Moving On

We accept the love we think we deserve.

-The Perks of Being a Wallflower

xxx

The thing about dorks is they like to trick you.

All people do, obviously, because people are selfish morons.

Except for Carly, but she doesn't really count because she's Carly, and anyway, even she can be pretty self-centered sometimes, like when she makes that stupid duck face in the mirror for two minutes straight while she tries on lip gloss before dates.

But dorks, they'll trick you. And the thing that makes it so easy for them, Sam thinks, is that no one sees it coming. Because with regular people, she's on the lookout for that sort of thing. She's not an idiot.

She knows that girls, for instance, like to tell you your cargo pants look cute, and then bash your clueless and boyish sense of fashion behind your back. She knows that teachers like to say they have "high hopes for what you could accomplish if you just put in some effort," even though they know you're probably going to end up in prison in a year or two. She knows that guys will say—well, pretty much anything, when all they really want is to get laid.

But dorks, they seem like they're in their own nubbish little bubble, a weird outer branch of the population, what with their socially awkward tendencies, and senile overprotective mothers, and love of plaid, and technical knowledge (and yeah, okay, she knows a little bit about technology herself, but that doesn't count because it's not like she finds it interesting, just sometimes good for passing the time, and she'll take that secret with her to the grave).

And, you know—how they'll do those weird things that only dorks do, like dress up in robot costumes and think that's fine, or attempt an oddly kind-hearted discussion with you about putting your feelings out there, even though they have no reason to think you aren't going to just do a double fist dance on their face with no witnesses in sight.

Anyway, point is that they're so isolated from normal-folk behavior that it's easy to think they're good people. It's easy to think they've got some kind of conscience or something that the rest of the world doesn't.

But that right there, that's the kicker. They'll use you when you've got your guard down, they'll pull fast ones on you, they'll forget about you.

And in the end, they'll leave you, just like everyone else.

It smells like frozen rain and Carly is gone.

They've been skyping every night, obviously. But it's not the same. Her best friend's absence sits like a heavy weight in Sam's heart.

And then there's the other heavy weight. The one that begins with Carly casually mentioning a kiss.

And it's the way Freddie doesn't tell Sam that plants the familiar bitter seed in her chest. Not the first seed, or the last one.

Sam knows that Freddie doesn't love her.

She just wishes he would have been quicker about it. If he'd just done what he really wanted to before things got too messy, well, maybe she'd be cool now.

He should have just pushed her away, that night at the lock-in. That's what she'd have done if some overly aggressive lunatic had come at her and started making out with her. That's what a normal person would have done.

But that's the thing about dorks, is that they can never make things easy. And okay, yeah, it probably would have hurt a little—not physically, since Freddie is about as strong as a jellyfish, but you know, hurt her feelings and all that jazz—if he'd just shoved her away, but so what. She'd have brushed it off. Maybe she could have played it off. She did spend a lot of time at Troubled Waters thinking about that possibility. "I kissed you cause you were talking too much and your voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard." That would have worked, right?

But he just had to pretend to go along with it, had to keep weaving her in deeper and deeper.

And it's not that she's one of those idiotic romantics or anything like that, it's just that she's maybe kinda had it bad for him for a long time and she really, highly doubted he would ever use that word, that L-word, talking to her, and it still gives her a stomachache to remember it. Not a terrible raw-steak stomachache, but the other more tingly kind.

And well, if it were a normal person, he'd have known all along not to trust them. But Freddie Benson wasn't supposed to lie about these things. Only, like everyone else, he did. He tricked her, every time he pretended to care about her, every time he acted for a moment like she was something he wanted to keep.

Her motorcycle is fast, fast, fast.

She knows it's dangerous and stuff. But it's the best feeling in the world, driving at eighty miles an hour, with no one to stop her, with no one to pull her back. That's one good thing about Carly being gone, Sam tells herself. If Carly were here, she'd tell her to slow down.

But it doesn't matter now. She has the open road and the lights whirling past her and her head spinning until she has to pull over and puke up the fried chicken she had for lunch.

Mrs. Benson invites Sam over for dinner, and Sam isn't really sure why. She thinks the psycho maniac may actually feel bad for her, now that Carly is gone.

But she won't refuse food. No, never that. Not even organic salad and dry chicken cutlets.

Freddie eats all dainty and slow. Sam finishes her cutlets and begins licking the grease off her plate, until Freddie swats her arm, motioning angrily toward his mother.

"That's rude," he hisses at her.

"That's rude," she mimics in a high-pitched voice. Except the truth is her heart's not in it anymore.

And how that makes her feel is—well, kinda sick. Because Mama can't use her butter sock to get out of this one, and that's not how it's supposed to be. The butter sock is the closest thing to a God she's ever believed in, especially since that priest who was dating her mom for a few weeks stole Frothy's cat bed and never returned again. If the butter sock can't help her, she's doomed.

Freddie stops her after dinner when she's gathering her bag in the living room. Concern is etched all over that stupid little baby face of his.

"Are you okay, Sam? You've seemed so different, now that Carly is gone."

"Now that Carly is gone," she repeats under her breath, her heart racing, heat rushing to her face. Because how dare he. How dare he think that it's just because now Carly is gone.

Carly, the girl you've had the hots for all along, she wants to scream.

But she doesn't really.

Really, she rolls her eyes and says she's totally fine, dorkwad.

She goes home and shovels handfuls of chips in her mouth eight, nine, ten at a time. She eats until she can taste the salt in her nostrils and her stomach feels like it's in her throat. And it's still not enough.

That's the thing, is that it's never enough.

She still has dreams about her dad, sometimes. She'll never tell anyone about this.

And anyway, here's the thing. She doesn't really remember him. Only little bits and pieces, like the red helmet he used to leave on the kitchen counter, and his giant socks that got stuck to her and Melanie's linty pajamas in the laundry. And then the postcards. Postcards from New York, California, Florida. Pictures of glossy beaches and tall skyscrapers and palm trees, with notes scribbled on the back—For my ladies, Pam, Sam, and Melanie. I'll be back soon. That was before the pretending stopped. That was before she figured she should stop rushing to the window at five in the morning to see if his motorcycle was parked on the street, because she was never going to see him again.

Her mom once mentioned that he loved meat, which made her vomit, but so what. So she inherited her love of meat from a human devil. She's the spawn of badness, and she's got it in her. She's better off just accepting that, she figures.

Anyway, the dreams she has about him aren't nightmares, not really. They're good dreams in a way.

He leaves again, but she sees it coming this time. And that's the important thing. She sees it coming.

So she's not fooled, when her dream self sees his shadow creeping across the hallway and the door swinging shut behind him. It doesn't matter, because this dream self knew all along not to trust him, and trust him she did not. No one gets to trick Mama twice.

Sometimes, she thinks Freddie understands her.

The thought is both terrible and exhilarating. Horrible and comforting.

Because how great would it be if she never had to say it out loud, and he saw through her anyway.

Because how awful would it be if she worked so hard to never say it out loud, and he saw through her anyway.

"I still love you, Sam. I know you're abnormal and I love you," he'll whisper one day, and she'll fall into him with reckless abandon, while he kisses her kisses her kisses her, and all she'll have to do is kiss back.

But that's not how the story ever ends. The pretty girl who talks to animals and sings about how much she loves the forest, or some shit, ends up with her Prince. And girls like her—the ugly stepsisters, the loud gluttons, the freakish bullies—they end up alone.

The time she spends with Freddie gets more and more awkward.

And then they both go to a party, and things take a turn for the worse.

Because she wants him so badly she can feel it in her toes. Because she needs him so much that her skin crawls just when he accidentally brushes against her.

She spends her time at the refreshments table, drowning her sorrows in punch and stale pretzels until he finds her again.

Taps her on the shoulder. She offers him a ride home on her motorcycle.

"Sam, you're drunk," he tells her, as if she needs telling, and even in her light-minded haze she can sense the way his body is tensing up, how he wants to run away, run away. Because isn't that always the case. She's all anger and longing to hold him forever, and he's all confusion and longing to get away.

"Let's go into another room or something," she hears herself suggesting, and she knows she shouldn't like the pleading sound in her voice, but really, she's had a few too many disgusting cheap beers to mind.

He doesn't say anything.

She can't take it. She grabs him roughly by the shoulders, presses her chest against his. Her breathing is heavy and fevered and the skin on his neck is hot, and no no, she can't take it. He smells like soap and she just wants to inhale him until she smells like soap, too.

"Sam." Freddie says in a strangled-sounding voice. She waits until he lowers himself slowly. Touches his lips to hers.

Puts his hands around her waist like the horny teenager he is.

And then she shoves him.

Hard.

"You tricked me, Freddie."

Her voice is raw and rough and the hallway outside Freddie's apartment is dark. She doesn't care anymore. She already knows what's going to happen. She's just sick of holding it in.

Freddie looks at her slowly, his fingers fumbling self-consciously with the string on the front of his pajama pants, confusion written all over his furrowed brow. "Huh? What are you doing here, Sam?"

"You tricked me."

"Sam, I—could you explain what you're talking about, maybe?"

She closes her eyes until the nausea passes. "I loved you."

Her eyes are still closed. She can hear the beginnings of something he's mumbling, something he's about to say.

"I loved you, and you knew that," she rushes on. "And you told me you loved me. You made me believe you fucking loved me. Why. Why Freddie. Why couldn't you have just said it. You could have just told me the truth."

"Sam—I—"

"You're a fucking liar."

She finally opens her eyes, and he's holding his forehead in his hands, his face red. "That's not fair, Sam. Don't say that. I—you—"

"I know it's not fair. I—I a—already know that, okay?" She breathes in, hard, shaky, wet, but she will not cry. No, she will not cry. Not for him. "But I still wanted to let you know. That you hurt me a lot, Freddie. And that I—that I can't be friends with someone like you."

Freddie laughs. A high, nervous, nubbish laugh that sends cold blood rushing to her heart. "What does that mean?"

"It means that you're not who I thought you were. I thought you were a dork. I thought you had a good heart. I thought you were a high-strung weirdo with an obsession with Galaxy Wars. I called you Fredward to cover up how much you were growing on me. I was mean and I teased you because I thought I would die if you knew how I really felt." She looks at the floor, and she doesn't want to let go. "I guess I'm luckier now, cause I don't have to cover up anything at all."

And she turns, because she doesn't want to see the expression on his face. She doesn't want to know whether he's upset, or unconcerned. Angry, or bewildered. It doesn't matter. She won't be able to handle any of it.

"Sam, wait," Freddie starts.

But the hallway is already turning into the stairwell, the stairwell into the cold, cold rainy air. It whips her in the face. It lets her breathe.

Finally, it lets her breathe.

She can tell you all about insecurity. But she won't, because she doesn't want to. That's boring and takes too long.

And she likes things instant. Like Meatball Pops and microwave popcorn.

And she's leaving to paint the town red with Wendy.

Because she, Sam Puckett, is a fighter.

And for once, just for once, she's going after her own happiness.

Not a man who will leave her. Not a boy with her hot best friend in his heart.

No. She's going to fight for what she deserves.

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Author's note: Sorry guys. I guess my heart is aching from the terrible writing that was iGoodbye.

I cherish reviews, bad or good. Seriously, it makes me happier than you can imagine when people actually read what I write. So please let me know what you think if you feel so inclined.