Freddie awakes from a fitful sleep that morning, sitting up in his bed and glancing at the bedside alarm clock which tells him that it's only just reaching seven o'clock. He lies back against his pillow and thinks of the dream he had, of the girl with the nearly white hair and ice cold eyes, the girl standing with her back to a taller brunette. She goes against what he should want to want, what he should have, but Freddie isn't a fool to his feelings. He knows that his heart is aiming for the smaller girl. Her, with so much spunk and attitude that it scared Freddie.

Scared Freddie to think that she is what kept him from moving on with his life for a long while.

He climbs out from under his Galaxy Wars comforter when he hears his mother pattering around outside of his bedroom. He sheds his t-shirt and pajama pants on the floor of the bathroom and steps into the shower before the water has even had time to warm up. After washing himself, he holds his head up into the stream and lets the water run over his face, feeling it cleanse something deep in him even as it runs into his eyes and up his nose.

He sputters after a while and gets out, slips into a casual button up and jeans.

When he leaves his room, he finds that his mother left a plate of breakfast out for him on the small kitchen island and there is a note tacked on the fridge door, telling Freddie to soak his dishes in 120 degree Fahrenheit water. Freddie rolls his eyes at the bottom of the note which read, "Mommy will come home from work at six to clean up your dishes and fix you dinner," along with more than a few hearts scrawled alongside it. He sits down and eats as much as he could force down, which turns out to be just a bit, and scrapes the rest of the food out. He sets the dishes in the sink and, forgetting to fill the sink with water, he leaves his apartment to go for a walk.

His feet take him to downtown Seattle, past shops barely open and along roads with minimal traffic. He turns corners, cuts through small paths, and soon finds himself in the old playground just a small ways away from Adams Elementary school where he had met the people he knows now. He perches himself precariously on the small spring rider and chuckles when he has a memory of the first time meeting Carly and Sam.

They were eight years old and Carly sat next to Freddie on the duck spring rider, her dark hair flying in the wind and she laughed delightfully at the jerky movements. She had smiled at Freddie, and stook her tongue out when he didn't immediately look away. Freddie remembers that moment like the back of his hand, it's so ingrained in his memory. A seven year old Gibby had come up to Carly and offered her some of his licorice stick, and had blushed when Carly leaned over to kiss him on the cheek to thank him for the candy.

Suddenly, a tail of blonde hair hit Freddie in the face as a girl barreled past him. She shouted, "Are you cheating on me, Gibson?"

Gibby hadn't answered in time, and found himself on the ground, looking up in awe of the girl who now held his package of licorice sticks. Freddie would think that the boy would be mad at the violent girl, but if anything, he just seemed to blush harder.

He felt indignation rise up in him and called out, "Hey!" Gibby was his friend and he'll be goshdarned if he allows some girl to push him around like that.

The girl whipped her head around to him and narrowed her blue eyes at him. She had grabbed onto the front of his spring rider, propelling him forward on his seat. He remembers the crinkle of the pack of candy being crushed under her hand, the way the wind blew a strand of curly hair across her face, splitting it in two. He remembers gulping under her scrutinizing stare.

"Mind your business, dorkboy," she had said before suddenly letting go of the equipment and pushing him off at the same time so that he was lying flat on his back. Freddie had blinked and saw her halfway across the playground, Gibby following.

And then he looked at the pretty brunette. She smirked at him, took a bite out of the red string of candy, and ran to the swings.

Freddie was torn between looking at the free girl swinging high in the sky, hair around her head like some kind of flowing halo, and the other, angry girl, who did nothing short of knocking over sandcastles and kicking kids off the monkey bars.

Freddie stood up from the springy toy and breathed in deeply the air before walking out of the park. He stopped to get an ice cream cone on the way home, the memories of childhood spurning his sweet tooth and climbed to the eighth floor of the plaza with sticky-sweet lips. Carly's door was half open and Freddie let himself in.

::: ::: ::: :::

He would like to pretend that it didn't happened, that he did not embarrass himself with that girly scream he let out, but he knew that it was no use. Carly was rolling on the couch, pointing and laughing at him, and Freddie blushed and tossed a pillow at her.

"Shut up."

"That was… by far…" Carly hiccupped and swiped at her eyes. "The absolute most high-pitched scream I've ever heard from you."

Freddie rolled his eyes. "No, it wasn't, you're exaggerating."

Carly shrugged. "I might be. I mean, there was the time when we went to see School Dance Disaster part three. You barely made it through half the movie before running to the bathroom, and you stayed in there for the rest of the movie!" At this, Carly collapsed into a fresh bout of giggles. "Aw, poor Freddie, too scared to watch big boy horror movies?" Carly cut the TV off and Freddie tried not to let his relief show.

The seconds flew by and Freddie blurted, "Does Sam ever visit you?" The question had been building on his tongue for hours and Freddie felt something lift off his shoulders when Carly answered.

"No," she said. "Not since the morning after Spencer's wedding have I seen her in person."

Freddie's shoulders slumped. "Wow, what a friend," he forced himself to mumble, and Carly leaned over to punch him in the arm. He gave her a questioning look.

"If you're calling her a crap friend, you might as well call me a crap friend, as well."

"Why should I?"

"I haven't visited her, either." She twisted her lips to the side, then sighed. "It's been so busy around here with the new baby and my internship at Seattle Beat, that I just…"

"Well, at least you send her videos," he says, consolingly.

"Yeah," Carly nods. "Yeah—hey, what happened to you and Sam? Why aren't you guys friends anymore?"

"I don't know," Freddie says and looks away. He was never a good liar. He feels Carly's penetrating stare on him and continues, "She left and I was mad. It wasn't fair. So we just… stopped talking."

"You can remain mad for only so long."

"I know." He bites on his thumb nail, feels something like anxiousness spreading in his chest, takes a deep breath and says, "I'm thinking of going to where she is. You know, to visit."

A beat skips, and then Carly is bouncing on the couch. "That's a great idea, Freddie! She would be stoked."

"Yeah," Freddie swallows back the cloying feeling. "I guess."

Later that day, Freddie summons up all the courage he can and packs what he feels he may need on the trip. His mother comes home to a silent Freddie, and over dinner, he tells her that he's going on a road trip back to New York. Predictably, his mother begins squalling, fretting over him about the dangers of long car rides, but Freddie is resolute. It's late into the night when Marissa finally gives in.

Freddie eyes his bed warily, knowing that he wouldn't get good sleep in it from the combination of his relentless dreams and anxiety churning in the spot right below his throat. He chooses instead to work on sketching out his route on the map Spencer had lent him, and soon falls asleep at his desk.