No one was home when I arrived. Jazz spent most of her time on her university's campus lately, and Mom and Dad were probably out ghost hunting. Not that I was complaining. Now that they had finally gotten good, it lightened the pressure on me and left me free to do things.

Not wanting to hang out alone in an empty house, I wondered what I should do. Tucker was, inexplicably, angry with me after our conversation on the way home. I considered going to Paullina's but she and Starr were going shopping after their cheerleading practice and I'd already been warned not to bug her tonight. That left Sam, and I was already grinning at the prospect.

I transformed into Phantom, taking a quick flight over to her house. I floated above her balcony and knocked. There was no answer.

Maybe she was in the bathroom or something?

I knocked again, a little louder. I didn't want to be too loud, however. I didn't want her mother to hear the commotion and start questioning what her teenaged daughter was up to. While I was sure that Mrs. Manson couldn't find me, I didn't want her starting to pay closer attention to Sam (God that sounded horrible – I didn't want a mother to pay attention to her own daughter!) and accidentally discover me.

I took a breath and entered Sam's room. It was weird to be in here without Sam. I called her name softly, but I knew that she wasn't in here. I didn't want to stay here without her permission, but I also didn't want to leave without seeing her. I decided to make myself at home and wait a little while to see if she would come back.

I plucked a book off her shelf; The Lovely Bones. It sounded rather morbid and it tugged at my curiosity. I settled down against her bed with it, flipping it open to the first page and beginning to read, rather slowly. Reading was definitely not my strong point, but I enjoyed it … occasionally.

I had only gotten a few pages in when Sam's door burst open.

"Hi," she greeted.

I immediately sat up, feeling awkward. What if she didn't want me here, digging in her stuff and taking her book? "I borrowed it from your shelf," I blurted.

"No worries." Sam curled up next to me. "It's one of my favourites."

"It seems different," I admitted, reaching for her hand instead.

"How was school?" I asked her.

"Good news or bad news?" She returned, and then frowned. "There's actually two bad news. News? Newses? I don't know. There's bad news and then another bad news."

Damn, that had been cute. I smiled. "Uh. Bad news, good news, bad news?" I suggested.

Sam paused. "I'll just tell you. These need to go in a certain order."

"Sure," I agreed, just happy to listen to her talk.

"I went to tutor Fenton last night, as you might remember."

I nodded and tried not to flinch. I didn't want to hear about how big of a monster she thought I was.

"He scared the shit out of me. Sorry, I know I don't usually swear but there's no other way to describe it. He just got so angry. I thought he was going to hurt me."

Fuck. I swallowed, trying to push down the self-hatred that was rising within me. I pulled her into a hug. "He won't hurt you," I told her, wondering how she would react if she ever knew that he couldn't hurt her – he would rather hurt himself. "I promise. So long as you know me, he will never hurt you."

Her head fell onto my shoulder. "You're sweet."

"So that was one of the bad things?" I clarified, wanting to move on from that topic as quickly as possible.

She nodded. "I'm a cheerleader."

It took a second for me to process the words but the moment she did, I burst out laughing. I was trying to picture her as a cheerleader, shaking her pom poms and all it was doing was making me giggle like a schoolgirl.

Sam huffed and sat up. "Are you done?"

"I'm sorry," I forced out through my chuckles. "I was just picturing you as a cheerleader."

"Haha," Sam snorted, hitting me with one of her pillows. I tried to quell my over the top reaction. "Anything else?"

I made a leering expression at her. "Wear the uniform for me?" I suggested.

"Pig," she accused, tossing another pillow my way.

I quickly formed the pillows into a barrier between us and looked at her over the top of them. "I'm guessing that's a no."

"That's a definite no," she said quickly.

"Damn," I sighed longingly. It wasn't a complete joke either. The Amity uniforms were slutty as hell. It would be awesome were a girl to parade around me in one of those, just for me. "I'll get to see it on you when you practice anyway."

"Because that sentence isn't creepy," Sam groaned. She dashed away my pillow wall and returned to my arms.

"Didn't mean it to be creepy," I explained. "What's the good thing?"

"I met a friend."

"Really? Who?" I asked, honestly excited for her. I wanted Sam to enjoy her life here – so long as she was enjoying it with other females and not guys.

"Her name is Valerie. She's an unwilling cheerleader like me. She wants to hang out Friday after cheer practice!"

Valerie… Oh Jesus. Just when this whole situation couldn't possibly get anymore fucked up, it did. I only knew of one Valerie in Amity Park. She was the girl I dated before Paullina, back when I was a geek in middle school and she was still part of the popular crowd. Eventually, we broke up and her dad lost his job so she also fell from grace where Paullina was considered. Then, after I had been with Paullina, I had been at a party slightly, well, intoxicated. Due to that, I had slept with Valerie. And now she and Sam were friends.

Don't I just have all the luck.

"Valerie," I echoed the name. "She hangs out with Paullina, right?"

I was hoping that Sam would go, 'No, of course she doesn't. She just moved here, like me'. But, it didn't quite go that way.

"Used to. She used to date the ass hat too, though. I can't imagine that. She seems so nice! Of course, she said he used to be different but I don't think I believe it. Also, I can't understand why Paullina would still be with someone who cheated on her. There's so much wrong in there I can't even begin."

Heh. Well, did it count as cheating if I were two different people?

I decided to distract us both from the issues of cheaters (because that made me feel wrong in a way that I couldn't fully understand). Perhaps it was time to attempt to cast Fenton in a better light, see if I couldn't lift her negative feelings toward him a little bit. It all felt so contradictory. On one hand, I couldn't stand Sam hating any part of me. On the other hand, I wanted her to hate Fenton because I didn't want her drawing parallels and asking questions that I wasn't ready to answer.

"You know, you sure talk about this guy a lot considering how much you hate him." I rubbed my hands up and down the length of her arms.

Sam rolled her eyes at me. "I don't talk about him a lot," she scorned. "Know thy enemy. It might get better on that front though."

The enemy comment stung, I will admit. The 'better' comment did perk me up a little. "Yeah?"

"I don't have to tutor him anymore! If he needs help in school he either has to find someone else or come and beg me to do it. So, if I can keep away from him inside of school there's no more interaction! Life in Amity is starting to look up."

Right. The only way to fix her issues with Fenton were to avoid him. It was, however, fair enough. I had made her despise my other persona. But her words also brought up a raging text conversation I'd had with Jazz, where she had demanded I take back Sam as a tutor since she had been the only one who'd ever gotten me anywhere in school.

"Mmmhm," I managed. Talking to her was awesome – I loved how she became ridiculously excited over the little things in life – but we had been sitting here for such a long time and she hadn't even indicated that she wanted to kiss me.

But I sure as hell wanted to kiss her.

Before I could make a move toward her, she was coming toward me, wrapping her arms around my neck and taking my lips for her own.

When we finally pulled away from each other, the only thing I could think of to say was, "You're beautiful."

Sam gawked blankly at me.

Had I said something wrong?

"SAMANTHA!" A reedy voice shouted.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"What?" Sam trumpeted back.

"Get dressed dear!"

Sam leapt from the bed, sticking her head out the door and shouted her reply. "Dressed? Mother, you can't keep springing these outings on me!"

"I have to!" Mrs. Manson called back. "Otherwise you would find a way out of it."

"She's right," I mumbled, laughing at Sam's obvious displeasure at her mother's announcement.

"Shut up."

"Tsk tsk," I lectured her. "Don't be rude."

Sam looked as though she might deck me, but luckily for me, Mrs. Manson took Sam's attention away from me.

"Get dressed!" She repeated.

"For where?" Sam demanded.

"The Sanchez's are hosting a dance tonight! Wear something extremely fancy!"

My heart slammed against my chest at the same moment Sam's door slammed. Shit, I thought, I almost fucking forgot. How could I forget? That's all she and Starr had been talking about for weeks. I guess I tuned out the repetitive nature of their conversation after a while, and thus, my absent brain.

"Who hosts a dance in the middle of freaking November?"

"You'll have fun," I tried to assure Sam as I saw her glowering. I tried not to think about how excited she had been to finally be out of Fenton's way, and here I was, about to barge into Paullina's party.

"Says the butcher as he leads the lamb to slaughter," Sam exclaimed. "What kind of outfit constitutes as 'extremely fancy' anyway?"

I shrugged and pointed at my spandex. "Dunno. Maybe you haven't noticed but I have one outfit."

"Sometimes I think you're lucky for that." Sam opened a door opposite her bathroom door and walked inside.

I sat on her bed, confused. What the hell was in there?

I floated off the bed and followed her inside. I gaped at the rows and rows of clothing that were hanging in the large room. I could stretch my arms out and not hit the edges of my closet! This was nuts.

"Down the rabbit hole!" I quipped – the place was really that foreign to me.

"Alice In Wonderland? Hm." Sam mused, looking through her clothing. "Not quite."

"You going to be okay? It is a Paullina party," I pointed out. I knew Sam could handle herself in front of Paullina, but once she was on her own going over the events in her head, she completely fell apart. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to get away from Paullina for a long time tonight – I wouldn't be around to pick up any pieces she might let fall.

"Trying not to think too much on that fact," Sam admitted. "I'm hoping that I can hide in the background and no one will even know I was there."

I would know she was there. I would be looking for her when I arrived.

"What's the point in that? I don't know how you see it, but to me that would be letting them win. If you go in there looking beautiful and confident then how can they fight that?"

It wasn't that I wanted Sam to think that she had to beat Paullina and her crowd. I wanted Sam to feel beautiful and confident about herself. I knew she deserved to see it because she was beautiful. I just knew that she didn't think so.

"I'm not beautiful or confident," Sam explained, confirming my thoughts. "And if you're saying I can steal the spotlight away from Paullina well, that's just complete B.S."

"It's not. And whether or not you believe me, Sam, you are beautiful. You just don't see it. And if you can't use your own confidence in you, use my confidence in you."

"I can't compete with her," Sam protested.

"It's not a competition," I whispered, pressing my lips against her pale cheek. "You've already won."

I tried not to think of the implications of my words. If Sam had already won, then Paullina had already lost … did that mean, at some point along the road, I had made a choice? Dammit no! I growled to myself, stop thinking like that. Nothing has been decided. You're still confused as fucking hell.

I leaned away from Sam and watched her blush. "You think it'll work?"

"Dazzle 'em into submission," I encouraged, knowing that she could.

"All right." Sam plucked a garment bag off of her rack with confidence. "I'll go get changed."

"Can't wait to see!" I told her and took a seat on her bed, wondering just what glamorous Sam looked like.

I was relaxing on the bed when Sam's mother shouted, effectively sending me flying toward the floor. "We leave in fifteen minutes!" Mrs. Manson shrieked.

How did that woman reach such a god awful pitch?

I was cut off from my wondering when Sam strutted into the room. Holy Jesus, Joseph and Mary. Sam, who I was attracted to even when she was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt with no make-up on, was a total knockout. Suddenly, I was rethinking my plan. If she was that fucking hot, not only was Paullina going to see her as a threat, but other guys were sure to notice her. (Not that I had any right to be pulling the jealousy card when I was technically seeing two girls but emotions are emotions.)

Her dress was long, but I was more focused on the slit that went nearly up to her hip. And then my eyes were dragged to her breasts which were emphasized by sparkles. Then I found myself looking at all of her because god, I'd never seen her in anything so tight that brought out all the right places.

"Wow," I announced, knowing that there was no word in the world powerful enough to describe how she looked. "I told you that you could put them all to shame."

"You haven't seen the competition," Sam said.

"There is no competition. If you're talking about the other girls," I added, "I think you're forgetting that I do know who these girls are."

Sam studied me. "I never thought of you knowing them, actually … Did you know Fenton when you were alive?"

My heart stopped. And then, I realized something. If Sam had truly won then I should tell her. Why was I dragging on this charade? Suddenly, I was weighed down by the pointlessness of it.

"Sam," I said slowly, never having told anyone my secret before, "There's something about Fenton that you need to know."

"Yeah?"

"Look, he … that is I –"

"Samantha!" Mrs. Manson shrieked, "Time to go!"

"OKAY!" Sam yelled in return. "What was it you were going to say?"

I shook my head. "It'll have to wait. No need to make your mother angry." I gave her a soft kiss. "Don't forget, you are more beautiful than anyone else there."

"You know, you're pretty cute yourself." Sam winked at me. I could feel blood rising to my cheeks – something that happened very rarely in my Phantom form. But, well, Sam was hitting on me and it was turning me the hell on. "See you after?"

"I'll be waiting."

As soon as Sam left her room, I also left, flying home to put on my tuxedo and get ready for Paullina's party. I arrived back in my room, transforming as soon as my feet hit the floor. I turned toward the closet, pulling my shirt off as I reached for the doors.

"Oh God! Please realize I'm here before you take your pants off!"

I turned around at my sister's squeal. "Jazz!" I exclaimed, dropping my hands away from my belt. "What's up?"

"Where have you been?" She inquired.

"With Sam."

"Uh-huh." Jazz muttered. "Is she going to be at Paullina's party too?"

I nodded mutely.

"Good," Jazz smiled. "Then you can beg her to tutor you again."

"I don't think that's such a good idea."

"It wasn't a suggestion, little brother." Jazz narrowed her eyes at me. "You are going to pass high school, come hell or high water, and Sam is the only one who's gotten any progress toward that goal. So, you are going to get your tutor back."

"Yes, Jazz," I gave in quickly.

She gave me a genuine smile. "Great! Now get dressed, I'm ready to go."

I watched her leave my room and then I jumped for my tux.

Review please? It was my birthday yesterday! (It's hard to believe that a year ago yesterday I had just posted chapter 7 of Reflections.) I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: forever sky.

~TL~