Heeeere's chapter two, entirely from Carly's eyes. Took a little longer than I would've liked but that's life. Enjoy!
One year ago
It was supposed to be a normal Thursday night. You were lying on your bed, trying to count the amount of gummy bears on your chandelier and talking to Gibby on the phone about what you were going to do for dinner the next night, when you saw your bedroom door open out of your peripherals. You could see Sam standing there in the doorway, debating on whether to enter or come back later, which immediately made you sit up and wonder what was wrong; she had no issue barging in on your conversations with Gibby before, what would make her stop now? So you politely end the call with your boyfriend and turn your full attention to your best friend.
"Sam? Sam, is everything okay? Do you wanna come in?"
She opens her mouth but closes it just as quickly. She's hesitating and now you're getting slightly worried that she might've run afoul of the cops again or gotten into another fight and you have a few scenarios running through your head and all of them end up with her in handcuffs being whisked away to actual jail.
"What's wrong?" You don't even bother to hide the growing concern in your voice as you prepare to hop off the bed and drag her into the room so she'll talk, but to your surprise walks into the room of her own volition and closes the door behind her, before flopping face first onto your ice cream sandwich couch.
You remain silent, opting to let her speak to you as opposed to your normal routine of prying information out of her against her will. After a few more minutes of somewhat awkward silence and you petting her hair like you would when you were younger, she finally peels herself off the couch and sits up to face you. You see she's got her left hand balled up into a fist, but there are no cuts or bruises on it. So at least she didn't slug someone or something, that's good news.
But then said fist slowly opens to reveal a necklace shaped like her old remote control. Oh. You give her a puzzled look, wondering why she would be distressed over something so small. And then it hits you. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.
"I found this at home." The words come out so softly you almost strain to hear them. She takes a deep breath and you try to prepare yourself for whatever may come, but you're thrown off by how calm she seems when she starts speaking again.
"Am I crazy?" She hands the necklace over to you for you to look at, which you do, remembering the look on her face and just how ecstatic she was when it was gifted to her. You look at her weirdly when she repeats her question.
"Crazy how?"
"For still feeling some sort of way about Freddie? I mean, that's not normal, right?"
You try to inject some of your patented Carly wisdom into the conversation but your voice is drowned out by her ramblings about all things Freddie Benson. Eventually you give up trying to speak at all, so you sit back and listen to her pour her metaphorical soul out to you about him. Eventually, after what felt like hours, you finally manage to get a word in and ask something you wanted to ask from the onset.
"Sam, remind me, when was the last time you saw Freddie?"
"Four years ago." She mumbles, the words coming out bitterly, so you get the hint that there's no use in going down that road, lest you want to get yelled at.
"And you haven't gotten over him since you broke up? Not even a little?"
She looks at you like she always does when you state the obvious, causing you to hold your hands up in defense. "You see why I voluntarily admitted myself to a mental hospital, right?"
You give her a scolding look for deflecting back to sarcasm, and now she's shirking away from you, standing up and pacing around the room in a circle. You can tell how hard she's thinking of the right words to say just from the twisted expression on her face and how much she's running her hands through her hair. She then comes to an abrupt stop, turning on her heel to face you, exasperated in her body language.
"I don't know Carly. Maybe that's why I'm crazy." She reaches out to take the necklace back from you, holding it in her palm, staring holes through it.
"Why? Because you loved Freddie at one point?"
"No." She looks at you, and you swear she looks like she's about to scream, or collapse, or both. "Because I still love him."
Your eyes go back and forth between Freddie and Sam, to the point where you think you're going to give yourself a headache, they're moving so fast. Then you look briefly at the other woman, this Alyssa, and the first thing you notice is that her hair is the same shade of blonde as Sam's and you wonder if that's purely a coincidence or Freddie's trying to say something without actually saying it.
Then you notice how different he looks. Yeah, you rationalize, it's been seven years since you've seen him, so of course he's gonna look different, but it's not necessarily a good kind of different. He looks….worn out. Exhausted. Fatigued. Drained. You could spend all night going through your mental thesaurus finding words to use to describe just how utterly beat he looks. His shoulders are slumped and he's hunched over (now you're remembering that awful rhyme his mother made up about erect backs) and he looks like he needs about thirteen hours of sleep, stat.
"It's a pleasure to meet you two. Freddie's told me so much about how close you three are."
She speaks and you tilt your head to the side for a couple of reasons, first of which is how she phrased that sentence. You haven't been close to Freddie in seven years. Sure, you two spoke when you could, but you haven't been 'close' since you left. And secondly, you can't help but notice the tiniest, almost microscopic hint of sarcasm in her words, particularly on the word 'close'. You wonder if Sam picked up on it, and so you turn to face her to see if she did, but what you see gives you pause. Her hands are balled up into fists, and you can practically see the steam coming out of her nostrils as she breathes through them. You know that look. That's her 'I'm gonna start swinging' look.
"It's so nice to meet you too." You say as sweetly as you can while inching over towards Sam, discreetly grabbing her wrist to make sure she doesn't go flying off the handle trying to rearrange this poor woman's face. "Freddie! Why didn't you mention that you were engaged the last time we spoke?" You give him a look that says he's got a lot of explaining to do, and he just kind of shrugs his shoulders and gives you that old boyish grin of his, causing you to scoff. That stopped working years ago.
"Yeah, I uh…" He looks to her and smiles, and for the life of you, it looks like he's forcing it. Maybe it's just his exhaustion. Maybe not. "I wanted to tell you all in person. Sorry."
Sam still hasn't said anything, which is par the course, but she also hasn't tried breaking free of your grip to start causing hell, so you're mildly glad that the personal growth she's experienced has taken hold of her right now. "You've got nothing to apologize for! Congrats on the big news, dude!" You try to sound as excited as possible, and you are excited for him, but it just seems so sudden and you're trying to process all of this while still making sure your best friend doesn't get murder happy.
"Yeah, congrats Fredwad". Sam spits the words out with nothing but pure venom in her voice, which Freddie takes in stride thinking it's just Sam being Sam, but you know there's hurt laced in those words. You know how she feels. You try to get her to look at you but she's having none of it. She finally wiggles her wrist out of your hand and storms off upstairs without another word, leaving you to awkwardly hold the bag in front of Freddie and this new chick. Sorry. His fiancée.
"Um. I'm gonna go see how she's doing, be right back. Congrats once again!"
You're racing up to the third floor two steps at a time, hoping to find the old studio not in complete disarray, but what you find is something you're glad to be seeing, even under these less-than-ideal circumstances. The door's open and you run in to see Sam sitting on the edge of the bed devouring a fried chicken leg, looking no worse for wear.
"Sam."
She glances up from the ongoing destruction of her before dinner snack, almost looking annoyed that you'd interrupt her while she's eating, before quickly turning her attention back to the task at hand. "Sam!"
This time she doesn't even look up; instead she casually tosses the bare bone into the trash and moves onto tearing apart a thigh. "Samantha Puckett, don't you dare ignore me at a time like this! Freddie's back and he just dropped a whole lot of chiz on our heads and I need to know where your head is at and dang it Sam put the chicken down and pay attention to me!"
Your hands are on the collar of her vest and she's looking at you all weird, as if you magically sprouted a third eyeball or a second head. She remains silent, eyes now looking down at your hands, and you know that if you were anyone else they'd be broken and mangled for touching her in this manner, but you're hoping that this thing you have between you called 'being best friends' is enough for her to have mercy on you.
"So he's got himself a fiancée. Whoopdie doo. Why should I care?"
You stare at her in amazement and wonder how she can be so nonchalant about the fact that Freddie is engaged. Freddie. Freddie Benson. The boy you've spent countless nights talking to her about, goodness knows how many hours being her shoulder to lean on, trying to balance telling her she's not crazy for still having feelings for him with trying to not get her hopes up that he could potentially still feel the same way. Your amazement quickly gives way to anger, though, because why is she being so chill about this?
"Don't give me that look, Shay. You've been telling me all along to not get my hopes up about that nerd."
"I've also been telling you that you're not a whack job for still loving him! I know you still love him Sam, don't act like you can just turn those feelings off like some light switch!"
"Well guess what! Those feelings are officially gone, whether you like it or not. Now please me and my chicken alone, I've been away from it for too long."
You don't know what comes over you as you lunge forward and grab the half eaten poultry out of her hands, holding it high above your head and praying to however many deities you have to pray to that she doesn't try to throw you down the elevator shaft. She gives you a look that a disapproving mother would give their child after they flunked their math quiz, eventually standing up to try and retrieve her food. But you're not gonna let her get it back that easily, oh no, not until she quits acting like this matrimonial bomb that Freddie just sort of casually dropped on them isn't bothering her.
"Carly, please just give me my thigh back. I'm not in the mood for your shenanigans."
"Not until you stop acting like some robot! Admit that this is bothering the heck out of you!"
Her face grows a bit darker, her lips are pursed together and you can tell she's having a conversation with herself, probably telling that little demon in her head that you're her best friend and that she can't kill you. "Seriously Carly, can we not do this right now? I'm asking nicely, and you know I don't do anything nicely."
While that much was true, you were determined to get her to open up; Sam would say that you weren't so much determined and focused as you were obsessive and 'Mrs. Benson levels' of crazy when you got like this. She tries reaching for her chicken but you use your long arms to hold it just out of her reach, and you smirk, feeling like you're getting somewhere. That's when you feel yourself getting lifted off your feet and tossed onto the bed, and realize that this plan has gone horribly wrong.
"Give me. My chicken thigh. Back." The words come out slowly and calmly, your eyes meeting hers as she has you pinned down, a bored look on her face that belied the distress in her eyes. You go to say something when you hear the familiar ding of the elevator door opening, and the next thing you know….
"Hey Sam, do you still have that slingsh-oh. Uh. Well. This is a new development."
Both yours and Sam's eyes immediately flicker over to Gibby, whose holding a small bouquet of flowers and clearly at a loss for words with what he's seeing right now. Not that you could blame him. "Aww, are those for me?"
He managed to nod his head, extending his hand out as if you were going to somehow overpower Sam and go racing into his arms to grab them. After a few seconds of standing there with his arm still outstretched, you see Sam roll her eyes, muttering under her breath about how stupid he can be sometimes, which was completely uncalled for. "He is not stupid!" You turn your head to the side to face him and smile warmly at him. "Babe, could you go wait in my room for me? Sam and I are—"
"Nope, I get it, I'll go put these in a vase and wait down there for ya." You giggle at how he says 'vase' and blow him a kiss, one that he catches and puts in his pocket, which only makes you giggle harder, and you can feel Sam's eyes looking at you like you're bananas for liking him. Once Gibby leaves, your eyes look back up at her and your smile fades.
"Sam, why are you acting like this?"
She says nothing, the silence in the room growing thicker with every second passing. "If you give me my chicken back, I'll talk. Okay? Is that fair?"
All you can do at that point is take her word for it, so you nod your head. She releases her hold on your wrists, helping you sit up, but before you can even give the thigh back to her, she's already snatched it out of your hand and is out the door, presumably to lock herself in the bathroom, so quickly you'd swear the Flash ran through the room.
So you sigh and flop back down onto the bed knowing that if you want to get anything out of her, you're going to either have to let her come to you, or you're just going to have to get more creative with prying an answer out of her. Probably the latter. You know how stubborn and complicated she is when it comes to all things Freddie.
"Everything okay? I saw Sam run by your room looking pretty chizzed off about something…wait you didn't tell her that I drank the last of her Peppy Cola in the fridge, did you?"
Lifting your head up to look your boyfriend in the eye, you shake your head and he breathes a sigh of relief, as if he's been granted a stay of execution before he jumps onto the bed to join you. "Penny for your thoughts, Carls?"
You don't even bother with hesitating; you just come right out of the gates. "Did you know that Freddie's engaged?"
His eyes grow a bit wide, and you internally sigh in relief. "No, I had no idea!"
"Well, he is, and—"
"He never mentioned that he was gonna propose to his girlfriend when I spoke to him last! That clever dude!"
You shoot straight up and he does the same, acting as if there's nothing wrong with what he just told you, oblivious to the offended look on your face. "Wait, what!?"
He continues on, either intentionally ignoring how you're ready to scream or just being his usual, blissfully unaware Gibby self. "Yeah, I spoke to him a month or so ago. He called me out of the blue and we talked for like four hours. Mentioned he had a girlfriend named…Alyssa? That sounds right. But yeah, he told me all about her and now that I think about it…"
He makes eye contact with you, his face turning a ghostly shade of white as the word vomit continues. "…he told me not to mention any of this to you…because he wanted to tell you himself…because he knew how you'd react if you found out from someone else…you're gonna yell at me and hit me, aren't you?"
The sound of your open palm against his shoulder reverberates off the walls, and he feebly attempts to defend himself from your onslaught of slaps and flicks to his forehead. After a solid minute or two of hitting him, you find it in yourself to calm down, but only so much. "Why didn't you tell me about this sooner!? Don't you think I deserve to have some kind of heads up about something as big as this!?" Your voice is shrill and you've shifted all of your weight onto your left hip, your hand placed there firmly. Spencer says that's when he knows you're pissed. You're inclined to agree with him in this instance.
All he can do is stutter and look as apologetic as possible, causing you to groan and roll your eyes in frustration. "I could've given Sam a month to prepare for this and get all her feelings in check or completely out of her system! Your job as my boyfriend is to tell me these kinds of things!"
"I'm sorry." His words come out weakly and he legitimately looks like he wants to hurl. As he should.
"Not as sorry as you'll be when you're sleeping on the couch tonight! Downstairs! With Marvin!"
Before he can argue against this, you wave him off, muttering something to yourself about wanting to take a shower after picking Veronica's grandparents up, which you need Sam's help to do, but seeing as she's locked herself in the bathroom, you now have to do this solo. You wonder how this day went sideways so quickly as you walk down the stairs, but any grumblings you have cease once you see Freddie and Alyssa on the couch, acting all cute and adorable and couple-y. It makes you want to hurl because you know you're the same way with Gibby but you're nowhere near as nauseating as watching this girl paw at and fawn over Freddie.
The two of them don't notice you as you walk to the bar to grab your car keys, completely wrapped up in themselves. You go to murmur a goodbye, but you figure they won't hear you so you don't bother. Once you're outside the apartment, you lean up against the front door and sigh.
This was gonna be one incredibly awkward weekend.