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Disclaimer: Not mine. All hail the wonderful Joss-man for his creation of these characters. I just play with them for a while.
Author's Notes: Angst, plain and simple. Watch your step. Mild spoilers for Graduation Day Part II. This hasn't been beta read yet, I got antsy to send it out. This'll be my first draft; i'll send it to my beta readers later.
DEDICATION: For Sean, and for Sarah. "i'm sorry for making him the focus of my life when you were always there, always apologizing for the things he should have." I love you sis.
It’s been two years, six months, and twelve days since he left me.
It’s neurotic that I know that. I sit and count the years, then the months, then the days, since he walked away. I spread the calendars in front of me, and the cards, and the notes, and the books. All from him, and I tumble down as I read his words and touch the paper, because it’s him. Because I realize with an overwhelming kind of sadness that it’s the last I’ll ever have of him. And that makes me count the days I’ve lost, I’m losing, with him.
There’s a chill in the air, and I hug my sweater closer to my body, the icy fingers threading through my hair. I know I should pull the hood up, but I don’t want to. I’m already a dark figure prowling the streets at night, and by doing so it would only make me more conspicuous. I walk down the street and they say to themselves ‘There’s Buffy Summers. Such a promising girl, but now all she is, is a trouble maker.’ I could have been the cheerleader, the Homecoming Queen, the All American girl with blonde hair and sometimes-blue-sometimes-green eyes. And I was, once upon a time, but then the Slayer came and took my life in flames, and it’s never been the same again. In such a small town, you can’t run away from anything.
And in such a little town, it’s inevitable. I keep remembering all these little things about him, like his favourite tea, or the way he fumbled his order the first time we went on a date. I keep thinking about the way his hands would sort of swallow mine as we walked together, and how he would tell me I was the only thing in the world that could ever give him hope. And it’s all these things that makes me bleed inside, because the hurt won’t go away. It just _won’t_.
If I screamed his name, and it was amplified a thousand times, he still wouldn’t hear it. I hate him for making me feel this way and even worse, for making me realize I have these emotions, I have these wounds. I hate him for making me human when everything that’s ever made me real was the Slayer.
Most of all, I hate him for being the only thing I’ve ever wanted, ever breathed, ever touched. I hate him for all those times he held me and lied, saying we were strong enough together. I hate him for every tear he shed for me, for wanting me to have a life outside of myself. And I hate him for being strong enough to leave, because I’m not strong enough to let go.
I can’t help but wonder what would happen if he came back. If he showed up at my door one day and told me he wanted to be in my life again. What would I say? Could I welcome him back knowing all I’ve done without him?
I wish it didn’t hurt so much. I wish everything I did, everything I see, and feel, and breathe, didn’t always come back to him. How can someone be capable of causing that much hurt in a person? Turn all that passion, and love, and need into a broken heart? It’s wrong, because no one should have that kind of power over any human being.
Dammit, why can’t I just be _over_ him?
Because I can’t lie to myself. Hurt doesn’t just go away because you tell it to. Nothing does - grief, love, hate, pain, anger, need. It’s there, all the time, and you can’t make it go away, or stop. You learn to live with it, allow it to become part of your life because it’s a part of who you are. A broken heart changes everything.
Words of wisdom from a jaded Slayer, with only a few more punches left on her time card before the final curtain call. How cliché - we all end up like this, one way or the other. They stand by our graves and say a few words, of how we died in service to a world which never knew, or wanted to know, of our existence. Then they pat our grieved Watchers on the back and say how we were the best one they’ve seen yet and go on with their lives because to them, the end justifies the means. We live, we fight, we die, and it goes on. A circle of forever buried in death and half-truth’s.
So shouldn’t we be able to grab life and experience it to the fullest? We are the first to die, why can’t we be the first to live as well?
I was fleeting, he was infinite. When forever’s over (because forever doesn’t exist) he’s the one left standing and I’ll be floating in oblivion, reaching out in the comfort of the darkness and knowing there’s no where else to go.
The bright lights of the coffee shop blind me as I walk by. There’s not much of Sunnydale to walk through. Eventually, you end up where you started, which is walking on the lawn of Sunnydale’s one and only School for Higher Learning. Alone time is over, and now I put on my happy Slayer face and march to my room to pretend everything’s fine. Even if I could pretend enough to make myself believe, it’s still there, throbbing underneath the surface, an aching reminder of what once was. And even though it’s been two years, six months, and twelve days, it still hurts. I think somehow, it always will.
"...these losses are necessary because we grow by
losing and leaving and letting go."
-- Judith Viorst