Chapter 29
Freddie called and explained the situation regarding Pam to Melanie. He also told her he was staying to keep Sam company. Melanie smiled to herself at the thought. Freddie figured he'd just crash on the couch and that way he'd be handy if Sam needed him. He was settled in, watching TV with the volume turned way down when his phone buzzed. It was a text from Sam. 'Can you come upstairs?'
Freddie tossed off the blanket he had draped over himself and went up the steps. As he approached Carly's old room, where Sam was staying, he saw the lights were very low. When he opened the door, he saw Sam already in bed, curled up in a ball, facing the door.
"What's up?" He asked quietly.
"Um, would, uh, you maybe be able to stay with me?" She whispered and shuffled back, making room for him. "Here."
Freddie understood she didn't want to be alone with her thoughts.
"Just until I fall asleep."
"Sure, Sam." He went to sit on the bed, but she lifted the blankets to invite him to crawl underneath with her.
In the dim light, Freddie could see her raise an eyebrow as he swung his legs up onto the bed. "You're not gonna sleep in those jeans are you?"
"Well, I really don't have anything with me." He shrugged. "You could maybe get away with borrowing my clothes, but I doubt I'd fit in anything of yours. Short-stuff." He teased.
"You're not exactly a giant either, Fred-nub. Get in the bottom dresser drawer." She pointed. "The right side."
Freddie did as ordered and found a pair of his old Ridgeway High sweat pants from gym class, complete with the name Benson on the leg. Like all gym uniform pants, they had the student's name on. "How did you get these?" He hadn't seen the pants in years and just figured his mother tossed them or used them to cut up into dust cloths.
"I might have snitched them from your bag the one time you came to L.A." She confessed. "Sorry."
"And you kept them all this time?" He was surprised at her sentimentality. "That was years ago."
"Hey, they're comfortable alright." She didn't want to admit that she kept them mainly because they were his and she didn't wash them for a long time after his visit.
Freddie slipped into the bathroom to change and came out wearing his old gym class pants, which were now a little snug on him, and the wife beater style undershirt that he normally wore under his polo shirts. He placed his folded clothes on the love-seat and approached the bed.
Sam smirked at the sight. "That looks more comfortable. And where did those shoulders come from?"
He didn't respond, but simply crawled into bed after turning off the bedside light.
"Goodnight, Nub." She teased and snuggled into his side, enjoying the lingering scent of his cologne left on his chest after a long day.
"Goodnight, Sammy." He kissed the top of her head, taking in the aroma of her shampoo which was deliciously Sam-like, kind of a vanilla and sugar cookie combination. It made her smell like an ice cream cone. She noticed him burying his nose in her hair.
His affection emboldened Sam, who began slowly tracing patterns on his chest and abdomen with her left hand. "Thanks, Freddie. For being here for me, I mean. I don't know what I'd do without you." With that she turned her head to find him closer than she expected. Their lips slowly came together in one fateful act of passion. The feeling of a thousand volts of electricity penetrated their bodies. This was something they both wanted, something they both needed for years, something they would both give into willingly.
At first, Freddie was stunned by her brazen move, but he quickly remembered she was the aggressor ninety percent of the time when it came to not only any rare PDA but the physical side of their previous relationship. As he kissed back, he felt her teeth nip at his bottom lip and her tongue trace over the same spot. Soon he returned the favor and the two kissed, made out and gently groped for what seemed like an eternity. One thing was certain, there would be little sleep that night.
Neither knew where they stood or what to think the next morning when they parted ways for her to visit her mother's bedside at the hospital and he headed home to get cleaned up to go into work, albeit a bit late. They didn't speak of the act which they both fully gave themselves to, nor did they talk about their relationship. Freddie gathered up his clothes off the floor, folded the sweatpants neatly and laid them on the desk chair before he left, allowing Sam to keep her souvenir, hoping he'd see them, and her, again.
Life goes on and the two continued their friendship just like they had for years. He'd send her a text to ask how her mother was doing, she'd respond with an update and then torment him about whether Marissa enjoyed her latest shock treatment. After work, she'd drop by with pizza or a bucket of fried chicken and give him one piece just like she normally would. For days, they only discussed things pertinent to everything but "them". Although they still spent a lot of time together, Sam and Freddie hadn't spoken about what they did since it happened.
It had only been a week, but it was still a long time for two people to ignore something so important. Freddie knew better than to bring it up for fear of either driving her away or being accused of acting like a nub. Of course, Sam wouldn't breech the subject because that was too much like something an actual girl would do. That, and the subject scared the chiz out of her.
Pam eventually came out of her coma and a few days later. Sam even persuaded Melanie to accompany her to the hospital to see their mother a couple of times, who was slowly recovering. Pam was certainly not Mel's priority, and ever since the incident with the guy who tried to assault her, and her mother's subsequent kicking her out, Melanie hadn't spoken to or been in the same room with the woman who gave birth to her.
Being unconscious for nearly a week gave Pam the opportunity to detox a bit and with a little help from the doctors, she was drying out. The girls spoke to the staff at the hospital about having their mom committed to a rehab facility to ensure she continued down the road to recovery when it was time to be discharged from the hospital.
After the hospital visit, the twins were on their way back to Freddie's so Sam could drop Melanie off and were making small talk. "So what's Nick been up to? You haven't mentioned anything about him in days?"
"Meh." Sam shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. "Haven't spoken to him in a while."
"Awww, are you guys having problems?" Mel was hoping this might be the opportunity for a Seddie reunion. She waited with anticipation for any indication from Freddie as to what transpired the night he spent with Sam, but neither he nor her sister gave any clue. Freddie hand to leave town for a few days for a training conference giving the twins extra time to spend together and even though he called both girls every day not a word was spoken about the night of the fourth.
"Huh? No. But all this chiz with mom and all, I just haven't had a chance to see him." Sam was hiding something, or trying to hide something, from the one person she couldn't keep things from, her twin sister. "We've never been glued to each other, ya know. I'm not married to the guy. Hell, we're barely going steady. Not like I have time for a relationship anyway with this other mess."
Sam didn't want to admit to her sister that she was never truly invested in Nick. Mel knew she was still carrying a torch for Freddie. What she didn't know was the flame of that torch was fueled into a roaring fire many days earlier.
Mel's BS detector went off big time and she called Sam on her cool facade. "You realize I can see completely through you, right?"
Sam huffed and continued to stare at the road in front of the car. Which was good because she was driving.
"What happened, Sammy? Do you want to talk about it? I know we weren't that close growing up but we're close now. Or at least I hope we are. You can tell me anything."
As close as the girls had tried to become, Sam resented how Melanie basically allowed her to be the one to deal with their mother's issues. She had to practically drag her to the hospital to visit Pam both times she went. This was Sam's chance to unload as well as deflect from the subject at hand.
"Oh, really? Close huh? Then where were you when Mom got stabbed? I went to the hospital and you sat there and hung out with Gibby like the ice queen herself. You might as well have started singing a song about making a freakin' snowman for crissake. And by the way, I know you have the hots for that shirtless potato-man. You'd better shut that shit down right now, it's gross."
"This isn't about me or who I like, Sam." Melanie crossed her arms and glared at her sister, turning slightly in the passenger seat.
"You're right, it's about you leaving me alone to deal with what happened to our mother. Maybe you didn't care about what was going on with Pam, but you could have been there for me. You know your twin sister that you're so close to." Sam made air quotes at the last couple of words.
"Sam! Hands on the steering wheel!" Mel screeched. The girls had already spent too much time together the past few days, with no one else as a buffer and they were getting on each other's nerves.
"Look Mels, I know you got all wazzed off when that dude grabbed your tit and Mom kicked you out because she thought you should have left him feel you up or whatever. And I don't blame you, believe me I empathize completely. But here's a news flash for Melanie Puckett, you're not the only girl one of Mom's sleazy, smelly, dirt bag boyfriends tried to rape."
"Sammy!" Mel gasped, putting her hand over her mouth, suddenly more concerned for her sister than angry. "What are you saying? Did one of them force himself onto you when we were kids?"
"No." Sam snapped at her sister. "Not the whole way, but more than one of them sure tried over the years. They offered me drugs or alcohol to loosen me up, which I always refused. Some dude even tried to roofie me when we were about sixteen. Thank God I saw him drop the pills in the glass before I drank it and I dumped it out and hit the bricks. But one of them ripped my shirt off and chased me around the house and tried to shove his nasty old - thing in my face."
"Oh my God, Sam! I had no idea. Why didn't you ever say anything? And you're still willing to stick by mom?" Melanie suddenly realized how selfish she had been. "You're a better person than I am."
Sam smirked at Melanie's admission, but continued to vent. "And that night, you know who was there for me while you were playing tonsil hockey with Gibby?"
Mel gasped. "I wasn't! Not that night."
"Whatever!" Sam huffed, cutting her off. "And I don't need to know about you swapping spit with Gibby. EV-ER!"
Melanie now huffed and made a low grumble under her breath.
"You know who was there for me? Freddie. That's right. The biggest nub in the world, Fredward frickin' Benson. He was there to hold my hand and let me cry into his shoulder. The guy I treated like crap the whole way through middle school, the guy who I always bullied and made fun of and stole his lunch money or even just his lunch outright. The guy I pushed down the steps and shoved into lockers and forced to do my homework and carry my books for me all through high school."
"The first guy you kissed. The first guy you seriously dated." Mel added. "The guy you've been not so secretly in love with since, what, eighth grade?"
"The only guy who ever broke my heart." Sam said quietly.
"So what happened?" Mel asked, seeing a tear in Sam's eye before she tried to slyly wipe it away. "With Freddie, I mean. I know you guys didn't fight or he would have said something to me."
Sam wouldn't answer.
"Whoa, wait. Oh my God, if you didn't fight, it - it was the opposite? I knew something happened, didn't it? That's why he's been acting so weird. Did he ask you out or something? Sammy!"
Sam made no denials. "Honestly, it was all a blur, Mel. We came home from the hospital, I was depressed, I don't even remember how he ended up in the bed with me that night. But he was still there in the morning." Sam's look told her sister that she was at least happy with this memory.
"That's great, Sammy. I'm so happy for you. You've been waiting to get together with him for so long." Melanie lit up, happy for this news for a second before thinking of something else. "But you said something about bed? You didn't just sleep in the same bed. Holy chiz doodles, you guys did it, didn't you? You cashed in your v-card with Freddie and now you're beating yourself up for hooking up with him when you're seeing Nick?"
"I'm not seeing Nick anymore." Sam whined. "How can I ever face that poor man again, Mel? I cheated on him. I hooked up with an old boyfriend just like his skunk bag of an ex-wife did. I'm a no good slut. I might as well be Pam Puckett 2.0."
"Don't say that. You didn't just hook up with an old boyfriend, you reconnected with a man you truly love and always have. There's nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm gonna end up just like Mom. Well, maybe I won't be all strung out and drunk, but I'll never know true love. I'm just a white trash skank like her."
"Sam! Of course you're not. And yes, you will know love. And you want to know why? Freddie, that's why. As long as you have Freddie in your life, you'll always have love. All you need to do is accept it."
Sam took her sister's words to heart after Mel got out of the car and Sam drove back to Bushwell. She went to her bed and tried to sleep as she attempted to wrap her head around the idea that what she'd been wanting for the last however-many-years was right in front of her, staring her in the face. All she had to do was say one word "yes". The only trouble was, this was the hardest thing she could imagine doing.
The next day, Freddie had stopped by his mother's apartment to help her move some furniture so she could steam clean the carpets. He was just walking out her door when Sam opened the door of Spencer's apartment and walked out herself.
"Hey, Sam." He walked closer to her.
"Sup, nub." She simply replied and walked toward the elevator like he was just some random stranger. Freddie followed like a puppy.
The twins had their discussion, it's time for a Seddie 'talk'
