Stranger

I walked through the doors to the back patio, noticing it was empty. I breathed in the fresh air and looked around at the empty tables and chairs, thinking I was alone. Once I'd slid the door shut behind me and stepped out further, though, I noticed someone sitting by themselves farther away, off to the side of the patio and right beside the building.

Curious as to who was sitting out here alone, I inched my way towards them, the light breeze blowing through my brown hair and ruffling it a bit. The wind tickled the back of my neck, but it felt nice after being inside for so long around all the perfume and "new dress" and "new suit" smells.

I stopped about 10 feet away and eyed the back of their head, trying to identify who they were. She had jet-black hair – probably dyed – and a cigarette in her hand. Her elbow was rested on the arm of the chair she was in, her legs crossed in front of her. She wore a black dress, the ends of it frilly. Its thin straps went over her milky white shoulders, the color perfectly contrasting to her complexion. Her black curls poured down her back and over one shoulder, shining in the hazy light from the setting sun.

My eyes were glued to her, unable to look away in curiosity of who she was. I watched as her black-lacquered fingers loosely held the cigarette, and she brought it to her lips. I could hear the sound of her lips sucking on the end, inhaling deeply, before pulling the cigarette back away where I could see it. Smoke appeared in front of her, pouring out from her mouth. There were light red stains on the butt of the cigarette from her lipstick.

When I saw her head turning slightly to the side, I quickly looked away, pulling my phone out of my pocket and gazing down at it casually. I'd been waiting for my boss to call to tell me the news on how the proposition of my idea had gone, but still nothing.

"Couldn't take it in there?"

My head snapped up and towards the person I'd been staring at. Her voice was lazy and drawn out, but sounded familiar, yet striking against the silence it had replaced.

Suddenly, I realized who those curls belonged to.

"Wh-what?" I asked nervously, unsure if she was talking to me or someone on a headset or something.

"I said, could you not take it in there?" she repeated, the tinge of slight annoyance in her voice.

"Oh, uh… Nah, I-I just needed some fresh air," I quickly explained, my voice a little quiet.

She finally turned her head to the side and I could make out her profile…

It was Sam.

"Long time, no see, Benson," she said casually, bringing the cigarette to her lips again and taking another drag, then letting it rest in her lungs before exhaling a cloud of smoke.

I shrugged, turning and walking closer to her, stopping beside her. I looked down at her, the dyed-black hair a bit of a shocker since I'd last seen her. It was the same, except it wasn't blonde, and it brought out her milky white paleness even more.

I noticed the numerous tattoos that decorated her arms and the area of her chest that I could see above the top of her dress. A glint of metal caught my eye and when she turned her head again, I was surprised to find a metal stud shining in each nostril, as well as 2 studs in her bottom lip – snakebites, I think they were called? She also had a piercing at the top of the bridge of her nose, the studs on either side glinting.

This was almost unreal.

She looked up at me with the same blue eyes that I'd always known, though. This time, however, they were darkly outlined in black, and her eyelashes were thick and dark with mascara.

"Nice to see you, too," she muttered sarcastically, taking another drag from her cigarette, inhaling until the burning end went down to the butt. She brought it away from her lips and tossed it to the ground, lifting one high-heeled foot to stub it out before re-crossing her legs properly.

"Sam?" I managed to question, unsure of anything else to say to this stranger.

"Fredward," she stated simply, as if we were just saying each other's names for fun. Her ocean eyes gazed out at the setting sun, shining beneath all the makeup.

"What… I didn't even know you were here," I explained apologetically.

She shrugged. "A lot of people didn't. But what, you think I'd miss my former best friend's funeral? I have more empathy than that."

I shook my head, pulling an empty chair up from another table and sitting down. I sighed.

"So… what's this? What happened to you?" I asked.

I couldn't help it; I had to ask. I knew I hadn't seen her in a long time, but it was still a shocker to see her so different. I was curious as to where she'd gone, who she'd made friends with, what she'd done with her life…

Who, if anyone, she'd eventually fallen in love with.

"Whadd'you mean, what's happened to me?" she repeated, not looking at me, her eyes still set on the horizon. "What's happened to you?"

I looked down at myself - my clothing, my skin – then back at her. "Uh… nothing? I mean, your hair, the piercings, the tattoos… when did you get those?"

She shrugged. "A while back… I dunno. I've had 'em for so long now."

"Well… what happened when you moved away?"

I'd been wanting to ask it for ages, but I hadn't seen her or heard from her. I was almost afraid she'd died and no one had bothered to inform us.

"I left Seattle and my life changed," she explained simply. "That's just what happens; things change, people change, and nothing can stay the same. Ya gotta learn to either live with it and go with it, or get caught up in the waves and let 'em drown you."

I stared at her in awe, still unsure if this was the same Sam I used to know.

"And I wasn't about to let myself drown in some… starless city," she finished.

This was definitely the same Sam. I had no doubt in my mind. Sure, she'd changed, but moving to New York would probably do that to anyone. She was still stubborn, though, and everything else on the inside that I'd always known.

"You didn't answer my question."

I was snapped out of my trance. "Huh?"

She turned her head and finally looked me in the eyes again. "My question… you didn't answer it. I asked what happened to you?"

I gave her an incredulous look. "Whadd'you mean?"

She shrugged, her eyes dragging up and down my body then back to my face. "I told you my story. It's your turn."

I sighed. "I haven't changed. That's it. I still wear collared polo shirts and slacks and jeans, and I still wear belts and I never wear open-toed shoes… I still spend half my day on my PearBook, if not more, and I still shampoo my hair twice."

I paused, watching her face remain the same. "I don't have any tattoos or piercings, and I've never dyed my hair, even though I was tempted at one point in college… I also don't smoke anything, even though I did try cigarettes once in senior year."

She looked away again, then reached down into the small, black purse sitting on the ground beside her and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I watched as she pulled one of the cigarettes out and placed it in her mouth, cupping her hand in front of the flame her lighter made as she lit the stick of tobacco. Her cheeks caved in a little as she sucked in, then she pulled the cigarette away and exhaled, stuffing the pack and the lighter back into her purse. She continued to stare out at the horizon with those deep, ocean-like eyes.

"Like I said: people change, Benson," she muttered.

"Why didn't you call? Or email? Why didn't you at least try to come visit just once?"

My sudden outburst of questions surprised both of us. I saw her body tense up and her red lips purse.

There was an awkward silence between us for some time. She finally broke it, though, like she had always done.

"I did call and email… Carly," she began in a quieter, weaker voice than before. "But you know my mom… we could barely afford the shitty apartment we had in NYC… there was no way, no matter how much saving up we did, that we would ever have enough to afford a plane ticket out here. And then I got caught up in shit, and then I moved out, and… I dunno… me and Carly both changed. We didn't have anything to talk about anymore. So I stopped wasting my time with calls. I felt like I was just annoying her."

"What about me? You never even bothered to so much as reply to my email," I pointed out, reminding her of the email I'd sent shortly after she'd moved away; the one I'd never received a reply to, and had henceforth decided to stop emailing her at all.

"I thought you hated me."

My breath caught in my throat. "What? Why? That's ridiculous!"

She shrugged. "Shut up. I thought a lot of shit after I moved away that I shouldn't have thought, and it fucked stuff up, but hey, what're you gonna do about it? We can't change the past. I was a fucked-up kid after I left Seattle, even more than before, and it caused me to get involved in some fucked-up things. Carly was still perfect, even after I left, and I was still a troublemaker. We remained the same despite the distance. We just changed when it came to our friendship."

I stared at her and how her face changed and contorted with emotion, obviously trying to hold any back. She didn't want to show me that she still felt, even after all these years.

"What do you do? Work for Pear or something?" she abruptly changed the subject.

"Uh… no. Actually, I work for a tech company, but we're kind of like Pear's competitors. I'm-I'm working my way to VP, I guess," I explained uncomfortably.

I waited for her to start making fun of me, but she didn't. Instead, she replied with, "Cool. Wanna know what I do?"

I shrugged. "What?"

She turned and looked at me once again. "I'm a waitress at a strip club. I dropped out of college to become a HomicideGirl, and I didn't make it. Now I live in that shitty apartment with my mom again, and I work eleven to seven every night, serving drinks on trays and getting my ass pinched by every guy within five feet of me. I save up for new tattoos and weed. I smoke pot and sell it. I date at least two different guys every month. I've been engaged twice since I graduated. And now I work my ass off to pay the bills every month and pay off my student loans from the college I never even finished."

I was speechless. I didn't know what to say… I mean, what can you say to that? Her life had taken a turn I'd never even expected from her. Sure, she was a bad kid, and a slacker, and pretty lazy… But I could never even fathom seeing her not go to college or not make something of herself, if not for the fact that Carly and I were, then for the fact that she didn't want to end up like her deadbeat mom or her incarcerated father.

"That's it?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why had I said that?

She chuckled. "Yeah… that's it."

I looked down at my hands, folding them and unfolding them nervously. "I still don't understand."

"Don't understand what? How I can live this way? How I got here? What?" she questioned.

"Why you didn't contact me; why you thought I hated you," I admitted, looking up to gaze out at where her eyes had been, watching the sun sink lower and lower behind the earth. "You knew how I felt about you, Sam… You knew."

She sighed, then brought her burning cigarette to her lips and took another long drag, exhaling slowly. Her thumb flicked the end of the butt and an ash fell from the tip of the cigarette to the concrete ground below us. I saw her shake her head, her curls slightly shaking with the movement.

"Then why didn't you tell me sooner? Why'd you wait until the day before I had to leave?" she asked me.

She had me. She'd caught me off guard with that question because she knew it was an equally painful thing to ask me.

"Because I was afraid."

She spun around in her chair and faced me before I even knew she was moving. Her eyes were narrowed, almost watery. "Afraid of what?"

"Everything," I whispered. "You, realization, the truth… how my mom would react."

I saw a smirk flicker across her lipsticked lips before she turned back away, her scoff audible. She shook her head again, obviously in disgust at me.

"You're a fucking pussy, Benson," she muttered just before she inhaled from the cigarette again.

I sighed in defeat. "And you're a totally different person, Puckett."

She shrugged casually. "It's just part of life."

We sat in silence for a while, the stars appearing in the sky and the sun almost completely disappearing before either of us said another word. I watched her in reminiscence, eying her black-painted fingernails and the way her thin fingers held the cigarette loosely. It reminded me of the last day I'd seen her, bringing back a whole myriad of old, buried emotions.

I sat down on the hard ground of the rooftop with her, gazing up at the black sky and the twinkling spots of stars all over it.

"I heard you can't see the stars in New York," I whispered, wanting to break the deafening silence.

She was quiet. Her glimmering eyes remained on the sky above us, even after mine had left it and drifted down to gaze at her face. I could see the tears on her cheeks and the way they sparkled in the moonlight and the lights of the city skyline.

She looked down, away from the stars, and brought the cigarette held between her fingers up to her mouth, taking a long drag. The red cherry on the tip glowed in the darkness that surrounded us, and I watched as it moved away from her face, back down to the ground where her hand rested. She exhaled the smoke, her eyes drifting off to somewhere else.

"I… I'm sorry it had to be like this," I finally whispered.

I was beating myself up inside already, but seeing her like this – looking completely hopeless, tears in her eyes, more angry at me than I'd ever seen before – only made me feel 100 times guiltier.

I kept asking myself, Why had I waited this long, until the day before it was absolutely too late? Why had I made up that lame excuse about being afraid of what my mom would think, or of what Carly would think? Why couldn't I just tell her the truth… that I was afraid of exactly what was happening now?

Losing her…

"Me, too," she finally choked out, her voice rough and bitter.

I didn't know what to say at this point. I knew the whole situation was bad, because I'd never seen her smoke before, except maybe at a couple of parties, but even then, she'd never made it a habit, or something she did when she was stressed out or anything.

"I hope you quit smoking soon," I muttered.

"I will," she told me flatly. "After I move… it's not a permanent thing. Just… something to relieve the stress and chill out. It's not like I'm gonna start smoking pot or something, Benson."

I chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. "I know…"

She took another drag, this time making smoke rings with her mouth. I wondered where she'd learned that.

"I'm… gonna miss you."

Her eyes shot up to meet mine. "Yeah."

I nodded, looking away. Of course I was going to miss her… she probably already knew that. Wow, I was dumb. What was I supposed to say to this girl? I couldn't even begin to describe the way things had changed over the past year, or the way my feelings had changed, or why I'd chickened out and said what I'd said earlier. I couldn't do anything to stop her from moving to the other side of the country either. So what was left?

Suddenly, I felt warm, dry lips against my own, and I tasted cigarette smoke. I shut my eyes instinctively, leaning in a little; no, I hadn't expected it, but… it felt right.

When she finally pulled away, I opened my eyes and looked straight into hers. Her eyelids hung low, exhausted from the past few days, and her lips were still parted just slightly. She gazed at me as if she were taking in my image so she wouldn't forget it after she left. I just gazed back at her in stunned, speechless silence.

Her lips shut tight and she leaned back again, taking another drag from her cigarette. Finally, her soft, regret-filled voice came out soft.

"How do I say goodbye to you?"

"Y'know, things could've been different," I said quietly once I'd gathered enough courage to talk again. "We could've had… what we wanted… and been happy… Carly could still be alive…"

"Yeah, and I could've stayed in Seattle and lived out my perfect little fairytale life," Sam muttered condescendingly. "Please. We never could've been together – or at least not according to you - and nothing could've changed what happened to Carls."

I shook my head, standing up. I was ready to go back inside and console Spencer some more, get away from this negative woman who'd grown to be nothing but a stranger to me. "At least I kissed you one last time… You have to give me credit for that."

She laughed as if I'd just made a joke. "I've done more than kiss since that day, Fredward, and it sure as hell hasn't changed shit. If you had done it a lot sooner, I would've been impressed; but you didn't. You let that one time slip by and then it was like it never happened, even though you knew how the both of us felt after that… You fucking knew…"

I didn't say anything. What could I say? She was totally and completely right. She had a right to hate me and be pissed at me and think I ruined everything… I did ruin everything.

"Besides, it wasn't even you that kissed me… I kissed you," she added bitterly.

"I'm sorry," I finally told her.

"Yeah? You're sorry?" she repeated, obviously about to mock me. She sounded angry and ready to yell at me for everything over the past 10 years. "Well, sorry doesn't build a time machine, or bring back dead best friends. So I don't wanna hear it."

I nodded silently, then turned around. I had taken only a few steps towards the door to go back inside when her voice reached my ears once more, much softer this time, but still bitter.

"Say hi to your mother for me."

I kept walking and went back inside, ready to forget about her.

But no matter what I did, or how many years passed… I could never forget Sam Puckett.

end.

A/N: I hope that made sense. If it didn't, please let me know, and I'll try to clear it up for you. But I went back through five or six times and added stuff and revised stuff. Anyway, point it, I stayed up till 5:30 working on this, so yeah. XD It was actually honestly inspired by a picture on one of my friend's MySpace. Weird, I know, but it kinda came outta nowhere. And in case you were wondering, it's supposed to be when they're like, 26. Sam moved away to NYC when they were like, 16 or 17, and then didn't come back and lost touch with both Carly and Freddie until Carly's eventual death and funeral, which is when this takes place.
Also, the part in italics is the flashback to the day before she moved that they reference.
So let me know what you think: did you love it, hate it, what? It's one of the few Seddies I've ever done. Thanks!