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Sam Puckett AF (After Freddie)

Food had always calmed her. Food had been her first, best friend, before Carly, before Freddie, she could count on ham, and fried chicken and, well the variety was like the stars in the sky. She had never met a food she didn't like, even the most objectionable offerings could be spiced and sauced and Iron Chefed into some edible state. By some weird genetic will of the gods the vast quantities of food she ingested never seemed to turn into fat. Maybe the law of calories in/calories out was waived for her because her life had been so hard for so long. But today food gave her no comfort. Even that fundamental friendship was bailing on her. Seated in a coffee shop, she poked her fork into the pie. It was no Galini's that was for sure.

She liked this place however. She liked it because it was so incompetently managed and run. Every time she came here they messed up her order, over charged her, gave her too much change, spilled something, the list of failures was endlessly varied. She watched and took comfort as another angry customer berated the barista over the wrong syrup. Somehow it kept going-The Little Shop that was something about a place that so totally tanked, that messed-up time and again but didn't go out of business that reminded her of herself.

Sam watched out the big plate window at an old man on a bicycle. He was very thin, his silver hair spilling out from under an enormous helmet. The bike was something off a lunchbox in an old photograph. Gleaming chrome fenders, whitewall tires with a basket and tassels streaming out of the handlebars, the bike glided on the sidewalk, easily navigating and weaving through the pedestrian traffic. The old man seemed free, almost blissful, and Sam, filled with envy, craned to watch him. She wondered how people got that old. Life was so hard, such a difficult trip, how was it possible to get where that old man was? She had always found old people irritating. Until James Ryan.

Professor James Ryan was, technically, an older man. But he wasn't irritating, at least not in the beginning. He turned her world upside down. He showed her things, possibilities; he made her feel smart, and special in ways that no older person, no teacher had ever done. Did she fall in love with him? Maybe. Love was so very complicated and she seemed to be less sure of everything today than she was then. But she was certain that what he had appeared to offer was magnetically attractive, that it spoke to something in her that was small and frightened; he represented something she had never had but wanted so much to believe in.

Sam looked around the room. It smelled of coffee beans, baked chocolate and steamed milk. She was here to meet the woman who was replacing her, James Ryan's latest lover. Why was she doing this? Was she nuts, angry, jealous? It made no sense to confront the new girl.

But she was looking at something ugly, that wasn't right. It bothered Sam that this wrong was happening again—like those movie sequels that don't stop because some corporation is greedy or some star wants to recreate some special moment that should be left alone.

She was waiting on Paula Jo Staples. A graduate student lined up as the latest victim-was that too dramatic? No, Professor James Ryan was a dangerous man, a predator; he had destroyed everything Sam had built with Freddie and Carly. It took her months to get Carly back, and Freddie was gone for good.

Sam shook her head as she thought about it. Tell the truth Sam. You destroyed Seddie. You made a choice. You messed everything up, like you have always done your whole life.

BREAK**************************************************************************

It ended like this. She knew she had to tell Freddie that she was getting more involved with someone else, that it was no longer professor and star pupil (star pupil! Sam Puckett! Incredible! But it was all her, she had earned the ranking!). He had evolved from charismatic mentor and guide and fascinating story teller and father figure. Their relationship was clearly going to places that would make her a liar, and she would not lie to Freddie.

She had finally stoked the fires of her courage to tell Freddie. She did not want to be exclusive; she wanted the chance to examine her options with someone else. It was very logical, not impulsive, not Sam-like. James presented something so powerfully attractive; she had never felt anything like it, since, well since she concluded that that she was in love with Freddie. As James explained it, life is about stages and she had to be alert because the next one had presented itself.

Freddie was good and he always wanted the best for her. He knew her and would understand her thinking. Carly had not been so receptive when Sam talked with her. It was the angriest Sam could ever remember the brunette being in all the years they had been friends.

Freddie had invited her to dinner at a restaurant she loved, a little neighborhood meat counter with a few tables. The aroma of spices and slow cooking sauces filled the air.

On the table with a purple bow was a new Pear phone Freddie had customized with pictures of them from school, iCarly, and on vacation. It had a special video that he wanted her to see, but she stopped his demonstration, insisting that they talk seriously.

"Freddie, you know I care about you."

He aimed his warm brown eyes into her and smirked, "Sam, you can say 'love'," he reminded her. Love was a hard thing for her to deal with.

"Uhm yeah, about that," her stomach was knotted, her hands trembling. She was breathing too fast.

"I, I, I've, kinda met someone." There, it's said, I spoke of it!

She had hit him countless times over the years. Early on that was how she expressed her deepest feelings for him. Once, to protect her from one of her famous public displays of violence he allowed her to hit him while he used his stuffed back pack as a cushion. The blow took his breath and he stumbled to the floor.

This was worse. The look on his face went from confused to deeply hurt, to—Sam had never seen a man stabbed, but this had to be the face that would result from such a strike. She felt her lower lip tremble and she watched his eyes, nose and brow sort of quiver. That brain of his was so sharp that he connected the dots and seemed to go from whatever confident place he been moments ago to some horrible zombie apocalypse in a blur.

"Uh, what? You mean another…guy?" Something in his voice was clearly suggesting he had misheard.

She kept her eyes fixed on his and she nodded slowly, "Yes." The word, so small and soft, seemed to explode between them.

His eyes were starting to flutter and tears were welling up, "Who? No, I mean, I don't need to know."

"It's Professor Ryan."

His head snapped back like he was avoiding some stinging bug, for an instant his voice regained composure, "What? Sam, that isn't funny."

"It's not a joke," her voice was calm and hard as a tombstone. His face did a startling swap of rage, confusion and sadness, with no emotion able to hold its ground.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Am I…? No, I'm not all right! The girl I love just dumped me for," and he paused, "for a dinosaur!" his voice was ragged, his posture tense and coiled. She had expected sadness but not this kind of feeling. Freddie was always so logical. She often was annoyed by his logical, nubbish mind and loved to engage the feisty, angry side, but not tonight, not now.

"I don't expect you to understand," she said.

"Well that's a load off! I was sure worried whether you needed me to understand!" He was shouting, his eyes impossibly wide, shock radiating out in waves from his flesh.

The other couple in the tiny restaurant was looking now.

"Freddie, these things are cyclical, someday I may love you and you won't love me." It was something James Ryan was teaching her.

His look of shattered horror would fit if she had just torn the ear off a puppy, "Wow, you've been shoveling some serious chiz for a while now but I didn't know it had filled the space between your ears!" His voice was cracking.

This was not going the way she had envisioned, her words seemed badly out of place. "We can still be friends," she reached to touch his hand and he jerked his back.

"No, I don't think we can." That wasn't something she had thought about, not really. Freddie was her closest male friend, since grade school he had always been there, like the Space Needle, dependable as the Seattle rain. Still, she was committed to moving ahead, no looking back as James had taught her. If that meant no Freddie, she was Sam Puckett and she had survived a lot worse.

"When you're ready to talk…" she said.

"Whatever," he shot back, standing. He stalked out, but being Freddie some kind of automatic good guy took over long enough for him to pay at the counter for their appetizer and drinks.

She did not watch him walk away, and she would not cry. Sam Puckett would not cry. She felt sick about hurting this great guy, but she was as positive as she had ever been that she needed to go with James Ryan, to what he offered her. She was starting a new chapter in her life and closing doors on an uneven past. Tomorrow had never looked brighter.

She tried several times to return the Pear phone to him, but he had reverted to his full great guy mode and insisted that she keep it. When she started using it she noticed that the video he had wanted to watch with her was gone.

BREAK****************************************************

So, she sat stirring her drink watching the door of the coffee house.

An old fashioned chime gave a high, metallic ring as the door opened. The woman that walked in held Sam's attention and the few others in the shop like a wreck on the highway. She was tall, runway thin with long, flowing white hair and hot rod red lips. She was the color of snow, ice in a polar dawn. Her attire was not like any graduate student Sam could imagine. She was dressed for a royal wedding. She wore something on her head that Sam couldn't call a hat. It was like a tribal headdress, part rings of Saturn, part scientific symbol off the table of elements.

Was this her? She stopped as she walked in and surveyed the room, looking for someone.

Sam stood, "Hi, Paula?" Sam asked.

The striking young woman paused, looked at her and seemed to do some kind of full sensor scan, assessing Sam.

"Paula Jo," Paula corrected her and she extended her vampire white hand for a polite shake. The nails were perfectly sculpted works of art, literally, with exotic three dimensional shapes (gargoyles? Dolphins?) swirling up, they reminded Sam of this comic book artist that Freddie liked, Jack Kirkby was it? Sam didn't really like his rendition of women but they were definitely unique. Lady GaGa's undead sister took the seat opposite Sam at the table. Sam noticed her eyes. Violet eyes, lovely purple, like flowers warmly bursting out of a snow drift. They had to be contacts.

Before her inner circuit breakers could kick-in Sam pointed at the head piece and said, "Can you get satellite on that?"

Paula Jo smiled, "How delightful, James mentioned that you fancy yourself as funny."

Sam wasn't ready for that, but it made sense that James would talk about his previous lover, and Sam tried to remember if he talked about his ex's with her. She cleared her throat, "Yeah, well, thanks for coming. I realize my messages must have seemed, well I can imagine what you might have thought."

Paula Jo stared at Sam, unreadable, like a stick of white marble with a hat and slash of crimson lipstick. She was squinting, trying to understand or possibly look through Sam with some powerful X-ray vision.

BREAK**********************************************************

Sam's first time with James Ryan was instructive in many ways. She had anticipated much more, something spiritual or enlightening, some new plateau or undiscovered country, but it was a great deal like his lectures in class, he was putting on a show, trying to inspire. She wondered if he wanted applause at the climax. He was very good and he took her body to school, but when he finished holding her, talking to her, when he finally rolled away to sleep she felt alone. That had never happened with Freddie.

All of her times with Freddie there had been something to keep. Their couplings were intimate, exploratory, filled with passionate connection, and a great deal of laughter. Like the time they thought they were alone in the Shay apartment only to have Spencer walk through the room, into the kitchen and out again, apparently so consumed with some project that he never noticed the partially clad couple on his sofa. It was never mentioned except by them and always with red-faced delight.

At night, each had caught the other staring, thinking the other was asleep. Freddie told her how he loved to stroke her hair in the dark, and when he slumbered she was content just to watch him breath.

That first night with James she could not sleep, instead she watched James breath, trying to make out the hairs and liver spots in the dark. What filled her was not contentment, instead, something cold whispered that she had made a wrong turn, and she said to the darkness, "What did I do?"

She had reconnected with Carly a few months after Freddie left. Several times Carly joined her and James for dinner. It was the fact that James was using his charm on Carly that made the light go on about what James Ryan might really be. Sam realized how common she still was, and how some things did not change. All the boys want Carly.

She ended it with James Ryan after a year. She could no longer ignore the towering evidence of his infidelities, and the disturbing sham that was his real life. She was pretty sure he did not consider it cheating or false, however. One more thing he had schooled her in was the art of lying. All her life she had considered herself a master liar, but James was from the planet of fiction, that in the hierarchy of dissemblers it was Satan, James Ryan and then a lot of politicians fighting for third. She had come to the conclusion that he was not aware of how deep his own truthlessness ran. He seemed to believe his most outrageous statements, regardless of the facts, as if his uttering that he could fly would turn off gravity. His power was that for a while he made her believe as well.

Her last time with James Ryan was the usual athletic display with attachments, and oils and herbs and music. She had started to laugh about it, what was next, clowns? It seemed to her that he was defying the passing of time by being with her-with every woman. It wasn't about them together, there was no them, it was another chapter in this so far endless story about his life. Her exit was pure, impulsive Sam, she stopped him on the down stroke with the words, "I think I heard the bell, teacher man," and in a jumble of oiled limbs and flying sheets she was gone. His look was indignant, like she was walking out before his finale, but it felt right, not like the night she broke up with Freddie, but more like how Carly talked about what it felt like to go home.

She set out to rebuild her life. All around her was ash and burned stones, wreckage that had to be sorted through. Sam decided men were a dead end, or at least her ability to connect with them was. She concentrated on her school work, and volunteered at a shelter for endangered children. Nothing magical happened there, she did not become the blazing memory that stopped a child from growing up to rob a convenience store, but she did get a better sense of degree. Pam Puckett had neglected her but had never burned her with cigarettes or hot stoves, or let strangers be with her for money. Her past had molded her, but she saw that others had deeper holes to crawl out of.

She had tried to contact Freddie several times over the years. When she was first involved with James she missed her nub, Fredifer; she wanted to joke with him, to battle the best opponent she ever had. She missed laughing, and how they used to surf channels seeing how long it would take one of them to identify what was playing. Freddie was better with movies, and she was better with TV shows. They would fall asleep like that. Couldn't they still be friends? They weren't children anymore. Fred was very easy to find on the Internet: He had a Splashpage, a blog, IM and e-mail addresses. He always responded but his replies were brief and polite. They weren't the connection she craved; she tried to incite him, to rile him up, but his responses were courtesies from a great guy. She wanted to punch him.

Then, as her suspicions that James was not what she thought he was, what he outright pretended to be, gained footing, when she caught him in lies, she wanted to talk to her best friend, the one who prevailed when bad people threatened and her own inner violence was not the best response. He had ridded her of Missy, he had figured out how to send a help message when they were imprisoned in a lunatic's basement, his nerdy, nubby tech skills redeemed them at the web awards. She desperately needed the arms that pulled her in the window when she almost fell off the window washer lift. It wasn't rescue she wanted, Sam Puckett did not need rescue, she needed connection, she needed Freddie, the curious, invisible balance he brought that was as real and untouchable as the air she breathed.

And that need made her feel small and ashamed.

Sam never made that call, because she knew he would take that call, he would help, because it was the right thing to do. She had no business contacting him. She had lost that privilege.

When she ended her relationship to Professor James Ryan she did it as she had accomplished so much in her life: By herself with only herself to depend on. She thought about letting Freddie know, about taking a chance, but she could not bring herself to do that. What would she say, "Hey dork, take me to dinner"?

The worst time she reached out was when she called Gibby. She was desperate, hungry to talk to Freddie and she knew that he and Gibby were working together. She couldn't call Freddie directly, not after all this time, but she could find out how he was doing, find out if he ever asked about her. They used to fight and war and care about all the same things. He HAD to miss her, just a little.

Sam: Hey Gib.

Gibby: Sam! He said brightly, but this is what he thought, no way are you getting to Fred. You can break my thumbs again, but you aren't going to break his heart.

Sam: Dude, how's it going? What can I say to find out about Freddie?

Gibby: Man, it's been a long time. How's school? You still with that dirty old man professor?

Sam: Just about done, now to find out what kind of job I can get. Anything out your way? Go slow, don't race to Freddie.

Gibby: It's pretty tight, unless you're Fred and people keep begging you come work for them.

Score! He mentioned Freddie first and Sam felt her heart jolt. She had to be cool, not appear too anxious, "Yeah, sucks to be him, I'll bet. What are you doing for fun these days?" Good, nice and easy.

Gibby gave her a rundown of his romantic adventures, which were inexplicable to her in terms of his astounding success but he went on long enough that she had to force it back to Freddie.

"You do all of this in Freddie's car?" she asked.

"Not all of it, I have my own place, but hangin' with Fred improves the lady odds if you catch my drift."

This was her chance, get him to talk about Freddie, put her foot in the door and wedge it open, "Please. That's just science fiction, no girl gets all fluttery when the Nerd King whips out his tech." She regretted it instantly; it was too harsh in her rush to appear uninterested.

Gibby heard the words and felt his teeth clench. While the jab was standard issue Sam, for Gibby it was like swallowing a lit cigarette. No way. She did not just slam the guy that got her into college, the guy who put up with all her chiz, took care of her when she was sick, paid her way when she was strapped. Okay lady, you got this coming. "Sam, when was the last time you hung out with Fred?"

She swallowed and closed her eyes, the last time they had spent time in the same room had been when he brought some of her things from his place that she kept when she would sleep over. She remembered it clearly and miserably. "I dunno, why?"

"Sam, that guy you used to make fun of is gone. He goes to the bar every Friday and Saturday," this was true—he worked at bars on those nights, "and he hasn't gone home alone since I've been here." That was a lie. Fred had dated a few times, but his relationship systems were badly damaged. Sam's heart felt like a dirty icicle in her chest. This was not what she wanted to hear. What did she expect? That Freddie was just waiting for her to come to her senses? YES! Like he had always done when she behaved badly, he was always so patient, he knew her, understood how her mind worked. She had beaten on him for years and he always stayed.

"Sam, you did him a real favor when you cut him loose. It forced him to grow up and get his life together."

She felt sick to her stomach and her eyes burned where the tears gathered. Had Freddie turned into Pam Puckett, her mother, someone who sleeps around as a way of numbing inner pain? Unless, some graveyard voice mumbled, maybe there was no inner pain. Why would Sam leaving cause anybody inner pain?

"Gib, does he ever ask about me?" the question was straightforward, there was no energy left for pretense.

"I don't think I've ever heard him say anything." That was true, but Gibby was acutely aware that Sam was with Fred every hour of the day, that she haunted him like a ghost on a midnight walk. But she didn't deserve to hear that.

BREAK****************************************************************

Sam stared at the icy figure across from her. She was out of those fantasy novels Freddie consumed with the same passion she inhaled ham. Sam finally spoke once more. "Uhm, I asked you, I mean, I'm here to…"

Paula Jo leaned in, "Let me make this easy. I know why you're here," she said with a white smile and Sam noted that even her gums were pale, an unripe tomato color.

"You do?"

"Yes, you want to tell me that James Ryan is a loathsome user of impressionable women and that I should run away while I can."

Sam blinked rapidly, "Wow. That was easy-thanks."

Paula Jo's lovely, arctic face clouded over and poked at Sam with a tender, almost piteous gaze, "Samantha, he told me all about you, how dysfunctional you are, that you are a sad, broken girl filled with regret who can't get her life together so you pull down everyone around you into your misery."

That James had told this unusual woman she was dysfunctional, sad and broken, was a blade in her stomach. Did James believe it or was it one of his manipulations? She remembered the headaches sorting his lies gave her. Sam Puckett rose to meet the strike, "Hey, frosty, don't sugar coat it, give it to me straight."

Paula Jo shrugged off Sam's mocking tone then continued, "Samantha, you don't know him, how wonderful he is. I feel so bad for you. You have no idea what you walked away from."

Sam's eyebrows rolled like incoming surf, her lips tightened and she had to un-ball her right fist. There was a time she would have just knocked this Queen of the North Wind into another zip code just for calling her Samantha, but Freddie's influence was here, calming, suggesting she not punch her problems. "My name is Sam, and I know what I lost. James Ryan convinced me to throw away my friends and jump into this jank story he's writing about himself. You're just going to be another chapter in a long, dull book, although the part where you go for a walk in the daylight might be fun—do you glitter or burst into flames?"

Paula Jo looked like she had bitten into something sour and Sam notched one on inner inner scoreboard.

Sam continued, "I knew I wasn't the first student he had seduced, but I thought I was special, that the train had docked."

"Trains don't dock."

Sam felt herself tense, it was happening again, someone smarter, more exotic was taking from her, looking down on her, begging to have a limb broken. Freddie always said she "Hulked out" joking about how her eyes would get milky green and then he'd make this goofy choral sound. She smiled and un-balled her fist again and finished her thought, "Then I found he was with other girls, this was before you, while he was still with me-he hunts female students, keeping some kind of weird count- I'm trying to save you."

Paula Jo spoke like Sam was deficient, "Save me? From what exactly? From what could be the next critical stage of my life?"

Sam nodded. She recognized the words (they were James') and the selfish, this-feels-too-good-to-be-wrong thinking. If she closed her eyes, the words and feelings were hers a year ago. "Listen whitey, I hear what you're saying; I felt the same way. He's like (she wanted to say, "Sven Gollum" but she knew that wasn't right and she couldn't afford to look dumb after the train gaff), I dunno, dude could sell cold to an ice cube." Looking at the polar figure before her she felt proud of the description.

They sat in silence briefly.

Finally, Paula Jo asked, "Why? What do you care what happens to me?" Sam couldn't tell if it was a serious question, judgment was failing, she was seething, conflicted, Freddie telling her to be nice, her own impulses sparking and flashing like loose wires, pushing to pound this powdered sugar donut flat into the floor.

Sam inhaled deeply, gathering her calm, pushing down the volcanic rage that churned behind her eyes, "Because someone showed me how important it is to do the right thing. James is going to keep doing this, it's like drinking or gambling, he can't stop. He's hurt too many people. I wish someone had warned me…" and she stopped because nothing would have stopped her. Carly had tried to talk her out of it, but James' persuasive pitch (indoctrination? Brainwashing?) was too powerful, too practiced. And the thought that she had been fooled, lied to and abandoned by a grown man, the thought that some older male got to know her and then walked away was a shriek that echoed in her deepest parts, causing a storm that made her squirm in her seat.

Paula Jo stood and gave Sam a look of pity usually reserved for children with leukemia. Again Sam felt hot lava ready to burst out of her head. Again, she heard him say, "Saaaaam, Don't do it. We can't punch every problem."

Paula Jo had no idea how close she came to a savage beating, if she had she might not have said this: "I hope you get some help. I feel sorry for you. You've turned your back on something most people only dream or write about," Paula Jo stood up and turned to the door.

Sam rose up, her legs bent to propel her in full attack mode, but this time she calmed herself. There was no Freddie, just her own sense of how to behave, "Well that went well," Sam said to Paula's back. "Sam Puckett, defender of women." But for all her joking, Sam knew that wacky, pale-as-flour, Paula Jo was fundamentally right. And that burned hot and hard in her chest.

Living with your mistakes, that must be how you get old-learning to live with what you did wrong.

Sam continued to sit in the coffee shop, the cream pie still uneaten-some kind of record for Sam Puckett. When asked if she wanted her cup freshened up she replied, "Nah, I'm good," and she recalled that was exactly how Gibby had responded when she asked him to the girls' choice dance. She remembered Freddie's amused snort when she shared her outrage at being turned down by Gibby. She shivered as she recalled Freddie's immediate terror when she clutched his collar. Wow, can't imagine he wouldn't miss that chick.

"We're gonna be shutting down ma'am," the barista told her. "Can I get you anything else?"

She shook her head, "sorry for taking up the space for so long."

"I'scool" he replied with a smile, and those words took her back. Some days Freddie was everywhere.

She stepped out into the warm night, walking to the shuttle stop. Overhead no stars were visible, but the moon was a pearl crescent broach clipped to a black silk sky.

Sitting on the shuttle bench she looked up at the moon and she felt this more than thought it: Nub—Freddie, I miss you, I miss us, but I did what I thought I had to do. Remember what you said? 'You never know what might happen,' well, now I know, and I have to tell you—I'd do it again. I just wish that when it was all over that we were together, like a trip that you take or something. You leave home, but eventually you come back.

She remembered the nights on the fire escape, when she and Freddie would lie on their backs and talk. One time she told him the crescent moon reminded her of rolls her mom would make when Sam and her sister were little. When they went back inside Freddie baked some frozen rolls for her, serving them with honey butter and cinnamon sugar. She thought she could smell them now, even in the crowded air of the city at night and she felt the stirrings of an old friend.

Sam was hungry again.

A/N. In the real world, it would end here. Me? I write to get out of the real world. Chapter three is on its way.

If you made it this far, feedback on both chapters is welcome. If you didn't make it this far, you aren't reading this.