Okay, so I lied. I wrote another chapter, and I'm really emotionally invested in this story now, so I'm going to continue it. I realized the other day that, even after almost 2 years, I'm still not over my grandfather's death. I was watching "The Big C", a show on Showtime about a woman diagnosed with cancer and how she tries to find humor and enjoyment in the short time she has left. Well, after the season finale, I broke down and couldn't stop crying for about an hour. My grandfather, diagnosed with brain cancer who passed away in February of 2009, is the inspiration for this story. I hope you all like it. It truly means a lot to me to see so many of you enjoying my writing the way you do.

She did give up on me, though. She left me here to deal with everything by myself, without my rock.

Most people don't understand my relationship with Sam. I didn't just lose my best friend, I lost my other half, my soul mate.

You've all seen the movie Wedding Crashers, right? Remember when John is talking to Claire and she asks him what "true love" is? He says, "True love is our soul's recognition of it's counterpoint in another." She comments that, "It's cheesy, but I like it."

Well, Sam's soul was my soul's counterpoint, placed together to create the perfect melodic piece. Sam was my one, true love. She's the only one that's ever been able to draw out these feelings in me, and without effort I might add. Sure, she's rough around the edges, and she's not exactly one you would proudly "bring home to your parents", but she's Sam. I would proudly bring her home and show her off to my family and friends, I loved her...no matter what. There were sides to her that no one but me saw, and I think that's what made me love her so much. She was a beautiful, multi-faceted gem with a dirty, broken exterior that just needed a little polish in order to shine. Sam was polished in front of me, but only in front of me. I'm not even sure her mother or sister ever caught a glimpse of that side of her.

And now, here I sit. Alone. My broken melody droning on, and on, forever in search of it's harmonic counterpoint that ceased to play.

Maybe I was a little upset at Sam for leaving like she did. It was selfish, after all, but I just couldn't wrap my head around why she, of all people, would do something like that. She had to have known how much it would hurt me, how much it would hurt Spencer, even Freddie, and her family. I keep flashing back to the night before I got the call. I haven't stopped crying since I heard her mother brokenly spurt out those burning words between muffled sobs over the phone. "Sam's gone."

She had been drinking in celebration of passing midterms, or so I thought. She and her bottle of Crown Royal had snuck in through my window around midnight. I awoke to both of them snuggled up in bed beside me, the liquor thick on her breath. She had been drooling on the pillow and my hair, shuffling awake when I turned on my bedside lamp.

"Sam, what're you doing here so late? I thought your mother wanted you home."

"Nnn...she gave me the night off, 'cause I made a C- on my science test."

She snorted and rolled over, dropping the bottle of alcohol to the floor to rub her eyes and pull the covers up over her face. A C- was praiseworthy, when it was Sam's C-.

"Besides, since when is it a crime to want to be close to you?"

I smiled at her half-conscious, muffled question. It was never a crime, never a problem at all. In fact, I wanted the same thing 99% of the time. I turned over toward her and wrapped my arm around her waist, kissing the back of her beautiful, blonde curls.

"I love you, Sam."

"Nnn...I love you, too, Cupcake."

She reached her arm back and latched it around my neck, pulling me closer as her head turned my way. Our lips met halfway, leaving me with a sloppy, 80 proof kiss that made my lips burn. It didn't bother me, though. And with that, she turned over and fell back asleep. I nestled into her hair and the back of her neck and let sleep overtake me once again.

When I woke up the next morning, she was gone, the spot in bed next to me already cold from the night air that took her place. I called her phone a few times, but she didn't answer. I assumed she was probably passed out on the couch at her house.

But she wasn't.

I received a call from her phone around 12:30 that afternoon. I excitedly answered the call, hoping that she would tell me that she was on her way over. Unfortunately, it wasn't her. Her mother was on the other end crying and sobbing uncontrollably.

"C-Carly?"

My heart dropped instantly, wondering what could have happened and why Sam's mom was using Sam's phone to call me.

"Ms. Puckett? What's wrong?"

"It's...It's Sam."

"What happened? Didn't she make it home last night?"

After about two minutes of frantic sobbing, she managed to spill out the only words that I never wanted to hear.

"Carly, Sam's gone."

What did that mean? She's gone? Like...she ran away? She's incredibly drunk? She's in jail? She's...

I sat silent on the phone for several seconds. She was drunk last night. What if something happened to her on her way home?

"Wha...how..."

"They're taking her away now."

So it was what I was fearing most. Sam was...dead. How did this happen? Sam was tough, she was strong. How could something like this happen to someone like her? She was seventeen years old! A senior in high school! People our age weren't supposed to die. Old people were supposed to die, people in car wrecks, and convicts on death row were supposed to die, not her. Not my Sam.

"Don't let them take her until I get there."

I hung up the phone. This couldn't be real. She was just here 12 hours ago. Living, breathing, talking. I kissed her just 12 hours ago. Our last kiss. No, no, this was a mistake. It had to be. They got her mixed up with someone else or something like that. Maybe she's just asleep. Sam sleeps like a rock sometimes; maybe the highly trained medical professionals were just mistaken. I felt tears beginning to well up in my eyes. I was numb, inside and out. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. This was too surreal. Surely I had fallen back asleep and was having a terrible nightmare. I pinched myself in an attempt to wake sleeping-me up. Nothing happened. This sinking feeling didn't disappear, I didn't open my eyes to find her next to me in bed, I wasn't relieved to find that it had all been a dream.

"Oh, Carly, you're here."

Ms. Puckett ran up to me and cradled me in her arms; she was shaking. I knew exactly what she was feeling at this very moment, as I saw Sam's limp body being lifted onto a stretcher behind us. I stared over Ms. Puckett's shoulder in speechless awe. The numbness remained, captivating my entire body and making me feel as lifeless as the body on the stretcher was. I ran over to Sam as quickly as my weak knees would take me and fell on the floor beside her, grabbing a lax hand and squeezing.

"Wake up, Sam. This isn't funny. Everyone thinks you're dead."

Nothing. Silence.

"Come on, wake up. They're probably gonna arrest you when they find out you're messing around like this."

Still nothing. It was then that I noticed her hand was cold. That was wrong. I always used to call her my "little heater". Nothing on her body was ever cold. I dropped her hand and stood up as best I could, looking deep beyond the closed eyelids in front of me. She looked so peaceful, like she was in a deep sleep, like she didn't have a worry in the world. Her sunkissed skin now a pale gray in comparison to what it once was and her lips were a dead, pale blue. She didn't even look like the Sam I once knew.

"Sam..."

Her mother came up behind me and put her hand on my arm; her touch heated my skin. I could hear her crying behind me, and that's when I lost it. Tears burst from my eyes and swam down my face. I fell back to the floor in a muddled lump, hands on my face, in my hair, gripping the carpet like I'd fly away if I let go, like I'd really lose her if I left this spot. Spencer held me while I watched horrified as they wheeled Sam's stretcher out of the apartment. It was like they were ripping a piece from my heart and carrying it nonchalantly out the door; it hurt so bad I thought I was going to faint. There went the other half of me, there went all my happiness, my joy, my fun.

"Why not me, instead? Why her?"

I managed to sob out a sentence that Spencer surely did not want to hear. He began to tear up as he found an answer.

"Things happen, kiddo. We'll get through this. I know it hurts now, but in time, it will get better."

I blamed myself for this. Through and through. What if I had stayed awake that night and not let her leave? I should have been there for her then, not just wrote it off as another drunken Sam moment and took advantage of the fact that I thought she'd be there when I woke up the next morning. I felt as though I had neglected her and that it was my fault she was now lying lifeless in the back of some stupid ambulance. This was all because of me...

So...tell me what you thought, please? This story will grow dark, I think, as Carly will be experiencing and feeling what I felt when my grandfather passed, so I'm going to give it a Mature rating because of that. Hopefully chapter 3 will be up soon. Thanks for reading, guys!