Chapter 13

Brooke had been driving for about five hours, and it was almost midnight, but she didn’t feel like stopping yet. She drove along the near-empty highway, somewhere in the middle of New Mexico. She was pretty sure that Albuquerque would be coming up in an hour or so, and that seemed like a good enough place to stay for the night.

Brooke loved the stillness of the night -- the silence of everything except for Sam’s slow and steady breathing. Sam murmured in her sleep, shifting around in the seat. Brooke smiled, as she glanced over at her step-sister. Sam always looked so cute when she slept, Brooke couldn’t help but smile.

This was their fourth day on the road, and they would probably make it back home in another day. It had been a very long four days, but Brooke was absolutely loving it. At the end of the school year, Brooke’s dad and Jane had driven across the country to go pick up Brooke and Sam. The parentals then took a plane home, as Sam and Brooke were left to drive the packed car back to California. They had done pretty much nothing other than drive, but it gave them plenty of time to watch the passing scenery, and sing along to the radio, and just talk. Luke and Charlie hadn’t even called too often, which would have taken away from Brooke’s enjoyment of the trip.

Getting to Albuquerque took less time than Brooke had anticipated, and then it was pretty easy to find a cheap motel room. She managed to drag a still-very-sleepy Sam into the room, and although she hadn’t felt tired in the car, Brooke fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

The next thing Brooke was consciously aware of was the smell of fresh coffee. She reluctantly opened her eyes, and found that Sam was no longer in bed. She stretched, and the motion must have caught Sam’s attention, as she turned from her chair by the window.

“Brooke, you’re awake! I hope I didn’t wake you up. I tried to be quiet. But come look! According to this guide, those are the Sandia Mountains. ‘Sandia’ means ‘watermelon’ in Spanish, and some people say that they’re named that because of the pink color of the sunrise reflecting off the face of the mountains. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Brooke sleepily turned on her side, so that she could see the view out the window. Of course, Brooke thought that the view of the person right beside the window was worth a good look all on its own.

 “Certainly not a bad sight to wake up to. But who are you, and what have you done with my friend Sam? Because the Sam I know likes to sleep in until at least 10am. The Sam I know would definitely not voluntarily wake up in time for sunrise.”

Sam just grinned, as Brooke yawned. “Very funny. But if you include the sleep I got while you were driving, I got about 10 hours of sleep last night. I just happened to wake up on my own. But you must be exhausted! So don’t mind me, you should totally go back to sleep. We have more time before we need to hit the road again. I’ll even come and re-tuck you in.”

Sam walked over to the bed, and straightened the sheets which had gotten tangled up during the night, pulling them around Brooke. Brooke held her breath as Sam smiled at her, then bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

“Goodnight, Princess. Sweet dreams.”

[ If you’re in them, then I’m sure they will be. ]

~~~

One month later, and Brooke was bored. After an insanely busy previous summer, she had decided to take it easy this time. At first, it had been great -- plenty of time for sleeping in every day, and lounging around watching TV or going to the beach or shopping or whatever else she felt like. However, not having anything to do was starting to get old.

It was now noon, and she had yet to change out of her pajamas. The whole high school gang was coming over soon, so she knew that she should probably get dressed. But she had about an hour before they were supposed to show up, which was just enough time to get ready.

At that thought, the doorbell rang.

[ Damn it. Of course, they have to show up early, on a day I’m acting like a total slob. ]

But Sam was in the shower, and no one else was home, so Brooke had to be the one to answer the door.

Brooke grumbled as she opened the door, and started speaking before she even saw who was on the other side.

“You’re early, which is totally not cool, and...”

Brooke froze, staring in surprise at the two grinning, but unexpected, faces that greeted her.

“Charlie! Luke! What are you guys doing here? I haven’t gotten dressed yet. We weren’t expecting you. I can’t believe you’re here right now. I have to go get changed.” Brooke’s sentences followed in quick succession, and she then bolted back into the house.

On her way upstairs, she heard Charlie comment, “Well, at least she left the door open. I guess that means we can go in.”

[ Charlie’s here. At my house. Why is he here? He shouldn’t be here. Okay, you need to stop freaking out. He is, officially, your boyfriend, so I guess that’s a pretty legitimate reason for being here. But now you’re talking to yourself in your head, which probably isn’t a good sign. ]

She heard the shower turn off, so went to poke her head inside the bathroom.

“Jesus, Brooke! Knock much?! I’m kind of not wearing clothing, here!”

For once, Brooke was actually too flustered to get sidetracked by the fact that only a towel stood between her and Sam’s nakedness.

“Sam, Charlie and Luke are here! I don’t know why. You need to get dressed quickly and then go entertain them or something. I need a shower and can’t deal with them right this second.” She closed the door to the bathroom again, and went to continue her freak-out in her own room. The summer had allowed her time to forget about the problem of Charlie and what she was going to do about him. Until now.

A little while later, Brooke made her way back down the stairs, to find Sam, Luke, and Charlie all sitting in the living room.

“Hey, guys. Sorry about earlier. And to what do we owe this visit?”

Charlie stood up from the couch to give Brooke a hug and a kiss. “Well, baby...Luke lives nearby, as you know. And remember how I said my parents were thinking of taking a vacation out to San Diego? Well, we got out there last week, and then I took a train to Luke’s house yesterday, and we drove over today as a surprise!”

“Well, you certainly managed to surprise me!”

Just then, the front door opened as Lily, Carmen, and Harrison entered, simply letting themselves in. They were in the middle of conversation, but stopped as soon as they saw the two unfamiliar faces in the room.

Lily just smiled in greeting and walked right up to Luke and Charlie, extending her hand. “Hello! I’m Lily. And that’s Carmen and Harrison. Who are you?”

“Uh. I’m Luke. And that’s Charlie. We’re dating Sam and Brooke.”

At that, Carmen hurried over and smacked Sam on the arm. “Oh my god. You two totally didn’t tell us that your boys were coming! This is so exciting!”

Sam frowned as she rubbed her arm where Carmen had hit her. “Well, it’s kind of news to us, too.”

Harrison just remained standing by the door, his arms crossed in front of his chest, as he warily eyed the two guys.

The doorbell then rang again, and Sam went to answer it, revealing Nicole and Mary Cherry. They both brushed passed Sam, with Nicole “accidentally” running her shoulder into her brunette nemesis. “Ugh. I can’t believe I let Brooke convince us to come be in the same room as you losers. Brooke, hun, you’re lucky that I like you. But hello...who are these fine-looking gentlemen, and why haven’t I met them yet??”

After another round of introductions, everyone settled in to just sit and talk. Luke and Charlie looked a little overwhelmed by the craziness that was all of their friends. Brooke was just relieved that she didn’t have to focus too much attention on her boyfriend. It took all her and Sam’s energy just to diffuse the arguments that almost erupted between Nicole or Mary Cherry and someone else every few minutes.

“Now wait just one second, there, Mr. Luke. You tryin’ to tell me that you actually LIKE datin’ Spam? ‘Cuz that just seems mighty strange to me. Someone as good-lookin’ as you shudn’t be wastin’ yer time with someone like her. Now ME, on the other hand. I wud be the perfect catch fer someone like you.”

“God, Mary Cherry...you are so full of yourself! Luke obviously thinks that Sam is hot, and I think that the two of them make a great couple! You’d never be able to handle someone like Luke -- he’d use too many big words that you wouldn’t understand.”

“I don’t know what yer talkin’ ‘bout, lil’ Lily. If I was datin’ Luke, then he wudn’t be usin’ big words. He wudn’t have time to, ‘cuz we’d be spendin’ all our time makin’ sweet, sweet love! Ooh, I know! I bet Spam has put poor Luke under some kind of spell! Nic, we have to save Luke from Spam’s evil clutches!”

A few hours later, and the high school friends had left, leaving the rest of them to recuperate. Over the course of the afternoon, though, Brooke had been dismayed to learn that, while Charlie was planning on staying at Luke’s house, he would be sticking around for another week before he returned home to Chicago.

~~~

Finally, Charlie was gone. It had been a long week. Brooke tiredly entered the Palace, took a few minutes to chat with Jane and play with little Mac, and then dragged her feet upstairs, collapsing onto her bed.

She sighed, and then got up and let herself into Sam’s room. Sam was sitting at her desk, typing something on her computer. Sam glanced at her briefly, before continuing to type.

“Well, Brooke, how kind of you to finally grace me with your presence.”

[ Huh? What is Sam’s problem? ]

“Uh, I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well try thinking a little harder, there, blondie. I mean, what could I possibly be talking about? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just the fact that I spent an hour waiting for you at the gallery where you had promised to go see a photography exhibit with me. The one I had noticed especially because I thought you’d be interested. It was a great show, by the way. And I hope you don’t mind, but since you were a no-show, I called up Lily and she came instead.”

“Oh, shit. Sam, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot! I was with Charlie...and things went a little longer than I anticipated, and I just lost track of everything else.”

“Right. Of course. This whole week, you’ve been too busy sucking face with your precious boyfriend! I mean, who needs regular old friends to hang out with, when you’ve got a visiting boyfriend, right?”

“Oh, come on, Sam. No need to be overly dramatic. I really am sorry! This stupid visit has thrown me completely off-base this past week. I mean, he made the whole effort to come all the way out here, I couldn’t just ignore him. And I resent your implication that all we’ve been doing is making out, which is completely not true! I am sorry that we haven’t been hanging out together as much. But if you remember, over winter break, Luke practically lived here for a month, and I put up with that without complaint. So you’d think that you could deal with one week!”

Brooke didn’t really want to fight with Sam, but the stress of the week had been building up, and Sam was providing a perfect target for lashing out.

“But when Luke was here, I never ditched you just to go be with him. We at least did stuff together!”

“Yeah, and that was SO much fun for me! Hanging out as the third wheel with you and your boyfriend -- loads of fun!”

“Look, I guess I just really don’t understand what you’re doing with Charlie. You have nothing in common with him, he can be a total ass sometimes, and you become a completely different person when you’re around him! Suddenly, you become the perfect, stereotypical, blonde! You’re back to acting like you did in high school, with Josh. If that’s all he sees in you -- the trophy girlfriend -- then I don’t know what you’re doing, putting up with his shit.”

“Wow. I’m glad you’re finally telling me what you really think. So, my idea of being a good girlfriend couldn’t possibly lead to anything more than trophy status, huh?”

“Brooke, that’s not what I meant…”

“No? Because that’s what it sounded like! Well while we’re being honest, here, I have a few things that I want to tell you, too. You and Luke? Not a good couple! And the sex is not going to get better! You think about it too much!”

“Are you saying that it’s my fault that the sex isn’t good??”

 “No, not necessarily. I have no way of knowing about your personal contribution to the issue.”

Brooke paused momentarily, blushing, as it struck her that, technically, she did have a way of knowing. Because she had already slept with Sam. She looked at Sam, seeing the same look of alarm cross Sam’s features, and Brooke guessed that a similar thought process was running through her step-sister’s head. But they hadn’t talked about that night in over a year, and she didn’t plan to bring it up again now.

So, although a little more flustered, Brooke steeled herself and continued. “Well, whatever. I don’t know whether the sex is bad because you think about it too much, or whether you think about it too much because the sex is bad. Probably the second one, but in any case, that doesn’t really matter. The point is, the sex is bad, and it’s been bad for four months! I’m going to go out on a limb here, and guess that it’s still going to be bad another four months from now! And yet, you stay with him! Sex isn’t everything in a relationship, not by a long shot. But it is a major part! But you won’t break up with him. And you know why? Because you’re too nice, and because you’re a coward! Luke is ‘safe,’ for you now. You know what you’re getting with him. And you’re too scared that if you let him go, no one else is going to come along. And if you keep thinking like that, then maybe no one will. But if you open yourself up for once, put yourself out there, take a risk... Then you could have anyone you wanted.”

Brooke and Sam glared at each other wordlessly. The intensity between them was palpable. They hadn’t had a big fight like this in a long time; Brooke had forgotten how draining it was, how fighting with Sam always made her feel both exhausted and frustrated beyond belief.

She let her shoulders drop, as she sighed and looked at Sam sadly. “Anyway, like I said, I’m really sorry that I forgot about going to the gallery with you. I had been looking forward to it, too. But I came in here to tell you that I just broke up with Charlie, and it didn’t exactly go too well, and I had wanted to talk to you about it, but I really don’t want to be around you right now. So I’m just gonna go.”

Brooke saw Sam’s face immediately soften, but she just turned around and left, going to her own room to lie down on her bed and cry.

[ Why can't I just like Charlie the way that I like Sam? Life would be so much easier! ]