iHave No Other Choice

Carly waited until Sam went off to the market to call Melanie back. Give Sam Puckett a grocery list and a little bit of money and you've bought yourself easily forty-five minutes. Carly didn't feel a hundred percent about doing this, but she would do anything to spare Sam an ounce of pain. She knew that. She snatched her phone off the coffee table and dialed Mel's cell phone.

She picked up almost immediately.

"Hey Carly!"

"Jesus, that was fast!" Carly thought to herself.

"Hey Mel, Sam just left. How soon can you be over?"

"Oh… pretty quick…."

Carly sensed a smile in Melanie's voice. There was a knock at the door. She stood up.

"Hang on a sec…"

Carly got to the front door and turned the knob to reveal… Melanie Puckett.

"Told ya I'd be here quick!" She laughed and Carly ushered her in.

They crossed the living room and took the stairs up to Carly's room. Reflexively, she held her hand, forgetting for a split second that she was Melanie and not Sam. She dropped it immediately, as though she'd been burned.

"Mel, I'm sorry… I…"

"Mistook me for someone else… Carly, it's cool. We are identical twins, and you've known me since we were… what, eight? Trust me, I won't tell… You don't need my permission to just be yourself."

Melanie flashed her a smile as they reached to top step.

Carly reached for the knob and turned. She was immediately embarrassed. She'd forgotten the results of sharing a bed with Sam night after night. Her bed still hadn't been made, and Sam's boxers were in plain view. Carly flushed magenta.

"Oh my God… Mel… I…"

"What? You think I don't know my sister's a slob?"

Melanie Puckett, ever the tactful young lady, gracefully sidestepped all evidence of Carly and Sam's burgeoning sex life. She loved them both, and it simply wasn't her place.

"A lady simply doesn't comment on one's indiscretions" she thought.

Carly walked over to her dresser, cracking the middle drawer, rummaging to the bottom of the drawer. She did all she could not to open the drawer completely for fear that Melanie would see. Finally, Carly located what she was looking for. She withdrew a large stack of envelopes, rubber banded together several times over. She tossed the small package underhanded. It landed inches from Melanie's designer boots. Melanie bent down, retrieved the package, and shoved it deep in her oversized purse.

Carly carefully crossed the floor and was back alongside Melanie, close to the door, ready to make a hasty retreat.

"And you want me to do what with these, exactly?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. Carly swore the look was much more fitting of Sam. She considered her options a moment.

"I don't really care, to be honest, Mel. Burn the damn things, for all I care. I was never going to open them anyway. I just…" Carly stiffed, stifling tears before continuing. "I just had to be with Sam…"

Melanie was truly touched. She'd often thought, over the years, that the only people on the planet who knew the real Sam Puckett were Carly Shay and herself. Her sister had more layers than an onion. On the outside, she was caustic, harsh, and mad at the world. The childhood Melanie was so fortunate to escape had seen to that. On the inside, however, Sam Puckett was a marshmallow. The two people in this world who loved her most were now trying to conceal the truth, solely to protect that inherent vulnerability. This was only the sort of decision you came to out of an insane mix of love and desperation.

"Carly, let me make a deal with you. These may be important to you someday… to you and Sam both. It would be a pity to destroy them out-of-hand. I give you my word that I will keep these safe for you and that my sister won't find out about them unless you choose to tell her. Is that fair?"

Carly nodded. Without another word spoken between them, they quietly filed out of the room and returned to the first floor.

The house was still quiet. Both girls made their way to the sofa and sat. Sat and talked. It wasn't that she and Sam didn't do these things, but with Melanie, Carly wasn't always on pins and needles. They were friends. That was it. That was all. There was a safety there that was fundamentally different than the safety Sam offered her. Sam offered Carly physical, emotional, and psychological safety from anything and everything. Melanie offered Carly 'The Same But Different'. Where Sam was an inferno – a blaze that burned intensely and only for her, Melanie was subdued warmth, like a warm blanket. She was the confidant, the one without the psychic connection to her innermost thoughts.

"Mel," Carly paused. "What Sam and I are doing… do you think it's…" She stopped again. She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. She didn't need to. The words leapt to Melanie's mind like a shot out of the darkness. They weren't even her words. What came to her were song lyrics. It was music her sister had played over and over and over again, all those years ago.

"…Mothers, tell your children…"

"…Be quick, you must be strong…"

"…Life is full of wonder…"

"…Love is never wrong…"

Carly Shay was speechless. She didn't know what to say. Melanie, for her part, could simply smile. They kept talking. It was nice to just have a random conversation – someone other than Sam to bounce things off of – particularly when Sam was so good at being evasive.

Then it all clicked into sharp focus. She had known it for years, of course, but, at the same time, she didn't truly know it until she saw that look in Melanie's eyes. Long before Sam Puckett was hers – her strong one – her gallant protector – she had been Melanie's.

It was so obvious, yet so well hidden under the smile and the Sam-in-a-dress exterior. Carly and Melanie shared the same pain – and the same protector. She confronted the truth indirectly, with the only words she knew wouldn't cause Melanie pain.

" Step One is…"

Melanie finished the sentence without so much as an afterthought.

"…admitting we are powerless over addiction…"

There was the truth. Carly and the Puckett sisters shared the same internal nightmare. Steven Shay and Pam Puckett were both 'Friends of Bill', the phrase used by those in treatment to identify that they had a problem. Both girls wanted to say something, but couldn't. The lock snapped in the door. In walked Sam, paper grocery sacks on each arm. Her words died upon seeing her sister.

"Cupcake, I'm ho—…. Oh, what the hell is she doing here? Isn't it Take Pity on Freddie Day again?"

This was 'Come on in, I'm glad to see you…' in Sam-speak.

Melanie thought more quickly on her feet than did Carly.

"If you must know, Samantha… I was with Freddie. I decided to come over and pay you guys a little visit. Carly said you were out doing some shopping, so I thought 'what harm could it do, waiting around to see my favorite sister?'…"

"I'm your only sister, Genius…"

"All the more to the point…"

Carly interjected. If she hadn't, this verbal jousting could go on for hours.

"…So… I asked Melanie to stay for dinner…"

Sam rolled her eyes, crossing the room, groceries in hand.

"Whatev…" she said in mock exasperation. "Fettuccini Alfredo."

Sam marched into the kitchen and began unpacking, leaving her sister and her love behind.

At that moment, unbeknownst to both of them, Carly and Melanie shared the same exact thought. For a moment in time, they were twins.

"Oh, the things we do for those we love…"