"You swore we'd never do this again." Freddie whispered into my lips as we pulled apart for air. He was panting and the heaving of his chest made my heart race and there was an anxious knot in the pit of my stomach.

"Shut up, Fredward," I leaned into him leaving nothing between our bodies, but two layers of clothing. Two years ago we'd shared our first kiss on the fire escape outside his window and at that time we'd sworn to one another that we'd never do anything like that again and that we'd never tell anyone what happened. I could understand his apprehension, because I had a reputation for being unnecessarily violent, but I was a different person now. I was someone who would actually consider giving all of myself to the one person that I ever truly thought I hated.

I felt his hand on my waist leading me toward his perfectly made bed. In the two years since I'd been here nothing had changed. His walls were still paper white and his carpet was the color of oatmeal, even his bed sheets were the same boring baby blue that they had probably been for the last seventeen years. I smiled as my head hit the pillow; it smelled like Freddie. He slid his hand under my shirt and idly traced patterns on my skin while he concentrated on kissing me. I pushed his shirt up and over his head so that I was staring up at his bare chest. Freddie had grown up a lot in the last few years, but he was still the pale slightly squishy boy I remembered. He pushed away from me and looked concernedly at me for a second.

"Are you—"

I cut him off by pressing my lips hard against his and he got the message, my shirt was over my head and in the floor before I had taken another breath. I could feel the weight of his body pressing into me, it was a safe feeling, something a hadn't felt in a long time. I relaxed into his arms and he twirled his fingers through my hair to pull me closer to him. I think he would have been perfectly happy to hold me in his arms like that for the rest of the night, and in retrospect, that probably would have been a better choice. Instead, I gently lifted his hips and began undoing his belt buckle.

When we were both naked, he began kissing a trail down my neck toward my breasts while I ran my hands up and down his back. I'd never touched a boy where clothes usually covered; it was a lot softer and smoother than arm skin. I gasped as I felt my nipples harden under Freddie's hot breath, he smiled and looked up into my eyes. There was a tingling sensation between my legs that was entirely different than the one I felt when I was alone in my room at night. This was a more urgent desire pressing my hips subconsciously toward his.

As I wondered what exactly was supposed to happen next, Freddie softly pushed my knees apart and positioned himself above me. He looked as unsure as I felt, but we took simultaneous deep breaths and he thrust himself into me. A painful yelp escaped my throat and I felt like my lower body was on fire; Freddie pulled back a little and looked worriedly at me.

"It's okay," I murmured as the pain subsided. He leaned down to kiss my forehead and then continued thrusting clumsily, without any real rhythm. It was an absolutely foreign feeling to have another person so close to me. Feeling him inside me made my stomach queasy, but it was a good queasy. It was like right after you get off a really great roller coaster.

Before I was ready for it to end Freddie froze and let out an almost surprised grunt. He let his weight drop to one side and rolled over onto his back so that he was staring at the ceiling. It wasn't great sex; awkward and crude, but now that it was over, I felt a little empty. I curled into his side and heaved a watery sigh. Freddie stroked my hair quietly while tears flowed down my cheeks and melted into his pillowcase. I wasn't sad really, I just felt like I had let something important slip away with no hope to retrieve it. Before long I heard Freddie's breathing even out and when I looked up he was sound asleep. It made me laugh, because somewhere I'd heard that guys always fall asleep after sex.

I slipped out of the bed and tracked down all of my clothes, but as I was opening the door to leave I saw a green sharpie sitting on his desk. I couldn't contain myself, I drew a giant smiley face on his chest with nipples for eyes. I almost laughed out loud, but instead I leaned down and kissed the smiley mouth and crept out of the Benson home into the hallway.

Since Carly's house was just across the hall I figured there was no harm in dropping by unannounced. I pushed open the door without knocking and Spencer looked up at me from the couch. He was tinkering with some mechanical contraption that looked like it might have been a microwave at some point. He waved distractedly and said that Carly was up on the third floor finishing up some homework. I grabbed a couple slices of ham from the fridge and punched the button for the elevator.

Freddie, Carly and I had converted the third floor into a studio a few years ago when we decided to film our web show up there. It was a huge success and we had followers all over the globe. We even got to go to Japan to receive an award for the show. After over a hundred webcasts, though we agreed that it would be better to end the show on a high note rather than letting our ever aging fan base dwindle to zero and being shamed off the web. Our last show was an all night blow out for New Years Eve eight months ago, it was the perfect way for us to end our legacy.

Unfortunately, when the show ended, Carly and I began to drift apart. When we were kids our differences were what attracted us to one another, but as we got older out interests diverted vastly from one another and the one thing that held us together was the promise that our web show was common ground. By that Friday night Carly was more interested in hanging out with a bunch of bimbos at the latest party I wasn't invited to.

It was strange then, that Carly would be at home doing homework tonight, because Sunday was her stay home night, not Friday. As lackadaisical as Spencer was about parenting, he always insisted that whatever Carly might do on any other night, Sunday she had to stay home and do schoolwork. Yet when I walking in she was sitting on a bean bag chair in the middle of the floor reading a physics textbook.

"Hey Sam, what are you doing here so late?" she motioned for me to sit on the bean bag next to her.

"It's only 8:30, Carls," I pointed out as I plopped down.

"Well it feels later when you've been reading about vectors for the last three hours." She tossed the book aside and turned her full attention on me.

"Yeah, what are you doing home on a Friday night?"

"Well it's Friday the thirteenth so I traded my study nights this week. Spencer thought I would be safer at home tonight." She rolled her eyes at her brother's superstitious nonsense. "I thought you and Freddie were going to the Groovy Smoothie tonight."

"We did, but there is only so much Frederly a girl can take in one night." My heart skipped a beat when she squinted her eyes at me. Was there someway she could know what happened? Maybe she saw us coming up the stairs together, or something. Maybe she could tell just by the look on my face. Even though our relationship was waning, she'd known me for almost a decade and she could pick up on things about me that even I would miss.

"What's wrong with you tonight?"

"Nothing, I'm just thinking about something Freddie said to me tonight." I figured that a white lie was a fine segue into what I really wanted to talk about. This way, I hoped she would just think Freddie and I were having strange conversations over smoothies. "Carly do you remember your first time?"

"My first time what, Sam, skydiving?" she played dumb. I knew she knew what I meant because she'd confided once that she wasn't a virgin anymore, but she had never given any clue as to who or under what circumstances.

"First time with a boy," I clarified, determined to get an answer. My face was starting to burn, I could feel heat rising from my collar up to my forehead, right where Freddie had kissed me not even an hour ago.

"I remember," she said slowly, "why do you ask? You and Freddie weren't talking about me, were you?"

"No I'm just curious, do you mind me asking?" she shook her head no. "Well, was it good? Did it make you feel all empty inside afterward, or was it like take it or leave it?"

She looked uncomfortable and I thought about telling her that she didn't have to answer, but I really wanted to hear what she'd say. "It was with Toby last year at that homecoming party that you refused to go to." Her voice was quite and a little remorseful, I think.

I refused to go to that party because I knew it was going to be a bunch of teenagers that I didn't really like getting drunk and doing stupid things that could get them killed, or arrested, and contrary to my reputation, I didn't really want to go back to jail anytime soon.

"Everyone was in the hotel room trying to get drunker than the next guy, and I wasn't in the mood to clean up puke, so Toby took me to this secluded area on the beach. We laid out a blanket and he lit some candles, it was a chilly, but he said we'd keep each other warm. We didn't plan to have sex, but we were just laying there watching the stars and it felt right. It was like a scene from a movie, and I thought I loved him." Carly had dated Toby for about a year when we were sophomores, but they had broken up shortly after that homecoming and she had never been forthcoming about the break-up. The only thing that she would say was that he wasn't who she thought he was.

"So, I guess it was nice and at the time I thought it was going to be great, but when It was over, I felt used and alone. He sort of lost all interest in me after that. There are other ways I would have chosen to lose my virginity, but he was at least romantic about using me. So yeah, I'd say empty is a pretty good way to describe how I felt."

I thought about that for a minute, when Carly said she felt empty, she meant that she felt used up and tossed aside. That's not how I felt at all, though. It was like something was missing, when I went into Freddie's bedroom I was whole, but I'd left a part of me with him and I wasn't used to being without it yet. It was unsettling, but it felt nice to share something like that with someone I at least trusted, even if I didn't really like him that much.