Hi! I initially had planned to just write a couple pages of a conversation I thought could have happened in iTwins, but then it turned into this long one-shot so...I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly or it's characters
When Melanie got home, Sam was splayed out on her bed eating a Fat Cake with fervor. Fat Cake wrappers, as well as remnants of other snacks, were littered around her chaotically. She had changed into an oversized band T-shirt and star-printed gray pajama pants, and she was completely unbeknownst to her twin sister standing in the doorway. In fact, if someone looked at the Puckett twins right now, it would be the perfect demonstration of the contrast between them. Melanie was wearing a frilly red dress she'd borrowed from Carly since there was no way Sam would ever own such a thing, lacey stockings, and chunky black combat boots. Her hair was in a high ponytail and still free of frizziness or flyaways, while Sam's hair was a tangled nest of wild curls.
"Do you have to make such a mess?" Melanie sighed as she stepped foot in Sam's room, delicately dropping her purse onto the one space on Sam's bed not cluttered with trash. "Would it kill you to clean up for once in your life?"
"Yeah, sure, I'll get right on that," Sam muttered as she tore into another Fat Cake from the stash underneath her bed. From the feel of it, she was running low. She made a mental note to buy more tomorrow, which meant she also had to make a mental note to ask Carly to borrow money.
Melanie stood impatiently at the foot of Sam's bed for a good fifteen seconds before asking, "Welllll?" Sam, who had been making a conscious effort to pretend not to notice the toe of Melanie's boot tapping the floor, groaned. "What?"
Melanie swept aside wrappers and crumbs before plopping herself onto the bed, tilting her head towards Sam and hanging her boots off the mattress. "Aren't you going to ask me how my date with Freddie was?" She asked in a singsong voice, which instantly made Sam shudder.
It was weird enough that Freddork Benson had gone on a date with her twin sister, even if it sounded like he just wanted to prove Melanie wasn't real. But what might have been weirder was hearing a voice far too similar to her own, just a girlier version, speaking the words my date with Freddie. It was as if the universe just wanted to laugh at her, by having her identical twin sister show up and go on a date with the last boy she would ever go on a date with. The irony was blatantly obvious.
"I really don't care," she shrugged. And she didn't-why should she? Freddison's love life wasn't a concern of hers in the slightest-and neither was Melanie's, for that matter. In fact, if it weren't for her sister having the same face as her, she might have even been on board with this relationship just for the amusement.
Melanie huffed. "Sam! I'm your sister! Can't you at least pretend to care, please?"
"Fine!" Sam swept wrappers off of her lap dramatically and turned to face Melanie. "Was it amazing?" She cooed in a voice eerily similar to Melanie's as she shifted her pitch up a few notches. "Did you have the best time ever with Ridgeway's dorkiest nub of the century?" Melanie rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. "He's really cute," she sighed. "He wore the most adorable shirt, and when we were slow-dancing and he had his hands on my waist, it was…"
"Okay, yeah, I'm done pretending now," Sam interjected, turning her attention back to her Fat Cake as her insides coiled. That was certainly a mental image she didn't need. And not because she cared whose waists Freddie's hands were on, either. In fact, the thought of it almost made her laugh-snort. It was just that she and Melanie were identical, and it was icky, and if Freddie really did think that Melanie was Sam in disguise, why would he be slow-dancing with her? Sam would have to make sure to punch the nub extra-hard the next chance she got.
"I didn't finish!" Melanie protested. "It was also kind of...weird." Sam did laugh at that. "Um, yeah, it's a date with Fredwich. What're you expecting?"
"No, it was weird because he thought I was you the whole time! He kept trying to get me to admit it. I think it would have been a lot more fun if he just knew I'm a real person."
"Hey Mel, I hate to break it to you, but if he knew you were a real person I don't think he'd want to go out with you." Melanie's hurt expression gave Sam a prick of remorse, and she sighed, figuring she should at least explain herself. "We're identical! And he hates me. It would just be too weird." She reconsidered this after a moment, sitting on her knees and pressing her palms underneath her legs. "Or you know what, maybe he wouldn't care. He likes girly-girls like you. I mean, just look at Carly." She shrugged. "Whatever, have fun with your little nub." Melanie groaned and pushed herself off the bed, stepping in front of her twin. She plucked the rest of the Fat Cake out of Sam's hand and grabbed onto her wrists. "Hey!" Sam objected. "Can I please finish?" Melanie pleaded. Sam twisted out of her grasp. "Why don't you go talk to Carly about this?"
"It's too late to go talk to her right now. And you're my sister!" Sam looked up at Melanie's earnest expression, her wide eyes. She flopped back onto the bed, knowing she was about to cave. "Fine!" She groused. "Keep going then." Melanie brightened and flitted around Sam's room, absent-mindedly clearing crumbs off of surfaces and sweeping wrappers into the trash. "Well, we started slow-dancing. And he seemed so surprised I was dancing with him at all, he was so convinced that I was you. And he was so convinced that you hate him."
"That's because I do," Sam mumbled. Melanie shook her head. "No you don't. You do iCarly with him every week."
"He's a coworker," Sam shrugged. Melanie scoffed. "You think I don't watch iCarly too? You don't hate him, Sam, no matter what you may think." Sam didn't know how to respond to that. Normally she would have just shot back with some sort of snarky remark, but Melanie seemed so set on this notion that she could see it was no use. "Fine," Sam amended. "Think whatever you want. But just know that Freduccini and I won't be making friendship bracelets together anytime soon." Melanie gave her a knowing sort of look that she didn't like at all, one that made her shift uncomfortably and ask, "So then what?"
"So then I decided that I needed to find a way to convince him I wasn't you. So I...oh, please don't be mad!" Sam raised an eyebrow. "Why would I be mad?"
"Because I…" Melanie wrung her hands. "I wanted to do something I thought you would never do if you really hated him as much as you said. So...I kissed him."
Sam had chosen the wrong moment to take a ginormous bite of her Fat Cake because she immediately started choking. Melanie rushed over as she began hacking and spluttering, looking unsure of what to do. "Sam! Are you okay?"
"You...did...what?" Sam wheezed. She didn't know if she should reprimand her twin or laugh. "Melanie, you have my face!"
"I know, I know." Melanie still looked worried, like she didn't know if her sister was about to drop dead. Sam finally stopped her choking fit and gave Melanie a disgusted look. "How could you want to kiss Freddie?"
"He's adorable!" Melanie defended. "Is it really so bad?" Sam rolled her eyes. "I mean, if Fredbags who still wear days-of-the-week underwear are your type, then I guess you gotta go for it." She thought she was doing a decent job at feigning nonchalance, but honestly? Freddie and her twin sister kissing was just a bizarre image that she didn't particularly like. "Okay, great, you kissed him and he realized you were real? And you had a grand old time sucking face and drinking Shirley Temples? Are we done now?"
"No," Melanie answered after a second's pause. "Actually…" she was avoiding Sam's eyes now, examining her nails. Sam reached for another Fat Cake, drawing her eyebrows together. "What?" Melanie whirled around and snatched the Fat Cake away. "Oh, give me that! Okay," she sighed, sitting in front of Sam on the bed. Normally Sam would protest about the stolen Fat Cake, but the look on her twin's face was starting to scare her. "What, Mel?" She asked, inching back ever-so-slightly. Melanie regarded her with a look Sam couldn't quite read. "I didn't know if I was going to even mention this, because it seems like a...touchy subject for you. But…"
"Touchy subject?" Sam repeated. "Did Freddish screw something up again?"
"No, but...he did say something," Melanie answered carefully. Sam snorted. "Was it about his mom? I swear, he's always blabbering on about whatever crazy thing Crazy did that-"
"Sam, just listen!" Melanie took a breath, composing herself, and Sam tried to calm the nerves that had appeared out of nowhere. "After I kissed him, he looked really freaked out and he said, word-for-word, 'you swore we would never do that again.'"
Sam froze.
Alarms started going off in her head, and she hated that she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. Idiot! She thought angrily, her heart pounding in her ears. When she got ahold of him, she was gonna knock the daylights out of him so he'd be sorry he'd ever-
"Sam?" Melanie asked tentatively, pulling her out of her thoughts. Sam closed her eyes and let out a sharp breath through her nose, annoyed. Great, Fredpus, now I'm gonna have to explain this.
"He spoke of it," Sam nearly growled in a low tone. Melanie blinked. "So it's true? You and Freddie…?"
"Where are my Fat Cakes?" Sam groused, bending herself over the bed to feel around underneath for another. "Sam, just-enough with the Fat Cakes!" Melanie tried to pull her upright, and Sam resisted at first, but finally let herself be hoisted up. When she gathered the courage to look at her twin, she immediately wished she hadn't. Melanie was grinning. "This is a big deal!" She squealed. "Your first kiss!"
"It was a while ago, okay?" Sam yanked her arm from Melanie's grasp. "And it didn't mean anything." But she could tell that her words didn't matter to Melanie, who was excitedly clapping and bouncing up and down. "Sam, I'm so sorry, I never would have gone out with him if I'd known he was your Freddie!"
"Hey, whoa, whoa, wait, my Freddie?" Sam jumped up. "He's not my anything. Go out with him all you want. The whole population of Seattle could go out with him and I wouldn't care less!"
"Sammm." Melanie gave her an eye-roll and a smile, as if she was just so silly. "I'm serious!" Sam insisted, hating the position Freddie had put her in and hating that Melanie had even brought it up. "The kid has to sign a shampoo agreement after he showers! Does that really sound like someone I would even remotely like? If you actually watch iCarly then you'd know that Freddie and I would never be a thing, not in a million billion years. Seriously, I'd rather chew broken glass."
"Okay, then why'd you kiss him?" Melanie challenged. "There must have been a reason!" Sam glared at her and crossed her arms defiantly, hoping she wouldn't have to actually verbalize that there was no way she was telling the story. To Melanie, of all people! It didn't matter if Sam said they kissed in a dumpster behind an Inside-Out Burger, her sister would still find a way to spin it into a romantic fairytale love story. The thought was just about enough to make Sam puke.
"Come on, this is really big! I told you all about my first kiss," Melanie pointed out.
Unfortunately, she did. Sam was subjected to an hour-long call back in seventh grade about how Toby Landon kissed her twin while they picked apples together for the upcoming school-wide Thanksgiving feast. It was just a peck, by the way Melanie described it, but somehow she still managed to describe the softness of Toby's lips in every way possible. Sam had wanted so badly to just hang up, but her mom was in the other room trying on more bikinis, and she figured that the call with Melanie was the lesser of two evils.
Still, she took slight offense to what Melanie had said. "Who says it was my first?"
"Well, was it?" Melanie asked, leaning upwards. Sam sighed. "Yeah," she mumbled. Melanie squealed again. "Okay, would you stop that? It wasn't a big deal."
"Of course it's a big deal, how could you even say that, this is a huge deal! And I'm not letting it go until you tell me everything." Sam could tell she meant it. She closed her eyes, balled up her fists, and made a mental note to get extra-evil revenge on Fredley once she got the chance. "Fine! I'll tell you. Not everything, but…" Sam let out a breath and gingerly sat back down on her bed. "Okay. Did you watch that one iCarly a few months back where I said Freddie had never kissed anyone?"
"Oh yeah! I did actually, that was really mean," Melanie frowned. Sam nearly flinched, not expecting to still feel guilty about it. "Yeah, well, then in the next show I told everyone who had been teasing him to lay off. And I said I hadn't kissed anyone either." Melanie nodded. "I know, I thought it was really brave. See, things like that prove that you can't hate Freddie."
"Okay, whatever, I don't hate Freddifer! Happy?" Melanie's smile stretched so widely across her face it made Sam visibly ill. "That's not to say I like him, either, so don't go getting any ideas," she eyed her sister. Melanie nodded vigorously, the smile not dimming at all. Sam rubbed her forehead. How could she explain this?
"So after I said that, I went to go talk to Freddie on the fire escape outside his apartment. And…"
Sam could probably replay the conversation in her head nearly word-for-word, but there was no chizzing way she was repeating it to Melanie. It was weird enough to think about, like unlocking a part of her mind that she hardly ever dared enter. It made things way too complicated. Sam's life would be much easier if that moment just stayed in there, without bleeding into her everyday life. After all, how was she supposed to beat up Freddie while consciously thinking about the time they had kissed on the fire escape? About how he told her that what she had said was brave, and how she had apologized for all the ways she'd made his life miserable?
"Ugh!" Sam groaned out loud as she caught herself going too far down that line of thought. This was the exact reason she didn't like thinking back to the memory, it just made everything more complicated than she had ever wanted. And it made it much harder to convince herself that the kiss hadn't meant anything, either, and she needed Melanie to believe that. She needed herself to believe that.
"What?" Melanie asked, wrinkling her forehead in concern. Sam looked at her warily. "Nothing. This is just...kind of weird to talk about." She readjusted herself and decided to plow through. Just to get it over with. She almost laughed humorlessly upon realizing that was the same reason she and Freddie kissed. "Basically I just said I was sorry for all the things I do to him. And I said it was dumb how freaked out everyone gets over their first kiss. So he asked if I really hadn't kissed anyone, and I said no, and how sometimes I just wished I could get it over with, and…" she was going way more in-depth than she had planned, and was quickly regretting it, seeing as Melanie seemed to be hanging onto her every word. "It doesn't matter! The point is, we ended up kissing once just to get our first kisses over with. So we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore, you know? And that's it. It didn't mean anything, and we swore we'd never tell anyone it happened. So if he still thinks you're me, then you kissing him probably really messed him up." Oh, chiz, what if he still did think she was Melanie? Did he actually think she would kiss him out of the blue like that? Even for such a nub, he had to have some common sense, right?
Melanie looked up at her with dreamy eyes. "Sam! That's so sweet, and to say I thought you didn't have a romantic bone in your body!"
"Melanie," Sam said impatiently, "we kissed just to get it over with. What about that is romantic to you?"
"In Sam Puckett speech, it's basically the same as marrying him at the top of a rainbow!"
"That's not-no," she said firmly. She knew this would happen. She knew it was a mistake to tell Melanie anything. "I don't, nor have I ever, had any sort of feelings for Fredalupe. Hey, why don't you go out with him again tomorrow? I'll make the reservations!" Melanie regarded her with another one of her looks. "Oh, Sam."
"Oh, what?" She snapped. Melanie shook her head. "It's just, it's so obvious."
"What is?" Sam questioned, positive she was about to regret asking.
"That you like him!" Melanie cried, as if Sam should have known it all along. Sam's eyebrows flew to her forehead as she nearly choked again, only this time just on pure shock. "What!?" She backed up off the bed, nearly colliding into her dresser."What the chiz, Mel! Why would you even say that?"
"Because, I don't know! You have all these little names for him, and you have this look on your face when you talk about him. You can't see it, but you do! I mean, why else would you pick on him all the time?"
"Because he's a nub! He's annoying!"
"He's sweet, and cute, and smart, and you know it! And he cares about you too. He must, or else he wouldn't have put up with everything you do to him for so long!"
"He has to! I'm Carly's best friend, he has to deal with me to spend time with her-"
"No, Sam, he doesn't have to. And you don't have to provoke him, either. But you both do it anyway, because you're scared of what'll happen if you stop!"
Sam stood there, perfectly still, finally rendered speechless. And what'll happen? was at the tip of her tongue, but for once she held back and didn't ask. It was the kind of question she could tell she didn't want the answer to.
Melanie smiled. "So that's what got to you, huh?"
"It didn't get to me!" Sam argued, even though she knew it was useless. "It didn't get to me because this whole conversation is pointless, anyway. All I asked was how the date went. And that's because you made me." It was true that this was much, much more than she had bargained for. And she wasn't about to deal with it, at the very least not in front of her twin sister.
Melanie must have noticed her shutting down, because she stood up from the bed and planted herself right in front of Sam. "I'm not here very much," she said in a softer tone, which somehow angered Sam more. "Yeah, I know! So what makes you think you can just waltz in here and-"
"Sam," Melanie interrupted in a pleading voice, and somehow she was able to shut Sam up in the same way Carly was able to. Sam tightened her grip on the edge of her dresser, hating the fact that she complied.
"I'm not here very much," Melanie repeated. "And I don't get to talk to you very often. So I feel like when I get any details about your love life-" here Sam wanted to object to the use of the words love life, but Melanie kept talking-"it's exciting. And...if I can help my twin sister figure out her feelings, even if I just nudge her in the right direction, it'll make me feel better. You know, about how I'm leaving tomorrow. I just...I want us to be able to have this. This one night where we can talk about boys, and you can admit that Freddie is more than a dorky tech-producer to you, and...you said it yourself. We have the same face! That has to count for something right?"
Sam stayed silent for several seconds before finally deciding to speak. "So what you're saying is...you agree that Frederly is dorky." Melanie huffed out a laugh. "I'm going to take the fact that you're not biting my head off right now as an okay to continue this conversation. So, come on, let's talk about him!"
"Okay, no." Sam ducked around Melanie and dropped to the floor of her bed, scouring underneath for more Fat Cakes. "I'm not going to fabricate feelings for Frednard just because I was guilt-tripped into bonding with you. Might as well just give it up now."
"But Sam! Come on, are you serious?"
"As a heart attack," she deadpanned as she triumphantly waved around a Fat Cake she found near the very back. "Which you're actually going to have soon if you keep eating those," Melanie retorted. "Yeah, whatever, it'll probably be better than the conversation you want to have right now," Sam answered with a full mouth. "Why do you have to be so stubborn!" Melanie exclaimed, fussing with her dress in frustration. Sam shrugged. "It's part of my Princess Puckett charm."
"Princess Puckett?" Melanie giggled. "Where'd you get that from?"
"From…" Sam's words dried out. Oh no. Melanie took her silence as a response. "It's from Freddie, isn't it!" she exclaimed gleefully. "You both have nicknames for each other!"
"No! It's not like that."
"Then what's it like?"
"It's like he's too easy to mess with and I'm his way of feeling like he's living on the edge, just to compensate for his mom." Sam rolled her eyes. "But his definition of 'living on the edge' basically goes as far as stealing a stapler."
"Hmm." Melanie tried and failed to hide her smile. "You know, for someone who's supposed to be just a coworker, you do seem to talk about him a lot."
Sam whipped her head away from her sister when her cheeks betrayed her and turned red. "That's because you're constantly bringing him up! I'm perfectly content just sitting here not saying anything about him."
"Okay. Fine," Melanie said, as if issuing a challenge.
"Fine," Sam agreed.
"Fine."
"Fine!"
Sam sat quietly on her bed, slowly chewing her Fat Cake, as she watched Melanie take off her boots, pull out her ponytail, wipe off her makeup, and pick out a fresh set of pajamas to change into. Her twin scurried into the bathroom to change, leaving Sam alone with her thoughts.
The conversation was ridiculous, Sam would grant it that. And there was absolutely no merit to any of it. Just because messing around with Sam's emotions was Melanie's idea of fun didn't mean Sam had to go along with it.
And why should she? Her twin sister was clearly out of her mind. Who was she to even insinuate that Sam had any sort of feelings for Freddie? That was the absolute last conclusion any rational person should come to. Sam had thought she'd made that abundantly clear.
No matter how much she might want to, she did have to admit that she didn't hate Freddie. That didn't mean she thought they were best friends or anything. But they'd had one too many shared experiences together to hate each other. Sam didn't like admitting it, but maybe there was a tentative bond there-a subtle one that was left unspoken about. It was there in the little moments they shared-like how over the years, Freddie had become much more intuitive of Sam's, well, eccentric behavior. He knew that when Sam said she hated him she didn't really mean it, and kept a giant pillow stuffed with old textbooks in his locker for when she needed to hit something. Or when Carly went to Yakima to visit her granddad, and Sam and Freddie snuck into the Shay's apartment at night to raid the fridge and watch TV. Or when an iCarly segment would be going particularly well, and Freddie would give her a little smile and thumbs-up. It was the dorkiest thing ever, but still-
"Ughhhhh!" Sam groaned aloud for the second time, only this time it was much more drawn-out. She collapsed back onto the bed, facing the ceiling, and clawed her hands through her hair as if maybe they could dig into her brain and rewire it.
Melanie's footsteps from down the hall grew louder until she was standing at the door frame, brushing out her hair. "What is it?"
Sam gave her a look of discontent. "Nothing. I ran out of Fat Cakes," she grumbled, even though she was pretty sure she still had a couple underneath the bed. Thankfully, Melanie seemed to believe that, and turned back towards the hall.
Sam had played right into Melanie's hands, that's what she had done. This is why she didn't like her sister visiting. Sure, it opened up way more opportunities for their mom to compare the two, and Melanie was all-too bubbly for Sam's liking; just a picture-perfect example of everything Sam was supposed to be but wasn't. But she also did things like this. Forcing Sam to actually regard her maybe-friendship with Freddie and screw up their whole dynamic. If Sam gave her cruelty towards Freddie much thought, it threw the game off-balance.
The game.
That stupid game that she needed, because she didn't know how to articulate any kind of feelings any other way, good or bad-
No, Sam, he doesn't have to. And you don't have to provoke him, either-
—and the rules were simple and never given a second thought, because if they were, if the reasoning behind the game was actually called into question-
-but you both do it anyway-
—then just maybe Sam would have to confront a truth, a truth way worse than admitting she didn't hate Fredward, a truth that she wasn't ready to even consider yet because if she did it meant she had stopped playing the game and even if she wanted to she didn't know how-
-because you're scared of what'll happen if you stop!
"Shut UPPPPPPPPPPPP!" Sam screamed into her pillow, thrashing her arms and legs around like the tantrums she would throw when she wanted to get Carly to do something for her. But this time it wasn't for a petty reason. This time it was because if Sam could just scream and kick hard enough, maybe she could scare away her thoughts that were crossing into dangerous territory.
This time Melanie's footsteps were a little faster. "Sam, you can't be this upset, they're just Fat Cakes-oh." Her sister rushed over, tentatively placing a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Sam? Sam, what're you-"
"Just go away!" Sam snapped, abruptly stopping her thrashing and instead curled up into a ball on the bed, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her hair was wilder than ever, frizzy and tangled and sticking out every whichway, several pieces stuck to her face. She gave Melanie the glare that she usually reserved for Freddie, the one that spelled out a message clear as day: back off.
Melanie took a step back, bewildered. "But I-"
"You've already done enough," Sam lashed, seething. She could feel her emotions bubbling to the surface like a burning soup on the stovetop, and maybe displacing her anger onto Melanie was wrong but she didn't know any other way. "Just…"
Leave was at the tip of Sam's tongue, but she realized that in doing so Melanie would be leaving Sam alone once again with her thoughts, and that had worked out just spectacularly last time. She wanted her stupid pillow with the textbooks to hit, but that reminded her of Frednub which made her angry all over again. She settled for smashing her fist into her mattress instead, hearing a satisfying thump as Melanie sucked in a startled breath.
Sam glanced over at her sister from underneath tufts of blond curls. "Just...let's not talk about Fredwardo anymore." Her sister's eyebrows jumped up, but Melanie was smart enough to not ask any questions.
"Okay," she agreed softly, sitting beside Sam and holding up her hairbrush. "Want me to brush your hair? Because, no offense but, you kind of need it." Sam rolled her eyes and flicked pieces of untamed, tangled hair off her face. "Yeah, no thanks." She hated being groomed. She hardly ever let Carly do her hair and makeup, no matter how many times her best friend offered.
"Come on, Sam," Melanie coaxed. She limply picked up a lock of coarse hair and tried to brush it out, but Sam shook her off wildly. "No! I'll look too much like…"
The word 'you' died on Sam's lips. She exhaled, breaking eye contact with her sister.
The worst part of being an identical twin was, hands down, being mistaken for Melanie. It even sort of peeved her off that Freddie would think that she could be Melanie. It's not that Melanie's personality was bad, necessarily, it was just...everything that Sam wasn't. And it was everything that people liked. She was sweet, and cute, and smart, and perky, and her outfits were all matchy and she always had clean hair and she'd never even been to juvie or detention or gotten kicked out of a grocery store for wrestling an old lady for the last ham. And even though they were identical, Melanie was seen as beautiful while Sam was still just Sam. Melanie constantly said that if Sam just let her do her hair and clothes and makeup she could be seen as beautiful too, but...Sam would feel like she was putting on a facade. She could look exactly like Melanie, but that wouldn't change the fact that her initial reaction to any sort of snide look or comment someone made towards her was to tackle them. Once people found out that she wasn't sweet, and cute, and perky, and whatever else Melanie was, she would be regarded with disappointment. Disappointment and constant comparison to her perfect sister. So sad, they'd tsk, how could two girls with the same face be so completely different?
Sam hated when they were little and their mother would dress them up in the same outfits, because then they weren't Sam and Melanie anymore to the kids at school. They were Melanie and The Girl Who Looks Exactly Like Melanie But Scary And Evil. Kids would approach her, frightened, and as soon as she said anything to them they'd immediately realize she wasn't Melanie and run over to her sister. Maybe that's why Sam despised having neatly brushed hair or girly clothes or even just acting, well, nice in general. As a child, she hated feeling like a roadblock for people to get to her perfect twin sister. She hated practically being able to see the thought bubble over everyone's heads that always said the same thing: Why can't you be more like Melanie?
When her sister started wearing her hair in a ponytail all the time, it helped everyone differentiate the two. But the older they got, the more their personal styles branched off. Melanie had her preppy ponytail and outfits, while Sam had her long curls and knee-length cargo shorts from the boys' section. Melanie was friendly and popular, and Sam was aggressive and mean and someone to be avoided in the halls.
And then when Melanie was accepted into her fancy boarding school on a full scholarship in sixth grade, everyone seemed to have some sort of resentment towards Sam. As if she'd taken Melanie away from them. As if she wasn't having to deal with the fact that her twin sister was leaving, but more than that, leaving her. Leaving her to deal with the bitter looks at school and their mother who honed in on Sam as the one who had to sit through her bikini fashion shows.
At the end of the day, Melanie was the one who got to leave. She got to go to prestigious school and have gaggles of friends and opportunities and promise, while Sam was stuck at home with their mother who ran off with different boyfriends every few weeks and was expected to wind up in jail before she graduated.
Sam had accepted that, leaned into it, even. If there was one thing she learned from when she was little and everyone would mistake her for Melanie all the time, it was that she'd always be the disappointment. No use in trying to change that.
But her sister showing up threw everything off-balance. Not just with that stupid game she and Freddie played, but with how Sam saw herself. Whenever Melanie visited, there was always an underlying fear that Carly would realize everything she was missing in a best friend. But Sam didn't think she'd also have to have the same fear about Freddie. She'd never expected to care about what he thought, and she hated with every bone in her body that she did.
It was dumb, but she wasn't willing to do anything that would further align her with looking like Melanie. The fact that her twin's hair was down didn't help, either, and the fact that one of them had brushed hair and the other didn't was the only thing Sam was clinging to. She wasn't about to let Melanie change that and make them identical from the neck up. She didn't care if nobody would be able to see it, she would be able to see it, and that would be enough. "Mel, I'm serious," she insisted, knocking the brush out of her hand. "Leave it. Okay?" Melanie looked at her for a long time, and Sam finally had to break eye contact. "Okay," her sister finally agreed. "Good," Sam grouched. She crawled into bed, even though she hadn't brushed her teeth yet. She knew Melanie noticed, but her sister didn't say anything. Maybe that's why Sam didn't say anything either when Melanie crawled into bed next to her. Sam squeezed her eyes shut, waiting one, two, three counts, hating what she was about to say next and knowing that she couldn't stop herself.
"So you really kissed him, huh?" She asked. She realized she was contradicting her plea to not talk about Freddie, but she didn't care. This was about more than that now.
Melanie's face softened. "Sam, I didn't know-"
"It's not even about that! It's about...what happens now?"
"What do you mean?" Melanie wrinkled her forehead. Sam sighed. "I mean, he still thinks you're me, right?" Melanie nodded slowly. "So then," Sam continued, "what happens when he finds out that you're not?" She wasn't explaining this well, she knew that, but she didn't want to give up on the irrational hope that the whole twin-telepathy thing would kick in right about now and she wouldn't have to spell it out.
Melanie still looked confused, and Sam groaned. "He's gonna find out that there's this whole other person who looks exactly like me but is better in every possible way. He's probably gonna always compare me to you now, he's gonna think it should be Carly, Melanie, and Freddie. It would definitely be easier for him. He wouldn't get hurt all the time, or made fun of, and he'd have another girly-girl to drool over. Once he knows you exist, he knows there's basically this whole other version of me that's just who he wishes I were. And the worst part is, I can't even blame him for it." She'd always been just Sam to him, which bothered her for reasons she wasn't willing to think about, but now she'd be the bad Sam while Melanie would be the good Sam. They were always the bad one and the good one, and as soon as she and Melanie were placed side-by-side, Sam couldn't escape her role. When Melanie wasn't around, she was just Sam. But when her twin visited, her worth was always measured in comparison to her perfect sister. It was no longer, That's just Sam and we love her and accept her for who she is. Instead, it was, Why can't she be more like Melanie? Sam hadn't been sure of why she'd been so adamantly against telling Freddie about Melanie until now. It was because he'd finally realize how much better things would be if Sam weren't so...Sam. He now had the embodiment of a perfect girl to hold up against her and compare the obvious differences. It was much harder for all of her faults to be overlooked when there was someone right there next to her who didn't have any of them. And they had the same face.
And this was a stupid thing to be thinking about in comparison, but if he found out that they were two different people, and he'd kissed both of them...well, Melanie was probably the better kisser, too. So she wouldn't even have that.
Melanie was quiet for a few seconds, and Sam turned off the overhead light because this was the kind of conversation where everything would be easier if she couldn't see her sister's face. The earnest expression, the pity, the pleading looks...here in the dark, it was just nothingness. "Sam," Melanie finally whispered, "you can't keep thinking like that."
"Like what?" Sam asked bitterly.
"Comparing us!"
"Why? Everyone else does it!"
"Not Freddie."
"Right, 'cause he doesn't know you exist. Once he does, that's gonna change."
"He likes you for you!"
"He doesn't like me-"
"As a friend, whatever!" Melanie corrected. "He likes you for who you are!" Sam snorted. "Trust me, he doesn't. And why should he? Look, I honestly don't care about Fredweiner. We don't like each other, we just don't, that's our whole thing-"
"Then why wouldn't he stop talking about you all night on our date?" Sam pressed her palms into her eye sockets, because her sister wasn't listening. "Because he thinks I'm you!"
"Why would he even agree to go out with me if he thinks I'm you? Why would he hold my hand and ask me to slow dance and-"
"Because he was trying to prove I was you! Because he knows how much I'd hate that! Because-"
"You should have seen the way he reacted when I told him I liked him! He said 'you hate me, you always have,' and he just seemed so hurt about the whole thing. He doesn't hate you, he only acts that way because he thinks you hate him! So maybe you should let him know that you don't-"
"That's my whole point!" Sam nearly shouted. "That's something you would do! I don't say things like that! You're right, maybe I should, but I won't and we both know that! It's like, everything I should do with Freddie is exactly what you would do! Not just with Freddie, with everything! So maybe you should just move here and be Carly's best friend and be nice to Freddie and he can get behind the camera and go 5, 4, 3, 2, and point and you and Carly and you two can say 'I'm Carly!' 'And I'm Melanie!' 'And this is iCarlyandMelanie!' because he'd definitely have no problem with your name being part of the webshow if it was you, and-"
"Sam! You're spiraling," Melanie cried, shaking her shoulder, and maybe she was but she didn't know how to stop. She didn't know how to stop doing a lot of things because she was just in too deep, lost in an endless spiral of self-sabotage. She grabbed her pillow and pressed it against her face, hugging it so tightly she was surprised the fluff didn't squeeze out.
"Don't you see it?" Melanie said in a much quieter, earnest tone. "You're so cool. You don't take crap from anyone. And people respect you. I know you think they're just scared of you, but it's true. You have this talent that not a lot of us have. You can captivate people, you can command a room. You have a natural aura that makes people pay attention to you. You're so loyal, and funny, and you have your friends' backs when they need it. You're someone I want in my corner, You're one-of-a-kind. You're not just my twin sister, you're not just another delinquent in a long line of Puckett family criminals, and you're not just Sam. You're you."
At this point Sam was glad she'd turned the light off, because then Melanie might have mistaken the dust particles that were gathering in her eyes and making them water for tears. And Sam Puckett did not cry.
"And Carly loves you for you. Freddie loves you for you. They both do, no matter what you may say about it. Just...at least try to believe that? Please?"
She didn't know if she could, but she surprised herself by realizing she wanted to try. "Okay," she whispered into the dark, and she and Melanie didn't speak after that. Melanie fell asleep soon afterwards, content with Sam's agreement, and Sam listened to her steady breaths as she lay awake in the dark for hours.
When Freddie walked into the Shay's apartment the next day while she and Carly were hitting a balloon with tennis rackets, Sam hadn't expected to feel so calm. She'd been thinking way too much about what she was going to do if Freddie still thought she was Melanie, what he'd say about the date and the kiss, and what would happen once he realized she really did have a twin. But as soon as he rolled his eyes at her and grumbled, "Oh. You're here," the game was set back into play. They fell right back into their roles as if nothing had ever happened. It was comfortingly familiar, a game that Sam understood. "Yeah, like seeing your face freshens up my day," Sam retorted as she hit the balloon back over to Carly. Freddie stopped and turned to face her, rolling his eyes as he said "You sure seemed to like my face last night when you had your lips all over it!"
So he did still think she was Melanie. She didn't know how to feel about that, her emotions were a tangled mess that were slowly gnawing at her from the inside out. Still, she didn't want Freddie to think that she would kiss him just to prove a point. And she was annoyed that he thought she'd do that anyway. She stood up, irritated. "That wasn't me, dipthong."
"You and Melanie kissed?" Carly asked. "Man, how long are you two gonna keep trying to trick me with the whole Melanie thing?" Freddie said, exasperated. "I told you I'm not that gullible, I know there's no Melanie!"
"Yes, there—"
"Whoa!" Sam exclaimed, cutting Carly off. She wasn't even completely sure what she was doing, but she saw the opportunity and took it. Freddie clearly wasn't believing them, and the only other alternative was for him to see her and Melanie side-by-side, which was the absolute last thing Sam wanted to do.
They were always the bad one and the good one, and as soon as she and Melanie were placed side-by-side, Sam couldn't escape her role. When Melanie wasn't around, she was just Sam. But when her twin visited, her worth was always measured in comparison to her perfect sister.
"Let's just stop," she shrugged, turning around to face Carly. "It didn't work."
"It didn't?" Carly questioned, confused. Sam turned back to Freddie, perfectly ready to accept defeat in his mind if it meant she could keep being just Sam to him. "You won. We tried to trick you, but we couldn't pull it off."
Sam hadn't been sure of why she'd been so adamantly against telling Freddie about Melanie until now. It was because he'd finally realize how much better things would be if Sam weren't so...Sam. He now had the embodiment of a perfect girl to hold up against her and compare the obvious differences. It was much harder for all of her faults to be overlooked when there was someone right there next to her who didn't have any of them.
"Ha!" Freddie cried out, reveling in doing what Sam, until then, had never let him do: win. "Then admit there's no Melanie, and that I'm not gullible, and that I'm too smart for you."
Sam stepped up to him, looking him straight in the eyes.
Once he knows you exist, he knows there's basically this whole other version of me that's just who he wishes I were. And the worst part is, I can't even blame him for it.
"There's no Melanie, and you're not gullible, and you're too smart for me." She narrowed her eyes at him, the lie slipping out easier than she'd expected. She was good at lying. She just didn't know she was good at lying about being wrong.
"That's right! In your face, Puckett!" He rolled his neck at her, all-too-pleased with himself. "Bye, ladies." He practically swaggered out of the apartment, and Sam scoffed. "He loves to be right," Carly rolled her eyes. "All boys do," Sam agreed. "Totally."
The elevator dinged and her twin sister stepped out, greeting her and Carly. "Hey! We going to the mall?"
"Let's hit it," Sam said. "Yep," Carly added, and they walked into the elevator. Sam was pretty sure she was playing it cool, but internally she was trying not to panic about what she'd just done. He thinks you're Melanie now.
I know!
He thinks you kissed him again.
I know!
Who knows what Melanie did or said while on the date, he now thinks that was you!
I KNOW!
Sam exhaled sharply, trying to calm the war raging between the two sides of her brain.
A year ago, Sam would never have let Freddie believe that Melanie was her or that she'd kissed him to prove he was gullible. A year ago, Sam would have been absolutely repulsed by the implication and wouldn't have told him about Melanie in the first place.
A year ago, Sam wouldn't have let him win, either. She wouldn't have been so okay with letting him win. And she definitely wouldn't have said anything to her sister about Freddie, either.
She wanted to be scared of how much things had changed in a year. But she was eerily...okay with it.
Fredward Benson and her were not best friends by any means. But they were friends, even if they were a strange kind of friends, and Sam was glad she had admitted it to herself. It was as if she had taken a weight off her chest.
The elevator door closed. Sam and Melanie were side by side. Two twin sisters, one with a preppy ponytail and outfit, the other with long curls and knee-length cargo shorts from the boys' section. Both with the same face.
And Sam was eerily okay with that, too. Not completely okay with it. But sort of okay with it. More okay with it than she'd ever been in her whole life.
...
"I'm going to miss you so much!"
Melanie threw her arms around Sam and hugged tightly. "Great, break another rib, would ya?" Sam grumbled, but reluctantly hugged her sister back.
Spencer had driven them to the airport since their mom was out getting spray tanned after finding a half-off coupon, and Melanie had already said her goodbyes to him and Carly. Now it was just her and Sam, standing outside on the sidewalk next to piles of luggage. "Please visit me at school, Sam, please?" Melanie pleaded. Sam snorted, shoving her hands into her pockets. "A bunch of rich snobs who all think they're smarter than me and actually chose to live at school? Yeah, no thanks. Hey, but kid," she added upon seeing Melanie's crestfallen face. "You gotta come to Seattle more often, you hear me?" Melanie sniffed and nodded before wrapping her arms around Sam again. And Sam should have been able to just let her go, but there was something still nagging at her that she knew she had to say.
"Freddie still doesn't know you exist," she blurted out. Melanie pulled away but kept her hands on Sam's shoulders. "Huh? You never told him?"
"No, I…" Sam took a breath. "I told him you don't exist. I told him there's no Melanie."
Her sister's brow furrowed. "Why would you do that?" Sam gave her a look. "You know why." Melanie sighed. "Sam…"
"Look, it's the closest thing I'll ever get to being able to be like you for once," Sam told her, letting out a sniffle and hoping Melanie would believe it was just the cold.
And this way, Freddie wouldn't have someone to compare her to like everyone else did. She'd still be just Sam. Maybe one day she could be Sam. She wasn't sure who that was supposed to be yet, but she'd figure it out someday.
Someday in the kind-of-distant future, Sam would kiss Freddie in a courtyard at a lock-in, and then she'd truly be Sam. No longer just Sam. She would mean more to him than he'd ever imagined.
But that was a long ways away.
Now, Melanie smiled at her. "Oh, Sam." She brushed a strand of hair out of Sam's face. "You don't need to be like me. You're perfect just the way you are."
Sam barked out a laugh. "I'm the perfect sister?"
"Yeah, Sam, you are," Melanie told her, her voice shifting to a more serious tone. "You're the perfect sister. Always have been, always will be. And I'm only going to say that once, so don't ask me to repeat it."
Sam gave her an extra hug for that, deciding to ignore how sappy she was being because screw it, this was her twin sister.
"Oh!" Melanie exclaimed when they broke apart. "I have something for you!"
"You do? A present?" Sam said eagerly. Melanie laughed. "Yeah, a present." She bent down and unzipped one of her suitcases, then took out a box and handed it to Sam. Sam looked down at it and her mouth dropped open. "Fat Cakes!?"
"Yeah, I noticed you were running low," Melanie explained. She smiled. "Do you like it?"
"Are you kidding me!?" Sam cried out, gripping the large box tightly to her chest as her heart swelled. "This is the best present ever! Seriously. Thank you."
"You're welcome. I know you love those things to death. They seriously might be your cause of death if you keep-"
"I know, I know, stuffing my face with them," Sam rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. "But I'm gonna do it anyway."
"Yeah, I thought so," Melanie smiled back. She picked up her luggage-how she even managed to carry all of it, Sam didn't know-and turned back towards Sam one last time. "Well. I'll see you soon, hopefully, and make sure you call me! Okay?"
"Yeah, I will." Melanie always told her the same thing after visiting, and Sam always responded in the same way. But this time she actually meant it. "And you have fun with your fancy schmancy boarding school. Study and all that. At least one of us has to stay out of trouble." Melanie regarded her with a disapproving look. "Maybe both of us could stay out of troub-"
"That's not happening."
"Yeah, I didn't think so."
Melanie let out a breath. "Just...take care of yourself, okay?" Sam gave her a nod, rocking back and forth on her feet. "I always do."
"Well...goodbye! I'll miss you! I'll visit soon!"
"Yeah, you better!"
Melanie gave her one last wave, sliding her suitcase and purse handles down her arm in order to free up her hand. Sam waved back, squinting one eye, and watched Melanie walk through the doors into the airport. She let out a sigh. Well, that's that. She felt a wave of melancholy wash over her as she opened Spencer's car door and sat down in the backseat next to Carly.
"See? That wasn't so bad, and you were so upset about her visiting!" Carly pointed out.
Sam shrugged, staring hungrily down at her box of Fat Cakes as she ripped the flaps open. "At least I got Fat Cakes out of it." Carly tilted her head towards Sam. "You're going to miss her," she said, her tone softening. Sam shrugged. Yeah. Yeah, I am. But she must have said it out loud, because Carly smiled and wrapped her arm around Sam's shoulder.
Carly loved her for who she was, and so did Freddie, and so did Melanie. And she loved them for who they were. And maybe it's okay for her to just be who she was. Maybe it's okay to be a Sam, or a Melanie, or a Carly, or a Freddie, or a Spencer, or even a Gibby. Maybe it's okay for everyone to just be who they are and not be ashamed of it.
"I think all this sugar is skeeving off my emotions," Sam said through a mouth full of Fat Cake as she felt her eyes start to get glassy. Carly pulled her closer and wrapped her into a hug, and Sam didn't object.
"Hey Carls?" She said after a moment. "Yeah?" Carly answered, resting her cheek on Sam's head.
"I like doing iCarly with you."
Sam couldn't see her best friend, but she could have sworn she felt her smile. "I like doing iCarly with you too, Sam," Carly told her. "More than anything."
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and it was worth your while! Feedback is always appreciated, and if you feel so inclined as to leave a review it would mean the absolute world to me :)