Chapter One

Lo Douleur Exquise (n); French

The excruciating pain experienced when

wanting someone you cannot have.

"Sam, can I ask you something?"

"Mmhmm…" She murmured, not opening her eyes, content to be in his arms.

"Why did you really ruin my application?"

She stiffened. After Gibby's "serenade", she and Freddie had gone to the fire escape to be alone. It had become their regular retreat from the world after they had started dating. They had made out for awhile, Sam trying to show him without words how sorry she was and by his breathlessness and the dazed look in his eyes afterwards, it seemed she had succeeded. Now they were just sitting, Freddie on his lawn chair with Sam in his lap, content to be silent in each other's presence. Or so she had thought.

"I need to know the truth, Sam," he said. "And I need to hear it from you."

Her instinct was to bolt. She didn't do well with emotional confrontations, they both knew it and that's why she could feel Freddie's arms reflexively tightening around her, keeping her close, knowing that at any moment she could be spooked.

But really, it wasn't needed. She knew that she had made a big mistake when she sent in that application, she knew it as soon as she had done it. Carly had made a valiant effort but she could only go so far in cleaning up Sam's mess. The rest was up to her.

"I didn't want you to leave," she said quietly. The truth spilling out unguardedly from her lips.

Freddie's arms loosened around her as he reached out a hand to cup her cheek, turning her head to face him.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

Sam stood up suddenly. "And what would I have said? 'Hey, Freddie, I don't want you to go to your stupid N.E.R.D. camp because I'm secretly in love with you and I don't want to go two months without seeing your nubby face?"

"That…would have been a shock. But-"

"I know that it's the most selfish, meanest thing I've ever done," she cut him off. "I know, alright? It was low even for me. I knew it as soon as I'd done it. But I couldn't take it back. I'm sorry."

She turned away from him, her hands gripping the railing tightly. She looked down below her at the lights coming from the tiny cars driving through the street. She could hear the squeak of the chair as Freddie stood up. He wrapped his arms around her waist, her back pressing up against his chest, so solid and firm behind her, just like his presence in her life has always been. How could she begin to explain how much that means to her? That she relies on him as much as she does Carly?

"I know you are," he said into her shoulder.

"When Melanie first left it was only supposed to be for the summer," her voice cracked but she had to keep going, she had to tell him this. "She had gotten into this brainy summer camp program. She impressed some people there and they offered her a place in an all girls boarding school, full scholarship. She came home for a week, packed up her stuff and she was gone."

Freddie didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say. Sam's fears were deep seated and they led her to do irrational, selfish things. She knew that.

He simply held her and forgave her with all of his being.

To say that Sam was having a bad start to her day would be putting it lightly. First, she had woken up late after dreaming about what had happened after the whole N.E.R.D. Camp debacle. Something that had been happening more and more lately, her dreaming about important moments in her relationship with Freddie. As if her waking life wasn't a misery enough, her subconscious decided that it needed to torture her even further. And then, when she had finally dragged herself out of bed, she had discovered that Fluffy had peed on her favorite striped socks. The socks that she always wore on the first day of school. The demon cat knew what it had done too because Sam had spent about twenty minutes searching for her around the house to no results. After giving up the search, she had looked into the fridge and saw that her mom had eaten the last of her bacon.

And so she stumbled into Ridgeway, late, cranky, hungry, and wearing plain boring socks. One look at her and the entire freshman class will be wetting their pants and stuffing themselves into their lockers just to hide from her.

Carly looked at her sympathetically as Sam walked past her to her locker without so much as a "hello".

"Bad morning?" Carly asked.

"The worst," Sam said.

"Hola chicas," Freddie greeted he walked up to them.

"You don't have a drop of Hispanic blood in you! Can you cut it out with the random Spanish?" Sam yelled in frustration, slamming her locker door shut for emphasis.

Freddie and Carly both looked at her in surprise and then Freddie's brows creased in anger.

"What did I do now?" He demanded.

"Showed your stupid nubby face!" Sam picked up her backpack and walked past him, making sure to bump his shoulder hard as she did so.

"Don't take it personally, she's just having a bad morning." She heard Carly say as she walked away.

"And of course she takes it out on me!"

The rest of the conversation drifted away as Sam walked towards her first period classroom. A skinny freshman saw her coming and literally dropped down to the ground and crawled to hide behind a girl's leg.

On any other day that would have given Sam some satisfaction but at the moment she was in too bad of a mood to even think about torturing other people.

As luck would have it, Sam shared first period with Freddie. Something she didn't know until he walked into the classroom. She realized that the three of them didn't get to do their first day of school ritual of comparing schedules, though she was sure that Freddie and Carly probably did, and now Sam didn't know how many times a day she'd have to endure sitting in a classroom with him.

Freddie saw her and walked to the back of the classroom, where she was sitting. But instead of sitting beside her like she expected he simply walked behind her, dropped a paper bag onto her desk and kept walking, taking a seat in the front row and not looking back at her.

Sam opened the bag, pulling out the contents one by one. A plastic bag of crunchy bacon, two fatcakes, a ham sandwich, two cans of peppy cola. And at the very bottom was a folded piece of paper, she opened it up and read:

I know today is your least favorite day of the year. But look on the bright side, this will be our last first day at Ridgeway ever. Here's breakfast and lunch to get you through the day.

She looked up at the back of Freddie's head, feeling an anger rising up in her chest. How dare he do this…this unbelievably sweet thing for her? He wasn't her boyfriend anymore, he shouldn't be this nice to her!

She slumped down into her seat and opened the bag of bacon, her stomach grumbling at the scent of it. She silently willed Freddie to turn around and look at her as she munched on the wonderful meat but he didn't. He stared studiously ahead as Mr. Buttburn came in and took roll. Buttburn looked at Sam eating and sighed but decided wisely not to say anything and kept calling out names.

She took out her Pearphone and texted: Thanks nub.

She saw him take out his phone, read the text and then stuff his phone back into his pocket. She sighed. Okay, so he was mad at her.

She started to text him again but stopped when her phone started to vibrate with an incoming call.

The name 'Melanie' flashed across the screen. Great, like her day couldn't get any worse.

Sam was tempted to press ignore but knew that Melanie would just keep calling throughout the day, unable to take a hint. So she stood up and walked out, telling Buttburn that she had to pee as she strode right past him.

"What Mel?" She said as soon as she was in the hallway.

"Hello to you too, Sam," Melanie giggled.

"So what's the news?"

"News?" She asked innocently. A little too innocently, which immediately confirmed Sam's suspicion.

"You never call unless you have some big news," she said. The last phone call that she and her mom had gotten was Melanie excitedly telling them that she was going to be Valedictorian.

"Okay, you pulled my leg. Guess what school I got into!"

"A big, fancy one?"

"Stanford!" She squealed.

"Great. Congratulations, Mel. If that's all…"

"I'm going to California next week to visit the campus but first I wanted to stop by over there and see my favorite sister!"

"You don't have to do that…"

"I'll be there in two days. Can you tell mom? She's not answering her phone."

"Mom's in Canada."

"Boyfriend?"

"Yep."

"Is he gross?"

"Aren't they all?"

"Well, the two of us can have some sister bonding time then!"

"Gree-aat…" Sam muttered unenthusiastically.

"Okay, I'll see you. Bye, love you!" She said and hung up.

Sam looked down at her phone and barely resisted the urge to scream. She couldn't handle this right now, she had to get out of there.

She made a run for it, down the empty halls of Ridgeway, out the front doors, and onto the pavement. Maybe if she ran fast enough she'd be able to outrun the disaster that she knew was heading in her direction.