I woke up immediately thinking "WHAT HAVE I DONE?" Not helped by the fact that I had a mountain of texts sent to me from Penny hours ago. It was night time now. I scrolled through the notifications, reading a word or two from each.

"We…"

"…talk…"

"…Carrie."

I looked down and saw Carrie in my arms, still fast asleep. I pulled myself away from her, careful not wake her, and sat in the corner of the room trying to calm myself down or find some reassurance.

"It's fine."

"You didn't do anything serious."

"You just have to be honest with Penny."

I don't think I'd be able to look at myself the same way for a while. As if my self-image wasn't bad enough, add cheater on top of murderer. Somehow that bothered me more.

I took a bunch of deep breaths and typed out a message.

"Penny I'm sorry nothing serious happened but Carrie and I fell asleep together and we sort of spooned. I know we all did that last night but this felt different and I feel dirty cause I felt like I sort of cheated. She was just really cold and I wanted to help her warm up but it got kind of cozy and I dozed off and…"

I deleted the message and started over again, and again, and again. Eventually I settled for:

"Hey, I just woke up."

I'd do this in parts.

"I have to tell you something."

She responded back immediately, "Did you read what I sent you?"

"Not completely. I'm kind of freaking out."

"Read. It's important. I don't know what Carrie said to you, but I think we need to talk."

"About what?"

"Phone's about to die."

"Read messages."

"I'm coming over."

My entire body went cold but my heart raced so fast it felt like it was burning in my chest. I scrolled up to the top of Penny's string of messages.

"Gumball." A sleepy voice said behind me, "Is everything ok?"

She was got up out of the bed and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, clumsily walking towards me. Concern took hold of her when she saw I was having trouble breathing.

"Are you ok dude? Do you need to sit down? Should I call someone?"

"Penny's coming." I blurted out.

Her face went red, "S-she is?"

"Her phone died, but she said…" I took a deep breath, "She said something about you?"

I hadn't considered yet what the news might be about Carrie. I was already freaking out too much to have something else to worry about, but I imagined the worst: the Tweakers, in desperation, went to Carrie's house looking for her. Another break in. Maybe Carrie's mom was in trouble.

Whatever it was, Carrie didn't need me to add to her own imagination. She look horrified, like she wanted to curl up into a ball and hide from the world. I could relate.

"Carrie, don't worry, it's going to be ok. I'm sure whatever Penny can't be that bad."

"Don't say that." She backed away from me, "You don't know how hard this is for me."

"Calm down, calm down…" I lowered my voice and stepped up to her, taking her hands in mine, "It'll be ok. We're in this together, remember?"

Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes, which she hurriedly tried to wipe away, "Gumball, you don't think of me any differently do you?"

"What do you…" I realized she must have been referring to just now. Maybe she thought that's why Penny was coming over, cause she found out we were spooning.

"Carrie, it's ok." I reassured her, "She doesn't know yet."

"What?!" Carrie almost screamed.

"There's no need for you to worry. I'm the one who did something wrong."

She went completely silent.

I went on, "It's just… you're my friend. I wanted to help you, and I felt like I pushed you away a bit. So I might have overextended myself."

"Gumball…"

"After everything you've done for me, maybe I felt like it was the right thing to do. I know it was nothing special, but in the end it felt wrong. You know how much I love Penny after all."

"Gumball."

"Even then, I'm not even sure how you really felt about it. Maybe it was just something between friends, but I don't think of it as just that. And I just want to stay friends."

"I get it." She pulled her hands out of mine, "You don't have to sugarcoat this."

I wasn't sure what she meant, "Huh?"

"You're too kind, Gumball. I get it. You and Penny hate me and don't want anything to do with me."

"What? No. I don't hate you. Penny might be upset but I'm sure she's more mad at me."

"Stop. Please." She crouched down on the floor and covered her ears, "You're not making any sense."

"I-I'm sorry. I don't know what to say."

She rushed over to the door, "I need to leave."

"Wait, wait! What if Penny has something important?"

"What could she possibly say that you haven't already told me through your garbled attempts to not call me a freak?"

"I-I wasn't trying to—it seemed really urgent when she messaged me."

"What did she say?"

A loud knock came from downstairs. We both froze. It was Penny.

Oddly enough, knowing she was here calmed me down a bit, as much as I dreaded what would come next. Carrie, on the other hand, started to freak out more. She pulled herself away from the door and hid under the bed, pulling down all the blankets on the bed with her.

I took a deep breath, "Carrie." I said as calmly as I could, "I'm going to go get Penny. I'll talk to her before she comes up here. And then we'll see what she has to tell you, ok?"

"Nooooo…" She pleaded softly from her cocoon of blankets.

"I'm sorry," I got up and opened the door, "but this is important."

I headed downstairs. Not slowly, and not too fast, but my head was still spinning from just waking up, the panic, my brief talk with Penny, and trying to calm Carrie down. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut over and over. I must have sounded delirious to Carrie. I had just been saying what came to mind, I probably wasn't in a good state to just keep saying things without thinking about them. Something I said must have made her think she was in big trouble with Penny and I.

I placed my hand on the doorknob and opened it up. It was, in fact, Penny. She looked bothered, but not like there'd been a murder or anything. Like she had something to do.

"Where's Carrie?" she asked.

"Upstairs in my room."

She stepped in and started making her way towards her, but I stopped her before she could set foot on the first step.

"I just want you to know," I said, preempting her, "Carrie and I had an intimate moment."

"What happened?" She said curiously.

"I was just trying keep her warm but even with a double layer of blankets she was really cold. So I tried to warm her up by getting under the covers with her. And we did that earlier too — besides last night when she curled up with us — but it wasn't as intimate and I didn't really consider it to be anything but her trying to heat up."

"Gumball."

I kept talking without pause, "But then we spooned — and I was the big spoon — and it was only when I woke up I thought, 'this isn't something I should be doing with anyone but Penny.' And I started freaking out and then I saw your messages…"

"You did read them, right?"

"Well I was going to but then Carrie started freaking out and I tried to calm her down and I think she thinks we're both mad at her like she did something wrong, and I don't know how you feel about her now but I certainly feel like this is more my fault than anything else, so if there's any resentment towards her for what I'm telling you just know it should be pointed at me, and not her."

"Gumball. It's ok. Take deep breaths."

I did as she said.

"You didn't do anything wrong. Not to me anyway. You seem pretty worked up about this. I guess Carrie had a harder time telling you than I thought."

I paused, "She was going to tell me something?"

"I think we need to clear some things up. Let's go talk this out."

We both headed upstairs. I was a lot calmer after the getting that all off my chest. Penny took it better than I was expecting. I didn't think she'd be mad, but I thought she might be just a little upset. Well, she was, but it wasn't because Carrie and I spooned. I still felt guilty about it, like I'd betrayed her trust, but she genuinely didn't seem too bothered over it.

"Carrie." Penny said, slowly opening the door to my bedroom, "It's me, Penny."

No response.

"Where is she?" Penny asked.

I pointed towards the floor, "Under the bed."

"What? Why?"

"She started panicking when I told her about you coming over."

"What'd you tell her?"

"That you had something to say… And I tried to calm her down cause I thought she was worried you were mad at her."

"Oh honey. I think you might have scared her by accident." Penny crouched down and looked under the bed, "Carrie, I just want you to know I'm not mad."

She froze.

"She isn't here."

"What?" I got on all fours and looked under with her, "She was here when I went to get you."

"Well where else could she…" Penny's eyes drifted over to the wall. The window had been thrown all the way open. A cord made from sheets and blankets was tied around the leg of my desk. A cold wind blew in, sending a horrified chill through both of us.

Penny and I rushed over to the window.

"Carrie!" She yelled out.

I hung out my entire torso trying to get a better look, scanning up and down the street, "She couldn't have gotten far, right?"

"I don't know! She can't be out there all by herself though!"

We both kept looking around, as if Carrie was just hiding, waiting to be found in plain sight. After a few minutes, we stepped back and closed the window. Penny started pacing the floor.

"I didn't realize this'd be this hard for her. I didn't know she took rejection this badly."

"Rejection."

She nodded.

"I mean, I thought she might have had something for me, which might explain why she was being so clingy towards me, but I didn't really think she had a crush on me."

"Oh, hun…"

"I told her you meant everything to me, and I tried to let her down easy, but I just assumed…"

Penny sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands, "I think I see the problem now." She said, "Sweetie, this is all a big misunderstanding."

I wasn't quite sure what she meant, "So Carrie doesn't have a crush on me."

"No, she does…" Penny sighed, "She has one on me too."

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