She had always found pedicures to be exceedingly awkward. Why would anyone want to touch someone else's feet? They were gross. What a gross job. The petite woman sitting at her feet didn't seem to think so, though, because she was rubbing lotion onto her feet and chatting in a foreign language with the woman next to her like it was no biggie. Sam, however, thought it was indeed a biggie. A person touching her feet was weird, just weird, whether she's getting paid for it or not.

She held her hands out in front of her to admire her freshly painted pink and sparkly nails, subtly blocking her view of the pedicurist. It was at least the fourth time she'd done so since it started. She hated every second of the awkward foot-makeover. She always agreed to them, though. Carly had this insane idea that they needed a "girl's day" once a month and, unfortunately, mani-pedi's always seemed to be included. Today was no different.

Carly seemed totally comfortable with the woman at her feet. She was leaned back in the chair, eyes closed, hands folded in her lap, completely content. That was just Carly. Of course she was fine with it, it was girly, and pretty, and fabulous. Of course Sam thought it was awkward…she wasn't girly or pretty like Carly. Carly was like, perfect. Sam was…difficult. Nothing was difficult for Carly.

She should be more like Carly. A lot more. She'd always felt that way, secretly wished she could be more like her best friend. She'd always looked at Carly as exactly what a girl should be: girly, and pretty, and graceful, and kind, and all that other crap. He looked at her that way, too. He had always been in love with her. He probably still was. The thought brought a knot of pain into her stomach. Yes. She should definitely be more like Carly.

Sam leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes and trying to look as relaxed as Carly did. She managed to hold the position for about 3 and a half seconds before it was just too awkward and she sat forward and held out her hands again.

The women at their feet spoke almost simultaneously and held out two nail polish bottles: one that contrasted the color on each girls nails, and one that matched it perfectly. Sam's first instinct was to pick the contrasting color, a bright turquoise. But she stopped short of making her choice and glanced over at Carly. Smiling, she pointed to the color that matched her candy apple red fingernails. Imitating Carly's smile, Sam pointed to the sparkling pink that matched her own.

When their toes were painted and dried, and their hands full with ice cream cones, they sat on two swings in the park.

"Soo…what do you wanna do now?" Carly asked casually as they swung.

"I dunno," Sam replied through a mouth full of ice cream. "What do you wanna do?"

"Hmm…" She pretended to be thinking hard, but Sam could tell with no trouble that Carly had already chosen their next activity long before she had asked the question. "Maybe we could juuuusssttt…talk."

Sam's stomach began to twist inside of her. "Okay, shoot." She licked her ice cream.

"Hmm…" Carly once again pretended to be giving thought to what she was going to say. Sam rolled her eyes. She knew exactly what Carly would say.

"How long have you liked Freddie?" Whether she was prepared for it or not, the question slapped Sam across the face, Carly's voice shrill and panicked.

Her toes curled, as she contemplated how to answer her friend, and she admired how perfectly they were painted. She didn't have a lot of perfect things and the polish on her toes made her heart feel sort of content. "I don't—"

"Don't!" Carly yelled. "Don't try to tell me you don't like him because I know you do and you know it, too. I saw you kiss him, Sam! Why can't you just be straight up with me?"

"I wasn't going to say I don't like him!" Sam yelled back, but her voice quickly turned quiet. "I was going to say I don't know." It was the truth. She was going to be honest with her best friend. "It just kinda…happened. I don't know. It's stupid." Her feet kicked at the dirt and she panicked, thinking her perfect polish might be ruined.

"It's not. It's not stupid, Sam!" Carly reached out to link Sam's arm with her own and their swings moved side to side in unison. "It makes sense, y'know? Freddie is good to you: he's sweet, and he's patient, and he laughs at your horrible jokes. He's good for you."

"Whatever," came Sam's response.

"No 'whatever,'" Carly said. "Sam…what are you guys gonna do now?"

Sam answered honestly the only way she knew how: she shrugged. What were they gonna do now? They were barely speaking. When they did talk, it usually just ended in yelling and Sam running away like a little kid. Forget what were they gonna do…what were they now? Friends? Frenemies? Nothing? Where did they stand?

Maybe she had been avoiding the question all this time because she knew. She knew what she felt and she knew what she was capable of…they couldn't just be friends, not now. She was avoiding him because she knew. She knew that if he said he just wanted to stay friends, then she would have to walk away. She was tough, but not that tough. She couldn't face that. She couldn't be that big of a person.

And if she walked away, it would ruin everything. iCarly, their trio…probably her and Carly's friendship, too. It would ruin everything. She had ruined everything.

"Sam…" Carly's voice was barely audible as she unhooked her arm from Sam's. "He really wants to talk to you. You can't ignore him forever!"

"Who says?" Sam's own voice was barely a whisper, but Carly heard.

"I do! Will you talk to him? Please. For me. For iCarly." She looked at Sam like she felt bad for her or something and Sam's fists clenched. She hated being pitied.

She got up from the swing and started to stomp away.

"Sam!" Carly called after her and she stopped, but didn't turn around. "Forget iCarly, okay? Forget me, and Spencer, and Gibby, and everything…talk to him for you! I told you, I just want you to be happy. I don't care…I just…I want you to be happy."

"I'm happy!" Sam cried, whirling around to face her.

"Sam…" Carly said, the sadness in her voice matched only by the sadness in her face. Sam resented it. She resented how right Carly was. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

"It's whatever," she said, stomping away, leaving Carly with nothing but a half-eaten ice cream cone.

Carly's face haunted her for the rest of the weekend. As much as she tried, she couldn't shake the feeling that Carly was right. And it consumed her.

Lying in bed that night, it was all she could see: her best friend's face, sad but knowing, implying what everyone knew but was too afraid to say because they didn't want to get punched, or pants-ed, or otherwise publically humiliated…Sam wasn't happy. And she resented them all.

The next day at school she ignored Freddie, as usual, and he ignored her back. They didn't sit next to each other at lunch, he didn't pick up her pen when it fell off of her desk in biology, he didn't walk next to her during the passing periods. She stuck to Carly like glue and Freddie stuck with Gibby. It was odd, the awkward silences that enveloped the usually chatty four of them whenever they found themselves all together; Gibby, still clueless as to the source of the awkwardness, feigned attempts at making jokes to fill the silence, but Carly cast nervous glances between Sam and Freddie all day.

Between the last two classes of the day, just after she had slammed her locker shut and started toward the stairs, they collided. Freddie was running, to where, she had no idea, and smacked straight into her. The force sent her flying to the floor, her Algebra book sailing through the air to who knows where, and the three blue ink pens in her hand, clattering against the lockers.

It took her a moment to gather her wits but when she did, she looked to her left to see Freddie staring at her, mouth gaping, apparently just as shocked as she was. "I'm so sorry." He frantically gathered his own books, Sam still sitting in shock, and then moved to pick up her scattered belongings as well. "Really, I am sorry! I didn't even see you, I swear. Man, I was going to be late for class…well, I'll be even later now…I'm really sorry, Sa….Sam."

She stared up at him, more weirdness brewing in her stomach. He had stopped short of finishing her name as if saying it caused him some sort of physical pain. And it made her mad. She had no right to be mad, she knew that, she wasn't completely illogical. But she was mad anyway. He extended his hand, offering to help her up, and she simply stared at it, hanging there in a gesture of peace. After days of ignoring one another, this was big. He could have gathered his belongings in awkward silence, then simply ran away, like she half wished that he would have, but he didn't. He was there, offering her a truce, trying his hardest to fix things, as much as they could be fixed. It was only a hand, but it all felt strangely, and lamely, symbolic, as she sat there on the floor; would she take the hand or not? The time had come to make a choice.

In one quick movement, she pushed herself up off of the ground, grabbed her Algebra book out of his other hand, and turned away from him to shove it into her book bag as the bell rang, signaling that they were both officially late.

She took her time, pretending to arrange the contents of her bag carefully, although all it contained was a book, some scratch paper, and a few paperclips, and zipped it up as slowly as humanly possible, all in an attempt to avoid turning around to face him. Her ears were fine-tuned to listen for his retreating footsteps so she could breathe freely again, but they didn't come. He didn't move.

So she whipped around, careful to look as confident and unshaken as possible, her signature Puckett scowl etched upon her face. And there he stood, looking more unsure and shaken than she'd ever seen him, his left hand extended, offering her the three blue ink pens that she had lost in the fall. And for a moment, she felt her scowl fall; for a moment, she just wanted to hug him and say she was sorry because he just looked so lost and she felt so awful. But she didn't. She scowled harder and ripped the pens from his hand, turning again to shove them into her bag.

And he laughed. Her heart stopped when she heard it and she whirled around to face him again, fists clenched in anger that he was finding humor in this. But his face didn't look remotely humored; he looked bitter, and sarcastic, and angry. And suddenly she realized that the laugh hadn't been a happy one at all. It had been broken.

His eyes, dead, but still shining with hurt raked over he once and she shifted awkwardly from self-consciousness. Her scowl fell and he picked it up.

"Right…" he averted his eyes and nodded his head, turning away from her and stomping off toward his class. She, however, didn't turn to leave, but stood her ground, staring after him as he pushed the double doors open to enter the next hallway. And then he was gone.

Eyes still glued to the door through which he had just left, she clutched her Algebra book to her chest, as if it would somehow cover up the gaping hole she now felt, but quickly brought it back to her side, knowing she had probably looked like one of those lame chicks in those stupid, sappy, romantic movies. But the hole was too much and she brought the book back up, clinging to it for dear life, as the terrible sensation of ruin washed over her: she had made the wrong choice.