#SamGabeHSAU ---

Sam thinks about it.

He thinks about it through a long quiet weekend. He thinks about it through another shameful shower where he tries to imagine kissing Jess while beating off but can't keep the image in his head.

And he thinks about it throughout the movie they're watching in the downstairs den, with her parents up above doing the dishes after a really amazing dinner. Sam's full of lasagna to the extent that he feels like a super-sized Garfield. Jess asks if that makes her Odie, and he declares she's too cute for Odie, she'd be Nermal.

"Gabriel would be a good Odie," he said. "Or, actually, he's too snarky for Odie. He'd be Garfield and I'd be the big dumb Odie."

"If Gabriel's Garfield," Jess says, looking away, "I'm Jon." She gives a sigh.

"What?"

"Nothing." She leans forward, pretending to be interested in the movie.

He touches her shoulder, then slides his arm around it. The motion is entirely natural, entirely without friction or excitement of any kind. If his heart is pounding, it's because he knows this is the moment his heart is supposed to pound, and if he screws it up, he'll always have to live with that.

She turns. In the TV's light, she does look very pretty. Her hair glows as though phosphorescent.

"Sam?" she says. He leans toward her, determination in his eyes.

Her hands come up to to touch his chest as their lips meet. It feels like lips. Like dry paper. His brain is thinking dumbly, "I'm kissing her. I'm kissing her." He tries to wrap his mind around the significance of the moment.

At once he feels her hands shaking on his shirt. He pulls back to look, his tongue swiping out to lick his lips. He tastes salt.

She tries to blink away the tears, but they won't stop, and she eventually pulls back her hand to wipe them away. Her face is red, but in the dimness it glows pink instead.

"I can't do this," she says. "I can't do this anymore."

"What?" He's scared to death. He hurt her. "Jess, I'm sorry - what, what did I do?"

"I like you, Sam," she says. "I mean, I always liked you, but.. you're so nice and you're making me really, really like you--"

"I like you too!" he insists. God, he's terrified. What has he done? What did he do?

"No, you don't!" she says. "Not that way." Her hands cover her face and she breathes hard for a moment. "I want to stay friends with you, Sam. So I have to -- we have to break up. Okay? I'm sorry."

He doesn't even remember how he makes it home that night. The next thing he knows, he's in bed, staring straight at the ceiling, convinced that Gabriel's been right all this time. He's not a nice person at all.

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