It's Only Hair, After All
No matter what he thought about her personally, Freddie couldn't deny it: Sam's hair was gorgeous. It was blonde and wavy and shimmery. It cascaded down her shoulders like a waterfall, a force of nature. It looked best in the sun, its thousand hues coming out under those brilliant rays. It also looked good in the breeze, whipping back in the caress of the wind, streaming behind her like golden ribbons. Even in a strong wind it looked good. The big gusts would send her hair flying in all directions.
On a particularly windy day, Freddie had joked that it made her look like Medusa and pretended to turn into stone. After Carly had explained what he was doing, Sam knocked him over and told him she could make it happen for real. But as Freddie picked himself up off of the sidewalk, he thought to himself that her hair looked amazing like that, wild and free and everywhere at once.
He loved Sam's hair. He loved Carly and fantasized about their future together, but he didn't love her hair. It was pretty, all dark and straight and glam, but it didn't mesmerize him the way Sam's did. He thought it was strange that he could love the hair of someone he didn't even really like but could love the hair of someone he did. Wasn't love supposed to make a person seem beautiful and perfect?
It didn't bother him too much at first how much he liked Sam's hair. After all, hair was just hair, and of course it didn't mean anything. It was just a natural appreciation for a beautiful thing, an abstract sense of aesthetics that ignored that person the hair was attached to. It didn't make him like Sam any more or tolerate her bullying any better. It didn't even make her attractive.
Once, a guy had approached Freddie at his locker. "You're friends with that girl Sam, right?" he asked.
Freddie shrugged, opening his locker. "Yeah, I guess."
"Do you know if she's seeing anybody? Because she is hot."
Freddie had just grimaced in response. Sam, hot? Sure, physically she was alright, but her personality was always so front and center, abrasive and rude and chaotic; how could anyone get past that? Her body was tainted by the rest of her. Her face was always scrunched up in distain or disturbingly dreaming when she thought about ham or Fat Cakes or the other few things she liked. Her body was dangerous, full of violence and force, a weapon that could be used against him at any moment. Her elbows were sharp and her legs were deadly. When he looked at her, that was all he could see. Why would anyone think she was attractive?
But her hair was different. It had never done anything to him, and was in fact one of Sam's only weaknesses. How many times had he seen Carly keep Sam from doing something stupid and violent by pulling her hair? He'd even done it himself, with the ponytail-yanking device he used when Carly and Sam were fighting, and, until they took control of it, it had worked quite well. He couldn't help but like the only vulnerable part of an otherwise ridiculously strong and overconfident girl. Besides, it was so shiny and wild and beautiful.
He didn't think it meant anything at first. Then he started getting distracted by it. Really distracted. And it was causing problems.
He stared at her hair whenever he got a chance, hypnotized by the golden waves. Sometimes, when they were shooting iCarly, he would get distracted by her hair and forget to cut to Carly when she started talking. And when they were walking down the hall, he couldn't stop looking over at her, just to see her hair. One time, he even tripped over because he wasn't paying attention to where he was going.
Freddie kept getting distracted in class, too. Sam sat in front of him in English and he had a really hard time paying attention to his teacher's lecture on Lord of the Flies. Carly had to give him her notes because most of his ended up incomprehensible. It happened in Geography and Spanish, too. Luckily they didn't have all their classes together, otherwise his GPA would be in serious danger.
As if that wasn't bad enough, people started to notice. The guys at school began to tease him about his crush on Sam, writing stuff about them in the boy's bathroom. Carly was continuously catching him staring at Sam; he was just lucky Sam never seemed to notice it.
Carly pulled him aside one afternoon before rehearsal.
"What's going on with you and Sam?" Carly asked as Sam rifled through the refrigerator. "You're always looking at her. Do you like her, or something?"
"No!" he exclaimed loudly, drawing Sam's attention from the kitchen. She looked up for a moment, before shrugging and going back to her search for something edible. "I mean," he said in a quieter voice, "that nothing is going on."
Carly raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
"I don't! I still love you."
At this, she rolled her eyes. "You stopped paying so much attention to me; I had hoped you were over that." Sam was right; Carly would never love him back. He could pine for her for eternity, and she would never look at him as more than a friend and tech producer.
Pushing away the hurt, Freddie continued. "I don't like Sam, she's horrible and disgusting. But she just… has really nice hair."
Carly watched him for a moment, unsure of what she was hearing, before bursting out in great peals of laughter. Sam spared them a glance before returning to her ham.
Freddie shushed Carly and pulled her further away from the kitchen. "I'm not kidding," he said, his voice taking on a whine of desperation. "It's driving me crazy. I hate her but I can't stop staring at her hair. It is becoming a serious problem." He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "You have to help me."
Carly struggled to put on a serious face. "Wow, I can see this is really bothering—no, I can't do it," she said before erupting into a second fit of giggles. After another minute of humiliation, she pulled herself together enough to tell him, "Maybe you should talk to Spencer about this." And then she starting laughing again.
"Thanks for all your help," Freddie said, unable to prevent the note of bitterness in his voice.
He took her advice anyway and cornered Spencer a few days later. He approached Spencer after school before Carly and Sam got home. Spencer was working on a pair of giant sock puppets for him and Socko to wear for Halloween and it took a moment to get his attention.
"Spencer, I need some advice."
"Sure, kiddo. Hey, can you hold this," Spencer said, handing Freddie a fire extinguisher. "I want to be prepared."
Freddie held up the extinguisher in a ready position, but asked, "Why do you need this; it's just fabric. I pretty sure it's not going to catch on fire." Spencer gave him a look. "Good point."
"So what is it you want to talk about? Need some help with your Halloween costume?"
Freddie shook his head. "No, it's, um, a girl thing."
"Oh." Spencer put down his glue gun. This was a man talk. He sat down on the stairs and patted the spot next to him, which Freddie gratefully took. Spencer would know what to do. "Tell the master what your problem is."
Freddie sighed. "Okay, so there's this girl and I do not like her, but I can't stop staring at her hair because it is just so shiny."
Spencer nodded. "Freddo, I know exactly what you mean. Girl pretend their hair is just naturally like that, but they spend hours making it shiny to trap us. You should see how many hair products Carly has. One time I went into her bathroom and I barely made it out alive." He shuddered.
"So what do I do about it?" Freddie asked, leaning against the extinguisher. "It's making my life hell. My grades are slipping and I keep tripping over stuff and it totally sucks. It's all because of Sam's stupid satiny blonde hair."
Spencer jerked in surprise. "Wait, we're talking about Sam? Sam, Carly's best friend, who spends her life knocking you around and practically eats me out of house and home?"
Freddie nodded. "I know, isn't it horrible," he said miserably. "So what should I do?"
Spencer thought for a moment. "Well, in normal circumstances I would say that you subconsciously like her and your obsession with her hair is just your repressed feelings resurfacing—hey, I know things," he adds when he notices Freddie's look. "But it's Sam. You don't like her, right?"
Freddie nodded quickly.
"Wait, you do?"
"No! I don't like her. I was agreeing with you."
"Oh. Stupid double negative," Spencer said, shaking his fist at the sky, "you win again! Anyway," he said, dropping his fist, "you should use negative reinforcement. Wear a hair tie around your wrist and snap it whenever you catch yourself looking at her."
"That actually sounds like a good idea. Thanks, Spencer."
"Dr. Spencer is always here for you," Spencer started, but before he could congratulate himself any further, one of the sock puppets caught on fire. Freddie jumped up and quickly put it out. "And this is why it pays to be prepared."
For the next week or so, Freddie tried Spencer's technique and it actually worked really well. He did look like an idiot, always snapping a rubber band on his wrist, but he stopped staring at her hair so much. Even without snapping it, the pressure around his wrist reminded him of his goal and kept him focused.
After a while, he didn't even seem to need it anymore. Sam's hair, while shiny, was not as enticing as it had been and no longer demanded his full attention. He could glance at it every once in a while and be completely satisfied. He finally took of the rubber band, ready to move on to the next step, to face Sam without any discouragement.
But the next day, while sitting on the Shay's couch with Sam and waiting for Carly, he looked over at Sam and he really, really wanted to touch her hair. It looked really soft and glowed faintly in the evening sun coming in through the window, like the hair of an angel. This is stupid and creepy, he told himself, but he couldn't help lifting his hand. No, he thought, hesitating, this is ridiculous. You can't just go around touching the hair of girls who you don't like and who hate you. But his hand kept inching toward her untamed locks.
Before he could even blink, he was on the floor. Sam stood over him, her face framed by her hanging hair. He forced himself to look at her face, which was sharp with ire.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, dorkface?" she asked him.
"Nothing," he tried, but this just seems to make her angrier.
"You keep staring at me all the time! I know I'm amazing but you are creeping me out!"
He scrambled to his feet, knowing there was nothing he could say that would curb her wrath but desperate to try anyway. "I'm not staring at you—I'm… staring at your hair."
"My hair?" she asked incredulously, glancing down at it before flipping it indifferently behind her shoulder. "Why would you stare at my hair?"
"Because you have gorgeous hair! It's golden and shimmery and curly. It's perfect!"
Sam took a step back, confused and surprised. "You really are that obsessed with my hair?" Freddie nodded, embarrassed to a degree he had never been embarrassed before. "You are such a weirdo, Fredward." He nodded again, anything to have this conversation over. "And you really don't like me?" she asked, hopeful.
"Just your hair," he agreed.
Sam sighed in relief and fall back onto the couch. "Thank God for that. I could barely handle you chasing pathetically after Carly; I'd probably have to kill myself if you went after me."
Freddie was a little offended, but Sam seemed calm and unlikely to attack at the moment, so he took what he could get and didn't say anything.
"Just don't look at my hair anymore, okay, nub? It's just too freaky."
"Trust me," he said, "this little experience has totally traumatized me out of liking your hair. I doubt I'll ever look at it again." And that was the truth.
"Good."
He sat down next to her and she went back to watching the TV. This is good, Freddie thought, just what I needed to get over this ridiculous obsession. They watched TV in comfortable silence, just a couple of sort-of-friends watching Girly Cow not too close together on the couch of the girl he was in love with.
And he didn't even glance at her hair; he was too busy watching her face.