A/N: Fixed the formatting issues for this chapter. I was so excited to post that I forgot. Sorry guys. ._.

Edit: The site messed with my formatting again. I had to re-edit line breaks in all of my chapters. x.x Sorry for the inbox spam to all of you who have this on alert.

Ever since you hit puberty, getting out of bed in the morning has become one of life's greatest challenges. You're not the type to sleep away the mornings and wait until noon to shower and dress - you've had routines programmed in your head for as long as you can remember, and you can't get out of bed after nine without feeling like your day is being wasted - but you do have a tendency to spend a lot of time halfway between slumber and consciousness with your senses half turned-off until it occurs to you that you should get up.

It starts the same way every morning. You'd have your legs curled up to your chest and your blankets pulled up to your chin, and you'd first become aware of the light pitter-patter of rain on the roof, or on rare occasions, rays of sunlight pouring through your window and refracting on your wall and towards your face. Either one was pleasurable in their own way, and you liked to just lay there for a while and drink them in while semi-conscious. Then, you'd roll over, and one of two things would happen. Your elbows or your knees or some other part of you would collide with a shoulder blade or a stomach or a hip, and there might be an exhale of breath on the other's part, but no more. You'd mentally say sorry and be mentally forgiven, and you'd lay there and lay there until you didn't want to anymore.

But there was a chance that things could happen differently. Sometimes - very few times, but still sometimes - when you rolled over, there'd be nothing but space beside you, and your nerves would be so used to you bumping into something with shape and body heat that to instead find empty air was enough to startle you awake.

It happens this morning. One second you're almost lulled back into sleep with the sound of your own even breathing, and the next your limbs are falling into your mattress and your heart is banging against your ribs in a way that can't be healthy for a girl your age. You remind yourself how to breathe and then get out of bed because sleeping once you're fully awake is futile, even if it is five-thirty AM.

Your bathroom doesn't have a shower in it, though, and you almost feel guilty for making your way into the one next to Spencer's room at this hour. As you undress, though, you can hear a rumbling through the walls and something that sounds like "bendy straws," and you have to smile because you can't recall a time when your brother is any more loveable than when he sleep-talks.

Showers are a wonderful invention, you think as you rub your body down with this shower gel which smells like a cherry blossom according to the label. Not just because there would be a lot more smelly people if showers didn't exist, but because the act of it was probably the most relaxing thing in the world. You'd bet anything that bathing has a lot more benefits than yoga as far as releasing tension goes.

Your skin is pink and shriveled when you shut the shower off, and you think of the water bill a little guiltily because you don't know how long you were in there but you love the almost scalding tinge the water gets when it's just right for you. You sort of cringe when you open the door and cold air whips past you but it probably serves you right.

It's only after you've toweled off that you realize that you didn't grab yourself any clothes, which presents a problem. What if Spencer's up and he sees you going to your room in just a towel? Biting your lip, you decide you're going to have take that risk, and the worst he would do in that situation is make a surprised noise, cover his eyes and flee. Although, you think, hopefully not in that order. You really would rather not he run away and hit his head on something, lest he get a concussion. Similar things have happened.

You venture out of the bathroom and down the hall, trying to make as little noise as possible. When you're in your bedroom and the coast appears to be clear, you stop clutching your towel to you like a lifeline and let your arms fall to your sides. Opening one of your bureau drawers, you just kind of stare at its contents for a bit. Decisions, decisions. This is why you try to pick out clothes before you go to bed.

You pull out your favorite purple hoodie with the silver stars and find orange socks hanging from the front pouch. That's odd, because you can understand finding a couple stray dollar bills left in your laundry, but you've never carried around socks in case of emergency. In fact, you're pretty sure nobody does that, not even Spencer's best friend whom you've only ever known as Socko. They must have ended up in there during the wash. You toss them up on the top of the bureau and begin the search for your grey socks, the ones that are a little worn out at the heel but still the softest ones you own.

You come up with one of them, somehow astray from its match at the very bottom of the drawer, and after a while you realize that you're spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to find where the other one went, but they're your favorites and you're stuck on them because how many places can a sock disappear to?

Maybe you're a little too stuck on them because you don't recognize another presence behind you until a soft voice says "Carly," and you slam your knee against the dresser while a scream very nearly tears through your vocal cords.

And Sam just stands in the doorway silently laughing because she probably has no idea what it's like to have somebody creep in on her while she's in just a towel, but then again, she's always been quick to hop over boundary lines.

"Sam." Her name comes out sort of choked because pain is still shooting down your leg, and whatever sternness you wanted to have in your voice is probably canceled out by how funny you look as you hobble to lean on the dresser.

"Who the heck showers at five-thirty in the morning?" she asks out of the blue, like it just struck her as odd that you're wearing nothing but a piece of cloth, and you want to say something witty like What's this about showering? Oh, by the way do you like my new dress? but all you can do is answer her honestly. "People who wake up in the morning and can't get back to sleep. Who the heck breaks in to apartments at five-thirty in the morning?"

"I did not break in," she emphasizes. "The door was unlocked and I came inside."

"Oh, because that's completely normal non-delinquent behavior." You straighten up, flex your knees slightly and then you just look at her because even though you've seen Sam in passing, it's been about a week since you've had a real, normal conversation.

Then it hits you that you're still naked under your towel and the conversation no longer seems normal at all.

"I have to talk to you," she says, and you can't meet her eyes because even though she's not looking at you - she'd never be looking at you, not like that - and you've changed in gym locker rooms together for years now, this feels different in a way that makes your chest and neck feel hot, like her gaze is burning you.

"U-Um, well, I'm not really adequately dressed at the moment," you tell her because she obviously hasn't noticed. "Can it wait a few minutes?"

She nods and you turn your back to her, gathering up your clothes while grasping the bit of towel that's keeping you shielded because you swear it's slipping little bit by little bit, and you shut your bathroom door like you always do when you get dressed even when you're around your best friend.

You've always wondered if other girls are that self-conscious or if they leave their bathroom doors wide open. (Sam does, but she's not like other girls. She can even pee and hold a conversation at the same time.) Once you're modestly covered, you wash your face, brush your teeth, and dry your hair the rest of the way before you realize that one, you're still missing a sock, and two, this took way longer than a few minutes.

But Sam can sometimes have a surprising amount of patience, and she's lounged across your bed watching an infomercial on exercise equipment like it's something people do all the time.

"The people on here sound so fake," she remarks with hazy amusement usually saved for bad puns. She's got one foot crossed over the other, the top one clad in the very sock you were looking for. It figures.

"Yeah, they usually do," you say over the announcer that wants you to call right now for a reduced price that's probably still not worth the results. You decide on plain white socks, then sit up on the bed next to her.

"I wonder how many of these guys' pictures were photodocked," you think aloud in reference to the before and after photos being displayed on screen. "Some of them don't even look like the same people."

"I know," she concurs. "And some of them don't even look like they need to lose weight - like the naturally skinny types."

"I don't think anyone can be 'naturally skinny'. I mean, everyone has to work for it somewhat."

"I bet you don't. You'll probably never be fat in your life."

"Pfft," you say like it's an actual response because you don't know what else to say to that since you've had a lanky build for as long as you can remember and who knows? "I have a stomach."

"A flat stomach."

"It's not completely flat," you retort, your hand going to your abdomen automatically.

Sam turns over, facing you. "Lemme see."

"Why?" you laugh, heat creeping to the back of your neck again for a reason you're not sure of.

"I need proof. I don't believe you." She reaches over for the fabric of your shirt, barely catching it between her fingers before you lean away.

"Seriously now?"

"Mmhmm. C'mon, it's just your stomach. It's not like you have to take your whole shirt off or anything. Unless, y'know, you want to." She smirks and you try to, but your lips keep twitching weird.

You cave. "Okay. Gimme space to lie down."

She sits up a little further so she's completely upright, but instead of scooting over like you expected, she pulls you back so you fall into her lap. "Geez."

"Sorry," she says in a way that means she's not, and her eyes glimmer with subtle mischief as you start to unzip your hoodie, and you think about how it's something about those eyes that get you doing crazy things like practically take off your clothes just to prove a point. Your fingers fumble with the end of your shirt, rolling it up to about an inch below your chest.

"There's like, nothing to you," she murmurs, her eyes traveling from your belly button up to your ribs, and something inside you quivers from being all exposed. Her finger lightly traces your skin, cool as it moves up from your side. "I can feel your ribs." She looks you in the eye and you have the sensation of sinking further into the mattress. "That's like, not right."

Your giggle sounds all disjointed, like it's bubbling up from the depths of you and exiting your throat in bursts. "Just because I don't eat ten tons of meat a day doesn't mean I'm unhealthy."

"Whatever. I say you need to eat more, and starting today, I'm going to fatten you up," she tells you in a very matter-of-fact manner that shouldn't be as funny as it is.

"Oh, really - and how do you plan to do that?" you inquire when you know you can talk without laughter getting in the way.

"Easy - I'll start by taking you out to lunch. Or breakfast, if you prefer." She raises an eyebrow in questioning, and you shrug against the comforter. "Lunch is good. I'm not a big breakfast person."

"Then it's settled. This afternoon, we're headed" - here, she takes a pause for what you guess is dramatic effect, raises her index finger in the air and shouts the end of her sentence in declaration - "to B.F. Wangs!"

Far off, Spencer shouts, "Parakeets!" before there's a yelp and a loud thump.

"He fell out of bed again," you say before Sam can ask, and you roll your eyes before pulling down your shirt and getting up to make sure he didn't split his lip open with his teeth like last time.

You're beginning to think that Sam's idea of going to B.F. Wangs is just yet another of her many excuses to eat vast quantities of meat. You really should have recognized this earlier, as the restaurant was a meat emporium of sorts that sold everything from the most tender of poultry to the most juicy of steaks, which in Sam's world pretty much translated to a slice of heaven on Earth - but it hadn't struck you that way until you saw Sam ogling the menu with eyes which rivaled her stomach. Still, it's a nice gesture, and you do like B.F. Wangs - just not in a crazed, act-like-a-primitive-life-form sort of way.

"Hungryyyy." Sam growls low in her throat, her vision darting between the menu and the waiter that had placed you in your booth while probably attempting to send telepathic death threats.

You pry the menu from her white-knuckled fingers knowing that it's one of the only things she's read cover-to-cover and memorized. "Calm yourself," you command, squeezing one of her hands to make her focus. "We've only been here three minutes." Her expression is hopeless.

"I haven't eaten in like, three hours. That's one-hundred-eighty minutes in which my stomach has been deprived." She whimpers and laces your fingers together across the table, motioning with her free hand as though she's going to rip her hair out.

You blink. "Did you just do math? In your head?"

Her face is somber. "Yes. That's how serious this situation is for me."

Fortunately, her savior arrives in the form of man who wears too much hair gel and whose nametag reads 'Jerome'. He smiles in that plastered-on way that comes from working too long in a place where the air conditioner has been broken, which is likely since the only circulating air comes from a lone fan by the door.

"What can I get for you two lovely ladies?" he asks in that creepy way that male wait staff really shouldn't use with young girls like you.

Sam rambles off a list that puts a few more beads of sweat on Jerome's brow and makes you laugh inside because you know it as well as she does. Something crosses his face, though, something unpleasant that makes your insides churn. You don't know what it is, but you sort of don't feel hungry anymore.

As soon as Jerome is out of earshot, Sam leans forward, her eyes large in her face. "I kind of wish he was on the menu, to be honest. I almost asked."

"Do you, like, not have any control over your hormones?" Your voice comes out a little edgier than you wanted it to, and she backs up. "Well, sor-ry. I didn't mean anything bad by it - he's just good-looking, that's all."

"Everyone is good-looking to you."

"Did you not see him?" Sam gestures in his direction, where he's got his back to you as he takes orders across the room.

"I saw him," you say. "I just don't see anything in him. Nothing special."

Sam looks at you as though a third eye has appeared in the middle of your forehead. "What's wrong with you?" she says, and even though she's not being mean, the words hit you hard in the pit of your stomach.

"He - he got a funny look on his face, okay? He got a funny look on his face and it was just weird."

"Funny how?"

"Funny like...like...I dunno."

He does it again when your food comes - the French fries with cheddar and bacon strips rather than bits, the steak and cheese subs and the chicken wings that B.F. Wangs is known for. He smiles with a mouth full of white teeth at first, but then his mouth abruptly drops into a thin line, and you know. You knew before, but you didn't want to say it, because for some reason it makes you want to throw up.

"I saw," Sam says, her mouth hovering over the chicken wing in her hand. Her eyes meet yours, azure pools of puzzlement. "He seemed mad, kind of. When he talked to us."

You let her eat for a while before you tell her, talk about nothing and wait until she's gotten through a sub and half the cheddar fries before you take a long sip of Peppy Cola and tell her. "I think," you start, and your mouth goes dry like it hadn't just been hydrated. "...I think he was mad because we're holding hands."

Sam's chewing slows considerably as she notices that your hands are still indeed linked and in plain view. The fingers intertwined with yours twitch as though she forgot they were there. "Oh," she says after a while.

And then she pushes the fries in your direction and reminds you that you you're supposed to be eating more. All the really cheesy fries are working through Sam's digestive tract, but you take a few anyway. Her fingers slide away from yours when she goes to push back a lock of her hair and she starts up about nothing again.

When Jerome returns to ask how your meals are, his face is more relaxed, and it makes you hurt in places you can't explain, but you force a smile and say "Great. Everything is great." And Sam, being Sam, agrees with a mouthful of steak and cheese.

It takes a while for Sam to notice that you're not really engaged in conversation anymore - she's never been that observant, you bitterly think at one point - but she drops her train of thought which had something to do with Drake Bell for you, and that's something.

"What's wrong?" she wants to know, and for some reason it really bothers you that she doesn't just know, but then again, you're not entirely sure either.

"...I need to go outside for a minute," you answer after a pause that lasts way too long. You push your plate back and get up from your seat, and it makes you look like a real jerk but you don't care.

There aren't any benches to sit on outside, so you pace. You pace a little beyond B.F. Wangs, where the building ends and the shadow of another one is cast in the space between them, and it looks like a suitable place to hide, so you do. You hide in the in the inky shadow until there's arms wrapped around your shoulders and you realize that you're crying. Sam hushes you, keeps you tight against her until you squirm for her to let go.

"What's wrong?" she asks again as you rub your writs across your face.

"I don't...know," you whisper, between shallow breaths. You're lying again. You're lying, and she knows it.

"Tell me," she says in a firm voice, and all of a sudden the twisty hurt feelings morph into this ugly anger you didn't know you had.

"Why'd you do that?"

"Do what?"

"You know," you try and accuse, but it's stupid because there's no way she could unless she's a mind-reader. Her jaw clenches.

"Carly, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"It was obvious! Y-You got all weirded-out in there when I t-told you about what stupid Jerome was all mad about, and you l-let go of my hand!" You stammer.

Her face smooths out in a way that unsettles you. "You mean to tell me," she says slowly, "that all this is happening...because I stopped holding your hand." It's a statement, not a question, the kind of statement that puts what you say in a perspective that gives you the appearance of an idiot.

"You thought it was weird."

"Carly, we do things like that all the time!" she practically shouts at you. "It's a comfort thing, like hugging, except we had been doing it for way too long, so I had to let go!"

"What do you mean, 'way too long'?"

She lowers her voice to a more controlled volume. "Carly, if you were to see people hugging for several minutes straight, wouldn't that be weird?"

You honestly hadn't been expecting that. "...Well, yeah, but -"

"And holding hands is like hugging for us. It has to stop at some point."

When she puts it like that, it's entirely too simple. You close your mouth, all the words you wanted to say dissipating from your mind and the tip of your tongue when she holds you close again.

"You okay, Cupcake?" You can feel the words on your scalp and nod against her shoulder.

"Sam?" you say, once you ease up again.

"Yes, Carly?"

"What did you want to talk about? This morning, I mean?" The vague memory of her saying they needed to talk that morning had sparked in your mind awhile ago, but there hadn't been a place to mention it."

She swallows hard. You wonder for a moment if she heard you, but at the same time you can tell that there's bad news that needs to be told.

"...I think I'm moving in with dad."