Chapter 16
“I’m here. You all right?”
Spike smiled into the phone, relaxing now that he knew she had landed safe and sound. “I’m fine. Are you in the hotel?”
“I am. It’s pretty sweet let me tell you. It’s like an apartment. It’s got a living room, a kitchen…I could live here.”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
Buffy laughed, “I won’t. What are you doing?”
“I was reading with the TV on.”
“What are you doing later?”
“I don’t know. Kind of flying by the seat of my pants.”
“Angel is already driving me nuts. Think I’d get into a lot of trouble if I drown in him in the ocean?”
Spike laughed, “Yeah, I think so. Why is he driving you nuts?”
“He’s just being…him.”
“Buffy…what are you doing with him?”
“Oh, no you don’t. No deep talks now, buddy boy! Listen, I gotta go. He wants to eat,” she sighed with great exaggeration, “Such a simple man. I will call you tonight. Love you!”
The ‘love you’ thing was a first. Spike decided he liked it.
********
December 29, 2005
All right, so this being alone thing is not that bad. It’s not great, mind you, but it’s not bad. I’ve kept busy. I’ve gone to work and all, and when I’m done, I come home and do some things around the house that I keep saying I’m meaning to do but never do. So far, I’ve washed the windows, weeded the garden, mowed the lawn and started cleaning out the basement.
Fred has called a few times. I don’t call her she calls me. We have plans tomorrow night for dinner and a movie. I suppose in certain circles this is considered a date, but I don’t think of it as one. I think of it as … hanging out. Making a new friend. I can’t consider it dating because…because I just can’t. I can’t because of Buffy, which leads me to Joyce, and then back to Buffy and Christ, I do think too much.
Buffy has called; informing me of her activities and making sure I’m all right. I think when I told her I was finding things to do she was a bit put out by it. Now she knows how I have felt when she goes out with Angel. It’s sick isn’t it? It is. It really is. And now that I seem to be doing well enough on my own, and now that I know I am not wallowing in grief when made to be alone, I feel that my need for Buffy is changing to something greater. Something that is going to bury me alive.
I’m drowning in her.
********
December 31, 2005
Angel and I broke up. I ended it, though he’d probably say he was the one that did it. He doesn’t get me and he thinks he does and it just grates on me. Why have I stayed with him? Spike asked me that and I had no answer for him. I have the answer now, I have had it, but I just felt like such a bitch for thinking it.
I kept him around because he passed the time, because he amused me, because he was so simple and I could easily confuse and bewilder him. I liked that I was a puzzle he tried to figure out but failed to do so. And that was my fault. I only gave him a piece here and a piece there. The only one that’s gotten all of me is Spike.
Angel told me I was in love with Spike, and that Spike was in love with me. He accused me of secretly harboring desire for my dead mother’s husband and told me I was sick and demented. I don’t even know how it started…
Oh yeah. I wanted to call Spike to see how he was. Angel started on one of his diatribes about how I was dependent on him and I should let him be and this was our vacation together and blah, blah, blah. I got sick of hearing him and told him to shut the fuck up and that as per usual, he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. And that made him snap and that’s when the accusations started.
I broke up with him then. Then he said something really cheesy like “don’t bother cause I’m breaking up with you!” I told him “You’re an idiot.” I left him at the beach we were at and told him I’d find my own way back to the hotel. Well, he hightailed it out of there soon after, tearing off in his rented car and checking himself out of the hotel before I could get there and just leaving me my ticket home.
I was going to call Spike and tell him, say, “You won’t believe what just happened”, but I couldn’t. That was not an area I could get into with Spike. He’s in love with my mother still, and yeah, we are dependent on each other – though it never bothered me the way it has apparently bothered Spike which is why he told me to go on this goddamn trip to begin with.
It’s gotten me thinking of the past two months: Of me, Spike, and our living together– the whole thing. Angel was right. Or rather, is right. The way I feel. I think he’s right. Funny. I go from “he is right” to “I think he’s right”. Because it’s wrong. It’s wrong and I’ve done so well and at denying it all this time. I have. I really have. I haven’t really even written about it or thought it and if it does pop in my head, I shove it out.
And now I’m crying and I’m confused and my instinct is to call Spike and make him tell me that it’s all right…but I can’t share this. It’s sick and it’s wrong and he’d tell me that much if I told him. I couldn’t bear him telling me it’s sick and it’s wrong…or just that he couldn’t even think of me that way because I’m his stepdaughter and he still loves my mother…my mother. God, Mom, I’m so fucking sorry for this! I’m so sorry, God, please forgive me.
********
“How was your New Year’s? What did you do? I tried calling,” Buffy said on New Year’s Day as soon as Spike picked up the phone.
“Hi, luv. I went to L.A. with Fred. Couldn’t hear my phone at all and then it died on me.”
“Did you have fun?”
“I did. We just sort of hung around the city, checking stuff out. What have you been up to?”
“Angel and I broke up.”
“What?””
“You sound angry. Why are you angry? I thought you’d be happy to know I wasn’t with the ‘ponce’ anymore.”
“Pet, I just don’t like knowing you’re hurt. And that you spent New Year’s Eve alone.”
She snorted, “I’m not hurt. I’m fine. I’m a trooper remember? I’ve been through much worse than Angel could ever do to me.”
“You never really cared for him, have you?”
“Gee, ya think?”
“No need to be cheeky luv.”
“Sorry.”
“Now I know you’re upset if you’re apologizing.”
Buffy took a deep breath. “Spike.”
“What, luv?”
“I’m…I’m gonna stay here a while longer I think.”
Silence, then, “What do you mean?” he whispered.
“I mean, I think I’m gonna take some time here and not come home tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I…I think I need to.”
“Buffy, I want you to come home.”
“I know and I do want to …sort of…but I think I need to take a bit of time for myself.”
“Is it possible that you cared for Angel more than you let on, Buffy?”
“No…really not. He was just…Passing Time Boy.”
“Then…why?”
“Spike, please. I can’t talk about it right now.” And now she was starting to cry. I want you to love me! And you can’t and I can’t, and I don’t know how to make these feelings stop. I just want them to stop so I won’t feel so goddamn bad….
“I miss you,” he whispered.
“I won’t be long.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”