This covers chapter 26 of Invincible.
"Winter in Amity," I managed, unable to take my eyes off the backdrop of the photo. "That's some scary shit.
"I mean, I thought," Sam stuttered and then she sighed, rebooting her thoughts. "I thought it was way earlier than that. Even when we saw Tucker's, um, date, I didn't believe it. I can't believe it's snowing out."
"That doesn't mean anything," I said quickly, trying to cover up the words of Tucker's date. It was the nicest way she could have possibly put it but it still hurt. "I've known it to snow early November in Amity."
"Last year it didn't snow until almost Christmas."
"Yeah." I didn't want to think about last Christmas either, but I couldn't stop myself, as I looked up at her. "But this isn't last year."
Last year, at Christmas, she had loved me. Last year, at Christmas, Jazz's cold toes were on my back and she was shoving me out of bed. Last year, at Christmas, the world was spinning at a different speed, it seemed. Sam didn't want to seem to share my thoughts. She grabbed a pillow and hid her face away from me. And then she screamed into the pillow and it scared me so badly I nearly rolled off the bed. I stared at her, wondering if she was finish. She screamed again, the dull noise still echoing around the stone cell.
"Are you okay?" I asked, hoping that she was done.
Sam took the pillow away from her face, her cheeks red and the strands of her long black hair clinging to the pillow. Composed as always, she put the pillow back against the bed and then carefully laid down on it. We were facing each other, in a bed, only a few inches apart. I turned on my back, tucking my hands behind my head, trying to keep a barrier to remind myself about what we really were doing. I turned and looked at Sam and she finally said, "Not at all."
It almost made me smirk. "Yeah, I get that."
"Let's not talk about it."
There was so much that we probably shouldn't talk about. "What's 'it'?"
"All the bad stuff." That was still so vague. "Let's talk about something that'll make us think about happier things."
"Okay." I'd play along with whatever she wanted me to. "Uh, ask me anything."
"How did you meet Tucker?"
Anything but that. Something that I could give her a real answer to. Sam was staring at me, expectantly, and I had to admit, "I don't know."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, it happened when we were really little kids, but I honestly don't know where he came from. One day, he was just in my life and he never really left. I'm not complaining. I just wish I had treated him the way he deserved." I hadn't meant to say the last part but it was still true.
"What do you mean?" Sam asked again, and I shouldn't have been surprised.
"I never gave Tucker enough credit, not once. It got a lot worse when I became Danny Phantom, though, because all of a sudden, we both knew that I was a fucking hero. The only role I let him play after that was sidekick. And then it went downhill again when I started dating Paullina, because I was popular and he knew that the crowd didn't like him as much as they liked me. Except for Kwan, but that's because Kwan literally loves every person he comes across; he's a champ like that. Tuck knew Paullina would give anything to get rid of him and that everyone was following her. I was such a dick to him, too. I was a dick to a lot of people, but Tucker was the least deserving of it." I closed my eyes so that I could try and pretend that she wasn't sitting next to me. I usually tried to keep these kinds of thoughts to myself. "Tucker and you, I should say. But, he knew everything that was going on. He knew about Paullina, he knew about you, he knew that I was going above and beyond dumb-assery and that I needed to stop. He stuck by me for longer than he should have. I never got the chance to tell him how sorry I was. I mean, I said sorry, but I didn't mean it the way I should. I realize that now. Jazz, Tucker, Mikey, so many others, they deserved so much better than what I offered them and … I'm rambling. I'm not making any sense. I'm sorry."
It wasn't something I usually did but I didn't know if I could really stop myself when it came to Sam. Being honest with her was the only policy.
"No, it's okay."
"How about you talk now?" I preferred that. I loved listening to her voice.
"Sure, ask me anything."
"Tell me about the last girl in the photos," I decided. "The one with the baby."
"That's Leslie and her baby, Gavin. She was one of the girls that used to tease me in high school, but having him changed her for the better. She's just a really great friend. Actually, we connected when she was still pregnant and it was one of the most hilarious experiences ever."
God, she was such a good person. "How so?"
"Well, your average teenager is pretty hormonal and crazy, right? Leslie was off the chart originally, but Gavin was screwing with her pretty badly. She was eight months when I got back to Amity, so I didn't really get to experience a lot of pregnant Leslie, but there was one night where I stayed at her house. No joke, it was four in the morning and she wakes me out of a dead sleep. I have a panic attack, thinking that she's going to give birth while I'm asleep next to her and instead she says, 'I'm hungry'. I follow her down to her kitchen, thinking that hungry and pregnant is pretty normal, right?"
"Right," I agreed. "Not that I've spent a lot of time around a pregnant person."
Had I ever?
"So, guess what she makes?" Sam asked, distracting me.
"Chocolate chip cookies." Girls liked chocolate. Shouldn't pregnant girls like chocolate more?
"Close."
"Really?"
"No." I almost felt disappointed. "Well, kinda. She boiled spaghetti, melted chocolate over it, and still covered it in parmesan cheese."
"Gross!" I exclaimed, thinking that it wasn't even close at all.
Sam was laughing. "That's not even the best part!"
"Then, tell me the best part!"
I wanted whatever part would make her laugh.
"She goes down to the den, puts on The Notebook, and then laughs her way through it."
"Isn't that a go-to cry movie?" I hadn't seen it. Not really. I'd fucked Paullina with it in the background but I'd never seen it.
"Usually, but she just found everything hilarious. I like her so much."
"And what about Tara?" I wanted to know that Sam had friends that deserved her and treated her like friends.
"She's my favourite too. She and Leslie don't always get along – Tara's a little bit like a pit bull and Leslie can still act like a princess – but they can still be really good friends when they remember that they like each other."
"A pit bull and a princess?" I asked, thinking that it sounded like a combination of Sam. "What does that make you?"
Sam actually seemed to think about it and I wondered what witty comment she'd come up with. I wasn't prepared for: "Hmm. I suppose that would make me perfect."
She sounded confident and happy and she looked the same when I met her eyes. She had always been so perfect but I was so glad that she could finally see it. She deserved to see that about herself.
"Yeah and so much more." I hadn't meant to whisper the words. I knew that she probably would hate for me to say it and I didn't want to see her pull a face.
She didn't but she didn't look happy about it, necessarily, either. She was just staring at me, some expression I didn't really know or understand on her face.
"You're looking at me weird," I finally said, realizing that she wasn't actually going to speak.
"You're weird," she said, like we were bickering in a schoolyard.
"You're weirder!" I argued, grinning. Childish, fun. Try and let everything else melt away.
"You're childish," Sam said, and she rolled her eyes, but she was smiling a little too and so I just stuck my tongue out at her. If she thought I was childish, I might as well prove it."That only proves my point."
"Eh." I hung my tongue out of my mouth.
Sam rolled her eyes again. "Really, your parents must be so proud of your maturity."
"They have Jazz to be proud of," I scoffed. "I don't need to do anything." Oh. Fuck. I turned my face into my elbow and hid away. "I guess I'll have to step it up when we get home."
If. If I went home. If Sam didn't have to go back alone and face the questions.
"Speaking of home, what's the story we're going to tell?"
"Huh?"
"When the police ask me what happened, I can't exactly reply with: Officer, once upon a time I accidentally dated a boy who was half ghost. He somehow angered the only other half ghost on the planet, who was not only stalking him but is a maniac, with a mysterious master plan. Did I mention that the older halfa ghost is the well-known, well-respected, billionaire businessman, Vlad Masters? Well, Vlad kidnapped us and kept us locked up in a cell, because God knows why. Oh, and, Vlad also made a clone of the boy I accidentally dated and then convinced that clone to date me because he's a little screwy in the head. And, while I'm at it, the clone is a murderer too."
I peeked out of my arm and squinted at her. When she put it like that, it sounded even more fucked up than it already was. "I can see your point."
"It was a difficult point to see."
She didn't have to be such a smart ass about it."
"I guess the best thing would be to play dumb," I said, as if it weren't my specialty at this point. "No one is going to believe us if we try to point the finger at Vlad. And clones? Stalking me? Stalking you? It all sounds too crazy to be real."
"I wish it were too crazy to be real," Sam said, and I agreed completely. "But this is the life we're in."
"You're cute when you're feeling pessimistic."
"I'm exhausted too," Sam said, but she didn't shoot down my compliment.
"Then we'll figure this out quickly." She was cute when she was sleeping too. "So, yeah, we'll play dumb. I'll say that I went to find you at Vlad's party because I thought Tucker was with you. I remember going out into – Wait, where were you when they got you?"
"Out in the garden. Elliot strangled me long enough for me to black out, but I think they gave me drugs to keep me under longer."
"That son of a bitch." Both he and Vlad were going to have to pay. If they were going to kill me, I was going to take them with me. I tried to bring my thoughts back around to the present, rolling onto my stomach and hugging the pillow. "So, I go out into the garden, see you unconscious, and then I feel this pain in the back of my head. We wake up in a totally dark cell and we barely see our kidnappers except for when they want evidence from us."
"And when they gave us a change of clothes. It's too dark for us to see their faces."
"And they wore masks."
"Masks are always a good touch," Sam admitted.
Brightly, I said, "See, Sam? Just because I'm immature doesn't mean I'm completely idiotic."
She rolled her eyes at me, again. "I am living proof you're completely idiotic."
"There's that," I admitted, and she rolled away from me, turning onto her back.
"So, what were you doing when they grabbed you?" she asked.
I answered her, even though I didn't want to think about it."I was with Vlad, in one of the mansion rooms, and we were fighting. Tucker walked into it and Vlad started attacking him. I, of course, went to help Tucker and Vlad … he out-maneuvered me, basically, and I ended up unconscious. I woke up here, before you did, but just before."
Sam looked at me again, her eyes soft. "So, you were there for what happened to him?"
"Not really. What I saw in that picture was not what he looked like when Vlad got to me. They attacked him after; they only did it to hurt me. They only hurt him further because they wanted him to die, Sam. They were planning on this the whole time."
Tucker wasn't supposed to die. He wasn't supposed to be here. He shouldn't have been my friend at all, and he would have been safe.
"He's a psychopath, he has to be. There's something beyond wrong with him."
The anger in her voice roared but tears rolled down my cheeks. Thinking of Tucker was hard. Thinking that I'd never actually see my best friend again was hard.
"I should have been able to stop it." I hid my face in the pillow, letting it catch my tears.
"Aw, no, there's no way you could've known that."
The blankets rustled and I felt Sam's hands against my side. She rolled me softly and then she gathered me into her arms, hugging me to her. I just letting her hold me feeling, for the moment, cared about.
"I could have," I insisted, replaying that fight in my mind. I should have taken Tucker's defense. Been better, faster, gotten to Vlad instead of letting Vlad get to me.
"No, you couldn't have. Trust me."
Trust her, like she wasn't the only person left alive that I could put myself into. That I knew could understand. The one person, and she didn't want to be that person for me. I couldn't let the moments we were having fool me. When we were out, she'd be gone, and I would truly let her go. I mulled the thoughts over and over for too long, staring at the creamy forearm that was resting under my head.
"I do trust you, Sam."
She didn't say anything, even though I didn't know what she would say. She ran her hands though my hair and I just tried to focus on that.
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