Disclaimer: I wish.
A/N: For lack of better title...here's a story (not a one-shot anymore), inspired from some actual events, including last night. About 80% of this actually happened, the other 20% is changed to fit. I didn't get much sleep last night, so you know, just bear with it.
Alright, people who have already read this or reviewed or anything, I changed my mind. I can see this story going on (not because you'd like to see it go on, but because even I want to see what happens).
Chapter 1
I was stupid to stay up dusk until beyond dawn, night after night and day after day, expecting her to call or for her to walk through the front door. I was stupid to think that she would ever want to come back to me. I was stupid to think that things would be okay, after I completely made a fool of myself at that party, in front of everyone. I was stupid to want anything more than I already had, to steal her from whomever I didn't want her to be with. I was stupid to wonder what it would be like, if it was only the two of us, that nothing could come between us. I was stupid to think it would ever happen. I was stupid to ever care. I was so fucking stupid.
I've been waiting for six months. Despite what people think of me, I don't skip classes anymore. Ever since she stopped talking to me, I've been focusing on school. Something has to get my mind off of her. Of course, it doesn't help that she goes to the same school and that we have more than half of our classes together. If it was hard for me to concentrate before, it's ten times worse. Freddie doesn't know what to do anymore, the way he always looks at me and then at her. I don't think he fully understands what happened, but he hasn't confronted me about it. I guess he's waiting for the storm to pass.
I don't know why he chose to sit with me at lunch, out of the entire school population, and yet he didn't say a word. Across the cafeteria, I saw her and her boyfriend, sitting in silence while they ate. It's not that I don't want her to be happy, I do, but when she completely pushes me off to the side to spend time with him, it just really hurts. No guy should ever come between us, and that's exactly what's happened. And I think that Freddie suspects that's what happened, although I'm sure he should know what happened. He was at the party too.
Freddie walked me home after school. It's been six months since I stepped foot into Bushwell Plaza, and I'm not going back. "Do you want to come in?" I asked him. He shrugged and followed me up to my floor, dropping his backpack in my room. With my mother and her random guests, he knew better than to leave his possessions out in the open. I tossed him a root beer from the fridge and grab my spare sheet and a blanket from my bedroom. Tossing the sheet over the couch, I told him to sit and lounged next to him, the blanket thrown over us.
"What happened between you and Carly?" I knew he would ask sometime, but I was hoping it wouldn't be now, not when I was trying to forget about her. I shrugged and tried to watch the TV but he won't let me off that easily. "Come on, Sam. You and Carly used to be…" I cut him off with my hand over his mouth.
"I don't want to talk about her," I snapped. And it's partially true. I just want to forget her, and move on with my life. She's chosen and I have to accept it. "If that's all you came over here for, you can just leave right now." He took my hand in his. "Watch it, Benson," I warned. He sighed and let go of it, turning his attention back to the TV. "You were at the party. I thought you would already know." He shook his head. "We had a fight, one that obviously didn't end well. She decided some boy was more important than everything we had ever been through, and then I…" I paused and looked at him. "Have you even asked her what happened? I thought you were in love with her."
He rolled his eyes. "I got over that a long time ago, Sam. And I don't like her boyfriend anymore than you do. Ever since the party, she's been drinking and getting high and it's total bullshit. She's not the same, and I…I haven't talked to her since. I'm surprised you haven't even asked me why I sit at lunch with you or walk you home. I mean, I have other friends, but you've been my friend the longest, aside from Carly, and I'm not going to…"
"Do you have to give me a speech, Benson?" He rolled his eyes and the phone rings. And some tiny part of me wants it to be Carly, but the chances of that are slimmer than none. I ignore my phone, since it's Melanie instead, and turn the TV off. "Talk to Carly. Find out her side, and then I'll tell you the rest of mine." He sighed and grabbed his bag from my room before leaving.
A few nights later, it's different, though. I haven't slept in so long, but that's nothing new. What is new is my window opening by a person dressed in black jeans and a black jacket, hood covering their face. If I didn't recognize the jacket and the size of the figure, I would have beaten them to death. But I'd never ever hit her. Hell, I couldn't even fucking move. She raised her face, her eyes meeting mine in the darkness, and I just want to know why the hell she's breaking into my bedroom. She's panting, as if she had run all the way here, and I grab the inhaler from my bedside table drawer, tossing it to her. Spencer gave me a spare just in case something ever happened when his sister was over here.
"Sam…" she gasped and I slid out of bed, standing a few feet away from her. Even from where I stood, I could smell the pot and the alcohol on her, and I knew she had just come from a party. But when she pushed her hood back, my heart stopped. Is it possible to die for a few seconds? I think I just did. "Sam…" she whispered this time, but I couldn't move. She fell to her knees and sobbed. That kicked my legs into gear and I knelt in front of her, holding her to me. Her arms wrapped around my waist, where they belonged after all of these months. I stroked her hair, burying my face in her neck, nearly choking on the stench, but it didn't matter. Carly was here.
"What happened, Carls?" I asked her. She could only sob in my shoulder, about how she'd been at the latest party and was having a good time, until he had tried to force himself on her. He had beaten her, and she had run away, straight here without stopping. If she wasn't holding me so tight, I would have gone after him and ripped him apart.
Eventually she stopped crying and I picked her up and carried her to my bathroom. Sitting her on the toilet, I unzipped her jacket and pushed it off of her shoulders, helping her take it off. She winced when she moved her arms and I examined them when the jacket was all the way off of her. She had bruises around her wrists, where he had held them tight, and little fingerprint-sized marks trailed up her arms. I reached for the hem of her shirt and her eyes widened. She was terrified. "Sam…"
"Carly, I need to see everything he did to you." I knew she was terrified because he had done this to her, and that she was scared that I would freak out. There might have been the uncomfortable feeling of me seeing her because…well, there's a reason I kissed her at that party. If he had "cared" about her for the six months they were together and then he did this to her, how could she be sure I wouldn't do the same? "Do you want me to leave and let you look?" She shook her head vigorously and yelped. I raised my brow and looked at her neck for the first time. He had tried to strangle her. My hands tightened into fists at the hem of her shirt and she shook her head again, slower this time, her hands on my shoulders. "Carly…did he…did you get away before…?" She nodded and I sighed. Thank God for that. I let go of her shirt, but she grabbed my hands.
"Sam…I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry for everything. The way I treated you at the party…you didn't deserve that. I…I let a guy get between us and look how it turned out. I'm so stupid, and I'm sorry." I shook my head and when she brought my hands back to her shirt, I raised my brow. "Please…I want you to." I closed my eyes, gently pulling her shirt up and over her head. When I was sure it was free of her, I tossed it on top of her jacket on the floor behind me. "Sam, you can look." I opened my eyes hesitantly and instantly I wanted to kill him for doing this to her. There were bruises and teeth marks across her chest and stomach, broken skin in a few places. The bastard needed to die.
I took her phone from her jeans pocket and she shook her head in protest. "I'm only taking pictures, Carly. You can tell the cops and show them your proof and they'll throw him in jail. You won't have to deal with him anymore." Tears were forming in her eyes, but she nodded anyway, and I took a lot of pictures of her battered body. Closing her phone, I slipped it back into her pocket. "I have to clean the bite marks," I told her. She nodded and watched as I grabbed the bottle of peroxide. With her fingernails digging into my shoulders after the first few cuts I cleaned, I knew she was hurting. She bit her lip for the last few and I pulled away from her to put the peroxide away. Turning the knobs in the shower, I made sure the water wasn't too hot or too cold. "I'll go and find clothes for you while you clean up," I muttered and she grabbed my wrist as I passed.
"Thank you, Sam," she murmurs, pulling me into a hug. And as much as I'd love half-naked Carly right now, too much happened tonight to prevent me from being anything other than a blanket for the time being. I kissed her forehead and left the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I returned to my room, digging through my drawers for clean clothes and found a shirt, underwear, and pajama bottoms for her. Stepping into the bathroom, I set the clothes on the toilet, along with a towel, and left the room before she noticed I was there.
An hour later, Carly finally emerged from the bathroom, drying her hair with the towel. I stood from where I had been lying at the edge of the bed and pulled the blanket back for her to lie down. "Do you need anything else, Carls? A glass of water, something to eat or anything?" She shook her head and climbed into the bed, and I covered her with the blanket. I reached for my other pillow, but she grabbed my wrist.
"Stay with me, please?" I sighed and nodded, slipping under the blanket from the other side of the bed. Before I could blink, she was curled up next to me, arm around my waist, and her head on my shoulder. "Sam, I…we need to talk." I shook my head, but she looked up at me with solid eyes before resting her head again. "That night at the party, things were said, and I…I didn't mean any of them. You were right, about all of it. I don't know why I got mixed up with stuff like that. I didn't…that stuff isn't me. I just wanted to try it and then after the party, after our fight, I wanted to forget about it, about everything that involved you." I opened my mouth to speak, but she held her finger to my lips. "I need to tell you this." She took a deep breath. "When you said that our friendship should have been more important than some boy, you were right. Relationships come and go, but your best friend is always going to be there. Well, not for the past six months for us, but you know what I mean. I wasn't happy at all. I mean, I was because I had a boyfriend and I was doing all right in school, but you were missing. You and Freddie both. He tried to ask me what happened, you know, and I told him off, but I didn't mean it."
I looked down at her. "Carly, it's fine. I said some things that I'm not so proud of, and I wish I hadn't. I knew that having a boyfriend made you happy, and I'm sorry that I kissed you, hoping that you would forget about him and come back to me. I'm sorry that I was the stupid one and ruined our friendship like that."
She tilted her head back and kissed my neck. "We're both stupid," she muttered. I nodded and stared at the ceiling, wondering what the hell's going to happen now.