For documentation purposes...
The songs used while writing this chapter were..
Incubus - Love Hurts and Miranda Cosgrove - About You Now
"Wanna smoke?"
I threw her a questioning glance, crumbling up a freshly printed Best Buy receipt into my fist as we walked out to the car.
"Sure."
She spoke with such joy in her voice. I had never known Carly to really smoke; what with Spencer being very protective and sheltering and whatnot; but as we got older, eventually moving out in to our own loft apartment, she started opening up and trying new things. Fortunately "new things" never led to drugs, but we did drink every now and then, whenever we could come upon a friend to buy us a bottle of wine, or a 12-pack of beer. I was 20 and she was 19. Her birthday was January 14th, 1989 and mine was April 17th, 1988.
"Here."
I pulled a cigarette out of my almost empty cigarette pack and handed it to her, following it with an already lit lighter, waiting for her to touch her cigarette to the open flame and light it.
"Thanks."
I repeated the same routine with my own cigarette and stuffed both the pack and the lighter back into the pocket of my Adidas jacket.
"No problem."
Finally reaching the car, I threw my bags into the trunk and climbed into the front seat. Carly made herself cozy in the passenger seat. I drove a gun metal grey BMW M6 Convertible. Let's just say that, ever since my mother became best friends with just about every dealer at the casino, I was living life pretty well. Carly loved my car, and it meant a lot to me that she did. She told me pretty much every time she sat in it, if even for a split second. I couldn't blame her, though. Hell, I loved it too. Not only did I love my car, I loved the way she looked in it. I loved the way her deep brown eyes glistened when the sun hit them just right and the way her hair gleamed as the wind played with it, running through it like delicate fingers, like I wish my fingers could.
Ah, but me and Carly were best friends, had been since we were 8 years old, nothing would ever evolve between us except maybe a stronger friendship. Maybe something resembling a co-dependence, which is kind of what we had now with the apartment and all, but nothing even remotely close to what I wanted. It was useless to think about it, though; all I was doing was driving myself crazy about it, just like I had been for the past 5 years, every single waking moment I was with her. I was crafty, though, because I never let it show. Not once.
"Tell the car to hurry up, I'm cold. I love it but, damn, it's slow. Your bike heats up faster than this."
I laughed and revved the engine in an attempt to get it to heat up faster.
"You've got like three jackets on."
"Two."
"Whatever."
I laughed. It was true. She walked out of the apartment that afternoon with a flimsy girly jacket on. You know, the kind you see in the store and you just think to yourself, Why would anyone buy that, it can't be warm at all. Not even a little bit. The kind that looks like you might as well have just wrapped a thin layer, okay maybe two layers, of news paper around your torso and you'd achieve about the same amount of warmth; so I gave her my work jacket out of the car.
"Your work jacket isn't even warm, what are you talking about?"
I shrugged.
"It keeps me warm at work."
Probably because when I wear it at work, I'm also trudging through the woods carrying 20 pound battery packs and magnets on my back. That's what keeps me warm.I backed out of my parking spot and sped out of the lot, on route to me and Carly's apartment, cigarettes between our fingers.
The drive wasn't more than 15 minutes long and we were there in no time. I got stuck with all the bags while Carly grabbed the keys out of my hand and ran ahead to unlock the door. I realized that it's pretty hard to carry 10 bags of various Christmas gifts up a flight of stairs by myself.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Let me grab some of those from you."
I refused, not wanting to take the chance of her seeing what I bought her in one of the bags.
"Nah, I got it, Cupcake. Don't worry about it."
I winked at her with a smirk on my face. She just smiled and conceded, closing the door behind me. I walked in and set the bags carefully on the couch.
"I don't even feel like wrapping anything tonight, I'm way too tired."
"Aw, come on. You know we always procrastinate and wrap presents on the 23rd. We can't wait any later, tomorrow's Christmas Eve."
"Yeah, and I have to work. This is the first time I've had to work on Christmas Eve. It's already 9:30. I'm not going to get hardly any sleep tonight."
Carly put on a pouty face that only she could wear; on anyone else it would have looked funny, but not on her. That face made me weak in the knees.
"Pleeeease, Sam?"
"Come on Carly, don't do the face. You know that's not fair, I'm powerless against the face."
She held it until I gave in.
"Okay, fine. We'll wrap them tonight, then, just for you."
"And because it's tradition in this household!"
I loved it when she referred to us like we were married or something. Or maybe it was just me reading too much into it, either way, it made me feel good. I smiled, taking off my jacket and hanging it on the coat rack. Carly plopped herself down in the middle of the floor with a box full of wrapping paper and name tags, a pair of scissors, and some Scotch tape; giving me a once over with her eyes. I cocked an eyebrow.
"When are you going to get your butterfly tattoo touched up?"
I looked down at it, the black and blue had faded and it still needed to have the purple put in it.
"Good question. I might try to go Saturday night. You want to come?"
"Of course!"
"Sweet, it's a date."
She beamed. I enjoyed being able to make subtle comments like that and not have her pick up on what I really meant. I often wondered what would happen if she actually did catch on. Would she straight up tell me to get out of her sight, that she never wanted to see me again? Or would she feel bad about it, and apologize for "leading me on" because she had no idea, would she hug me and say she's sorry and that everything will be okay? Or would she confess the same to me, switching our positions completely and putting me in her shoes and her in mine? My head always hurt when I got that obsessed with thinking about it.
Love hurts, but sometimes it's a good hurt, and it feels like I'm alive.
"Sam?"
I blinked and looked down at her.
"Sorry, what?"
"You okay? You seem a little out of it."
"I'm fine. Just got a little headache."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
I rubbed the back of my head, rustling my hair. The long, blonde curls I used to wear were gone. My hair was still fairly long, but not as long as it had been 4 years ago. I straightened it almost every day now, and the beautiful true blonde had faded into a less appealing sandy blonde that often bothered me. Carly always told me how much she liked the color of my hair, though, so I never dyed it or anything. Carly's hair, however, stayed the exact same over the past 4 years. She kept those same beautiful, dark brown waves that attracted me to her in the first place. Even as she aged, it still looked good on her. I loved watching her play with her hair, much like she was at this very moment.
"I'm just gonna go get some aspirin. Don't go through the bags, okay?"
"Why? You have a surprise in here for me?"
She rustled the bags around, pretending to snoop through them. I laughed.
"Yeah, somethin' like that. Be right back."
I sauntered into the kitchen and grabbed the aspirin bottle; popping two into my hand then into my mouth, followed by a drink from an open 2 liter Dr. Pepper bottle in the fridge. When I came back in the living room, I found Carly sitting in the same position I left her in, only there was a gigantic smile across her face.
"Aw, you looked, didn't you?"
"No! …yes."
I sighed.
"I'm sorry, Sam; I couldn't help it! You shouldn't have even told me I had anything."
She giggled. I did the same.
"Well, do you like it?"
"Yes! I love it!"
She exploded, causing me to smile.
"Good. Because I'm not taking it back. Ha ha. You can have it now if you want, but you have to promise you'll show it off to everyone."
"Promise."
I motioned for her to take it out of the bag. She dug her hand deep into the light brown Dillard's bag beside her and pulled out a little white box with 'Anne Klein' printed in gold letters gracing the top. Carly pulled the top off and set it down beside her. Fingering the watch gently, she slipped it over her hand to her wrist and snapped the clasp together. She held it out in front of her, mouth agape.
"It's beautiful, Sam!"
"You think so?"
She nodded enjoyably.
"Good. Look underneath it."
She took it off and turned it upside down. Grinning with excitement, she read what was imprinted beneath in small script.
Carly and Sam
BFF
"Aw, Sam."
I smiled.
"Bet you weren't expecting that, were you?"
"Nope."
With a contented sigh, she blurted out.
"God, I love it. But you really didn't have to get me anything. Especially something this nice."
I shrugged, still smiling.
"I wanted to. Besides, I missed your birthday this year, so I hoped this would make up for it."
"Believe me, it more than made up for it."
At that moment, I was trapped in her eyes; unable to move or make a sound. She was so beautiful, so absolutely perfect, in my eyes; and I wanted her so bad. But I wasn't about to fuck up an 11 year friendship for some feelings that probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.
"So are you still coming over for Christmas? Spencer's setting a place for you at the table, like always."
I shook my head in an attempt to escape the daydream I was trapped in.
"Yeah, of course I'm coming. I haven't missed a Christmas yet, have I?"
She put her watch back on and put the top back on the box, looking up at me from below.
"Just checking. You don't make your personal life national news so I didn't know if you had a boyfriend that wanted you to go to his house or something."
We went through this every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas; and every year I gave her the same answer.
"Nah, boys are still gross. And besides, all of them around here suck, anyway."
She laughed.
"True, true."
I clapped my hands together.
"Alright, let's wrap this shit so I can get to bed."
We finished wrapping presents around 11 o'clock. She told me to go on to bed, that she'd be up watching TV for a while. I told her okay and started to head back to my room. Then I realized what time it was. There was no way I'd get up early enough to take a shower before work in the morning. I turned a 180 and took a few steps forward.
"Hey."
She looked up at me from the TV.
"Yeah?"
"I'm gonna go take a shower. I probably won't get up in time to do it in the morning."
She smiled.
"Okay, I'll be here."
I smiled back, bending down to untie my work boots.
"Alright."
I set them off to the side and continued to the bathroom.
After my shower, I walked back through the living room to drop my towel in the washing machine. I heard her squeak out something over the noise of the TV.
"Done already?"
I poked my head into the living room.
"Yeah."
I ran the towel through my hair once more before throwing it into the washer.
"So, what are you watching?"
I inquired, walking over and sitting in the chair next to her beside the couch.
"The Notebook."
"Didn't you try to get me to watch that one time?"
"Yeah, and you didn't want to because it's 'just a sappy love story'."
We both laughed.
"Yeah, that sounds about right."
"I'd ask you to watch it with me if you didn't have to go to bed so early."
I chuckled and got up to turn the heat up; I noticed her shivering a bit.
"I might be able to stay up a little longer and watch a bit with you."
I smiled as I made a place for myself on the couch beside her.
"Okay."
She smiled so big that I thought for sure the corners of her mouth were touching her ears.
"Want under the blanket?"
"Yeah."
She lifted it up and threw it over my legs. A small burst of air hit my nose and I could smell her perfume, every little bit of it. SoCal by Hollister. It smelled so fucking good, so good that it sent chills down my spine; I could feel burning at the bottom of my stomach.
"You okay?"
I looked down at her, half grinning.
"Yeah, why?"
She looked so concerned.
"You're breathing hard. Just wondering."
"Oh, my bad."
I laughed nervously. She shot me a confused glance then turned back to the movie.
"So what's this movie about, anyway?"
"It's a love story. Just watch it. You'll like it."
"I know that much, but like, what happens?"
"I'm not gonna tell you and spoil it for you. Just watch."
"Fine, fine."