A/N: This fic contains potentially triggering subject matter including but not limited to: suicidal references, gun violence, sexual trauma, homelessness, drug abuse, depression, homophobia, and cancer. It may contain inaccuracies. No copyright infringement intended. Thanks for reading!

BOOK TWO - PART ONE - CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Dice had been hard at work for the past half hour on his laptop. He'd gotten distracted, and only now remembered that Sam was still in the bathroom across the room. He was a little concerned, so he went to the door and tapped it with his knuckles. "Uh, Sam?"

"Dice? Don't come in!" Sam blurted.

"I'm not coming in. I was just checking on you," Dice told her. "Are you okay? You've been in there a long time."

"Yeah, I'm, um… not feeling good," Sam answered. "Is Cat out there?"

"No, she left with everyone else a while ago. She told me to stay here with you so you wouldn't get scared."

"I don't get scared," Sam responded angrily.

Dice rolled his eyes. "I just meant she wanted me to keep an eye on you in case you need help with something. Is there anything I can get you, or..?"

"No. I'll be out in a little bit," Sam replied.

"Okay. If you need help, just yell for me or whatever," Dice told her. Then he went back to the couch, picked up his laptop, and resumed his work.

Fifteen minutes later, the bathroom door creaked open and Sam peeked her head out. "Dice? I need to get dressed; can you just close your eyes for a sec?"

"Oh, sure. No problem." Dice put his head down and covered it with his arms. "I'm not looking."

It only took Sam a minute to go to her bag and pull on a pair of boxers, some black sweatpants, and a gray t-shirt. Then she went to the couch and flopped down beside him. "Hey."

Dice cautiously removed his arms. "Hey. Feeling any better?"

"No." Sam curled up on the couch cushion, hugging her knees. The laxatives had been worthless—it had been almost an hour and a half since she took them. Around half an hour later, she took a second dose, hoping to speed up the process. She had even tried a suppository around forty-five minutes ago. Nothing was working, and her legs had started going numb from sitting on the toilet for so long. Eventually she just gave up.

"What's wrong? Are you still throwing up and stuff?" Dice asked in concern. He remembered the other day in the hospital when he had seen her getting sick.

"Not really, I just…" Sam shook her head. "It's nothing. I'll be fine. I really want to just try to distract myself."

"Here." Dice handed her the remote. "I'm working on something. You can put on whatever you want."

Sam powered on the TV and scrolled through the selections for a while. Having access to a TV like this was still very new for her—she'd had no idea there were so many shows out there now. She eventually put on a tattoo competition reality show, leaned back, and tried to relax. While she watched, she asked, "So, did Cat explain to you what it is they're even doing? She didn't tell me much about it."

"Oh. Well, I think they just wanted me to hack into their music studio's computers and get the song they were working on back," Dice explained. "And then something about an EP. I'm not really sure."

"Get it back? Back from what?" Sam asked, confused.

"The label scrapped their work-in-progress when they dropped them," Dice replied.

"Dropped them? Like, JTC? From the label?"

Dice gave a short chuckle. "Man, she really didn't tell you much, did she? Yeah, JTC got dropped. Someone got a photo of you and Cat kissing and now the entire internet is exploding, basically."

Sam just then remembered the picture that Cat had tried to show her earlier that morning. "Dude! Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything?" She quickly grabbed the PearPad from the coffee table and went to Zaplook. A simple search for Catarina Valentine yielded many, many results—Sam clicked on the first one, which happened to be the same article that Jade had sent Cat earlier. "Fuck," she swore under her breath when she saw the photo, then growled out louder, "Fuck!" She skimmed through the article, then scrolled down to the comments. She wanted to physically harm every last person who spoke badly about Cat. She even saw a few comments about herself.

"Thing is, most of those people support gay rights," Dice explained, "But Cat was engaged to Rob—and he's really well-respected in the entertainment industry. It doesn't exactly make her look good."

"So how does making an EP help?" Sam questioned, then added, "What even is an EP?"

"It stands for Extended Play. It's basically just a super short album; like four or five songs," Dice explained. "And honestly, I'm not really sure how it helps. I think Cat just wants to speak out, and, like, defend herself. And using JTC's music is the best way to get peoples' attention."

"Huh. Makes sense, I guess." Sam went back and continued scrolling through the search results. Eventually she saw one with her name on it and clicked it. It was a social media post—a screenshot of Sam's prison record. The comments were pretty brutal. She was pissed off and mortified. This was information she had hoped would never get out. Tears stung her eyes as she stared at the screen.

Dice was shocked—he had never seen Sam cry. Not since he met her. He awkwardly said, "Hey. You alright?"

Sam blinked the tears away and wiped them on the backs of her hands, muttering, "I'm fine. I guess I was stupid to think that being with Cat would ever be easy."

"Worth it, though?"

Sam managed a small smile. "Oh, yeah. Definitely worth it." She went back and continued to click through the various news articles exposing information about her and Cat. Most of what she found was negative. She was scrolling through another comment thread when her stomach gurgled loudly. The feeling hit her like a freight train. She threw the PearPad down on the table and jetted to the bathroom.

"Uh, is everything okay?" Dice asked, assuming she must be throwing up again.

Sam ignored him, made it to the bathroom, and slammed the door shut. She hurried over to the toilet, but the drawstring on her pants was knotted tight and her hands were shaking too much to undo it. She was too late. Her muscles gave out, and she made a horrific mess in her sweatpants. It just kept coming as she scrambled into the bathtub and struggled to get them off. By the time she managed to get the knot undone, her body had emptied itself completely and there was nothing left. She stood there in shock and began sobbing. She was disgusted with herself, gagging at the smell. Then, to her horror, there was a knock on the door.

"Hey, Sam, are you okay—"

"Dice, get the fuck away from the door!" Sam demanded. "Now. I mean it!" She grabbed a can of air freshener off of the counter and sprayed it until it was empty. Then she cranked on the shower and contemplated how the hell she was going to get out of this. "Fuck," she sobbed. What was she supposed to do now?