The machine is beeping steadily, and you know you're just waiting for it to stop. You pray that when it does stop, it will do so abruptly, and not be some drawn-out process.

You are 41 years old now, and for the first time you wonder how you will live the rest of your life when this is over. The last few weeks have been too busy to stop and consider anything about the future - what, with Spencer and Freddie and Melanie flying in to be with you, and the days without sleep; the random meals forced down in the middle of the night only because you know your body needs fuel to keep going.

Her hair is still blond. Life, steadily draining away, has already faded from her hair, though; the once magic ringlets are now a pale mass laying limply over the green hospital sheets and pillows.

She hasn't spoken since a few days ago. You know that Spencer and Freddie and your son, Cole, are all sitting right outside in the uncomfortable orange chairs that are bolted to the wall, waiting for you to come out for the last time. You won't leave until this is over.

The fighting spirit inside her could have made this process last for weeks; but you know that she has accepted peacefully what is inevitable, thus sparing you that torture. You know that the end is near, and that it will be her final gift to you.

Your favorite memories are of when you both were young.

It was the summer after high school when things started to go wrong; but you couldn't have known that then, that last day of school, when she yelled your name and pushed Freddie into the backseat. "Shotgun!" she yelled, slinging her backpack over her shoulder, smacking Freddie in the face with it.

"Why do they call it 'riding shotgun,' anyway?" you asked.

"Because in the old west, you had to have a guy riding up front on the wagon with a shotgun," she explained. She held her arms out your car window, aiming an invisible shotgun at the school as you pulled out of the parking lot and drove away. "To keep away bandits and Injuns."

"You do know I'm like, 1/8th Sioux, right?" you sighed at her.

"Hey, their words, not mine." And you laughed, because you knew she wouldn't apologize. Sam would always say whatever she felt like saying.

And so you drove, into the sepia haze of the afternoon and the dazzle of May sunlight. The sun, hidden behind the skyline of the buildings downtown, cast its brilliance onto the streets. The air was cool as it flowed through your open window. You drove past pizza parlors, coffee shops, college kids roller skating along the sidewalks. Sam's hair sparkled. Freddie grumbled in the backseat, rubbing his face where Sam's backpack had hit him. And this drive home from school became one of your favorite memories; it was one of the last times then the three of you were together, but you couldn't know that then - you just knew that you were 17 years old and driving home on the last day of school with your shades down to keep the sun out of your eyes, and you all sang along when one of your favorite songs came on the radio; and you still felt, so strongly, a feeling like the future was a vast, glorious thing that would take care of itself.

It was not a lazy summer, that summer between high school and college, the last summer of being young. There were shopping trips for bedding, towels, dishes, and all the other sundry items the three of you would need to survive in comfort at college. It was the ache of a long summer, the sweet ache of long days, of going onto the roof of Bushwell at 9 in the evening to catch the last warm glimmer of the sun sinking into the ocean; it was the ache of knowing that change would soon enter your lives.

There had been great pressure to make the last few episodes of iCarly something special, and you succeeded. The final episode, the Blowout Spectacular, featured over 40 guests from the past, and was watched by almost 5 million people. The party after the show lasted deep into the night, and here is where your memory gets tricky, for it was sometime late that she cornered you upstairs. You remember that most of the guests had already left, for it was quiet downstairs, just some dance music turned down low and a few tired voices talking.

"Just a couple more days till we're separated," she mumbled sadly, standing close to you in the iCarly studio, backing you against the wall.

You remember her holding a red plastic cup in her hand, and the rainbow ring on her finger.

You could tell she was nervous, and the more she talked you realized she was waiting for you to admit something, but you just couldn't.

"I don't want to hide this anymore," you remember her saying.

But for the life of you, you cannot remember why you turned your head away when she leaned in close, why you ducked her kiss, why your body stiffened. In the years since you've wracked your brain trying to recall what was going through your head at that moment. Maybe it was the blueberry vodka you were drinking that night that has erased portions of your history. Were you scared? Did you think someone was coming up and would catch you? Why were you not ready then to admit what you'd always known was true?

This moment, this turning point in your life, is faded now, like an old photograph left out in the sun, or like a dream you forgot to write down. You know it happened, and that it changed the course of your life, but no matter how hard you try to concentrate on it, it remains distant and out of reach.

The one thing you do remember clearly, though, is the look of hurt in Sam's eyes when she stopped and drew away from you.

You did not see each other again until Christmas, because you moved down to Olympia to attend Evergreen, while she moved across the state to Spokane. Oh, you both played it cool and never mentioned the attempted kiss; you think back now and figure maybe the distance between you then allowed you to pretend a return to normalcy. You loved coming back to your room every afternoon, after classes, and getting online to see what silly link or comment she'd left on your Splashface page. How many nights, when you were supposed to be studying, did you keep interrupting your reading to post funny videos on her wall? Back and forth all night, you telling her about what stupid old hippies your professors were, Sam complaining about her remedial math class, and why on Earth did libraries still have microfiche?

How many Friday night parties did you miss out on that semester so that all of you could video chat instead? (Freddie, too; he'd stayed in Seattle to attend the university there.)

On her first day back in Seattle for winter break you picked her up at the bus station, and drove her out into the city. You spent those first few days before Christmas driving constantly, aimlessly; shopping amongst the cheery elegance of the high priced department stores in the crowded malls, watching kids ice skate in the park, driving into neighborhoods with houses that lit up in a million bright, festive dots of color against the early darkness. You just drove - you and Sam and sometimes Freddy, enjoying these short, lovely days, dark by 5 o'clock - soaking up the atmosphere of the season.

In the slump of days between Christmas and New Year you walked together along the sidewalks of the city, with snow falling lightly in your hair. Then, New Years atop Bushwell to watch the fireworks.

Then just like that the winter break was over, and she was on the bus back to Spokane, and Spencer was driving you down to Olympia, and you realized Sam never tried to kiss you.

You distinctly remember the first time you tried cocaine.

You'd been smoking weed off and on since high school, and drinking on weekends, and you'd met a group of serious stoners in college. They weren't your friends - in fact, you rather looked down on them. They were all trust fund babies who shopped at thrift stores for ironically outdated and unfashionable clothes; rich, sheltered suburban kids who thought they knew something about the world because they bought their weed from a black guy in the ghetto. They were the kind of kids who took summer jobs at bars and coffee shops for the 'life experience,' but you didn't care about what dorks they were; they just thought it was cool to be getting high with 'the iCarly chick,' and so you rarely had to pay for weed.

It was at their off campus crash pad that one of them chopped out some lines on the coffee table in the living room.

"Cocaine? Oh, that's so 80s," one of them laughed, but you snorted the thin white line with a little section of plastic drinking straw that had been cut up with scissors, and it didn't burn like you expected it to, but the taste in the back of your throat was raw and metallic.

You remember also the day you realized that you and Sam now had separate lives. It was a Friday evening, after classes were over, but still early. You were video chatting with her in your room.

"What's your plan for this evening?" you asked her, because she was sitting in front of her monitor brushing her hair, obviously getting ready for something.

"Oh, this, uh... sorority is putting on a movie night," she said, tugging at the tangles in her thick blondness. "What about you?"

"I'm going to this party in a little bit," you said, then blurted suddenly, "I wish you could go with me."

She smiled. "Yeah, that would be cool," she said, and changed the subject. The late sunlight filtering into your room carried with it a tinge of sadness, for even messaging and chatting with her every day could not bridge the distance, you now realized, and could not change the fact that you both had different groups of people in your lives. Nothing could change the fact that you were going to separate events that evening, instead of going somewhere together.

You lost your virginity that spring semester, too, to a mildly cute guy from one of your classes. It was at a party, and you were on Ecstasy, and thank god you had enough sense to insist that he put on a condom first. Thinking back on it now, you guess maybe you were trying to prove to yourself that you liked guys, not girls, though you still can't remember why this weighed so heavily on you at the time.

And the cocaine? That relieved you and erased the outside world in a way that burying yourself in schoolwork never could. Still, you stayed focused, turned your papers in on time, got good grades, and relegated the coke and hook-ups to your weekends.

It is amazing how things always seem to slip from our control, and how quickly.

Sam stayed in Spokane that summer to get some classes out of the way. She pleaded for you to come visit, and it didn't take much pleading, for there was still an empty, missing spot inside you somewhere that grew raw and throbbing during those times when you weren't blissed out on coke.

Freddy drove you the length of the state, and you don't think he was suspicious of how many times you made him pull over for bathroom breaks during the trip; and if he noticed how wired and energized you were, he probably just thought you were excited to see Sam again.

Sam definitely noticed something was wrong, though. She didn't know then, of course, that you had already been selling off your textbooks and pawning iCarly memorabilia to pay for coke, but she stole sad glances at you in the afternoons when she drove you and Freddy around Spokane, and you knew she knew. She sensed a distance, a barrier erected by the chemical between you and her, between you and the rest of the world.

"You need to cool it with the partying," she told you one afternoon in the Olive Garden. Freddy was in the bathroom, and Sam grimaced as she watched you toy with your pasta. "I didn't think it was possible for you to get skinnier... or paler."

"I've got it under control," you said.

That trip was a disaster. Meeting Sam's new friends, and seeing how settled she was into her new life just drove you even deeper into drugs when you returned home.

"I'm serious," she whispered in your ear as she hugged you bye on the day you left.

That next semester was a joke. You dropped out halfway through. For two weeks you wouldn't even talk to Sam because you were mad at her for narcing you out to Spencer. By then you were moving around between Olympia and Seattle and Bellingham, living off your iCarly money, sleeping in cheap motels or on dirty couches.

You still knew enough, in your fugitive existence, to be ashamed. Even when Sam told you months later that she was transferring to the University of Texas, even when she called and begged and pleaded with you to come to Texas with her, you resisted; whether out of shame or fear you can't recall clearly.

She made the effort for a long time to try to keep in touch and include you in her life, sending you emails about seeing Yao Ming at the airport, and how good the barbecue was in Texas. Over time the emails and posts became less and less frequent, or maybe your response to them became more sporadic, and eventually you deleted your Splashface page to keep Spencer and your dad from finding you.

For a long time you haunted the streets. There was nothing left in your life but that need for the next high; although some nights, in moments of clarity, you would gaze upon the downtown skyline, at the random lights studding the tall shadows of the buildings against the darker backdrop of sky and ocean in the west, and feel some shade or echo of longing for the magic that had once suffused your life.

It's painful now to remember the person you were then, during your drug years. Even after all these years it's so hard to forgive yourself for who you were. The fading of memory can be a blessing, too. The blurring of the details may be the only thing keeping you from hating yourself sometimes. It has all run together in your memory, like a long blob of time, with no markers to distinguish the years from one another.

The first time you held your son is when you knew the purest meaning of love.

When you're honest in your recollections, you know deep in your heart that you did not get clean for him. No, you got clean because, on the night you found out you were pregnant, you walked the streets aimlessly and among the many other thoughts running in your head was the realization that you had not seen or spoke with Sam in six years.

Six years. How could you let so much time pass? How could you let such love fade from your life? You remember clearly that you resolved to quit drugs right then, on that street corner, and that your body and brain were screaming for one last hit before you quit. You didn't give in, though, and that is something that you're proud of. Instead, you called Spencer, and even after all this time he came immediately and picked you up off that street corner, and got you into rehab.

You don't like remembering the rehab and the detox, or the shame you felt when you admitted that you weren't sure who the father of your baby was. You didn't want to know, really; you didn't want any of those guys in your new life, or to be anywhere around your kid when he came.

And eventually he did come. The doctors were worried at first about your heart because of your history of drug use, but the delivery went perfectly, and they handed him to you, and you cried holding your son's perfect little body in your arms, and you promised him that he would be the center of your world from now on.

(You had to fight the doctors and nurses, and even threaten to sue the hospital, to keep them from circumcising him. "No!" you shouted at them. "He's perfect just the way he is!" They relented, and you brought him home whole.)

You focused on raising him, and enrolled in the local community college to finish your two year degree. You had, of course, gone online and looked Sam up. You knew she lived in Houston now, and you'd seen articles detailing the successful graphics business she ran. Still you waited to contact her, until you finished your degree, until you were on your feet, until you had your shit together and something to show for, something to prove.

"You keep putting it off and putting it off," Freddy told you over coffee one day at lunch. "If you keep waiting until you're perfect to get ahold of her, you're never going to do it."

So that night, just for the hell of it, you picked up your phone and punched in a number. Even after so many years and so many chemicals, you still had those digits memorized. You called it, expecting to hear an automated voice telling you that the number was no longer in service and that you'd have to get back online to write her a message, but it rang. Your heart sped up just like it always did after you'd snorted a line. The phone rang twice more before she picked it up.

"Hello?" said the familiar voice on the other end.

You didn't know what to say.

"Hello?" it repeated, sounding more sad than irritated, more hopeful than annoyed.

"Sam?"

There was a silence on the other end, then a sob, and she sniffed and said, "Carly."

The heat in Houston slapped you like a sweaty hand as soon as you stepped out of the airport. Sam tugged at your wrist. "Come on!" she laughed, carrying your other suitcase, leading you across the parking lot to her car.

You were giddy. It felt like it always had. She'd ran up and hugged you as soon as she saw you in the terminal, and it was not awkward at all to be with her again, even after seven years. You were worried she'd view you as damaged goods; you had confessed as much to her on the phone before you came down, telling her how you must have had supernatural protection all those years to have never been shot or stabbed or raped, to have not ever ended up in jail, or most importantly, to have never caught any diseases. She didn't care about any of that; she was just happy that you were out of that life now.

You threw your suitcases in the trunk of her car, and she drove you out onto the freeway and south into downtown. Big pickup trucks roared past you on the highway as she pointed out landmarks. You couldn't get over how vast Houston was - shopping malls sprawled out in the summer sun, Asian restaurants modeled like temples competed for space along the highway with giant billboards in Spanish.

Sam skirted around the mountainous skyscrapers of downtown and drove onto a side street off of Westheimer, pulled into a parking garage, and led you up to her loft, talking the whole time.

"There's so much to do just in this area, so many cool shops and clubs. And then up in the Heights there are tons of cool little places. Oh, here it is."

If Sam had been making money from her graphics business, she wasn't spending it on interior decorating. The inside was spartan, with a thrift store couch and coffee table, and a few Ikea lamps, no paintings or decorations or houseplants. The kitchen, however, was sleek and futuristic, with dark granite counter tops and a fridge that looked like it was made of stainless steel.

You put your suitcases down next to the couch, and approached her from behind, laid your hands on her shoulders.

"Sammy," you murmured.

She crossed her arms over her chest, to grasp both your hands. "I'm glad you came down."

"Do you remember that night? The night of the last iCarly show?"

She turned around to face you, her blue eyes open and unguarded. "Yes."

You leaned in, grazed her lips with yours, nibbled at her lower one, pulled her closer; and nothing had ever felt so right, so comfortable, so complete as the feeling of her tongue slipping gingerly past your lips, and her hands tracing the swell of your hips, and the heat of her breasts against yours. You backed her into the bedroom, locked at the lips, shedding articles of clothing on the floor along the way.

You laid in bed with her naked body against yours, her skin cool and dry, the smell of her wetness light and clear like a subtle perfume, her teeth leaving marks on your breasts, her hands conjuring waves of pleasure through your limbs, and you knew that your whole life had been leading to this moment, had needed this to be complete.

Afterward, when your exhausted bodies were cooling against each other under the hum of the air conditioner, you glanced over to see if she was still awake. Her eyes were closed, but you could tell by her breathing that she was not yet asleep.

"I can't believe you still have the same phone number after all these years."

Her eyes opened. The most powdery blue. "I kept it just in case you decided to call." She leaned over and pecked your cheek. "And you did."

"Yeah, but what if you would've had a girlfriend or been with someone by then? What would.."

She cut you off. "I never got serious with anyone. I never got into any relationship thinking it would be anything other than casual fun. I knew that whoever I was with, I could drop them the moment you decided to call."

"What if you would've found that special someone?"

She smiled, thumbed a strand of hair out of your eyes. "That was always you."

A few weeks later, after you'd moved all your stuff down, Sam met Cole for the first time. He was walking by then, and saying words, and he went straight to her, hugged her, and said, "Sammy!" You knew then you had everything you'd ever wanted out of life.

The next 14 years were perfect. They were your golden age.

You got a job with a firm downtown, and went to work on the 46th floor of an office building every day. You took night classes off an on for a few years, got a better degree, moved up. It was a comfortable domesticity you settled into, and what you love most now is remembering all the beautiful little moments from those years - like how many nights you brought home fried rice and egg rolls from your favorite Chinese place after your evening classes; or how many nights Sam called you from the grocery store asking you what you wanted her to cook for dinner; or how, for a year or so, you both went kayaking every other weekend with a group of her friends; or taking Cole to his first soccer game when he was old enough. You remember how Sam teased you about 'becoming a Texan' when you started saying 'y'all.' You remember that time Gibby had a layover in Houston - he was a traveling salesman at that point - and how you and Sam took him out to eat, then stayed with him at the airport for 8 hours while his flight was delayed. You sat in those uncomfortable plastic seats out in the lobby, eating junk food out of the snack machines and talking about movies all day.

You remember Sam coming home late from work some nights. You would sit behind her on the couch and massage her shoulders while she ate cold, leftover pizza straight out of the box.

There was the time you shipped Cole off to stay with Uncle Spencer up in Seattle for a couple of weeks. You and Sam drove down to Galveston, then up the coast, walked the beaches all day and made love for hours in a different motel room every night for two weeks.

You remember all those years Spencer flew down for Thanksgiving, and all those years you and Sam and Cole flew back for Christmas.

There was that year Melanie divorced her husband, and came to live with you for a few months until she got back on her feet.

Even with all the new memories being made, there were times you and Sam would sit on the couch - usually late at night - and think back to your teen years, to iCarly; to try to remember, but to be amazed at how much of our own lives are lost to us, buried somewhere inside.

"You know how in movies, the narrator will be an adult, but he'll be talking about some significant thing that happened twenty years earlier, when he was like, 12?" you asked her one night as you laid in her arms in bed. The TV was on, casting colorful shadows, but the volume was off. "I don't think I could do that. I don't think anything significant happened when I was 12 anyway, and if it would have, then all the details would be way too blurry now."

She hummed against your bare shoulder. "It's not because of the drugs," she said, getting what you were hinting at. "That's just how memory works. I never would have remembered that time those cops used your apartment for a stakeout if you hadn't reminded me."

You both agreed it was sad how many little details fade out of our remembrance; then she reminded you about the time Freddy had a girlfriend who almost ruined iCarly. You had totally forgotten about that until then, and even Sam couldn't remember the girl's name. Valerie, maybe?

It was the year Cole was in 4th grade that Sam was able to sell her business. You moved to a suburb closer to the west side of town, into a nice two story house on a quiet residential street. Even though Sam was volunteering for a gay youth charity, she had a lot of free time, and suggested the idea of starting a new web show.

So you did.

You showcased local artists, interviewed local writers, put on live performances by local indie bands. It lasted five years, won prestigious awards from the Houston Press two years in a row. It helped launch the careers of several musicians and bands who went on to become national touring acts. You and Sam were both interviewed on national news programs several times, and featured in magazine articles that heralded the return of 'the iCarly girls.'

It ended eventually, as all things must, but you were taking on a lot of work as a self employed consultant by then. Still, you were able to take a month off that one summer, when you and Sam and Cole drove out to California to visit Freddy and his family.

It was a quiet time after that, with work, and Cole's school activities, and Sam covering social events for a local newspaper. It was early in the Spring when she started feeling run down and tired all the time. She thought it was just particularly bad allergies that year, until that night her nose started bleeding and she fainted on the bathroom floor.

Things moved quickly after that.

You remember being in the room with her while the doctor broke the bad news, but all you remember was a string of words, with certain ones leaping out like accented guitar chords; 'terminal' and 'inoperable' and how it was 'a matter of weeks.'

You drove her home. She wanted to go; she saw no point in staying in the hospital until it was absolutely necessary. She sat quietly for a spell, but then a song she liked came on the radio, and she turned the volume up, and smiled at you.

And it was late afternoon as you drove onto the freeway leading out of downtown, with the warm sun going down, hidden behind the skyline of this city where you'd made a new life, and you knew that some chapter in your life was coming to its end.

She had the strength to make love one last time. You attacked her body through your tears. You wanted to force pleasure to course through her, as if it might flush out the illness. You pressed your body into hers, as if she could absorb you. You wanted to absorb every detail of her body - her tastes, her smell, the texture of her skin; you wanted to commit these details to memory, to never forget them.

She had to go into the hospital when the pain grew too great to bear. By then she had all of her earthly affairs taken care of, all loose ends in her life tied, except one. As the first dose of pain killing drugs were taking hold, she reached from her hospital bed and grasped your hand with her last reserve of strength.

She knew this would be her last chance to tell you.

"Carly." Her breath was ragged.

"Yeah, Sam?"

"All those years we were apart... I regret every moment that I didn't come find you."

You nodded. There was nothing you could say to erase that regret; the only way to comfort her was to accept it.

You bent over and kissed her head. "You were the best thing that ever happened to my life."

Her eyes held yours, and she tried to smile, but she fell asleep, and did not speak again.

That was a few days ago. You've been by her side ever since, watching the monitor and holding her hands. The doctors and nurses come by every few hours to check. Cole brought you a tray of roast chicken and mashed potatoes earlier, hugged you, and backed out of the room.

You're so proud of that boy. Yes, you're sad, but you can't be hopeless, because you still have so much to live for. Your son is 16 now, with shaggy brown hair; and he's skinny, but the girls at school seem to like that about him.

And you know that Spencer is outside waiting, and Freddy and Melanie, sitting in those uncomfortable chairs that are bolted into the wall. They are your family, too, and you're all going to need each other for as long as you live.

It's just after sundown when Sam leaves. You sense the moment she is gone. Even if you can't see it, you can feel her departure, feel the touch of something miraculous and beautiful through the sadness.

"Goodbye, Sam."

A second later the machine starts to emit a steady drone.

A team of doctors and nurses enter, brusque, and rush you out of the room, but not before you snatch Sam's lighter off the night stand. It's the Zippo her dad left her, and you shove it into your pants pocket.

Your family is waiting for you in the hallway. Group hug, crying. Melanie goes to the doorway for a long moment to watch, to silently say goodbye, and then you all walk out of the hospital together.

The air is cool, for it is still early in the springtime. Bugs whirl in the glare of the light posts out in the parking lot. The air over the city has that light shade of purple it has in early evening, when the last residue of sunlight is still lingering in the atmosphere.

You think back to that day in third grade.

"Hey, I'm Sam."

"Hi, I'm Carly."

"Can I have that sandwich?"

"No way! Get your own."

She took it out of your hands and shoved you out of your chair. You got right back up and took the sandwich from her, and pushed her out of the way. She stood up, brushed herself off.

"You're alright."

You smile a secret smile in the gloom of the dusk, unseen by the others. How could you have known then that that moment would be the beginning of a long, wondrous chapter in your life? But that chapter is over now, and a new one is just beginning, and the beginning is the most beautiful part of any story.