Title: iOnly Lied A Little
Author: sundroptea
Rating: M- ish? Hopefully? Fine. It's T. But I wanted it to be M. Maybe the next chapter.
Disclaimer: If someone offered me 135,000.00 dollars for this story (incidentally enough, just the amount I need to cover my student loans) tomorrow, I would still have to say no, because I don't own any of the rights to sell. I would hate that person, loathe that person, despise that person for the false hope... but I would still say no. I know where my bread is buttered, Danwarp.
Author's Note: I hope you guys enjoy. This is called drama! Melodrama! Teen melodrama- christ, I miss Roswell and Dawson's Creek. Dating myself you say? Bah!
How to begin?
Where to start?
She says, "Bike messenger- blood from his ears- sudden realization."
She lies.
She lives her life on the outside. Every one of her emotions is volatile, obvious, and immediately expressed, usually through violence.
She has literally taught classes in lying.
There are no secrets to Samantha Puckett. You get what you see and you know what you'll get. Sure, she's sneaky, but you know that. You're *prepared* for that. That is a part of her- the part that usually leads to bruises, hairline fractures and public humiliation. But still, it's something you can see coming, even if you don't know which direction it'll come from.
Sometimes she wonders if she's really just that spectacular at it; maybe the people she surrounds herself with are just that stupid. Willfully stupid?
She says, "We're fine- I love you –mutual."
The best lies always start out with a grain of truth.
So it starts when they're young. How young?
Too young. Young enough that the exact beginning is blurry with age and she's only seventeen so she isn't yet so overburdened with memories that she's losing them left and right.
Young.
She wonders which came first: the longing or the resentment.
Because you see, she isn't stupid. She knows that love is for people who don't mind being tied down. Love is strings. Love is never having solid ground under your chucks and being dependant on another person. (Never let it be said that Pamela Puckett taught her youngest daughter nothing.) And usually it doesn't work out and then you're not falling for anything, you've already fell and falls can kill you. Ask that Newton guy with the apple- everything comes down, in the end. (Maybe it was Chicken Little- she always gets those two confused. Whatever. Someone had an apple, that much she remembers and that's enough to prove her point.)
So anyway, she resents that she feels anything for this underdeveloped stump of a human specimen because who is he to totter in, uninvited, and mess up her equilibrium?
She also resents that he's intruding on the one relationship in her life that she knows is completely healthy (and that in and of itself should probably make her worry that it isn't as healthy as she thinks, but please. Compare it to the one she has with Melanie, especially then, just a few short months after Melanie had abandoned her to their mother's tender mercies, and… well, in a fair world she would have been paying Spencer rent. In a perfect world she would have just been born into the Shay family to begin with and none of this would even be a discussion.). Her and Carly are the kind of permanent that she doesn't know how to describe without sounding like a Hallmark Channel movie special. And she would rather gag down one of Freddie's mother's pre-cut tofu and mushroom eggless omelets than do that. (At least in that scenario she gets food- sort of.)
So where does the longing come in? She always wants too much- gluttony is kind of her thing. So when her heart gives a flutter-thump it can't just be cardiac arrhythmia or something, like her mother's doctor boyfriend suggested (before he stole their lawnmower and the knobs off all their sinks). No, it has to be feelings for-
Look. None of this matters- it's not relevant. The important thing to get across here is that the people she knows so well don't know her at all. This thing didn't start suddenly. This thing is a permanent part of her and has no real origin.
That makes it really easy to go back. Because for her? It's just continuing on.
"Give it here."
"No! Sam!"
"God, you're such a stubhump."
"What does that even mean? You aren't going to be able to goad me into this with insults that don't even make sense."
"Does that mean that if I use ones your little bitty Benson brain can process you'll hand it over?"
"You're not a nice person."
"So they tell me, nub."
"It's nice to see you two are back to normal."
Nice.
Okay, so what happened is this:
She decides that she is Samantha flippin' Puckett and she doesn't wait for things. Especially not boys who think she's abnormal. So she decides that her mother has a point- the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.
Not that Derek gets very far. He certainly doesn't get farther than Freddie did in that elevator when bare skin was brushed and legs got tangled. It's more the principle of the thing. She doesn't miss that boyrag. She just misses warm lips against her own, and the feeling that she's got a hand to hold somewhere between classes, waiting for her.
So it's not long after Freddie that Derek comes along. He's surprisingly sweet, and lays his leather jacket down on the grass for her to sit on. He blushes when she stretches out on top of it, and she doesn't mind the sunshine drenched hours they spend in the park, kissing and letting the world spin by. He isn't forward, which is not what she was expecting when she first met him, when he walked up to her at the mall and gave her a smile, and his number and didn't say a word. She learns later that he's shy, not suave, but either way he's a looker, and she is delighted that she doesn't have her heart snagged up in this one. He pulls back from kissing her and looks at her face, and she wonders what he wants from her until one day he asks.
She says no, and kisses him soundly, because she felt she should have seen this coming and she is only cruel to people who deserve it. Derek doesn't, but that doesn't change the fact that she's done with the girlfriend thing.
It's too much to ask.
She doesn't go to the park after school anymore. She runs across him once during school and because she is cursed with the Puckett dating luck, she's with Freddie when she does. Since she neglected to mention Derek and, ergo, her afternoon plans, with either of her iCarly cohorts, this was double fudge awkward with a cherry. She can feel Freddie's eyes on her when Derek takes her hands and pulls her gently aside and asks her if she's changed her mind. She is red with shame and embarrassment and most of it is on Derek's behalf. She knows Freddie is waiting for her to lay Derek out like a sack of rotten Fatcakes, and she hates that she can tell what he's feeling even when she's three quarters turned away from him and all the way across the hall. She hates that Derek is talking to her about feelings instead of ignoring her and cursing her memory like he should be. Feelings were not supposed to be involved in this.
Derek leans in and his lips press against her forehead, and she hears something slam behind her, and it's a good thing Sam doesn't turn around, just walks off down the hall in the opposite direction of them both, because Freddie isn't standing where she left him, and that means that feelings are definitely involved now.
So sometimes she's just cruel unintentionally. That's something that she can't blame the others for not knowing about her. She didn't know herself.
"Were you ever going to tell me?"
"Geez, Carls, there's nothing to tell."
"I heard from Claire who heard from Wendy who heard from Jenny who was THERE that Derek Berden was CRYING in the hall over you and that Freddie cursed him out."
"Oh my god. This is the sort of gossipy gunk you fill your ears with during school hours? Maybe you should have gone to Briarwood."
"SAM."
"Okay, okay! Look, it wasn't a big deal. I met Derek at the mall and we just hung out. I bailed when it started feeling heavy. He wasn't crying!"
"Claire insists there were tears!"
"Claire is going to learn what tears look like firsthand!"
"What's going on Sam? Why would you go sneaking around with some guy and not tell anyone? Were you trying to make Freddie jealous?"
"Yes, that's exactly why I kept it a huge secret: because I really wanted my ex-boyfriend to know all about it!"
"So you admit it was a huge secret!"
"Carly! What is wrong with you? I just wanted something light, and fun and utterly unrelated to…"
"To us? So suddenly now you don't need us anymore?"
"Where did I say that? Why are you blowing this out of proportion? You aren't my keeper and I already have a twin. We don't need to live in each other's pocket!"
"Wow, Sam. Wow."
"You're taking this wrong on purpose!"
"I'm just trying to understand this! Why wouldn't you tell me? I'm your best friend!"
"It wasn't like that, Carly! It just happened! We met and we spent some afternoons together and then it wasn't working anymore. It wasn't some big conspiracy!"
"But I just don't get why you couldn't tell me."
"There wasn't anything to tell! That's what I'm trying to say! It wasn't love! It wasn't permanent! It wasn't even epic! It was just a nice boy and me passing the time. When it looked like that wasn't going to be enough- it ended. What do you want from me, Carls? A detailed introspective on every single minute Derek and I spent together?"
"No! I just… This feels like lying, Sam. You've never lied to me before."
"I didn't lie! I just didn't tell you about him. Look, I promise, in the future, if I ever have a casual relationship with a boy you will be the first one to know, ok?"
"Okay."
Lying is relative and the truth is selective. This is fact.
He's not speaking to her.
This much is obvious enough, because he's about as subtle as she is, albeit in a very different way.
She just doesn't get why.
(In her heart of heart she hopes it's because he's jealous, but she knows that it's ridiculous to want that for a lot of reasons. He broke up with her- Remember? Also, she broke up with Derek- there's nothing to be jealous of.)
Still, she decides just to roll with it for once, because being around him is still giving her pain and she can't for the life of her put her thumb on what part of it is the worst. Is it that she's chafing under the newly re-established old confines of their 'friendship?' Is it because she misses when things were easy (easier)? Is it because she still has to mentally, brutally restrain herself from touching him whenever he's near her, something that hasn't diminished at all in the time between the 'if you weren't you' speech and now?
Yes, to all.
Truth be told, she's exhausted. Worn down. She's drained enough that she is actually empathizing with her mother's pathetic histrionics when she's in doldrums between relationships- insanity. Sam doesn't want to deal with anything that might be leftover from their brief tenure as BF/GF and this is the perfect excuse not to! She gets a Freddie Free environment and she doesn't even have to put in any legwork to avoid him, or his reactions, or lack thereof? If she could have wrapped this gift to herself in ham, she wouldn't have touched it. It was too fantastic already.
Even Carly is leaving her alone about it, which is unexpected but delightful. Sam decides that she's not going to think too hard about the reasons why. Why is for suckers. Why is for people who think there's a reasonable, linear progression to life.
People not her.
So she goes about her business and if her eyes look tight or tired, or if her punches are off-center, or her venom muted, well, that's a why question waiting to be asked, and she's made very clear that she is not going to get caught up in that 'why' thing.
Obviously, it couldn't last forever. Nothing does.
"That just about wraps up this week's episode of 'Girly Time Emotions and Feelings'!'"
"We're not calling it that. Are we calling it that?"
"Of course not! We already have all our merchandise branded ICARLY!"
"Woooo!"
"Groom your mom!"
"Save your rainwater!"
"Reject ALL purple foods!"
"WATCH ICALRY!"
"Annnd… we're clear!"
"Great show, guys!"
"For sure. I'm out. Got to see a man about a pig."
"But Sam, I thought we were going to go line up for Rage Quietly Against These Softly Falling Tears of Mine tickets! They go on sale at midnight!"
"Ah… I think I might bail on that concert. I'm low on funds, and all the salt from the hipsters weeping means dry cleaning. Tide won't cut through angst."
"You can't! We already planned our sign! We can't have THE - MOST – SAD without our SAD!"
"Way to sell it, Carls. Another time, yeah?"
"Aww, Sam!"
"Leave her alone, Carly. She obviously has better things to do. Or should I replace 'things' with 'people'?"
"Fred-!" "And just what is that crack supposed to mean, Fredbag?"
"Nothing. Go ahead and bail, just like you always do."
"Me? Bail? You're one to talk!"
"Guys! C'mon, don't fight!"
"Sam only fights with people who are weaker than she is, or who care about her. You better duck, Carly."
"You know what, loser? I don't have to stand here and listen to this from you. I don't know what your damage is but you seem to be getting 'being a huge jerk' confused with 'having a spine.'"
"At least I'm not getting 'being a huge slut' confused with anything."
"Oh, Freddie, no!"
"Screw you, Benson. Can we go back to the time where you didn't talk to me anymore? Because I was loving that. And having to hear you spew out seven different kinds of stupid is even more embarrassing to listen to than the shit you normally vomit."
"Oh, Sam!"
"You'd know all about being embarrassing, wouldn't you? You Pucketts are experts."
"Drop dead, asshole. Carly, I'm sorry about the concert. Laters."
Carly looked at Freddie as Sam slammed out of the studio. He looked pale, knuckles white around the sides of his tech cart, and his features kept wavering between regret and residual anger. Anger tightened its hold, winning the fight- especially when Carly pulled open the door and they could hear Sam on her phone in the hall.
"Hey Derek. It's Sam. Can you meet me at the park?"
So, let's go back (way back).
When she's fourteen she has her first kiss the way some people have debilitating car crashes- unexpectedly, suddenly and with the understanding that this sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen to her.
She isn't little miss sunshine (though she did win that pageant when she was but a wee Puckett lass, so I guess technically- whatever.). She isn't easy, in any sense of the word, whatever the Creddie shippers want to paint her as (and bee tee dubs, she's an internet celebrity- she has access to it. She knows what they're saying about her on twitter- the slagbags). She certainly isn't Carly, and honestly, she's really, really okay with that, though she loves that girl to bits. So she is aware that Freddie isn't in her cards. The fact that she was allowing the idea of him anywhere near her deck at all should have served as a warning to her.
That doesn't stop the dumb, random moment of- well, but it should. That's the way the bacon crackles, right?
She is such a sucker. Like, lollipops come to her for advice.
But then comes the kiss- then comes a glimmer of stupid, useless, chiz sucking hope. And after that, things just sort of snowballed from there. Even when you blink you see red when your face is turned to the sun. She still tries to keep her eyes closed as much as possible.
"Oh my god."
Let's get this straight- Sam knows that she's behaving immaturely. She waited, hoping for Carly to open the door and she held her phone to her ear, and she said those words because in the deep down bad girl place that always knows what button to press to cause the explosion- she felt instinctively that it was precisely what Freddie didn't want to hear. She wonders, and she gives up on her why theory, because it doesn't make sense WHY he would be acting like such a jackwagon unless-
Nope. Nevermind. It doesn't matter why. The Pucketts are a proud people for all their foibles and no one gets to talk about her shambling wreck of a mother except her, Parole Officer Jim, and Parole Officer Ricardo. Maybe also that guy whose ear Pam Puckett once bit off in a bar fight- maybe. But no one else!
So, she's okay with being a little bit immature. She is actually really friggin' ecstatic about it, truth be told. She is feeling good, centered, and even kind of wants to go a little bit bigger with it.
So when she gets to the bottom floor of Bushwell, she actually starts dialing Derek's number. She has that wild, heated feeling she gets before she makes some of her worst decisions. She wraps herself up in the sensation now, because it feels strong and warm and very welcome, and it so compliments the anger that's been slowly boiling up n her since the initial shock of the slap wore off.
Sam is imagining what she's going to do once Derek answers, and she is steadfastly ignoring the guilt that comes with it. She told him she didn't want to be his girlfriend, and she really doesn't, so she knows how hurt and confused he's going to be tomorrow, after- The small beastly part of her that is running the show at the moment screams with glee. Good! It seems to cry. Let everyone be miserable! Why should I be the only one who feels like shit all the time?
She is focused- committed. She is off the rails and ready to make some large and messy mistakes. She is strategizing a raid on Poor Choice Province, and she has her big guns out! The phone is ringing on the other end of the line, and she takes a deep breath. She is occupied entirely by picturing the thousand little splinters she can drive into Freddie's heart-
imagining him walking into a room where she's with a faceless being who's wrapped around her and what he'd look like if she didn't notice him at all
imagining him hearing about how in love with her Derek is and how he'll marry her and
imagining how much she's going to pay for using a guy she genuinely likes to hurt a guy who probably doesn't even like her- no no no-
imagining his eyes the way they looked that night at the lock-in
imagining running her fingers along his lips and then smacking him fully with her open palm before walking away, laughing
imagining him looking in a window at her while she slowly undresses for someone else
imagining him standing over her grave,
holding the other half of a boarding pass to a place he can't follow,
running a few steps after a bus she's on,
forlorn, broken
imagining herself after it becomes apparent that Freddie never cared for her at all, arm in arm with some brunette who looks suspiciously like- NO!
She is, therefore, busy. Too busy to look around as she stalks out the door, phone pressed against her ear so hard she could feel her pulse pounding against the plastic, second thoughts only now beginning to creep in at the edges; this is for sure. She is too preoccupied with the though that she is about to prove Fredward Benson right and make herself a liar to pay much attention to anything else.
So she understandably isn't prepared when the phone is wrenched out of her grasp. She didn't see it coming.
Which is fair, she thinks. No one ever accused her of being foresighted, but she wonders if she should start working on it, when she turns to face the phone snatcher, fists up, to see Freddie, breathing thunder.