"So, I still like to party."

--Sam Puckett

i'M Sick of Falling Behind

It's fascinating how a person is known to you in stages, layers. The more I knew Amelia, the less I found that I could honestly say I disliked. I wish I could've been able to say that I didn't want to find anything.

Amelia leaned over the library table to see what I had written, but I pulled it away a little bit and tightened my arm around it. She smiled at me as she tried to see around me.

"Come on," she said, faking a petulant tone as she pushed at my arm, "Let me see."

"No," I drawled.

"Fine." She scooted back in her chair and straightened up in a dignified sort of manner. "I'll just do it by myself."

"Fine," I murmured, taking a serious look back at the chemistry problem in question.

"Can I guess?" I heard her ask.

"Mm." My own attempt at guessing wasn't going so well.

"Is it above sixteen?"

"Maybe," I replied, trying not to sound too uncertain.

"Is it below twenty?" she asked, and I felt her lean against me.

I turned my head to find that she was exceptionally close, her eyes looking up into mine, all playful and questioning.

"Maybe," I murmured as I tilted my lips down after hers.

"Maybe?" she asked with a smile as she scooted away just ahead of my pursuit, her eyes dancing.

"Maybe," I said a little bit more forcefully. I chased her as she leaned back into chair, but I quickly came to the edge of my range. The frustrated look followed.

"Maybe …" Amelia started slowly, "You're not sure and just are afraid to admit it …"

"Maybe," I admitted as I shifted my arms on the table in preparation for further pursuit.

"Maybe?" she laughed a little and relented, leaning in enough that I didn't have to get out of my seat.

"So do you want some help after all?" she asked after everything stopped swimming.

"I suppose so," I said with some playful rue, which was the best I could manage because my head was still swimming a bit.

Amelia took her seat and scooted it over closer to mine and pulled her work back to where it had been before, before I had told her that I wasn't having trouble with this problem and that yes, I could do it on my own.

But now that I had met my hourly quota on lip contact and she was close again, even closer than when we had first started, it became next to impossible to even imagine focusing on homework.

"All right, so let's start back at the beginning," Amelia began, all business again. It amazed me how she was able to do that, be so affected by my kisses, and vice versa obviously, and then go on as if nothing had happened. True, it amazed me how I had to practically pursue her in all things kiss related, as if she was afraid of what I would think if she ever let on that she wanted it just as badly. It kind of made me feel good and all in control, but sometimes it would nice if—

"So that's what you got here, right?" she looked up at me.

I blinked. "Sorry? … I wasn't paying attention."

She looked back down at my paper, "But isn't this what you got after—"

I took her hand and she stopped and looked at me. "What do you say we take a break for a minute?" I asked.

She squeezed my hand and pulled her feet up on her chair. "Well, okay. What do you want to do?"

I laid my head down on my science book and smiled a little bit at that, but not nearly as much as the thought of me telling her exactly what I wanted to do, or rather continue, would've made me. As it was, I had enough trouble not kissing her for more than a solid minute and feeling guilty about it somehow.

"I don't know." I rubbed at her hand with my thumb. "Just not schoolwork."

She smiled quietly as she leaned over the table in front of me, putting a hand up to touch my cheek. "I wish I had more classes with you, you're so smart."

"I'm not that smart," I said as I stared into her eyes. She was carefully looking at the part of my face that she was rubbing. It was something special whenever she dared a little and looked back at me.

But at the thought of classes, my mind involuntarily flickered to that C I was wallowing in for shop class. And thinking of shop made me involuntarily think of—

"Can I ask you a question?" Amelia asked softly.

"Sure," I said, my insides cringing a bit at that tone.

"How come you never sit with Sam in science?" She looked up—I looked up. "Is it because of me?"

I fought the urge to get up, to make it obvious. "No, it's not because of you."

"But why then?"

I sighed a little. "We haven't been getting along too well—at all, really, lately."

"Why?"

Ugh. "We had a little fight, okay? I don't really want to talk about it." Please just say okay and leave it—

"I have another class with her," Amelia said.

"Really?" I asked, pretending that I cared. "Which one?"

"Economics," she said, growing quiet again as she traced a pattern of something along my cheek with her finger.

I had the growing sensation that she was working up to something.

"Actually," she said with an uncertain smile, "I have some work I have to do with her in a couple of weeks."

Well, at least I didn't have to pretend to care anymore. Even the thought of Amelia and Sam talking about safe stuff like schoolwork was enough to make my insides want to crumple up and implode.

"What sort of work?" I asked as I sat up a little.

"Oh, nothing much." She looked like she was resisting the urge to sit up along with me. "Just a presentation that we have to do in front of the class—"

"Great," I muttered as I sat up the rest of the way.

"What?" she asked as she relented and followed me.

To be honest I was mostly thinking of Amelia's grade, at least for the moment. A person didn't have to be best friends with Sam to know how much effort she put forth in group work, of any kind.

"What are the odds that you'd get paired with her?" I asked sarcastically.

She shrugged, looking like she felt I was asking her personally and not fate or something else about as humorless. "It's a small class and we have to do three of these over the semester … It's just that this one will be my first and I'm kind of worried. I hate talking in front of people, I don't know why we have to do it for an economics class—" she paused looking guilty. As was customary.

"That part will be okay," I reassured her as I took her hand, "Sam doesn't have a problem talking in front of people. You'll just have to do … just about everything else."

She looked at me all hopeful. Great.

"Will you help me?" She quickly pressed on at what my face looked like. "I mean not with all of it, just to help me make sure I don't do something really wrong or—"

"Of course I'll help." I said it because I had to, because I was going to. I dreaded it because Sam was involved. "Have you … talked to Sam about it yet?"

"Just a little bit," Amelia's face took on a different expression, "I told her that we could meet at my house next week to get started on it. She said, 'Yeah, whatever.' Or something like that."

It was a bittersweet smile that I couldn't help. Because she made her voice sound so much like Sam, maybe unconsciously. When was the last time I had talked to Sam? Our last episode of iCarly? If you could even call that talking.

"But you will?" she asked. "You'll help me … us? Just a little bit?"

I leaned my head back onto my science book. "Of course I will."

She looked so happy, like she could even conceive of me ever refusing to help her. Usually that was more than adequate for me, but my mind had enough other disturbing things to juggle that it was difficult. Disturbing things being a vague term for—

But then she did the unexpected and completely incredible. She rubbed my hair as she leaned in and quickly kissed me. As in she kissed me. As in—yeah.

And then it was hard to think about Sam or much of anything else.

She leaned down on the table alongside me and stroked my hair. "Do you want to get back to work?" she asked.

"Sure," I responded. But she smiled, and then I did too as neither of us made any move.

There was a minute or so silence and her hands resting on me. "You want to hear a joke that I heard my little brother say?" she asked.

"Sure," I said as she adjusted her face.

"Um ... what happened when the cat swallowed a ball of wool?"

I gave an appropriate pause. "What?"

"She had mittens."

I smiled.

"I don't think that's how it goes. I'm not very good at telling them, it was so much funnier when he said it." There was another moment of silence. "Do you want to hear another one?"

--

It was around third period when I came around the corner to my locker, preoccupied, but not too preoccupied to notice a notable absence of Amelia. She usually beat me here at this time of day. I put my stuff away and looked over towards her locker—and froze.

She wasn't at her locker, but Sam's. While Sam was there. And it looked suspiciously like they were in the midst of conversing, exchanging words, chewing the fat, breaking several laws that made up the foundation of my present happiness that you just didn't break. With Sam actually participating. Though the fact that Sam was there at all was more than enough.

I stepped out into the hallway's tide and navigated around the people in a broad arc, trying to decide just from which end I wanted to come up on ... to listen in on. Stepping in and joining the conversation was entirely out of the question, but I suppose listening in should've been too. In the end I decided that I really didn't want Amelia to know of this, and I of course didn't care what Sam thought.

So I approached from behind Amelia, fervently hammering out what I was going to do if, and probably when, Sam caught sight of me and invariably proceeded to tell Amelia.

They were standing there, Sam almost casually as she listened, and Amelia nervously, but doing a fair job of hiding it. She periodically glanced over towards my locker, but apparently thought that I had gone off somewhere else.

I was beginning to think that I was actually doing a remarkable job of being stealthy in my approach, as Sam hadn't caught sight of me yet—when she did.

Man.

She almost looked surprised for a moment, but then looked back to Amelia and said something. I cringed, waiting for Amelia to turn around—but she didn't.

So I continued, figuring that it would be any second now, any second ...

I got close enough to begin to get the words I'd almost been able to catch before.

"—Most times he's fine, but then others ... he seems like he's really upset about something. Do you know what I mean?" Amelia was saying.

I felt like slamming my head inside the nearest locker, to put it nicely. She was talking about me. To Sam. What did she think she was doing?

But I knew exactly what she was doing, as I began to supremely regret ever letting on anything about the status of my "friendship" with Sam.

"Yeah, he's been like that a lot lately," Sam said neutrally, almost succeeding in not glancing at me.

"I ... he's been really bothered by how ... things are going between you." Amelia didn't sound all that confident about where she was going. Not that she had any beginning of any inkling of any portion of any ... simply put, she didn't know where she was going.

"Has he?" Sam asked, not sounding all that convinced.

The first bell rang.

"Well, I've got to get class," Amelia said hurriedly, "But I'll see you next period ..."

"Yup, can't wait," Sam forced a tight smile as Amelia headed away from me without looking back. She then turned her full attention on me, and I could see her mentally weighing whether she could get away with avoiding me. But for whatever reason she decided against that.

"Hey," she said, pretending to sound surprised as she walked by me, not pretending to hide that she was hoping I wouldn't follow.

I fell into step with her.

"Have a nice little chat?" I asked, kinda sharply.

"I can't control what your girlfriend wants to talk to me about, Freddie," she answered tiredly.

"What, do I think I wouldn't like what she would have to talk to you about?" I asked.

"Then why didn't you come up and join in?" she pointedly pointed out.

I felt some of my anger fade at that. She hadn't let Amelia know I was there after all, and I was feeling kinda grateful.

There were several steps of silence and I decided that I didn't want to argue with her about this. Actually, there was a strong combination of what Sam had just done and what Amelia had just done, horribly misguided yet enormously sweet as it was, that was making me feel almost happy.

Sam might have seen some of this on my face as we walked along. She frowned and glanced behind us. "What do you want?"

I looked over at her, and found my answer. I wanted Amelia to be happy. And I didn't care enough about all this Sam fiasco to mess with that.

"So what do you think of her?" I asked, realizing that I actually did care what she thought about Amelia. Though that extended to everyone really.

"Oh," she looked at me, and stolidly back to the ground, probably not carefully choosing her words for my sake, "She's a nice ... girl ..."

That's not what I had wanted to hear. "Oh. So you hate her. Big surprise."

"I don't hate her—I wish I did, but I don't." Sam said, looking at me hard enough to show that she was serious, and differently enough that—

"Then what's your problem?" I demanded.

"I don't have a problem. Who said anything about a problem? I couldn't be more problem free." We both stopped. "You're the one with the problem."

"Oh, yeah? What's that?" I asked, half afraid that she was going to say something about—what? I don't know what.

"Your class is that way," she pointed back the way we'd come and then smirked as the bell rang, "Remember?"

Crap.

Then she was walking away again.

And in the midst of my sprinting and retracing I declared some sort of unspoken truce with her. Conditional, but serious. For Amelia. And for Sam I guess, a little. I didn't really want to fight—or try to hurt her anymore. She hadn't told Amelia I had been standing there after all, but—

I came within sight of the closed door to my class just as I really began to pant and my shirt began to really stick to me.

—she could've told me I was walking in the wrong direction.

--

The beginning of week three marked the big day, the in-home date that was inevitable, though not necessarily inevitable this soon. It happened more because I couldn't keep avoiding my mom like this—and because I was mildly rushing everything. At this rate I figured we'd be married before Christmas. With a picket fence and a dog by the time we graduated, ulcers and dentures by twenty-five, and eulogies by—

"I'm not really nervous," Amelia said and looked over—or rather up at me from my arm, "It's weird."

"You aren't?" I asked. "Maybe I'm just nervous enough for the both of us."

She laughed because she was a nice girl. I winced because I'd actually said that.

"Oh, so that's Carly's apartment?" she asked as we came to my hallway.

"Yup. That's it."

"Do you think we should say hello?"

"Oh—no," I said, a little surprised, "She's either busy with homework or not even home yet."

"She must be really smart if she's able to juggle all those classes and iCarly," Amelia said as we turned to my door again and kind of just stood there.

"Uh huh," I replied absently, "So ... you ready?"

"Oh, come on," she laughed a little and squeezed my arm, "It won't be that bad."

I knocked on the door, which was kind of weird because it was like ... mine, and the barest of hesitations followed before my mom opened the door. I was impressed that she had restrained herself from being overt about waiting at the peep hole—even though I'd insisted on her not doing that.

Tonight was going to be perfect. My itinerary said so.

"Oh, come in, come in. You must be Amelia." My mom did the customary mother meets proper girlfriend etiquette.

I took Amelia's jacket but didn't move to put it away until my mom had disengaged herself Amelia.

"Hello, Mrs. Benson," Amelia said, all cheeks and beams, "It's so nice of you to invite me to supper tonight."

I was smiling until I happened to glance back over my shoulder and see the face that my mother was giving to that. Not that it was all that noticeable—I prayed to God that Amelia didn't see it—but it was noticeable enough to me. Especially in contrast to the excessive expression that she should be wearing.

But it was only a momentary slip as my mom seemed to forcibly eject whatever less than perfect thought was running through her head. She put her arm around Amelia and guided her towards the kitchen.

"And I hope so too—" my mom said in answer to Amelia as she continued talking, "But we're going to have all sorts of fun tonight cooking this lasagna—it's one of my grandmother's special recipes. Freddie told me that it's your favorite dish and—"

The kitchen door swung behind them.

I stood there for a moment, realizing just how little control my itinerary exerted over reality.

--

They of course chatted like old friends, like we were already married and Amelia was a Benson. Like the three and a half dozen kids were just in the next room but happened to be keeping quiet. But even at the best of it Amelia seemed to be having a much better time than mother was.

The whole cooking supper together thing turned out to be a great idea. It gave all three of us something to do and talk about, and it was kinda fun. But mother's little glances of various uncertainties persisted, much to my ire. And confusion.

What was wrong? This was like perfect—beyond perfect. I was having absurd amounts of difficulty trying to come up with anything, anything at all that my mother wouldn't like about Amelia, or even find disinteresting. And if this whole cooking supper thing wasn't so perfectly distracting, I would've been getting kind of angry.

"Mom! What's wrong?" Okay, maybe I was kind of angry anyway.

My mom gave me a cornered wildebeest look as she kindly shouted behind her at Amelia that the serving fork she was using was especially pointy. Then the kitchen door swung shut behind her, leaving just me finishing on setting out the table and her bringing one of the dishes out for a moment—which left plenty of space for interrogation.

"What ever do you mean, Freddie?" she made an exaggerated look of confusion as she set the dish down, all the while not daring to look at me.

I sighed and leaned down against one of the chairs. "What do you think of her?"

"Oh ... you mean Amelia?" The exaggerated look of innocence again.

I gave her a look.

"She's a lovely girl," she said, earnest to show me that she was sincere, "And she seems really ... nice and—nice." Her voice went from searching for words to keeping the description pleasant, to realizing that nice was all it took. Should take.

"So what's the problem?" I asked her, a little demandingly.

"I don't know." A genuine expression of confusion. "I—it just doesn't seem like she's good for you—"

"Mom," I nearly groaned.

"You know I have a thing about knowing that sort of—" my mom began to assert.

"Mrs. Benson?" Amelia called from the next room over.

That was a good thing, because it was awkward listening to mom say that she had any sort of thing about relationships.

"Has Carly come around yet?" my mother asked hopefully as she started back for the kitchen.

"Mom!" Yeah. Wow.

"I mean—" mom said, maybe realizing a small fraction of how that sounded, maybe, "Or maybe—"

But whatever else passed as "maybe" wasn't given a chance as she was through the door.

It was just completely unbelievable. Yeah, I got the impression that she was happy for me and everything, and things had been going better between us in the past couple weeks than they had been for a quite a while, but still ...

What did she want from me?

"Has Carly come around yet?" I mimicked as I sank down into my chair.

No, she hasn't. And she likely never would. Sadly.

And that definitely constituted a quick way to shoot my already downed mood into something approaching beat poet levels. The question of whether I'd drop everything if Carly did suddenly come around was a depressing one. Whether I'd drop everyone.

Amelia definitely picked up that something was wrong, or at least less than good.

There were sides to her that just amazed me. Like what she was able to do with that dinner.

There were the usual smiles, the cute little jokes, and the demeanor she was able to spontaneously generate, but there was a lot more to it. It was indescribable. And by the end of the meal I was feeling better. A lot better. The Carly Question and my mother dilemma seemed so far away.

"I don't know, I don't think she liked me very much," Amelia was whispering as she half leaned through the door on her way out.

"Nah, she loved you," I said reassuringly, and it actually sounded good. I wish I was able to be as honest as she was.

"Well," she looked down a little, trying not to look as reassured as she actually was, "I was just hoping it would go better ... but maybe I was just expecting things to be too perfect."

I smiled at that. Leaning in, I quickly kissed her before she could think to be afraid if my mother was watching. A little bit of color crept into her face as she looked over my shoulder, but she merely smiled and quietly shut the door behind her.

It wasn't all that late in the evening, so everything kind of ground to a halt. My mom preoccupied the greatest bits of her left over tizzying with cleaning up, but she seemed to be caught between being over joyous for me, and whatever accompanied the feeling that I wasn't dating "the right girl."

I would've never in a million years expected my mom to have anything but the highest ... well, everything for Amelia. She like fit my mom's guidebook from the foreword to the epilogue. And right on through the sequel.

And that left me feeling a lot like nothing, and especially like doing nothing.

Somewhere between sitting on the sofa trying to replay the evening for the eleventh time and deciding I didn't really want to go to bed, the idea of seeing what Carly was doing became appealing.

"It's open!" I heard Spencer shout from inside when I knocked on their door.

"Hey," I put my hand up unenthusiastically as I walked into the living room.

"Oh, hey, Freddo," Spencer came in from the kitchen, a bowl of popcorn in his hands and the phone between his shoulder and ear, "Haven't seen you—wait, hold on—" He held up his hand at me. "No—I would LIKE—CUSTOMER—SERVICE—" he enunciated in a loud voice.

"Having any luck?" Carly asked as she came down the stairs "—Oh, hey!—Freddie. How's it going?"

"Great," I said in a mostly unenthused voice as I plopped down in one of their chairs.

Carly nodded a little as she took the bowl of popcorn from Spencer's hands and stopped a little bit. "Well, that's good," she said in an odd voice as she made jerky attempts towards the stairs.

"She's here, isn't she?" I asked.

"Wait—" Spencer held up his finger at us, "Hello? No ... no, I can't understand you ... because you're talking in a dialect of English I do not understand." He put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered "India" to us.

Carly looked down at me as she stopped at the first landing. "Do you want to come up? We're watching a movie."

"Nah," I shook my head a little as I fiddled with my shirt, "I can't stay very long anyway."

"Oh, all right." She made that face and walked out of sight.

Spencer gave me a pair of raised eyebrows before his expression snapped back to his conversation. "That's right—my credit card number is being used to purchase HD TVs. Yes, very expensive TVs that I didn't order ... what's that?" He frowned a little. "Uh, I think the bill said some town in Mexico, hold on, it's right here—Los Nohos—no, that's the town where they're being ordered, not—No! I don't want to order anything from that town, I want to—"

I sighed and stood up. I glanced over at the clock. Great. It was only eight thirty.

How I ever made it up those stairs I'll never know.

"Oh." Carly said it like she hadn't expected me to come up. Not that I blamed her, but—

"Hey." I held up my hand up again as I took only as many steps into the studio as would classify me as being in the room.

Sam looked over at me in surprise. The eye roll thing acknowledging my presence, which she'd mastered to all new levels in the past three weeks, quickly followed. I didn't miss that Carly noted it as well.

"You hungry?" Carly asked as a couple seconds passed with just the sound from the television.

"No, he's not," Sam said without looking away from the movie. She went on rhythmically at the popcorn bowl in front of her, a fistful at a time.

"Sam," Carly said, teetering enough between good natured and indignation that I thought that maybe for a second she forgot the extent to how things were.

"No, that's all right," I said hastily, trying not to sound awkward, "I'm not really hungry ... I just ate." This is the part where I seriously contemplate telling them that I'd just come up here to say hi and then leave. But then I reasoned with myself that it couldn't get much more awkward than this, right?

Carly clearly wasn't playing by the game plan. "So, whatcha been up to tonight?"

This is the part where I contemplate lying. "Me? Tonight ...?"

Even Sam had to look up and give me a pair of eyebrows at that.

"I, uh," was stuttering, "Heh. I was actually on a date ... with, uh, Amelia."

"Oh." When I looked back at her, Carly looked like she regretted asking. Not that I had been staring at Sam's reaction—as utterly anti-climatic as it was, might I neutrally comment. But Carly should be sorry for asking, and not looking like she felt the need to follow up according to protocol and ask how it went. She wouldn't do that. Even though she didn't (to the best of my knowledge) know of the complete embarrassment hanging between me and Sam about this whole kiss thing, surely she wouldn't.

For a moment it looked like she was, and I panicked.

"So what are you guys watching?" I took another couple steps inside, for the first time looking at what they had running on the view screen. I instantly filed it under "unwatchable chick flick," but I was practiced enough that I didn't let that show.

"The Proposal," Carly answered, then leaned her head back and looked at me, "So ... you in or you out?"

I must've been more distracted than I thought, between pretending I wasn't watching Sam while doing my best to watch Sam and whatnot. Because I didn't even catch Carly's little pun on the title, so my laugh was late and guilty. And stupid.

"I ..." I held up my hand and made some weird gesture. "Guess I'm in."

It wasn't that the thought of being near Sam, or especially how appealing the movie sounded, was enough to outweigh my dread of going home. I guess it was just the thought of passing this up, being how rarely we got together these days outside of iCarly. Even if Sam was part of the deal.

But in traversing the distance towards them, I realized that the room's vacant bean bag was immediately to Sam's left. My step stuttered a little, but I took a little courage that Sam wasn't even looking at me. Carly was sending me a kind of anxious expression that she probably hoped I didn't catch.

Drawing my face in, I did my best impression of a casual walk towards the bean bag, because I wasn't really capable of a casual walk at this point in time. And even though it was entirely out of the question for me to move it, I did end up giving in a bit and pushing it with my foot a ways to give myself some breathing room. When I plopped down onto my stomach, I was all but shocked to find a proffered bowl of popcorn underneath my nose.

I dumbly shook my head mostly because I couldn't think of anything else to do. Sam pulled it back, not having taken her eyes off the screen.

Why did she have to look so ... striking sitting there? In the flashing light from the television. I tried to readjust so I could see Carly better, who obviously fell well within striking as well. Obviously.

"So ..." I said, idly wondering how many sentences I'd already started with that word, "How come you're free tonight? Is it the wardens' night off?" I laughed like it was some casual thing.

"Don't talk to me about school," Carly said with a little shake of her head, not looking away from the screen, "I'm currently in denial that I have a crazy paper due Wednesday."

"Ah." I inclined my head a little. "Are you—"

"Shh!" Sam pointed an annoyed finger at the view screen. "Movie."

I gave her a flat look and she turned back. And though I did make an honest effort to aim my attention in the general direction of the movie, I did notice that she gave me a furtive glance afterwards.

The movie turned out to be ... about as enthralling as I'd expected it to be. It was so great in fact that when Carly got up for another kitchen run I immediately volunteered to tag along.

The look Sam shot me might've looked disappointed in an alternate plane of reality.

But I found myself making mechanical chatter with Carly and not much else. It was kind of annoying how distracting that look of Sam's was, but I couldn't figure out what in the devil it meant. I prayed she wasn't going to try to apologize to me again—ever—but surely she wouldn't.

In fact, it took Spencer to snap me out of my instant expression replaying.

"No, I do—not—want—" Spencer groaned from the couch as he wearily readjusted his grip on the telephone, "Fine. You know what? Fine. I'll take the sombreros, but not a whole crate—Yes." I could practically hear Spencer's teeth grinding together. "Yes. Eight dozen will be fine."

"Eight dozen!" Carly whisper-shouted from the kitchen.

"Hey, Freddie," Spencer whispered at me, "Need a sombrero? No? How about your—Hey, wait a second." Spencer went all serious back to the phone. "Are these the ones with jangly bead things? What's that? How are you supposed to know? Oh, I don't know, aren't you the one selling them to me?"

"And how are things with you and Amelia? I still can't believe you're dating her," Carly laughed casually from over her shoulder as she stalked towards Spencer and the phone.

"Oh, uh, fine—" I started.

Carly yanked the phone away from Spencer. "Okay, listen up pal! You're going to get this straightened out, and you're going to straighten it out now! Our credit card is being hijacked to buy ridiculously expensive TV's in Mexico ... do you have any idea how many Pecos that is?" Her voice went all polite and prim again. "Yes, I'll hold."

Before the next bag of popcorn and accompanying layer of chocolate was done, Carly had everything back to normal. It was at times like these that I remembered what it had been like to be indomitably in love with her. Not that I still wasn't, it was just ... not as indomitable as before. I think.

There was that horrible question again of whether I'd drop everything for the chance to date Carly. But it wasn't so bad now. I guess I'd figured out that I wouldn't drop Amelia. The disturbing thing had now become what exactly would I drop? Certainly any other girl besides Amelia—certainly ...

"Come on," Carly took the popcorn out of my hands, knocking me from my disturbing trend of musings. "We're missing the movie. I think I've got everything figured out down here." Carly looked to where Spencer was sitting, looking distinctly humbled, but also a little put out.

"Did you have to cancel all of them?" he asked as we passed.

"Oh—wait," Carly said in a not altogether convincing voice when we reached the first landing, "I have to go to the bathroom."

"Oh?" I asked, feeling too tired to muster much beyond that.

"Here, you'd better take this and go on ahead," she must've realized that playing it serious wasn't working so she winked conspiratorially at me, "Don't you go waiting on me."

"Yeah," I stiffly took the popcorn bowl from her, "Thanks."

After she'd left "for the bathroom," I half considered doing just that and waiting until she was "done." But that snapped a little bit at my good old fashioned Benson pride. What was I, a possum? No, I was a man. And nothing this side of Sam Puckett scared me. Sam Puckett herself had a tendency to scare me sometimes, but I wasn't thirteen anymore.

I wasn't afraid anymore.

"Sweet and fatty, just how you like it," I announced as I dropped back down beside Sam with the chocolate popcorn.

She gave me an unamused face. "No, thanks. I'm not hungry anymore."

"Liar."

"Eat up," Sam said as she turned over on her back, "I doubt that chick of yours knows how to cook."

"I doubt you know my chick of mine at all," I answered.

"Oh, we go way back," Sam waved her hand dismissively, "We're in economics together—"

"I know."

"And we just talk about everything," Sam said.

"Liar."
"In fact," she turned her face back to me, and for a moment it went darker as the movie changed scenes, "We have a project coming up that we have to present together."

"Yeah, I know," I was staring at her, almost boastfully, "You're doing it in two weeks on the principles of supply and demand and you're meeting at her house next Wednesday."

Her face just sort of hung there with a surprised kind of look before she recovered and looked back towards the screen.

And I felt it too. It didn't matter how hard I tried not to, I did. Even in a more innocent way it was that tangible reminder of how much time I was spending outside of her and Carly. That I already knew so much about something of Sam and it wasn't because she'd told me.

And I honestly think I felt horrible.

"What?" Sam snapped and jerked her head back towards me after a minute.

Okay, maybe I had been staring a bit, but it had been completely subconscious.

"Nothing," I muttered.

I thought she would quip then. Or roll her eyes and turn back to the movie. Or something. But she didn't. She just kept looking back at me. And when I remembered that it was possible for me to do any of those things as well—quip, turn away, etc.—I didn't.

I could probably write a thesis paper about how long we were like that, of how many times the thought came to mind that one of us was going to, or at least should turn away.

And I could probably write a novel on how all that felt. Though it wasn't as if it was the same, it changed a bit. But some of it didn't. Which was probably why it took so long to stop.

Everything slipped away, which wasn't an altogether unfamiliar occurrence these days, but the way it did was. It almost made all those other kinds of slippage pale.

I wish I knew what I was trying to tell her. It might've been easy with words, and it probably would've been easier if I just knew—

But I did get a lot of quality time with that spot just below her eye, because I couldn't just stare into her eyes the whole time—or most of the time at least. That might've sent the wrong impression or something.

But when I did it seemed like she was trying to say something too—without talking.

What was I going to do? Kiss her?That might've been, should've been funny anytime else. It was something, really something to realize just how easy it would be to do just that. Just to forget all the lines and words, and things I was never supposed to do and close that negligible space. It would be possible. As in within the range of something I could do. It shouldn't be like this, I shouldn't even be thinking of it like this, but it was, and I was. It was something to understand just how easy it had been the first time—the only time. And here I'd wondered so long and hard how I had ever managed to kiss her. If it wasn't impossible for me to do it now, it would be so easy.

There was a definite need for me to do something, because it hurt too much like this. But there was also the definite inability to do anything, hence the inactivity.

It went on for so long in fact that it was jarring when we both heard Carly's footsteps and jerked our heads back to the movie.

"So, what'd I miss?" Carly asked after taking a quick survey of where we were. Not that we hadn't been able to look away before she'd come in.

"Nothing," Sam answered, just like nothing had happened.

"Schizo," I murmured, too low for her to hear. It was amazing, that she could pretend so well, like nothing had happened.

How did she do that?

--

AN: Not entirely happy about this one, and I haven't written anything for about a week cue excessive writer's guilt. But now I've got something of a breather from homework. Happy days. And I'd like to thank everyone again who's posted all the crazy awesome reviews.