Here's chapter three. Four will be up soon. Enjoy.
Four years ago
"So how's Marissa? She still giving you tick baths and stitching your name onto your underwear?"
Freddie shoots you a mildly stern look which quickly gives way to one of acknowledgment, causing you to stifle a laugh as you reach across the table and nab a fry off of his plate. You two have been sitting here for a few hours now, just eating (well, you're mostly eating) and catching up on everything. It had been a few days since he got out of the hospital, so you kept your word and took him out to have some fun. And Mama always kept her word when fun was involved.
"The tick baths stopped a long time ago, Sam, you know this."
You raise an eyebrow and give him a look that says 'Yeah, okay', and he relents once more. "Okay, so they stopped a year ago. But the underwear, that'll always happen."
"Ah, good old Marissa. What would you do without her?"
"Not live in constant fear of when she's gonna walk into my room in the middle of the night trying to clean my ears next."
The two of you share a pregnant pause, which leads to him laughing, and a second later you're joining him, and all you can think about right now (besides how insane his mother will always be) is how…nice, this feels. Yeah. It feels nice to be here with him. You then laugh to yourself, because you realize how disgusted thirteen year old you would be with current you right now. Probably questioning how you can stomach being around the 'dork-a-saurus rex' for so long without wanting to puke.
"Have you spoken to Carly at all?" His sudden question hangs in the air, and you feel a melancholy wave cascade over you for a moment; man, you miss her so much it kinda hurts.
"We speak at least once a week, sometimes more if we can get the timing right. She's got so much going on over there in Italy, and I've got the babysitting business, so…yeah." You poke around at what's left of your food with your fork and sigh. "I miss her."
He nods in agreement, and now a somewhat uneasy silence has taken over, neither one of you sure of what to say as you sit there, staring at anything but each other.
"Thanks again for saving me from the tuna, Sam."
Your eyes shoot up from your plate to meet his, and you're almost…touched? You could hear the sincerity in his voice and you definitely saw it in his face as he smiled that dorky smile, and you remember how much you missed seeing that smile too. Thirteen year old you would definitely be kicking your butt right now for that silent remark. "Yeah, well." You shrug your shoulders, as if what you did wasn't that big of a deal.
That's when he takes your hand and holds it in his own. Your eyes avert his gaze, your skin begins to feel flushed and when the heck did it get so dang hot in here? He then rubs his thumb along the top of your hand and if you could turn into a puddle of goo and blonde hair, you would be doing that right about now. He's the only boy who's made you feel this way, and you both commend and hate him for it, because you're an overly complicated mess of a girl and you can never just accept anything at face value, especially when it came to your feelings, and doubly especially when it came to Freddie.
"I'm serious."
"I know."
He gives his head a slight shake, a pleading look written along his face as you eventually meet his gaze. Now you two are staring into each other's eyes, trying to figure out one another's next move, ignoring the impatient foot tapping and look the waiter was shooting you for still being here this late. He could wait; this was far more important right now than him wanting close them out so he could leave.
"Do you wish there was anything we could've done different?"
You knit your eyebrows together before raising them, unsure of what point his question was meant to get across. "I mean, I could've ordered the burrito instead of this burger, but—"
"No, Sam, I mean…do you wish we could've handled our relationship differently?
"What, you mean when we were kids?"
He gives you a look that says to stop playing stupid, so naturally that's what you continue to do, feigning ignorance, because you were afraid that this conversation would come up at some point and you're so woefully unprepared for it so you try to delay the inevitable but he's not having any of it.
"A big part of me wishes we hadn't broken up."
Your eyes drift upwards to the ceiling, a heavy sigh escaping your lips as you try to think of the right thing to say to such a loaded statement like that. What do you even say to that? Your first instinct is to deflect it with sarcasm, to insult him for being so mushy and prissy, but you're not exactly that type of girl anymore. You like to think you've grown over the years.
"A big part of me wishes you weren't such a dork, but you know."
Okay so maybe you haven't grown that much over the years.
He chuckles. "I wish we had fought more to make it work."
"Yeah. Me too."
Your skin is on fire right now and you know you're blushing madly to the point of looking like a ripe tomato but he isn't saying anything, at least out loud. You weren't expecting the truth to come out so easily there but you've always had cases of word vomit at the most inopportune times and this is no different.
More awkward silence. The only sound you heard was coming from the frustrated sighs of your waiter, and you swear on a case of Peppy Cola if you hear him mutter one more word under his breath you're gonna break both of his arms.
"Are you just saying that to shut me up or…?"
Shaking your head, you can't help but reach across the table and flick his forehead. Even now, he was still hopelessly stupid when it came to matters of the heart. "No, Fredlumps, I'm not. I mean it."
"Then why didn't you?"
You immediately shoot him an indignant look. What? Where does he get off making such a statement?
"Why didn't you?" You spit the words right back at him, backing him off as he raises his hands in defense. A sigh then escapes your lips as you're now the one reaching across the table, not to flick him or cause him bodily harm, but to grab his other hand and hold it in your own. His skin is just as hot as yours. Of course it is.
"We both should have tried, Fredhead. How were we supposed to know when we broke up then that the rest of the boys and girls we'd encounter afterwards would be suckish and hold no appeal to us?"
The tension that was threatening to envelope you both was cut in half and now you're both laughing again. He's the first to speak after said laughter subsides. "Maybe we should try again then."
Your eyebrows shoot up and your lips form an 'o' shape, you're clicking your tongue and your skin is so hot it could set an army of ants walking on the sidewalk ablaze. "Don't threaten Mama with a good time like that, Bensonhead." You're not even sure how those words came out right now but they did and he's smirking that smirk of his and you feel like the damn Human Torch right now. You commend and hate him for this. Thirteen year old you would be vomiting buckets right now if she saw you.
"Come back to Seattle, Sam. You belong there. Everyone misses you."
"No, I used to belong there. Now I belong here, with Cat, Dice, Goomer and Nona. With my babysitting business. I can't go back permanently, not now. You know that saying, right? Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
He sighs in frustration, knowing he's not going to be able to change your mind or make you budge on this.
"My graduation party is in a few months. Will you at least come back for that?"
You can't resist the urge to crack a joke. "How did Ridgeway let you graduate and what college is letting you in through their doors?"
"Sam…"
"When is it?"
"May 31st, the last Saturday of the month."
Thinking and planning ahead was never one of your strong suits, but you also figure that if you forget about it (which you know you will in about a week), he's gonna keep pestering you until the day of.
"Okay. I'll be there."
The way his eyes instantly light up makes you smile like an idiot as he does a little fist pump and whoops it up. "Will there be quality meats? Asking for a friend."
"I'll make sure that there's all the ham and ribs and bacon you can eat. You have my word."
"Then I look forward to your graduation party, Freddifer."
"And I look forward to seeing you there, Sam. So we can talk. About everything."
Present day
Look at him. Look at her. Look at the two of them. Seeing them act all cute and gross and mushy and disgusting is making you lose your appetite. You just wanna reach over and stab him with a fork in his other shoulder, or throw your spoon at the little tart he calls his fiancée's face. You wish you weren't seating directly across from them or even sitting at the same table as them but Carly insisted, and you did bail on helping her with Veronica's grandparents, so you relented. But boy did you make a stink about it the entire ride here.
"Sam, could you pass the calamari please?"
The sudden urge to take the plate and break it over this Alyssa chick's skull is overwhelming right now. So what if she gets a concussion and maybe bleeds a little? It's not like you'd hit her hard enough to kill her or something. And it's not like anyone other than Fredpuss would miss her, right? Right?
"If you think of harming that girl right now you're paying for your own smoothies from now on."
You shoot Carly a dirty look for being inside of your head like this again, but ultimately you roll your eyes and mumble under your breath. Forcing the tightest smile you've ever smiled, you pass the plate over to this chick while simultaneously screaming like a banshee on the inside. Carly can tell this is killing you but it's not like you two can just talk about this in the middle of the big 'iCarly gang reunion dinner extravaganza of food' as Spencer so eloquently put it on the car ride over.
"Hey, babe, can you grab the water pitcher for me please?"
"When I'm finished eating my food okay? God, be patient."
Whaaaaa? That caught your attention. You look up to catch what you assume is the end of a little tiff between the two of them. The little jerk rolls her eyes at him while he sighs in frustration. Where in the name of gravy is this coming from? And why is nobody else seeing what you're seeing?
"Look everyone, I got more than two shrimp up my nose!"
"Spencer…"
Oh, that's why.
"That is pretty funny, don't you think?"
"I mean, if you find that brand of idiocy funny, then I suppose it is."
Did she just call Spencer an idiot? I think she just called him an idiot.
"How do you not think that's even the tiniest bit hilarious?"
"Because, Freddie, it's childish and frankly, stupid and immature. And if you find that funny, then I don't know what to tell you."
Seriously, where the hell is this coming from? Not one hour ago you were watching the two of them giving each other gaga eyes and making kissy faces to the point where you thought you were gonna regurgitate that meatball sandwich you had for lunch. Last Wednesday. And now she's being a total bit—
"Sam, look at this! I told you I could get three jumbo shrimp up my nose!"
Your attention briefly turns to Spencer and whatever feelings of murderous rage you have for Alyssa and her suddenly piss poor attitude are gone when you see how ridiculous he looks. You almost feel bad for the fact that Veronica is hitching her wagon to his for the rest of her life, but hey, she could've said no. And then ran as fast as she could have in the other direction. Screaming.
"Bet you can't get four up there."
"Sam!" Both Veronica and Carly's eyes are on you, questioning why the hell you would dare Spencer to do such a thing, but before they can plead with him not to do it, he's already reaching for the shrimp cocktail bowl. Gibby and V's grandparents are finding this hilarious. Now what were you doing?
"How many times have I told you to put that damn phone away when we're eating?"
Oh, yeah, that.
You do your best to make it look like you're not gawking at the two of them, but really, how discreet can you be when you're sitting right in front of them? And plus, discreet is something you're definitely not and have never been, so why bother trying now?
"It's my boss, Aly. I can't ignore him even if I'm on vacation, okay?"
"Don't call me that, you know I hate being called Aly."
"Since when?"
You'd be busting out laughing right now if this didn't completely come out of left field. You keep your eyes on Spencer's silliness at the head of the table but your ears trained to whatever it is Fredbag and his blonde headed dishrag of a fiancée are arguing about. But that's the thing. There's silence now. Which is then followed by hushed tones and sudden laughter. Whaaaaaaaa?
They're laughing at some stupid tech joke he made. Your eyes grow wide, head turning away before you can see them kiss, because that would literally make you either puke or leave. Probably puke as you left. Or make you puke on them. Yeah, that would be worth laughing over.
Your eyes look up from the plate of meatballs in front of you to see them smiling at one another. Were you just imagining that entire argument? You had to have been. They're acting like nothing's wrong, like she wasn't just bitching him out over a stupid nickname. Your eyes rapidly blink, as if doing that's gonna change what you're looking at in front of you. Maybe you really are seeing things. Wouldn't be the first time. Definitely won't be the last. Whatever.
A heavy, frustrated sigh escapes your lips as you begin scrolling thru your phone, looking for something, anything, to occupy your wandering mind and to keep you from having to listen to the two disgusting lovebirds talk about how adorable the other one is. Perusing thru Splashface yields uninteresting results; mainly because every other post was Nona posting all sorts of pictures of her and Cat's trip to Buffalo (poor Cat looked so cold and miserable in every single picture). After scrolling thru what felt like hundreds of pictures of boring ass Buffalo, you see a picture that Freddie posted of him inside of King County International with the hashtag 'Just landed'. And now you're thinking about your last conversation.
How could he justify doing what he did? Whether you like admitting it or not, it still pisses you off that he basically ghosted you five years ago. You've known him since you were both seven. You have all the history in the world together, and apparently it meant nothing to him. Hell, he's pretty much been acting like you don't even exist ever since he arrived. Not a single word to you. You begin to feel your hand ball up into a fist. You'd like nothing more than to jackslap the living fudge out of him right now, if only for the simple reason that he couldn't even bother to say hi to you when he got here, and that's without going into the multitude of other reasons you want to cause harm to him.
You wonder how he can just show up unannounced after not speaking to you for five years and you wonder how you can still harbor any feelings for him.
Then he looks over at you and smiles, and you feel like you did the first time you ever had bacon flavored ice cream.
That's when you realize that those feelings never truly went away.
Before you even realize it, you're outside Tetrazzini's, waiting for Spencer to pull up with the car. You scan the area and find that Freddie's to your left, waiting on his dear sweet Alyssa. You can literally feel the awkward in the air as you glance over at him and accidentally make eye contact. Shit. Another quick glance shows that he's focusing on you, like he's trying to think of something to say and thinking way too hard about it, as he is wont to do. So you do what you do best.
"Take a picture, Frednerd, it'll last longer."
He stares at you like a deer caught in the headlights, and you chuckle to yourself; you've still got it.
"Hi, Sam."
You throw your arms up in the air all dramatic like, eyes rolling so hard they could've rolled into the back of your head, and you heave a massive sigh in his direction. "Oh, now the boy acknowledges me."
If this were the old days, he would be rolling his eyes at your melodramatic ass before carrying on with the conversation. But right now? Well, judging by how red his face is and how he's murmuring something under his breath, you figure he still doesn't know what to say or how to react. You walk the three feet over to him so you can punch him in the shoulder (as opposed to a fist to the jaw, which he so richly deserves right now). But before you can connect, he's got you wrapped up in a tight, albeit way too quick hug. Now you're the one who's almost at a loss for words.
"I'm sorry I didn't say hi to you earlier. That was rude of me."
"Damn right you should apologize to Mama. What, did you think I'd let something like that slide?"
He looks down at his feet and nervously begins kicking around a little pebble. You snap your fingers, which makes him look right back up at you. Now you're just staring at each other, and you're waiting for him to say something, anything. But he's just staring at you. Normally you'd find this sort of behavior creepy, but now it's…no, yep, it's still creepy. This time you actually do punch him in the shoulder (not hard enough to dislocate it, though) and he immediately screams out his displeasure with your violent tendencies.
"What the hell, Sam!? Why'd you go and do that for!?"
"Because you were staring at me like the dorky weirdo you've been since birth. Use your words, Benson, girls usually find you to be somewhat attractive when you're not breathing all gross and heavy near them."
"I'm sorry if I was thinking of how to adequately describe how sorry I was for being a jerk earlier! You didn't need to wreck my shoulder like that!"
"Benson, if I wanted to wreck your shoulder, I would've."
The two of you are falling back into your old routine of trading barbs back and forth and you're surprisingly okay with it, because at least it's something. And something is better than coming in guns blazing and going for his jugular right from the get-go. Granted, you still want answers, and you'll get them, but you find it better to let him think that you've moved on and forgotten about what happened five years ago, lulling him into a sense of some security. That's when you'll blindside him. You're imagining the look on his face when you unleash five years of pent up frustration on him, and it makes you laugh.
"What's so funny, Sam?"
You don't hesitate with your response. "The fact that your fiancée let you dress up like that."
"She happens to like how I dress."
"That's one thing she's got in common with your loon of a mother."
"Why must you still rag on my mother?"
"When you live across the hall from her and you're still subjected to her craziness, it's hard not to rag on her."
That gives him pause. Huh. He didn't know. "Wait…que? Did you say you live across the hall from my mom?
"Did I stutter? Or do you need to get your hearing checked?"
"…..when did you start living with Carly and Spencer?"
"When she came back from Italy. So three years ago. Give or take."
"Why'd you leave California? I thought you and your friend Cat had a rockin' babysitting business?"
"We did, and we made a lot of money from babysitting. But you can only do something for so long without wanting to try new things. Spencer reached out to me saying Carly was coming home right as Cat graduated from Hollywood Arts. So we decided it was best to move onto the next phase of our lives."
"How is she?"
"Kitty Cat's doing great. She's trying her hand at acting and singing right now and I couldn't be happier for her. She's actually gonna be landing here tomorrow."
"She's coming to the wedding?" He suddenly had a jittery look on his face that you find so amusing. What's he got to be so concerned about?
"Her and Dice are my plus one's, plus Spence invited the rest of her friends from school. Why so jumpy? Afraid that your lady is gonna find out you flirted with her for like five minutes?"
A nervous laugh comes from his lips and it makes you shake your head. Of course, as if on cue, that's when a case of your word vomit reappears. Of course.
"Where have you been the last five years?"
"Sam…"
"No, seriously? Why didn't you reach out to any of us? If it weren't for Marissa giving us small updates on you here and there, I would've thought you fell off the face of the earth. Carly was really upset." You find that to be a good cover; you don't want to play all your cards just yet, and it's believable enough.
But before he can say much of anything, the sound of a car horn being honked four times annoyingly fills the air, making you whip your head to find the source of the disturbance. So help you, you'll kick Spencer so hard in the shin when you find him and—
"FREDDIE! GET IN THE CAR!"
Oh. It's her. You should've known.
He doesn't say or do much other than offer up a weak sauce wave goodbye, slowly dragging his feet to the rental car with that blonde headed witch (the irony of you calling someone else that isn't lost on you) inside. You can see her scolding him the second he enters the car before she speeds off back to Bushwell. Two seconds later, Spencer pulls up and you quietly crawl into the backseat, Carly giving you a sympathetic look as she gives your hand a gentle squeeze, silently telling you that she understands. You shrug your shoulders and spend the rest of the car ride staring quietly out the window. Upon arriving back to the apartment, you say goodnight to everyone and make your way upstairs, flopping face first onto your bed. You try to fall asleep rather quickly, but you know yourself better than anyone, and that's not happening for a few more hours. So you grab your remote and make the old monitor swing out, and begin flicking thru the channels. Finally you settle on some channel filled with awful late night ads about a magic kumquat slicer and two and a half minute calves, silly stuff of that variety.
After an hour of one bad infomercial after another, you finally feel your eyes growing heavy, so you dim the lights and prepare yourself for another fitful night of sleep. That's when your phone buzzes. And buzzes. And buzzes. Groaning, you reach over and grab it, fully prepared to shut it off, when you see who it is that's texting you. More importantly, what he's texting you.
i'm downstairs in the lobby. meet me down here? so we can talk?
we're not talking in the lobby.
please sam? for me?
that only works when carls says it 2 u
ughhhh whatever. forget it
hold your horses ya priss, i'll be rite down.
You literally jump out of bed and haphazardly throw a hoodie and some pants on, before smashing the button to the elevator. A few minutes later the door raises and there he is, waiting for you patiently by Lewbert's desk. Of course the old dishrag is out cold on the counter. Of course, you can't let such a golden opportunity pass you by without doing something. So you take the glass of water to his left and stick one of his outstretched hands into it.
"What's that gonna do?"
"Make him pee his pants."
Before Freddie can protest or question your antics further, you forcefully grab him by the hand and begin dragging him out the door and onto the street, hooking a hard right towards Bell Harbor. You arrive with little in the way of conversation between the two of you, but that's about to change quickly.
"You wanted to talk, Freddie. So talk."
"What do you want to know?"
You resist the urge to ask him about what happened five years, biting back those words. The time for answers to those questions will come soon. So you answer the question as honestly as you can.
"Tell me everything."
So he does. He works for the Pear Corporation as their top software engineer, though he wouldn't tell you who exactly his boss is, but whatever. He's traveling all the time because of it, which partly explains the whole no talking to anyone for the last five years thing (but doesn't completely excuse it). He even tells you how he came to meet Alyssa (even though you don't remember asking him to tell you about that, but whatever) when she started interning for Pear. He kept on and on about all anything he could think of, and you sat there, listening, being as good a friend as you could be. You should've just left well alone and let him talk about whatever he wanted to talk about.
Your word vomit said otherwise.
"So why was Alyssa acting like such a dipthong towards you at dinner?"
He freezes, his body instantly tensing up, looking like a deer in the headlights again. He begins doing that thing when he gets nervous about something, where he rubs and scratches the back of his neck. It's his tell that he's as uncomfortable as he can possibly be. "You saw that?"
"Yeah, and it was kinda weird. What up with that? Does she treat you like that all the time?"
His head begins to vigorously shake, his body language vehemently denying it, but his eyes told a different story. They were telling you the truth. "We had a long flight, Sam, we dealt with a bunch of delays and she was just a little cranky is all."
You arch an eyebrow and give him the most thoroughly unimpressed look you think you've ever given anyone in existence. How does he expect you of all people to believe such a blatant lie like that? It amazes you that even now, all these years later, you can still see right through him when he lies. You want to call him on his bullshit, but you bite your tongue to the point where you're pretty sure it might be bleeding a little bit. So you decide to attack this from a different angle.
"Is everything okay back wherever it is that you're living now? This is me being serious. Do you have to go traveling so much? Is that maybe why she snapped at you?"
"Sam…"
"What, I'm not allowed to ask questions anymore?"
"There's nothing for me to talk about in regards to that."
"Five minutes ago you were gushing about how awesome this chick is, but now when I question her nubbish behavior at dinner, that's it, you're done talking?"
You blink and he's suddenly closed the distance, hands on your shoulders, giving you a pleading look to let it go. For a split second you thought he was gonna kiss you, but this isn't eight years ago. He looks at you like he's about to cry or get on his knees and beg you for something. Maybe both. You never know with him.
"Sam…I'm saying this to you as your friend of many years and someone who knows how you are…don't waste your time paying any attention to my life or my relationship with Alyssa. Okay? I'm fine. Alyssa and I are in a great place. There's nothing you need to worry about. I promise."
Well, what are you supposed to say to that? He obviously believes his own chiz, and there's not much you can do about that. You silently nod, and that's how the two of you make your walk back to Bushwell; in complete silence. When the two of you get back, he gives you a quick hug and waves goodbye again, departing up the stairs while you wait for the elevator. You look over and see that Lewbert has, indeed, peed his pants. That's the only thing that's made you genuinely smile today.
Upon arriving back in the apartment, you make your way up the stairs and stop at Carly's room; the light peeking out from under her door tells you she's awake. Good. She needs to hear this.
You push the door open and, sure enough, see her sitting on the edge of her bed, as if she had been expecting you all along. She smiles at you, and you return it with one of your own. "Is everything okay, Sam?"
"I just got back from talking with Freddie down by the harbor."
Her eyes widen a bit and her attention is completely and fully on you now. "Oh? How did that go?"
You don't hesitate with what you say next.
"I think there's something up with Alyssa that he's not telling me. So I'm gonna crack that boy open like an egg this weekend and find out what it is he's hiding. By any means necessary."