Lily opened the door to the school newspaper office to check and see if the person she wanted was actually there. She was relieved and dismayed to see Sam sitting in a chair with her feet propped up on a desk attempting to balance a pencil on the end of her nose. She was apparently failing miserably. Lily heard her snort as the pencil fell again and she bent over to retrieve it.

"Working hard or hardly working, Sam?" Lily teased from the doorway. BANG! Sam slammed her head on the underside of the desk in surprise.

"Ow!" she complained while sitting up and rubbing the injured part of her skull. Lily was instantly by her side apologetic.

"I am so sorry, Sam," she said as she sat down next to Sam who scowled at her. "I didn’t mean to make you jump like that." Sam’s scowl turned into a good-natured smirk.

"S’OK, minor drain bamage. I think you may have shaved off a few IQ points but other than that I’ll survive," she smiled fully at her petite friend. "To what do I owe the somewhat heartstopping, concussion causing but otherwise pleasantly unexpected and welcome solo visit, Lily-cat? Carm and Harrison busy so you’d figure you’d come slum with me?"

The last statement was said lightly enough and Sam was still smiling but Lily could still hear the undercurrent of hurt and confusion in Sam’s voice. She could see it Sam’s attentive brown eyes, which were focused intensely on her forcing her to look away in shame.

Lily’d been avoiding Sam a lot lately, barely saying `hello’ or acknowledging Sam if she was in the room, or if she was, suddenly finding somewhere else to be. Which was sometimes difficult given the fact that they shared as many classes as they did. Thankfully, to Lily at least, their names were no where near one another’s in the alphabet so she wasn’t forced to be near Sam in that respect. So Lily spent all her time with Carmen and Harrison and no time with Sam. It wasn’t that Sam had done anything lately or that Lily was mad at her. It was just that when Sam was around lately, Lily felt out of control and she didn’t know what to do about it so she avoided any situation where she would be around Sam at all.