Reason

by Domicile

“It was a kiss, Carly, not a marriage proposal.” As Cam as you can get with 11 year olds

It's been two months since I moved in with my older brother, Spencer. I think most kids dream of this kind of situation. No parents around, that is. And I admit, I like it myself. I can have my bedroom any way I want, wear what I want, hang out with who I want to hang out with, do what I want, etc. Only I'm not really one to get into trouble, so as much as I want to see how far Spencer will let me go before he punishes me, I can't. I can't bring myself to stay out until three o' clock in the morning, or drink, or steal something. My best friend Sam, on the other hand, is the exact opposite.

If it weren't for Spencer, we probably wouldn't still be friends. My parents would never have let me hang out with her, only they've never been around much. Every time they realize what a bad influence she is, they go away and their word is no longer law and we start hanging out again. I don't think I could ever really give her up for good. She brings something out in me, something I wish I had more of naturally. I think the best way to describe it would be spirit. Life force. Energy. Something like that. Anyway, she has lots of it and I have lots of it when I'm around her. It's a trade off kind of deal, though. She gives me that, and I keep her out of prison.

"What's with the face?" Sam asks me, bringing me back down to the swing I'm floating through the air on and the taste of skittles in my mouth.

Sam is what most people seem to think of when they think of Americans. She has naturally blonde hair flowing down her back in long, blonde curls. Her eyes are pristine blue, like the water around the Great Barrier Reef. Her skin is sort of pale, which doesn't really fit the description, but we live in Seattle so sun isn't exactly in excess. It's the beginning of September and, surprisingly, the weather hasn't turned bad yet, so she's dressed in shorts and a Ninja Turtles t-shirt. Her lips are turned up in a smile as she looks at me over her line-up of twelve Peppy Colas, which she's exploding one at a time.

"What face?" I respond after my intense scrutiny of her appearance.

She grins, exploding the third in the line and holding it out over the cement so it doesn't get on her clothes. "That 'I've got issues' face."

"I don't have a 'I've got issues' face." I say, digging my toes into the ground to halt my swinging.

"Did I do something?" She demands of me, her eyes going wide. Then they turn suspicious, "Did someone tell you I did something?"

I smile. "Did you do something?"

"Of course not." She responds loftily, exploding the fourth soda.

"Of course not." I repeat. "Nothing's wrong." I assure her. "I'm just thinking. I can't believe I've been living with Spencer for two months already."

"I know, isn't it awesome?" She says, wiping her hands on her shorts before standing. "Now I can come over and hang out whenever I want."

I nod. "Yeah."

We're quiet for a moment as she circles around me and begins to push me lightly, her hands splaying wide on my back. There's just something about her that draws me in. By all accounts, it doesn't make sense. We shouldn't be friends. Girls like her and girls like me just don't usually mix. Maybe that's why our friendship is so special to me.

"Can I spend the night tonight?" Sam asks, breaking the silence. I turn my head up to look at her. Her expression shows the only small amount of weakness she ever lets me see.

"Why?" I ask, nodding because, no matter what her answer is, I won't turn her down.

She shrugs. "No one's going to be at my house tonight and I like your bed. Its more comfortable than mine." She grins sheepishly.

"Well, yeah you can spend the night, but I have to tell you, Spencer's making ham for dinner." I say.

Her nose wrinkles in disgust. "Ham? Ew. I hate ham. In fact, all pig offspring is gross."

I shrug. "Sorry."

She smiles and holds a hand out to me. "Shall we go now, Ms. Carly Shay?"

I take it. "Lead the way."

We hold hands all the way back to my brother's loft. I don't know if that's weird, but I hope it isn't. It makes me really happy for some reason to hold her hand.

XXX

"Just give it another try, Sam."

"No!"

"Come on, its just ham."

"No."

Sam and I stare stubbornly into each other's eyes as I hold a piece of ham up to her mouth and she glares at it like it might bite her. Spencer sits off to the side, having finished his dinner, watching our exchange with an amused expression. I turn to him for help.

"Spencer, hold Sam's arms." I command.

He grins. "No can do, kiddo. I don't force-feed children."

Sam turns her glare to him. "I'm not a kid. I'm eleven."

"You know what? I think eleven is the exact definition of kid in the dictionary."

She smiles wryly at him. "Now I remember why I like you."

Spencer hops to a stand. "Carly, stop trying to force her. If she doesn't want it, she doesn't want it. I'm going to go get cotton balls. You two stay out of trouble."

I set the ham down and we watch him leave. My brother's a sculptor. His sculptures are usually a little on the strange side, but people seem to like them since they buy them, and I love them. I can honestly say the art in my house is like none other on Earth.

"What do we do now?" Sam asks from her side of the table.

I shrug. "Its Sunday night. Spencer isn't going to let us stay up very late."

"I thought Spencer didn't give you a bedtime…?"

"Fine, I won't let us stay up very late." I raise my eyebrows at her.

She grins. "Let's build a fort to sleep in."

She sprints up the stairs to gather the materials. I clean up from dinner. I don't know what's wrong with me. What eleven-year-old girl acts like this? Setting a bedtime? Cleaning up from dinner? Somebody teach me how to be normal! I've just finished putting the dishes in the dishwasher when Sam comes stumbling down the stairs with her arms full of blankets and pillows.

We set the chairs up a few feet away from the couch and drape the blankets over them. It's simple, but effective. Like all good things in life. Like Sam. She crawls into our makeshift fort and sets up a bed for us while I fetch flashlights and turn off the overhead ones.

"Ready?" I call to her from the door.

"Ready." She calls back.

We snuggle into our fort together, flashing the lights all around. It seems a million times more fun to do this with Sam than with anyone else. Every idea that she has, that might seem boring with anyone else, is amazing with her. I'm not sure I could give her up even if my parents were to come back. There's a reason she's my best friend.

"You know what tomorrow is?" Sam whispers in my ear.

"Monday?" I suggest stupidly.

She chuckles softly. "The first day of Sex Ed." She says 'sex' like its taboo to speak even in the confines of our fort, alone in Spencer's loft. She giggles for a moment, and then stops. "Are you nervous?"

I frown at her. "Nervous about what?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. Just nervous."

I shake my head. "I don't think so. I mean, what are they going to tell us that we don't already know?"

She shifts her eyes around the room. "Well, okay." She says, pulling some more blankets on top of her.

"Why, are you nervous?" I question.

"Yes." She says and then exhales like she'd been holding her breath in anticipation of my question.

"Why?"

She giggles and then stops and her expression goes all serious. "I just have this feeling that they're going to tell me I'm off."

"You're off?"

"You know, that there's something wrong with me or I'm messed up in some way." She admits, staring at the blankets above us.

I brush hair out of her face, trailing my fingertips along her jaw. She has such soft skin. "What do you think is wrong with you?"

She shakes her head, but doesn't say anything.

"Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with you." I tell her confidently.

She smiles as she looks over at me. "And that's why I love you."

I blush. I don't know why. Every time she says that, though, I turn red like some kind of pervert.

Maybe I am a pervert. I shouldn't think about Sam like this.

XXX

I must have an expression on my face like I've just seen a ghost because my friends keep hugging me and playing with my hair and muttering what they must consider soothing words. Sam is standing off to the side grinning at me; I am incredibly amusing to her, apparently.

"That's just not natural." I hear my voice say.

I know how sex works. I've known since some boy in my fourth grade class told me during recess. But watching the videos, talking about the diseases you can contract, seeing the diagrams. Chills. There is just nothing so unbelievably unnatural. I'm a firm believer than if it causes blood, you probably shouldn't participate. I don't care about having kids; I'm never doing that.

Sam drags me off to the water fountain with her fingers laced in mine. She stares at me while I take a drink and then slides down the wall, indicating that I should the same.

"Its just sex, Carly." She says to me, crossing her arms over her stomach.

I frown at her. "But what if he put his thing in and it got stuck?" I ask like this proves the point I've been trying to make the last few years.

She laughs into her arm, turning her head to look at me. "Do you really think that would happen? All the people in this world and you think that's a legit issue?"

I cringe inwardly, burying my face in my hands. "Oh my god, I'm going to be the first person to have some boy's thing stuck in me."

Sam laughs louder. "Carly, you probably shouldn't say that where other people can hear. It'll ruin your rep."

"Why? They'll all know when it happens. It'll probably be on the news." I mumble against my skin.

"Come on," Sam says, patting my shoulder. "That's not going to happen."

"How do you know?" I demand of her, sitting up. "Its not like I can have sex with you."

She blushes and that's surprising because Sam never blushes. "That's not entirely true." She mumbles softly, so softly that I barely hear her.

"We're both girls." I say with a wave of my hand, like it isn't blatantly obvious.

She nods ever so slightly. "We sure are."

I'm not really sure what she means, but I'm blushing too as we lean there against the wall.

XXX

I'm all dressed up. My dad was supposed to be stopping in for dinner on his singular night off before he goes back out to sea, but he didn't make it. He rarely does. I'm surprised I still have it in me to feel disappointed, but I do. As my tears wash the bits of makeup I put on onto the puffy white dress I wore for his visit, all I feel is disappointment.

Spencer is trying to make me feel better. He keeps bringing over different food items that he knows I like from the leftover ham from Sunday to an Italian Soda. I don't want any of it, but I eat the ham because ham is what we have at Christmas and Christmas is when families are supposed to be together. I want my dad to put me before work. I want him to realize that the Navy shouldn't be his life, we should be. But he won't. And I almost never see him, so I don't even get the chance to plead my case.

"Why don't you go see Sam? That always makes you happy." Spencer suggests an hour after I burst into tears.

It's almost nine, but I'm sure Sam is up and I'm sure her mom will let me in, if she's home. I walk down the streets in my puffy dress, my face streaked with makeup, my body feeling tired from all the sobbing, and I find I don't care how terrible I must look. And I know I must really look bad for Spencer to encourage me to go to Sam's house at nine on a school night.

Her mother isn't home. Sam opens the door wearing an oversized t-shirt with one red sock and one with yellow and orange stripes for good luck. She pulls me into a hug immediately, walking us backward to shut the door and leaning back into it to hold me tighter.

"What happened?" She whispers in my ear, brushing my hair aside gently. It seems to dawn on her as I begin to cry again. "He didn't come." She states softly and I nod.

We stand there for what feels like hours. This is the reason Sam and I are best friends. Its because I can do, say, be whoever I want to be in front of her and she'll still love me. She'll still hold me while I cry, join in on a laugh, be there when no one else is.

Eventually I end up sitting in my overly robust dress on her bed with my legs folded beneath me and a glass of water in my hand. Sam sits at her desk, looking ready to jump up and wrap her arms around me at the slightest sign of tears.

"Feeling better?" She asks.

I nod. "I guess. Being here helps." My eyes trail around her room. "Being here really helps."

"You can spend the night," She offers. "If you want, that is. You don't have to."

I nod. "I've never wanted to more."

She smiles delicately. "Good. I think I'd probably worry about you all night if you went home now."

"You? Sam Puckett? Worry about me?" I fake astonishment. "There's no way."

She ignores my comment. "I guess I should get you something to sleep in, I don't think you want to stay in that." She says, gesturing at my dress.

"You don't like it?" I say, this time feigning sadness.

She grins. "Its not that. You look like a cupcake. A big, vanilla, Carly cupcake."

I flatten my dress against my legs. "Yeah." I whisper. It hits me how much I want to get out of the dress. How much I want to forget that he doesn't want me. I tear at the bottom, trying to get the dress up and off, but no matter how much I fight against it, the dress doesn't seem to want to come off and before I can do any serious damage, Sam's hands are in mine and she's sitting in my lap to hold me down.

"What the hell, Carly?" She demands of me in a loud voice.

"He doesn't love me. If he did, he would have come tonight." I tell her as tears begin to fall again. "When you love someone, you try to see them."

"I'm sure that's not it, Carly." Sam whispers into my hair, wrapping her arms around me and resting her chin on my shoulder. "There's no way he doesn't love you."

"How can you be so sure?" I wipe haphazardly at my eyes.

"Because I can't imagine anyone not loving you, cupcake."

I'm smiling so big I think my jaw could break and I crush Sam in the tightest hug I've ever given anyone. "Why is it you're only so sweet to me? I guess it's a good thing or I wouldn't have you all to myself anymore. Everyone would want their very own Sam."

She leans back in my lap, grinning too, rubbing off the rest of the wetness on my face. "Feel better?"

I nod. "How do you do this? And only with me, too. How do you always say that pretty thing I need to hear?'

She shrugs. "It's a gift."

I study our position as she continues to sit in my lap, straddling my legs. "You can get off me now."

"I don't want to."

"Well, too bad. You're too heavy."

"Sucks to be you right now, doesn't it?"

"Sam, off."

"Nope, I like sitting here."

"Sam."

"Carly."

I do the only thing I can think to do, I wrap my hands around her arms and flip us over onto her bed. I smile brightly down at her. "I win!" I exclaim, pinning her hands above her head.

She gives me an almost animalistic smirk and flips our positions before I can catch up in my head. Her smirk sticks as she looks triumphantly down at me. "Win, do you?"

I fight her hands for a moment to no avail. She's much stronger than me, which I already knew, but I had to try anyway. "Okay, fine. You win, Sam. Let me up."

Her smirk falters and she's staring down at me with a confused, but decisive expression on her face. I can't look away. I can't avert my eyes or move my head so I'm facing in another direction. All I can do is stare back into her deep blue eyes, hoping against hope that someday I'll stop being lost inside her. They keep moving closer, so it only makes sense that I keep falling further. Then they're gone. Her eyelids slide shut only moments before I feel her lips press against mine.

She's kissing me.

She's kissing me.

She's kissing me.

I feel like someone hit the panic button in my head and I know I'm hyperventilating only moments after she lifts back up to continue to stare at me. I know if she didn't have such a strong force on my wrists, and she wasn't sitting on me, my whole body would be flailing to bring into the physical world all the extreme feeling scorching around my body. My mouth is open as I gaze up at her, only half seeing the real world, my eyes are wide. I feel like it goes on for a lifetime, but its probably only a few minutes, and then my mind comprehends and I relax. She releases me and I sit up immediately.

"You kissed me!" I accuse like she wasn't present for it.

She nods, keeping her eyes on her hands. "I know."

"You kissed me!" I accuse again like the first time didn't suffice.

"I'm sorry." She apologizes, climbing off me and standing awkwardly in front of the window.

"Sam? How could you? We're eleven! Eleven!"

She turns back around to give me an off, quizzical look. "It was a kiss, Carly, not a marriage proposal." She exclaims.

I stare at her wide-eyed. "You're planning on proposing? Sam!"

"No, Carly! Why would I propose?" She asks in disbelief.

"I don't know! Why would you kiss me?"

"I don't know!" She says, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "You were crying and then we were hugging and then I just really wanted to so I did!" She explains in a rushed voice. "And I'm sorry!"

I lick my lips slowly as the room falls silent, feeling whatever emotions had been whirring around my body slowly falling out. "Well?"

She raises her head to look at me. "Well what?"

"How was it?"

"How was it?" She repeats.

"Oh, come on. It was my first kiss." I try to plead with my eyes.

"Well," She begins, searching the room with her eyes. "It tasted like ham."

I inwardly slap myself. "I had some before I came here. Maybe I should have told you. Then you wouldn't have felt the need to thrust yourself upon me."

"Thrust." She repeats and chuckles. "Does it bother you that much?"

"Well, yes!" I exclaim. "I'm not ready to kiss anyone! I'm so, so, so not ready for that."

She smiles a little, like she's relieved. "So it's not because it's me?"

"What?" I frown. "Of course not."

"So when you're ready to kiss someone, you'll let me kiss you?" She presses.

A tingling feeling dances through my stomach. "Yeah, I will."

She falls back onto the bed, letting all of the tension flow out of her body. "You know, I think I kind of like ham."