Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly or any of the characters on it, but I own Jacob and Freddie's dad.
I pulled away immediately, my eyes huge. When was the last time I had even kissed a boy? Years ago. When was the last time I wanted to kiss a boy?
The day Freddie left came to mind.
"What are you doing?" I demanded, and Jacob looked shocked himself. Well, maybe he was scared when I gestured at him with my fist, even though I had no intention of actually hitting the boy. Okay, part of me wanted to hit him. The old Sam wanted to hit him, to punch him, because the old Sam was in love with Freddie. The old Sam was in...hurt with Freddie. You can't be in love with someone you've never met, and the new Sam never met Freddie. She met the painful memory, and that was it.
"I just...the moment, and I thought that..." he drifted off. Smart boy. He took one step back, but then stretched his hand out to me. "Sam, you can't just let yourself...be obsessed with Freddie forever. Chances are he has a new girlfriend. Chances are he's happy where he is. Chances are-," Jacob never got to finish that sentence, because there was a figure suddenly behind him that pushed him.
Not hard- he just stumbled a little bit past me and looked over his shoulder in surprise. At first I was afraid it might be Mrs. Benson- those sleeping pills are supposed to knock you out for eight hours!- but the strength behind the push announced who it really was. I only knew one person who was that gentle when it came to physical violence.
"Carly?" Jacob said, cocking one eyebrow awkwardly. She was fuming- her nostrils were flared, and her hair was still sticking straight up from her sleep. Her eyes were bloodshot and angry. I smiled a tiny bit. I hadn't seen Carly this mad since Valerie tried to mess with our web show.
"You can't just...you can't just kiss Sam!" she seemed more frustrated than I was. It was strange, for her to be angrier than me. I was the one who had been kissed, right? Then again, Carly was a bit prone to overreacting.
"Sam!" Carly Shay screamed when she walked into her apartment to find her best friend watching reruns of iCarly. It had been a few weeks since they had quit the show, but a step closer showed Sam wasn't even watching those episodes. In the episode she was watching, Freddie Benson was speaking to Valerie on camera as Sam laughed and said something about 'date a dork' and jokingly rubbed Freddie's stomach. Sam was grinning bizarrely widely.
"What?" Sam demanded, slamming the laptop closed with an audible snap! Carly was surprised by the force behind it, and the glare in Sam's eyes. She was nervous- afraid. The look disappeared in a moment, replaced with a smile and a sweet, "So, did you bring any ham home?"
Carly stared at Sam for a long time, then she ran over to the laptop and yanked it away from her friend. Sam's reflexes had been getting worse and worse over time, surprisingly. She was still way stronger than her, but when Sam was thinking about him there she was little she could do.
"Why are you looking at videos of Freddie again? Sam, this needs to stop!" she demanded, and Sam winced a tiny bit, shaking her head as she reached grabbing hands out for the laptop.
"I like looking at our old skits, Carls, chill. Give me the laptop," she said with a deepness in her voice, even though it was Carly's laptop. Carly held it over her head- bad idea.
Sam launched herself effortlessly into the air a full foot up, yanked the laptop from her friend's hands, and then bursted behind Spencer who just then walked in the door.
"Sam's clinging to Freddie too much!" "Carly's overreacting again!" both girls screamed to him at the same time, and Spencer nervously pulled the laptop from Sam's hands. Her fingers pried themselves off seconds at a time, as if it were a major task to release the only way she could look at Freddie anymore- and it was.
"Maybe you guys should just go hang out at Groovy Smoothies for a bit...here's a ten," he pulled one quickly from his pocket, and Carly and Sam exchanged a glance and grabbed the money, their coats, their cell phones, and left. They never spoke of that incident, or the hundreds of other similar ones, again.
"You're taking advantage of her! The old Sam would've...she would've...she would've kicked your ass!" Carly screamed, and then gasped and covered her own mouth. A now unfamiliar smirk blossomed on my face along with the surprise of its return- and then it took full control. It stretched into my eyes with the mischievous look again, like the contacts had just been put back in. For a moment, I saw the world the way I used too- like I could beat it. Like I could take down the whole world as long as Carly, Freddie and Spencer were at my side.
And I could've.
"Whoa, Carls, I haven't seen you this riled in a while. Jake, you're really gonna 'rue' this day," I snickered. Strangely enough, Carly laughed too. And then were holding our stomachs, doubling over and laughing hysterically on the side of the freeway as Jacob watched us with obvious confusion and Mrs. Benson gently snored through it all.
"Nevel was such a little twerp!" Carly said, and I laughed again.
"Remember when we snuck into his house, and Freddie got stuck hanging in air?" I screamed, and strangely enough, the memory of Freddie didn't hurt me. I was the old Sam still. I could handle things easily. Freddie had strangely enough become my world, and as stated before, there was a time where I could've thrown the world right down in a wrestling match. I laughed even harder, salvaging this moment.
Carly seemed to be doing the same.
Struggling through laughter, she added on, "And you spun him around, and then Nevel's crazy grandmother came in and started hitting him!" We laughed even harder, and then Jacob was joining in with us at the thought of some crazy old bat beating Freddie as he screamed like a girl. And then, ever so swiftly, I punched him in the stomach.
His scream was loud, and I looked to Mrs. Benson first, strangely enough. She jolted, her eyelids fluttered, but all she saw was the darkness creeping in with the night. She didn't seem to continue stirring, oddly enough. Maybe Mrs. Benson wasn't quite so good at catching all vulgar words and screams of pain anymore. Or maybe- just maybe- she had become a shell. Like me and like Carly and like so many other people lately. It was like a spreading disease.
"You punched me!" he hissed through clenched teeth as he held his stomach. Carly had stopped laughing, but she looked like she was about to start again. I was suddenly horrified. I was back to being a shell, not the old Sam anymore. I reached a hand out to him and he shied away from it. It stung the same way as it had when Freddie had done the same thing, and I thought I might cry again.
He looked up through fluttering eyelashes and moved back to me. Had I called him a smart boy earlier? I took that back. What typical boy gets punched for kissing a girl and then keeps coming back to her? Of course, I wasn't going to hit him again...but who was to be the judge of that? He sure wasn't. He had no proof. He had- why was I arguing with myself?
"What are you doing? I just hit you! You should be...running! Or at least jumping into the backseat, or...I don't know..." I drifted off, and Carly met my eyes with sympathy. I hated her pity. It was horrifying, to understand how much she pitied me constantly. I could see all the reasons behind her pity, and that just made it worse. There is almost nothing worse than genuine pity.
"Well, you're not feeling well...I mean, after you see Freddie..." he gave me a tiny smile, and I rolled my eyes.
"You can sit with Mrs. Benson for the rest of the ride!" I hissed, and jumped right into the driver's seat as Carly smirked and stepped into the passenger's seat. As soon as everyone was buckled in again, I took my anger out on driving and sped off at ninety miles per hour on the almost lonely street.
"So...Jonah really hurt you, didn't he?" Freddie asked Samantha Puckett as she sat at the end of the couch, her knees pulled to her chest, her chin resting on her knees. For a long time she didn't acknowledge him, but then she just rolled her eyes. It was a good enough response for Freddie.
"Okay, I know, I know, stupid. Of course he did! But...are you...uhm, are you okay?" he asked stiffly, and Sam turned to look at him for a fleeting second. For just a moment, they shared everything. Sam shared her feelings about Freddie- her confusion. This was back in time, when she was just warming up to the idea of Freddie as a whole. She shared all of that, and he shared his sympathy, and she shared her hatred for Jonah, and he shared his as well. She shared her jealousy for Carly, and Freddie looked at her through his eyelashes with a look he reserved especially for Carly.
"I'll be okay. I hope," Sam answered finally, though she hated to break the moment. There was nothing she could think of sharing. Oh, there were hundreds of things too share- but nothing as important as what she had with her mixture of expressions. He gave her a tiny smile and slung his arm around her shoulder on the couch.
Turning to stare at the rerun of Girly Cow on TV, he said quietly, "I think you will, Sam," and when he fell asleep, Sam awkwardly rested her head on his shoulder and found out that it wasn't so bad to be this close to a geek.
And that was when she knew she liked him.
The sign had been very clear at the rest stop. The Fencin' Bensons old club from back in the day had been revived about a few months ago, and it had an address. An address Jacob had been able to point out as a home address- this was the only time I talked to him after the...kiss. I felt guilty, as if I had cheated on Freddie- when, with my luck, Freddie probably didn't even care for me at all.
So I had driven to Freddie's father- Jason's! - house. I had parked in the driveway, nonetheless. I had stared at the front door for another hour after Carly and Jacob finally fell asleep again. I was still staring when he stepped out, looking at his watch and talking on the phone.
"I have to go Freddie," he said when he saw me, pulling the phone slightly away from his ear. I heard the ring of Freddie's voice- Freddie was speaking to his father right now! I could hear him! Right here in Belleview, Arizona at 5:20 am. It was still dark. Why were both of them up? Why why why? I didn't care enough to keep asking questions, though- this was my chance! My chance to talk to Freddie!
I jumped out of the car.
Author's Note: Urgh, another cliffhanger. Sorry guys, but the convo with Jacob took a lot longer than I expected! Also, sorry for the extremely long delay. During the week I find it a lot harder to write. I'm going to try to write a few more chapters this weekend and post them periodically during the week, and I'm sorry to the people who have requested stories- I'll get them up as soon as possible! I really apologize for the constant delays, but freshman year is hard. xD