I wish you would step back from the ledge my friend
:: ::: ::: ::: ::
Its raining, which really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone from the Seattle area. Samantha Puckett knows she should be afraid standing 14 floors up on the edge of the Bushwell Plaza. But the only thing she can think is how cold it is. How the wind is ripping at her hair and the rain is causing her vision to blur and all she sees is a rush of lights and colors. She cant help but wonder if shell just blur with them or if the red will somehow drown out the flecks of yellow and black when she lets go of the brick wall.
What drove her to this point? Why hadn't she jumped yet?
"SAM!" (oh yeah) the voice cut through her like broken glass piercing her ears and shattering her core. The voice woke her up and all of a sudden it wasn't a blur of colors, it was thick and heavy ice cold rain, tree shaking wind, and the feel of her fingers gripping the rough brick wall of the building. Her tight rough grasp on the building the only thing keeping her from meeting her end.
"Sam, DON'T!" Sam looks up through the rain to her friend just a few feet away from her leaning out the window. Carly's brown hairs whipped to the side and Sam knows its not rain that's cascading down her cheeks. Guilt hit Sam like a ton of bricks and she has to tighten her grip a little harder not to double over with the weight of it. She cant let go yet. Not yet. She'll know when its time to fly.
Sam presses her head against the brick wall, and exhales as a powerfully over choking breath forces its way into her lungs. Her fingers tremble against the side of the building.
SAM!
:: ::: ::: ::: :: :::
Carly's out of town for the next month visiting her grandfather in Yakama when Sam gets the call about Melanie's death. Her mom is at some clinic getting tested for something Sam doesn't want to know and doesn't want to think about.
"Mrs. Puckett?" The prestigious boarding school headmaster says into the phone and Sam mocks his voice the entire way through waiting for him to say something about some award Melanie's received. When she doesn't answer he continues, clearing his throat a few times.
"Mrs. Puckett, Im not sure how to tell you this, but Melanie ….she is no longer attending this school." He finishes lamely, and Sam cant control herself but laughs hysterically into the phone.
"No way, what did my goody to shoes sister do?"
He doesn't say anything and Sam hears him fidget with something on what she assumes must be his desk.
"Mrs. Puckett, is there someone else I could speak too?"
"Moms gone, just spill, Ill tell her."
"…Your sister, committed suicide honey. We found her this morning in her room-"
And Sam blanks out. She doesn't catch much else other than the few words that will haunt her for the rest of her life. "Poor Condition." "Have your mother…" "There was a note."
Sam Puckett sets the dead phone back into its cradle and stares at it until her mom comes home.
(She was waiting for him to call back and say it was a joke)
:: ::: :: ::: :: :::
Freddie didn't exactly believe her when she text him at 3:00am that morning.
The text was short and to the point, and just because it was so out there (even for Sam) he calls her.
"What do you mean Melanies dead?" Freddie shout whispers so his mother doesn't come in there and destroy his cell phone with bleach and a mallet.
"She's just…gone Freddie."
She doesn't insult him. She doesn't say anything else and the line is quiet for five minutes (Freddie checks his phone to make sure she's still there) and that's when he knows that she's not kidding.
"When's the funeral?" Freddie says softly.
"Monday."
She hangs up the phone
:: ::: ::: ::: :: ::: ::: ::
They stand side by side at the funeral, which Sam's mom doesn't show up for. She makes all the arrangements and tells Sam to stand in for the two of them. Sam knows she's going to spend the funeral back at the house with the only men she's ever needed Jack Daniels, Jim Bean, and Jose Cuervo. Sam doesn't object.
The service is beautiful with colorful flowers and pictures of Melanie everywhere. Melanie would have thought it was perfect. Well, as perfect as funerals can be. People from her school speak. And Sam thinks about saying something, but really what can Sam say? They were polar opposites.
(But she loved her anyway)
Freddie watches Sam face deteriorate as one by one, they hug her (and she lets them) and whisper things like "Im so sorry for your loss" but Freddie can hear the people in the background whispering things like "it must be awful, having the good daughter die no wonder the mom…." and "I wonder what it feels like knowing your twin KILLED themselves?"
He cant fight this battle for her. He cant fight these people or the war raging with in herself.
But he slides his hand in hers anyway.
:: ::: :: ::: :: ::: ::
Only the good die young
Sam couldn't help but agree it was the perfect thing to write on her sisters tombstone. Melanie was the epitome of good. And so was Carly. And so is…this boy. Sam looks over Freddie and her heart flutters for a second and she looks away. Because Freddie Benson is sweet, kind, and fun. He's to much of a gentlemen for her. And his heart belongs and has always belonged to her best friend, Carly Shay. Sam was sure it probably always would too, but still- the feeling lingered.
"Hey Fredwierd"
He smiles.
"What?"
"You insulted me."
"So?"
"So, you must be feeling better."
Sam doesn't say anything. Not because he's wrong. He's just not entirely right. Having talked to Carly that night had helped, and the fact that well Freddie had been so helpful, and she had the Shays apartment to herself since her mom had drunken herself into a stupor and Spencer had actually given her permission (which was awesome so she wasn't breaking the law)
"Do you believe only the good die young?"
Freddie stares at her and his first impulse is to say no, of course not. But he mauls it over and he knows the answer must be important, so after a minute he says-
"Yeah, I think they do."
Sam's quiet for a while, the brisk wind sweeping her blonde curls off her shoulder before offering Freddie a serious look. His brown eyes meet hers and hes frozen at the intensity in them its all he can do not to shutter.
"I hope not."
"Whys that?"
"That means your next."
Freddie smiles.
"Than your right behind me."
Sam doesn't argue that she's not good like him, that while he's walking on water she's drowning beneath it. Instead she laughs and he joins in and while his is in good spirit- hers might be tracking with something just shy of insanity.
:: ::: ::: ::: :: ::: ::
Sam's sitting at the head of Carly's bed and Freddie at her feet, he's watching her stare down at the pink envelope sealed with a heart. Melanie certainly was very different from Sam. Freddie thought staring over the intensity that laid in Sam's eyes. It was like it was just her and the letter in the room, and Freddie wouldn't have been here if she hadn't asked him to come. He touches her arm gently unable to take the silence from the loud mouthed girl any longer.
Sam looks up at him smugly, flipping the paper over in between her hands.
"She sealed it with heart." Sam said quietly. "Only my sister would think of something as creepy and symbolic as that."
Freddie stared towards the seal.
Of course…to open it, you had to break it.
"She might as well have addressed it to me." Sam said. "I'm the only one whose got the guts to do it."
And even though its awkward, Sam tears through the envelope and it seems like a rough action that's more like herself. Freddie sighs in relief, and a bit to soon because Sam's face has turned a pasty color and he knows that she cant be very far into the letter because Sam hates to read.
Sam hands it to Freddie with out a word, and instead of watching him read it. She turns her eyes out to the window.
Dear Sam,
I know what your thinking- I should have just addressed it to you. Who knows who would be reading it? Who knows whose read it? I know Mom wouldn't - she's probably drunk herself into oblivion by now. I'm sorry for that Sam.
…I don't know why, I'm here. These midterms. This school. What's any of it amounting to? Your failing for gods sakes and every night I watch icarly you just look so happy. I'm jealous. Why cant I feel like that? Why cant I be happy?
…..
Sam, I'm sorry. None of this is your fault. I cant blame you or anyone else for this…this feeling inside of me. But you've always been right about one thing Sam, the world is a very dark place and no ones as perfect as they seem. Not even me, no, especially not me.
Be happy Sam
Love,
Melanie Puckett
"She really is an idiot isn't she?" Sam says quietly, and Freddie's so moved at the look on her face and the unshed tears in his eyes that he leans forward and presses his lips against hers. The kiss is just as soft and magical as there first and it has the hard ass Samantha Puckett blubbering like an infant in his arms.
It's an hour later before she looks up and says "If you tell anyone Ill kill you."
He laughs, and presses his lips to hers again.
(Because she is Sam Puckett and he loves every side to her and everything she is.)
:: ::: :: ::: :: ::: :: ::: ::
Sam calls Carly and tells her about Melanies letter, how the funeral went, and how Freddies been less of a nub than usual. Carly apologizes for the umpteenth time that she couldn't be there and shell be home soon and give her all the ham, ribs and fried chicken her and Spencer can possibly afford. Sam swears her to it.
Freddie wraps his arm around her carefully and she leans into him after she hangs up the phone.
"Your still a nub." Sam says quietly.
"I know." Freddie replies flipping through the channels until he finds "celebrities under water"
"I still hate you." Sam tries again with a bit more force.
Freddie laughs.
"I hate you too."
It's the closest to an 'I love you' there ever going to get.
:: ::: :: ::: ::: ::: :: ::: ::: ::: :: :::
It's a week to the day exactly from Melanie's funeral when Freddie gets hit on his way over to Sam's house. His mother had insisted that he run over on his bike and give Mrs. Puckett a basket of her homemade healthy cookies which Freddie eagerly agreed (because he and Sam were he and Sam)
It's a day later before Sam even knows. She blows up his phone but to no avail, its in a million pieces. She finds herself at the Benson's door and when no one answer she picks the lock only to find a frantic Mrs. Benson yelling and crying at what seems to be nobody.
"Yo, Mrs. Benson what's your problem?" Sam said tentatively
Tears streamed down her face and it twisted in some sort of angry retaliation but no words seemed to come out and instead of a violent outburst came another outright incoherent sob.
It was a moment that caught Sam so off guard that her breath caught in her throat and she knew before she asked. She knew before she ran into Freddie's room screaming and slamming doors. She knew before she threw herself at Mrs. Benson in a rush of blind rage. She knew Freddie Benson was gone. Just like her sister.
:: ::: :: ::: :: ::: :: ::: ::
The rain was relentless just like the swelling pain that was engulfing her heart. That's right, he died. The boy who argued, and fought with her on a regular basis. The boy who could name every stupid gladiator character. The boy who was a computer whiz with a warm smile, warm hands and soft lips. The boy who was her first kiss, and she was the girl who was his last.
Sam took one last look up at Carly, and she knew this would be the last real thing she would see, her eyes would work as a camera lens and she burn the image of Carly Shay into her mind for the last few remaining minutes of her life. Her brown hair tussled and clingy do to the wind, beautiful tears stream down her face as she screams now incoherent words down to her.
Samantha Puckett never did goodbyes very well, so she didn't leave her best friend with any empty handed words. She just looked up at her and tried her damn-dest to show her the torment that was locked in heart.
Carly swore Sam's eyes screamed Freddie.
And with that one look, Samantha Puckett let go and jumped. The feel of falling was overwhelming but as she got closer and closer to her destination it wasn't fear she felt as the lights stopped blurring and the grays and blacks of the pavement came into view. It wasn't the red lights of the fire trucks or loud sirens that overwhelmed her.
It was the yellow light that stood about her and whispered in an oh so familiar voice, "Sam"
"Freddie"
(Is her last thought as her body collides with the earth)
R&R: Yeah...Freddies death was a little rushed. Please forgive me, but overall not to shabby right? Send your feedback this way! :)