AN: I shall hence forth be known as promise-breaker.
'Can someone please tell me why girls are so confusing?' my brain begins shouting at me. I shake my head to stop the thoughts from giving me a bigger headache. For now I just concentrate on cleaning myself up. I grab a towel and try to dry my hair a little but there is only so much I can do with it. I made it up to the studio without alerting Carly to my presence. I changed and hid my dirty clothes underneath my tech cart. I made it back to the living room without seeing Carly, which in retrospect was good for me.
I had my hand on the doorknob before someone saw me again. Spencer came out of his room and gave me a questioning look.
"Do I want to know?"
"Probably not," I answered.
"Do you want to talk?" He asked rephrasing his question.
"Not right now, but thanks for the offer Spence."
Luckily my mom wasn't in a particularly aggressive parenting mood when I walked through our door. She looked to be busy with a news story about a possible cure for non-hair growth in teen males. I rolled my eyes and went straight to my bedroom. I flopped down onto the bed grabbing my pearpod off my night table and just pressed play.
The last song I was listening to was Yellowcard's "How I Go" the song picked off where I left off just as the female voice began singing along with the lead Ryan Key. My head was still pounding and I think I may have caught a cold after my time with Sam on the fire escape, but the music was making me feel a hell of a lot better.
I could tell you of a man not so tall
Who said life's a circus and so we are small
Tell you of a girl that I saw
I froze in the moment and she changed it all
I didn't know exactly when I fell asleep but I knew that I was dreaming. It felt like déjà vu at first but then I remember that I couldn't possibly have gone straight from being in bed to being in the groovy smoothie. Oh and also I was staring at myself.
"Carly! Freddie is staring at your butt!" I see Sam yell out loud with her trademark mischievous smile. I see the other me get flustered and try to deny it, I laugh because I know the truth. I'm a teenage boy though so I can't be held responsible for what my hormones do.
I watch idly as the scene before me plays out. I laugh as I watch Sam make me pay for her drink. When he and his two friends leave I have to follow, it was just instinct because why else would I have a dream about myself and not follow.
I watch as the events of a few months ago unfold before me, Sam stealing my backpack, me running after her, Carly yelling at us to knock it off and us ignoring her. Once I come back without my backpack and I see the truck heading for Carly who for some reason still hadn't moved from the middle of the street. I don't really get the point of this dream right now.
I'm watching as the taco truck takes the corner and Carly stands there helplessly. I want to yell out to her to get out of the street but of course it's a dream and she can't hear me. I watch as the other me sees what I see and run out to save her. I push her towards the sidewalk but the momentum isn't enough to keep us both out of harm's way. I watch the horrific scene of the truck hitting me almost like it's in slow motion. I'm snapped out of it when I hear my name being screamed.
I look around to see Carly sobbing my name as she picks herself up from the sidewalk. She's hobbling over to where I lay motionless on the side of the street. The truck driver is out of the car and apologizing like crazy. Carly leans down next to me and continues to sob as she pulls out her phone and dials 911. She tells the operator shakily about the accident and I just stare on in horror.
The cops must have been close by because they were the first to arrive on the scene, followed closely by an ambulance from Seattle General Hospital. I see one of the cops pull the truck driver aside for questioning and a paramedic takes Carly to the ambulance to check on her. The other 3 paramedics are attending to my lifeless body, lifting it onto a stretcher carefully.
The hairs on my arms are raised as I watch helplessly. I don't know what to do until I see Sam enter the scene from the corner of my eye. She comes around the corner smiling triumphantly but her face quickly goes ghostly when she takes in her surroundings. The flashing lights illuminate her face in blues and reds. I see her mouth move but I can't quite make out the words that she speaks. One of the officers sees her and leads her towards where Carly is standing. Carly runs to her and I can hear her shrieks about the accident.
I hear Sam shout back with a mixture of surprise, anger, and sadness in her voice. Carly starts to explain something while I decided that I need to get closer. I come in on the tail end of the conversation. Sam tells Carly that she'll go tell Spencer what happened. I see her run towards Bushwell stop mid way, run back to the truck and grab something from its 'debris' and continue on her way. I found myself laughing when I realized that she had grabbed some tacos; typical Sam.
I look back to Carly and hear her conversation with the officer that brought Sam over. She's stopped crying by now and looked less shaken then a few moments earlier.
"Now miss can you tell me what happened here?" He asked her gently.
I was ready to hear what she would have to say but my unconscious mind had other plans for me as I was now in the Shay's apartment. Spencer was just making himself some lunch when Sam busts through the door; Spencer who is startled fumbles his pizza to the floor.
"Freddie's hurt!" Sam yells at a surprised Spencer.
"What happened?" He asks anxiously.
"A big taco truck came around the corner and Freddie ran out and pushed Carly out of the way." She explains frantically.
Spencer just stares at her blankly for a second as she finishes her explanation. She pulls out one of the tacos and proceeds to eat it.
He stares at the teenage girl in front of him curiously wondering what he should say.
"Is that a taco from the truck that hit Freddie?" Spencer asks, settling on this question.
"Well, me being hungry isn't going to help him!" She yells at the baffled Spencer.
He continues to stare at her before speaking again.
"Where is Carly?" He asks.
"I'll take you there," Sam says, urgently taking his hand and pulls him out the door.
I try to follow them out the door but again my dream has other plans for me and I'm being taken to the hospital waiting room. I see Spencer sitting by the door of the emergency room, his leg bouncing up and down impatiently. Carly comes out of the door followed by a doctor. Spencer shoots up from his waiting room chair and meets the doctor.
"Carly is just fine, nothing too serious. She has some bruises and cuts but those should heal soon."
"Thank you doctor."
"Can we see Freddie yet?" Carly asks.
"Not just yet, but in a few minutes I'll send someone out to get you guys.
Carly and Spencer take their seats and wait in silence. I look around the otherwise empty waiting room. There is only one other person there and it's a woman who seems to have fallen asleep in her chair. Sam's absence is glaring me in the face. I'm wondering where she went when Spencer answers the question for me.
"Where did Sam go?" Carly asked looking for her blond best friend.
"She went to the bathroom fifteen minutes ago…or at least that's what she told me she was doing."
I follow Carly as she walks up to the nurses' station to ask where the bathrooms were. Down the hall, take a left and then they'll be on the right. Carly followed the nurse's instructions while I continued to follow her. We get to the bathroom to find it empty, Sam had gone MIA.
No sooner had I thought that Sam had abandon us did my dream shift again. I was confused at first because the scene looked the same. I was still in a bathroom at the hospital but Carly was no longer with me. Sam was though; she sat on the floor by the door. Her head was resting on her knees, and she was silently crying. I could hear her shaky breaths. I stared in disbelief at her; I never even saw how this whole situation affected her. Her phone vibrated on the floor next to her, I leaned over and read the text she had received from Carly.
"Where are you?" it read.
"In the bathroom, I'm on my way back now." She responded before getting up.
She walked over to one of the sinks and began running the water. She splashed the water on her face. The redness went down and the tears were washed away. She fixed herself before exiting the bathroom. I followed her back to the waiting room where Carly and Spencer were both waiting by the doors.
"The nurse says we can see him now," Carly says as she heads for the door. Spencer follows her while Sam brings up the rear. The nurse that Carly had asked for directions earlier stopped them though.
"Sorry only two visitors at a time," She said sympathetically eying the three of them.
"Oh um that's cool, you and Spencer can go first. I'll just wait here." Sam suggests walking over to an empty chair.
"Are you sure Sam?" Spencer asks holding the door open.
"Yeah, I'm sure. The nub probably doesn't want to see me anyway," Sam says letting the last sentence trail off into a whisper.
I don't know what to do at this point, do I follow Carly and Spencer or do I stay with Sam. I'm torn but luckily my dream decides for me as I'm already in my hospital room. I see myself laying their practically asleep with a nurse looking over a chart. I hear a door open behind me and expect it to be Carly and Spencer but I see Sam slowly entering the room.
"How's he doing?" She asks the nurse nervously.
"He's doing well; we just gave him some medication so he can rest. He should be asleep soon."
"Oh, should I just go then," Sam says pointing towards the door.
"No honey, you can stay if you'd like." The nurse said putting the chart back on the end of my bed and leaving the two of us alone
Sam looks hesitant but she takes the seat by my bedside anyway. She begins fidgeting in the seat. I can see she's uncomfortable just sitting there. I'd already been knocked out with whatever pain meds they gave me. I can see her holding back tears as she wipes away stray ones that have escaped. Suddenly she takes a hold of my hand that hasn't been wrapped in a cast and holds it in hers.
"Freddie, I'm so sorry, this is my fault. If I hadn't have run away with your bag just to mess with you we would have already been off the street by the time that the taco truck came by. Carly wouldn't have been waiting for us in the middle of the street, and you wouldn't have had to save her. I'm so sorry."
Sam continues to hold my unbroken hand and cry. 5 minutes pass by and I'm acutely aware that I'm watching Sam in a whole new light. Samantha Puckett did have a soft side, it rarely made an appearance but when it did you took notice. The sight of Sam crying freely left me sad myself. I just wanted to reach out and hug her tightly and before I knew what I was doing I had walked right over to her and did just that.
This being a dream though Sam didn't know what I was doing. Soon she just sat there holding my hand and resting her head on the space of bed next to my body. I could see her absentmindedly stoking her small fingers across the back of my hand. Soon she takes her hand and intertwines them with my own. I can't help but smile when I see the small smile that brightens her face.
The smile is short lived though as Carly comes barging through the door breaking whatever moment of peace Sam was having.
"Spencer wants to know if you need a ride home." She asks clueless as to what was going on before she came into the room.
"Um sure, thanks."
Carly waits there patiently for Sam, but Sam asks for another minute alone. Carly obliges and walks out of the room leaving Sam behind.
"I really am sorry Freddie" she says getting up. She looks down at my body once more before bending down quickly and kissing me on the cheek. She rushes out of the room with a small blush forming on her cheeks.
I look after her shocked. Did she really just do that I think to myself. I look back and forth from the door that she ran out of and my sleeping body on the hospital bed. I look at myself more clearly and notice that a subtle grin is on my face.
This seems to be the end of my dream because next thing I know I'm being awoken by my mother who is asking me what I want to eat. I tell her I'm not hungry and after a few minutes of protest she gives up and leaves my room. I don't know what to make of the dream because I usually don't hold much stalk in my dreams but this one was amazingly vivid. I almost felt like I was having a Christmas Carol-esque dream where I've been brought into the past by a ghost. Except there was no ghost trying to show me the error of my ways, just my subconscious trying to tell me something.
I decided that I need to talk about this with someone but whom, I didn't know. I could talk to my mom about this she'd just make me go see a therapist or something. I couldn't very well talk to Carly about this; she'd just freak out and jump to conclusions. Sam was definitely out of the question as well seeing as how she probably hates me again by now. I finally landed on Spencer, he would be the voice of reason in all of this…I hope.
"Maybe you like Sam?" Spencer said.
"Maybe?"
"What, I mean look at the facts. You guys shared your first kiss right?" I nod my head to this. "You're always ragging on each other and yet you still hang out."
"We only hang out together because of Carly though," but even as I say the words I know it's not true. There have been plenty of times where we've hung out when Carly could join us.
"It just adds up dude, but to be honest I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. She's liked you for awhile now I can't believe it took her so long to crack." Spencer says incredulously.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Spencer looks taken aback "How could you have missed it? She's constantly putting down the other girls you've shown interest in, she let you believe that Melanie wasn't real and that you were smarter than her and whatever,"
"What does the possible existence of Sam's twin have to do with her liking me?"
"You asked Melanie out on a date and kissed am I correct?"
"Well yeah but I thought it was Sam and I was only trying to prove a point."
"Yes but why would Sam want you to think that she would go out with you and kiss you or even make up a person so that she could go out with you?"
Spencer had given me a lot to think about but even with all that knowledge it still didn't change my initial reaction, I think I may like Sam.
AN: Not making any promises. Maybe once my jury duty is over I can focus on finishing this.