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Ben Arnold was falling apart, just like Sammy had. Just like he still was. Some days, Sammy barely felt like he could hold himself together. Now it was happening all over again, but it was happening to Ben, and Sammy was left to keep them both from crumbling.
In the days after Emily was taken, Sammy did all he could to be there for Ben. Ben, who was just as broken as Sammy had been for over a year, who was just going through the motions of living like Sammy had done for months after Jack vanished. Like he still was. Now Emily was gone too, and all Sammy wanted to do was fall apart again, completely this time. Why did this keep happening to him, to the people he cared about? His misery just followed him, ruining the lives of anyone he met, didn't it?
Instead, Sammy had to stay whole, or at least as whole as he could be, so that Ben wouldn’t be stuck, lost and alone, just like him. A part of him desperately wanted Ben to know, to tell him that he knew exactly what he was going through. But he couldn’t. The rest of him was plagued with the same anxiety he always had, telling him that everything would change for the worse. Ben’s world had already been shaken so much. Sammy couldn’t throw his own problems on top of him too.
In his few private moments, Sammy broke down, overwhelmed by all of the pieces he was left picking up for everyone else, when he wasn’t even whole himself. At least his entire life was built on extreme self-restraint, or every second alone would probably be drenched in alcohol. In public, however, he had to keep up appearances. Everyone in town was talking about the tragedy of Emily Potter, about how broken poor Ben Arnold was. He couldn’t do anything that would get his name thrown into the conversation too. Anything that would get Jack’s name thrown in too. Every time he left his apartment, he hastily glued himself back together, hiding his pain, his grief, his true self from the town. Sammy Stevens was a fake.
Two weeks after Emily was taken, Ben was still broken, but that numb brokenness turned into some strange blend of anger and resignation. Mayor Grisham’s announcement that the Bass Tournament was canceled, and his unwillingness to look into, or even admit to Emily’s abduction, only fueled Ben’s attitude. Sammy could barely deal with him, especially on air.
“Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. And I get that. But bottling it up isn’t gonna help. It – it doesn’t have to be on air, and, honestly, it doesn’t have to be with me. But you should talk to somebody.”
Sammy didn’t know how he even got those words out. He knew where they came from – Lily had told him something similar in the last of their few conversations following Jack’s disappearance. Obviously she didn’t say it so he would open up to her, she blamed him, after all, but she also knew how he felt. They shared the same pain, and she certainly knew just how much Sammy would let himself suffer from it. As much as they resented each other, Lily probably couldn’t let him do that without saying something. Of course, Sammy didn’t listen. When had he ever listened to Lily Wright?
So instead he pulled her words from the back of his mind, hoping Ben would see reason even if Sammy never could. He hated himself for being such a hypocrite, such a fraud. “And I get that,” he had said. At least something he told Ben had been honest.
Of course, Ben wouldn’t listen either. Sammy wondered if he would have, if Frickard hadn’t called just minutes later, taking whatever pieces of Ben were still there and shattering them all over again, blaming him for what happened to Emily. Probably not.
Ben spiraled even more after that, practically vanishing himself. Sammy tried his best to get through to him, to keep him sane, but at the same time, he had more time to himself, to wallow in his own brokenness. He never could for long enough, though. Every night he had to force himself back together to keep the show running. The town could accept Ben’s absence, of course, but there was no way Sammy would ever get the same treatment, especially at the same time. So he made his way to the station night after night, and kept pretending everything was as close at it could be to fine.
Sammy didn’t know if things got better or worse after Ben snapped at the Jensen house. At least he was more or less present now. But the secrecy, the edginess he carried with him was nearly just as hard for Sammy to take. Somehow, Ben Arnold thought he was doing this alone, just him against the universe. Like it was for Sammy.
Ben was still in a terrible place shortly after he started his notebook, and their call from Reverend Hawthorne did absolutely nothing to change that. Actually, Sammy was lucky Ben was there to rage against Hawthorne. He didn’t know if he could have dealt with him without finally breaking in front of the town.
But then Hawthorne was gone, and Ben was still seething, so once again, Sammy was left to get Ben seeing straight again.
“I’m simply saying, let other people care too, Ben. You can’t carry this all on your own-”
“You just don’t get it,” Ben cut him off.
“You’re right, I don’t. I didn’t have someone I love ripped from me live on the radio, begging me for help. But I can tell you, this public awareness is not a bad thing. Why on earth are we even arguing about this? This is ridiculous.”
More half-truths smothered in carefully selected emotions. Even in his right mind, Ben wouldn’t have been able to see just how much Sammy was hurting as they argued. The King Falls Sammy was more similar to the old Shotgun than anyone knew. All Sammy Stevens really was, all he ever had been, was a coward hiding behind a mask.
Inside, Sammy was dying. Telling his best friend to let people be there for him when he could never do the same, going so far as to find one little detail to allow himself to say he didn’t know what Ben was going through... somehow the words came out easily, even though underneath it all, they just dug deeper. Sammy Stevens was still just a hypocrite, a liar, just a coward who couldn’t even take his own damn advice.
And of course, Ben’s determination, his fire didn’t help. All Sammy wanted to do was be there for Ben, help his friend, but what help would he be if didn’t even have that drive to find Jack?
When Ben stormed out, he left Sammy to feel worthless, so close to breaking in front of town. Luckily, Ben, being Ben, came right back in for more. At least arguing with him helped Sammy keep up his façade, until Ben finally let him in. Knowing Ben finally trusted him to be there helped some small semblance of relief slip into Sammy's fractures. Not that Sammy could do the same, as much as some small part of himself told him to.
Of course Sammy was going to help Ben. He was his best friend, and all Sammy had been doing since Emily disappeared was whatever Ben needed to stay together. So far, he felt he was failing him almost as much as he failed Jack. Was still failing Jack. Of course he wanted to help Ben, to help Emily, but maybe having some part in that would make him feel like he could actually do something for a change, too. Or maybe he just thought not being worthless for once would give him some sort of closure. Ben finally listening to Sammy didn’t change the fact that he was too much of a fake to do the same. Finally telling him about Jack now would distract Ben from getting Emily back at best, and at worst? It would probably ruin him.
No, he just had to keep holding it in, holding it together, so Ben Arnold could do what Sammy Stevens, the fraud, the hypocrite, the coward, the broken mess never could.