You're nervous. You look up at the school where it looms in front of you and you just want to go home and lock yourself in your room but Sam is warm beside you and if you have to do this, if you have to walk back into this building full of kids that know about that stupid thing you did, than your glad you have to do it with Sam at your side.

"You okay?" She questions easily and you shake your head no. You feel nauseous and nervous and its not from the pills your taking but Sam smiles easily at you and tells you that it'll be alright. You believe her.

Sam had come over the night before the first day and the two of you pulled clothes from your closet for you to where. Everything you pulled out was long sleeved, all of hers were short sleeved and you knew what she was doing.

"I don't want to show my wrists, Sam." You said angry and when she tried to speak you yelled at her so loud that Spencer had come running up the stairs and by the time he got there we're apologizing to Sam who just wanted to make a graceful exit.

"What happened?" Spencer questioned out of breath and you watched Sam drag the back of her hand over her eyes like a little kid trying not to cry.

"I'm going home. I probably have some homework to do." She'd muttered before pushing past your brother and you were so angry for snapping at Sam again.

Either way, Sam was there the next morning with a smile and a muffin, ready for school and man, you love her.

She takes your hand and her thumb finds the scar on your wrists and you don't think she knows she does it when her thumb brushes against the puckered raised skin but it helps and you take a slow deep breath and nod. "Okay, lets go."

The day is long and painful because people whisper and stare but Sam is there with you during homeroom and English and she meets you outside of all of your other classes and at lunch she sits with you under the huge willow tree and tells you about Laura Culver's new nose. It helps, everything she does helps.

After the first day school gets easier, people still whisper but someone starts a rumor that Melanie Cass was in the hospital for so long because she had a sex change operation and attention shifts. You suspect it was Sam and you love her a little bit more for it.

You and Sam are sort of inseparable but you feel like your burdening her even though she'd never say such a thing.

You catch her talking to some people in front of your locker, presumably waiting for you, and you like the way she looks, relaxed and golden talking to these people so you let her. You catch a ride home with Freddie.

The apartment is empty and you call Spencer before going and lying down in your room because school still leaves you exhausted sometimes.

You wake up to the sound of someone pounding on the door and your halfway down the stairs when Sam somehow gets the locks undone and walks into the apartment.

"Sam?"

Her eyes are red rimmed and frantic when they land on you, the way her entire body sort of crumbles as you come down the stairs, makes your stomach lurch dangerously.

"Are you okay?" She demands, taking your wrists and yanking up the sleeves of your shirt and you stand there bewildered as she looks you over, searching and reckless.

"I-I…" you try nervously and her eyes meet yours, tears running down her cheeks and dripping fro her chin.

"Are you okay?" She asks again and she's angry and scared and you don't know why.

"I'm fine, Sam." you whisper and Sam's shaky hands touch your neck, your face, before stepping back and rubbing her eyes.

"I waited for you after school and you never…you never showed up." She chokes out and it dawns on you what you've done. You disappeared without telling her and you scared the hell out of her.

"I'm sorry." You croak and Sam grabs your wrists again, checking them again and this time she doesn't let go.

"I called your cell and the house like a…" Her voice catches on a sob and you swallow back your own tears, "Like a million times and you-you didn't answer."

"I fell asleep." You whisper and Sam's fingertips flutter against the raised skin of your wrists.

"You can't just leave without telling me." She chokes out angrily, "You can't do that because I though-I thought…"

She thought the worst. She thought you did that stupid thing again and she was terrified because she thought she was going to find you in a pool of your own blood again.

"I just saw you with your friends and I felt like a dead weight on you" You divulge and she squeezes her eyes shut before tightening her hands on your wrists.

"I do what I want, Carly." She says with a thick voice, "If I didn't want to be here, with you, I wouldn't"

"I'm so sorry." You blurt and you try to pull her into you, even as she fights you and tries to twist out of your grip but she's still three inches shorter than you and 15 pounds lighter. "I'm okay."

Then she's falling into you, her salty tears wetting your neck and chin and you feel your own tears burning your eyes and you've never seen Sam like this. Never want to see her like this again.

You whisper that your sorry over and over and you don't let go.

You feel better.

And its strange when you wake up one day and its like a switch is flipped and when Spencer asks you how you feel you say 'Good' and absolutely mean it.

You feel better and you know its not from the crazy pills you take because those make you feel disconnected and cut off from the world, like there's a film of plastic between you and everything else and when you tell Spencer he looks concerned, you tell him that you don't want to take them anymore and he tells you that he's worried. That there are risks like another suicide attempt and relapses and something called Discontinuation Syndrome he read about on the internet. You tell him that you just want to feel like yourself again. He takes you to the doctor after that.

It's a process, the doctor says, and it'll take time and just stopping medication is dangerous so you do it they're way which you don't know is better or worse because you still spend a week and a half throwing up and dizzy but one good thing does comes out of it beside not being dependent on the pills anymore.

You and Sam share a bed again.

She crawls in when you're too weak to lift your head for fear of the room spinning again and your stomach hurts from dry heaving. Her hands are warm where she touches your back lightly, reassuringly. She whispers, "It'll get better." and if you weren't worried that if you open your mouth you'd vomit you'd tell her it already had.

It's at night when you talk a lot, in the cocoon of blankets and night. You tell her why you did it, that stupid thing you did and she listens without judging. You tell her, best you can, how you were hurting. How you're afraid that one day you'll look back and you won't be able to remember your fathers face without the help of a photographs. You tell her how stupid and guilty you feel for the stupid thing that you did, how you feel like Spencer will never look at you like he use to and she tells you that you're wrong because Spencer's your brother and awesome and he'll love you exactly the same forever. You tell her how much you care about her and how much she scares you sometimes and she just smiles in the dark and slides her fingertips against yours.

She asks you about the note you wrote, the one clutched in your hand when she found you in your bathtub and you tell her all about it. You don't cry.

She cries when you ask her how she felt when she found you. She says angry and scared. She doesn't elaborate but she doesn't need to.

It does get better after two weeks of puking and crying and cursing, its like someone took a squeegee over your eyes and there's no disorienting fog and you feel more like yourself than you have in almost three months.

You wake up early in the morning, your bedroom windows open and letting cool, wet, air that smells like rain, fill your room. You're wrapped all over Sam beneath your heavy blankets and she's warm and solid and you can really feel how soft the skin of her back is against your fingertips where they're hidden under the hem of her tee shirt.

But you untangle yourself reluctantly and as soon as you're free Sam wakes up.

"What's wrong? Are you gonna puke?" Sam asks blearily and she's nearly out of your bed, more sleep than not, and helping you to the bathroom before you get your hands on her and tell her that you're fine. That everything's okay. "So you're not gonna puke?" dropping back down on the bed and burying her face in your pillow.

"No, not this time." You laugh propping yourself up on bed between Sam and the wall, and brush her blonde hair off her face. "I feel good. I feel."

"Yeah?" Sam questions and you smile.

"Yep."

And then Sam is pushing up and kissing the corner of your mouth. "Did you feel that?"

You can't even find words so you nod and she just says "Okay" before kissing you full on the mouth while twisting you under her slightly smaller frame.

And then its like sensation overload because you feel the press of Sam's lips on yours and the slide of her tongue past your teeth. There's the rasp of your clothes as she pulls them from you and the feel of her tee shirt crumpled in your hands while you help her out of hers.

The heat of her mouth on your breast, the tentative skim of her hand between your damp thighs, the taste of her flexing shoulder muscles is all you think you can take before she twists slim fingers inside of you and you feel it through your entire being.

Sweaty skin and hard rasping breaths and writhing hips, its all too much, too hard, too good, God, so good, and then you're crashing down, short circuited and your release is a cathartic one.

After, with you're skin still pressed to Sam's and her finger still leaving they're swirling, whirling prints on your skin, you cry and she lets you and even that feels good too.

Her fingertips slide against the scar on your wrists where your hand rests on the mattress and even though you stopped crying awhile ago, a tear breaks free from Sam's blue eye, skipping over the bridge of her nose before making a angled dash down her cheek and landing on the pillow you're sharing.

"I love you." You whisper and Sam smirks a little like she always knew it, she probably has.

"I love you too."