from Freddie that hurt her more than any beating she had every received.
The smile was filled with life, love, hope, and a gentility that had once, but never would again, been hers. The eyes, bright and calming, radiated a feeling of protection and strength that was born of good and noble character. They both added up to the fact that the beautiful woman with the swell in her abdomen never worried about being slapped or beat. She would never worry about the power being cut off or the water not working. The woman would never worry that Freddie was out whoring around or spending rent money on drugs or some fly-by-night get rich scheme that a three year old would know wouldn't work. This woman's biggest worry was about how dry her roast might be or would dinner be ready by the time Freddie got home. Simple and boring problems she had thought were lame when she was younger and had wanted to avoid. This woman never had to deal with a pump and dump sex life. She probably was never taken halfway up the mountain and stranded and was never forced to sleep in the wet spot. This woman was loved and taken care of and would be till the day Freddie died.
Freddie looked very fit and sexy. His dark brown hair now had flecks of grey at the temples and small shocks of grey throughout the top. His well-trimmed goatee had white strips that started just above the chin on the right and left that gave him a distinguish look. He was tanned and toned of body. She would bet that there wasn't one ounce of fat on his whole body. She knew without knowing that he was a wonderful husband and father and wouldn't go out for cigarettes one night and never come back.
She turned around before he could catch sight of her and looked at her children. Four kids from three different fathers.
Ah, the joy of being free and enjoying life, she thought as she hustled her kids along to the exit of the mall and into the parking lot. As soon as she cleared the door she pulled out the joint in her purse and fired it up, not caring who saw her do it. She took a long, long drag off of it till she could hold no more. She inhaled till she began to sputter out her breath and then let it all go. For a few seconds the world seemed to drift away and then suddenly she was aware that she had gone down to one knee while a shudder racked her whole body.
Really good shit man!
She looked up and saw her four kids standing around her, blank looks on their faces. She then noticed that she had dropped the doobie she had in her hand. She picked it up, not at all surprised that no one in the parking lot came over to see if she was okay, and took a smaller toke this time.
"Don't just stand there brats, get to the damn car."
After four tries and a kick in the middle of the door, the SUV's door slid halfway open and the four kids entered. Each child sat in a seat, no child seat or seatbelt was in sight, and waited quietly for Sam to get them home. They knew that momma wasn't in the mood for noise and worried that if they did get loud she would pull the SUV over and spank the lot of them.
Three hard upward jerks on the handle and several colorful descriptions of the vehicle's maker and her bondo covered door finally popped open with a loud crunch. After another battle to close the same door, she leaned back in the seat and took one last big toke on the joint and then put it out in the full ashtray. She sighed as the smoke left her mouth and nose and finally began to relax. She reached for her purse in the passenger seat and took out her black bag. She decided that the pain of the day deserved a little treat. She opened a bottle and shook out one valium and then opened another and took out a Xanax. She reached out and picked up her Coke bottle, which contained two-thirds Jack Daniels and one-third Coke, and washed the two pills down with a deep drag of the liquid.
I pray to God Freddie didn't see me, she thought as she settled back in the torn driver's seat and waited for the first tell-tell signs of the pills kicking in.
After Freddie had come to L.A. to check up on her, her demented roommate Cat had told him Sam was hurt, they had spent a near perfect few months together before Freddie had to return to WSU and his classes. She had found a bliss that she had never known in his eyes and touch. The world was right and things were working out, till he went back to school.
Cat had gotten them a job watching Chester Hostel's two children. Even though he was almost twice her age she thought he was nice looking. She would call, or be called, every night by Freddie and failed to notice just how much time CH, calling him Chester was like calling her Samantha, and herself were spending together. He gave her little gifts and always seemed to be right on the spot when she needed someone.
It started with pot, just a few joints shared from time to time, a few drinks once in a blue moon, a little snort once and awhile, and then a pill or two when no one was watching. It was amazing just how quickly it all came apart. One minute the world was hers and the next she was sleeping with CH and strung out on almost everything there was to be strung out on. She cut Freddie loose because he didn't understand how to be "free and open" like she was and enjoy life. After two months she found out just how much "free" cost.
They blew through her savings in no time flat and found it hard for CH to deal drugs and be a user also. With no real talent himself, CH found that pimping out an "iCarly" star would keep the suppliers at bay.
Old Sam would have beat him to death, but new, addicted, Sam popped, snorted, or smoked the truth and shame away and spread her legs to help her "dream man" make ends meet. When one dealer wasn't "happy", CH beat her till he couldn't anymore. It was the beginning of her running for the emotional bandage of Freddie.
He always took her back, no matter what. He'd clean her up, heal her wounds, and give her love. She would always see the mess she had made, but for reasons she could never understand she couldn't outrun it. The slime pulled her back.
The return to CH brought her first child and a much more involved addiction and much more severe beatings. To pay CH's debt she made several "videos" that made their way to the web and would be used as a "party favor" from time to time. This time the drugs didn't dull the pain and shame, they only made it worse.
She ran to Freddie again, leaving Cliff her son with CH, and again he took her in. She stead for a whole month the second time before the siren call of the "good life" pulled her back.
She met Cole Train while working at a strip club in a rundown part of Hollywood Boulevard. CT, she always seemed to find the wrong guys and they always had initials, was kind and did seem to care about her so she and her son felt safe. It took her almost a year and another child, a girl, to notice that she was CT's beard to hide his homosexuality from friends and family. Leaving kids behind again she ran to Freddie.
He took her in again, but things were not the same. He was weary of her and for the first time in her life Freddie was closed and aloof. After two weeks she left and went back to L.A. and met Andrew Dorton.
AD, again with the initials, was a taller black man with a wide infectious smile that hid a deeply scared man. He had been abused most of his life and now dished the abuse out. He left her with a deep scar on her left cheek, twin girls, a huge drug addiction, and Herpies.
There was no longer the option of running to Freddie now. She was tainted goods and could never be clean again. The thing that amazed her the most was how she had come to accept this as her life so quickly.
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She started the SUV, on the tenth try, and drove home in a drug induced haze. She looked up and found herself in her driveway with no knowledge of how she got there. After the battle to open and close SUV doors, Sam led the kids, despite herself she couldn't recall any of their names at the moment, into the house and handed each a microwave dinner and went to her room.
CH, now her husband when he felt like coming home to someone over the age of twelve, wouldn't be home for hours if he came home at all. She locked the door, the kids could fend for themselves, and swayed over to her side of the bed and sat down. She reached for the "cough" medicine (Jack Daniels) and two oxycontin pills in her bedside table drawer. Taking two long hard slugs of "medicine" she crushed the two pills into a fine powder. It was the best and quickest way for her to get the high oxycontin gave her, straight into the bloodstream. Taking her straw she snorted the powder and felt the rush. She laid back and lit the pre-rolled joint in her drawer and fished out three pills, vicodins, and washed them down with the "medicine" before shutting the drawer again.
She looked every night in vain for the one true misstep that had brought her to where she was now. She'd spent her youth trying to avoid becoming her mom and had done so quite well, she was worse. The "Freedom" she had chased had been an illusion that had pulled her into an endless abyss of broken dreams and missed chances. She'd chased the pot of gold only to find that it was fool's gold and that the silver she had passed by had been the only real thing there was.
There were no more tears to shed and no one left to tell her troubles to, that would listen anyway. She was vaguely aware that the joint had burned down to her fingers and placed it in the ashtray. Mrs. Benson, whatever her name was, understood what Sam never had, that Freddie was freedom. He was the freedom to be loved and cared for, freedom to know that she wasn't alone, and freedom to know that wherever she would go Freddie would always be beside her. Love was freedom and Sam had let it slip through her hands for the promise of a few "magic beans" that meant nothing.
She laid back and went to the special vault in her mind that held Freddie and the one true magical time in her life and opened it. It was empty now and the memories could no longer be found.
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Goodbye Freddie.
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"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose"
Kris Kristofferson "Me And Bobbie McGee
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"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been".
John Greenleaf Whittier
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Love to the Backstage bullpen, you know who you are, for the wild chats and great fun we are having being petty, childish, and just plain mean sometimes, it feels so good. I wouldn't miss the chats for anything.
Writtenbyabdex: Thanks for the shoulder to cry on and the whoopee cushion to make me laugh.
If you're looking for some great reading I have to say that anything by these writers will fit the bill:
KingxLeon21
Dwyn Arthur
Heartlines
TheWrtrInMe
WhiteKnightro
WildPomegranate
Princess-Warrior 17
pigwiz
eleanorr1gby
As always review and let me know what you think.