Serendipity (Book 2)

Old Friends And Bookends by abracadabra94

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Old Friends and Bookends by abracadabra94

TV » iCarly
Rated: K+
Language: English
Genre: Drama & Romance
Characters: Freddie B., Sam P.
Words:
Published: Sep 29, 2011
Updated: Apr 25, 2012

***

The sky opened just as we reached the Seattle city limits. I rolled the windows back up before the rain could completely ruin the car's interior, turned on the windshield wipers, and ventured a cautious glance at the angry blonde slouching in the passenger's seat beside me. The fury in her eyes was almost scarier than the lightning bounding through the clouds and the booming thunder put together.

The storm got worse the further we drove. After about forty-five minutes, I finally decided that I'd best pull off the interstate and wait out the storm in the safety of a nice, cozy restaurant. Sam would be starving anyway, and I knew from years of experience that being hungry was a surefire way to make my best friend angry. And if she was already angry, oh boy.

I took the next exit into Tacoma and asked Sam what she wanted to eat.

"As long as we're in Tacoma, might as well see if they can live up to the name," she said. I raised my eyebrows. "Tacos, duh."

Normally she'd make me chuckle with something clever like that, but the complete lack of enthusiasm in her now monotonous voice made the words seem a lot less funny. Regardless, I did as she said and pulled into the parking lot of a tiny restaurant with a flashing neon sign outside that said in bright, garish letters: "Tacomania."

The restaurant wasn't especially nice or even all that clean, but the owner still wasn't happy about Sam ringing out her wet hair on the old tile floor. Of course she'd refused to use the umbrella I offered her upon getting out of the car. It took quite a lot of arguing on my part to convince them to let us stay and get something to eat, and even then I had to promise we'd leave as soon as possible. Apparently they thought the ferocious and dripping blonde might scare their other customers away.

We took our seats at a bright blue booth at the very back of the room and ordered our food: a plate of tacos for Sam, a taco salad for myself, and two Peppi Colas. The wire-thin, middle-aged waitress with the name tag that said "Irene" glared briefly at Sam, then nodded and headed to the back with our orders.

As soon as Irene was out of sight, Sam grabbed and ripped open one of the packages of hot sauce in the basket near the salt and pepper and began to draw with it right onto the plastic table. I tried to keep myself from scolding her for a while, but when she reached for her fourth packet I finally spoke up, unable to hold back any longer.

"I don't think the waitress will be very happy to see you've wasted four packets of hot sauce just to make another mess for her to clean up," I said as casually as I could.

"Not my fault their hot sauce packets are so small," she said, ripping open the fourth packet and continuing to work on her masterpiece. Her eyes never left the table.

I sighed. It was useless. Sam was just too stubborn to tame. I used to be able to keep her under control a little, but as we grew older it became clearer and clearer that there was really only one person who even had a chance at getting her to cooperate, and he was eight-hundred miles away. Not that he'd be any good now anyway. He was, after all, the main cause of Sam's anger, and the reason we were stuck in the dirty little restaurant at all.

I'd given up on reprimanding Sam, but I still wanted to try to keep some sort of conversation going. I thought that maybe if I could get her talking she would finally open up about her feelings. "Whatcha' drawing?" I asked, trying to sound cheerful.

"Stuff," she mumbled, eyes still glued to her work as she reached for yet another packet of hot sauce.

"What kind of stuff?"

"Just scribbles." I leaned a little closer and tilted my head to the side. From the looks of it, the careful lines drawn in the spicy red sauce weren't just scribbles. In fact, they looked astonishingly similar to the visage of a boy with fluffy hair and a cocky half-smile. I pretended I didn't notice this and changed the subject to anything I could think of. The weather. Spencer's latest creation. Spencer's latest destruction. Ms. Briggs's crazy pointy boobs. The Middle East. Anything. But it was clear Sam wasn't even listening. And to be honest, neither was I.

"Here you go," said Irene, setting our plates down in front of us a few minutes later. She set Sam's plate right on top of her drawing. Sam blinked at the plate, looking dazed and confused, before shaking her head and digging into her meal.

"I'm sorry she ruined your picture," I said.

"S'okay," she shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of taco. "Like I said, it was just scribbles. Nothing too important. Don't worry about it Carls." She turned her head towards the wall and for a second I thought I saw her hand brush something off of her cheek, but it could've been my imagination. We finished the rest of our meal in silence.

The storm still hadn't let up by the time we left the restaurant. If anything, it was even worse. But seeing as how everyone who worked in the restaurant was already mad at us and the waitress somehow still hadn't noticed the sticky red mess on the table, I decided it would be a good idea to get out of there before we got ourselves into even more trouble. We could always stop at a convenient store or something until the rain stopped.

As we stepped outside and rounded the corner of the restaurant, making our way back to the car parked on the left side of the building, I was suddenly filled with an inexplicable sense of dread. I didn't know what it could possibly be, but I just knew something bad had happened. It would be just my luck.

My suspicions were confirmed as soon as I saw my little red car and the enormous tree branch lying on top of it. It seemed like this storm was out specifically to get me. Then again, I wasn't completely convinced that this wasn't the work of disgruntled restaurant employees. I never did trust that Irene. I jogged to the flattened vehicle, only to slip and fall in the mud on my way there.

"Great," I huffed, picking myself up and assessing the damage. My clothes were ruined, my umbrella was broken, and my left arm was skinned pretty badly. My car was much worse. "What else could go wrong?" I yelled up at the dark sky.

I really shouldn't have asked, because my question was answered as soon as I turned around to discuss the next plan of action with my friend.

"Oh. That's what else can go wrong," I said to myself, trying to keep calm. I wasn't doing a very good job. I looked frantically back and forth, turned all the way around, and squinted through the downpour, but my eyes only met an empty parking lot. Thunder boomed all around me, and I fell back into the mud, my head on my knees, sobbing.

Sam Puckett was nowhere to be found.

***