Chapter 21
How cruel was it to not be able to sleep after so desperately wanting to? After saying over and over “I need some rest, I need some sleep, that’s all I need…” and then not be able to sleep? Well, not well at least. Buffy’s night was restless. She tossed, turned, stared into the dark, tossed, turned, and stared into the dark. Was it real dark? Or the dark that surrounded her? With that thought, she started to cry.
“You’re lucky you don’t have a roommate,” the nurse told her in the morning when she came to get her for breakfast.
Yeah, that’s what I am. Lucky.
Plastic utensils. That’s what she was given. Plasticware – such fine dining. Finding a corner in which she could eat the runny eggs and dry bacon – such a contrast—Buffy nibbled on her bacon and watched the “crazies” in what looked like her high school cafeteria. Some wept, some talked to themselves, some to each other. It was sort of fascinating in a creepy way.
Maybe I don’t belong here, she thought, and started to cry again.
********
The ring of his cell woke Spike, and he cursed when he hit it with his hand on the nightstand and it went flying, skidding across the floor and under the bed. Nearly falling out of bed in his haste to get it, he cursed some more.
Then a little ring tone of some sort let him know he had a voice mail. Yanking it up, finally, he checked the number. Not a number he recognized. Warily, he pressed the numbers to get to his voice mail and immediately paled upon listening to the message.
Mental hospital? Buffy was in a mental hospital?
Shutting his phone, he reopened it and, with his heart in his throat, rang information about where to call to get a flight out of LAX to Logan. His fingers were trembling, though to look at him, he seemed calm. Inside though, Spike was in a panic. His only thought was to get to Buffy and as soon as humanly possible.
********
“So, you told the nurse you didn’t know what you’d do to yourself,” her therapist, or rather, the therapist that had been assigned to her said.
Buffy nodded, “Yes.”
He was British, just like Spike. This was going to be just fucking fantastic and helpful. Except, this guy was older. He had short brown hair that was graying at his temples, glasses and thin lips. His name was Dr. Giles. He seemed nice enough, if not straight to the point and a little wary. Buffy had to figure that he had a lot of nut job’s to deal with and was probably a little jaded. Either that or he saw through her façade of threatening suicide and felt betrayed. How weird that a therapist could feel betrayed by something like that. Didn’t he know how much it took for her to come in? Okay, so it didn’t really take much of anything since she reasoned: I feel as though I’m going fucking crazy and I need to go somewhere that is not out there. That’s what the world felt like suddenly. “Out there”. The deep dark “Out there”. Out there her mother was dead, out there Hank had cancer and hated her, out there she was falling for Spike and felt guilty for it…out there he was dating Fred and she was alone…or was soon to be alone. Out there, out there, out there. It was all “out there”.
“Do you want to kill yourself, Buffy?” Dr. Giles asked.
She started, not expecting him to use her name so soon. “No, I don’t. I don’t want to die.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Because I needed to get away from the world. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Do you feel overwhelmed?”
“I feel as if I’m sinking into a deep, dark abyss. I feel like I can’t handle anything past tying my shoes. And hey, my shoelaces were taken. Do you really think I’m going to use shoelaces to hang myself?”
“You threatened suicide,” Dr. Giles said, almost accusingly.
“Well, shoelaces wouldn’t work anyway. They’re not long enough and they’d snap. Besides, I can’t stand anything around my neck.”
“Buffy, what happened to you?”
Oh, so he wanted straight Buffy now. Her eyes welled up in tears. “My mother died after I hadn’t spoken to her in five years. I came home to bury her and met my stepfather that I ended up falling for and then, to make a long story short, I came to Boston to see my father that shunned me and found out he has cancer. Instead of wanting his flesh and blood daughter to be there with him, he wants me to leave him so he can be with his new family. He has prostate cancer. How perfect is that?” She laughed maniacally then. “Guess that’s his karmic payback for fucking around on my mother. Too bad he didn’t get ass cancer though; now that would have been perfect for him.”
“You say you fell in love with your stepfather?”
Buffy smirked. “I suppose that would be the thing you’d focus on after all that,” she said sardonically.
Dr. Giles gave no expression, instead he cleared his throat. “Buffy, do you feel you want to die?”
“No.”
“Harm anyone else?”
“Unless it’s my Dad? No.”
“Then why don’t we start from the beginning. Tell me about your mother and your estrangement.”
“This’ll be fun,” Buffy muttered before launching into her story.
********
January 11, 2006
After Dr. Giles — or Giles as I’ve decided to call him—deemed me not about to stab myself with a pen or inflict any such harm to myself, he gave me my journal back. He said that it’s a good thing that I write and that it will help me. He even talked about me sharing what I write.
So, how’s this: BITE ME!!!!
My private thoughts are my private thoughts. I will share them if I see fit. I’m most likely going to share them anyway because I just want to feel better. Like I really want to feel as crazy as I do. Though I’m beginning to wonder if I am crazy or just under a lot of stress. The years have come to a head and all the bad is just gushing out of me like a fountain. I’m Fountainhead. It’s all spewing out of me now and when it’s done, I’ll be cleansed. I’ll be pure. I’ll be a functional member of society and maybe I’ll be as bright and as cheerful as Judith.
Yeah, that’ll happen. Freaking cherry pie on the wall if that happens.
I miss Spike. I wonder what he’s doing…who he’s doing…what kind of daughter am I? I leave her for five years and then I fall in love with her husband? And then, then I get mad about her husband doing someone that isn’t me. How fucked up is that? How fucked up am I?
It’s not that I don’t love her. I do. I miss her everyday of my pathetic life. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I could have done things differently, that I don’t wish I could take back every time I’d hurt her…and really, all I’d ever succeeded in doing was hurting myself when I hurt her. It was a nail in my fucking coffin too.
What do you do when you don’t know how to forgive yourself?
********
It was morning and Buffy was being shaken awake. That was not wise, and Buffy was just about to turn and snap at the nurse when she said, “Spike is here to see you.”
Buffy stared at the nurse. “What?”
“Spike. Weird name. Your…stepfather?”
Buffy gulped and slowly rolled to a sitting position.
“Do you want to see him?”
“Yes.”
The nurse started to leave.
“Which means, I shouldn’t and I won’t,” Buffy told her and started to cry.
********
“What do you mean she won’t see me?” Spike demanded to the orange haired bully that was currently telling him to keep his voice down. He glanced at her nametag, “Beatrice is it? Listen, Bea, I came all the way from California to see her, let me see her!”
“She doesn’t want to see you,” The nurse stated firmly. She glared at him, giving him the once over. “And I can see why!”
“She’s in a mental hospital; you think she is in a position to make all the right choices right about now?” Spike snapped.
“Excuse me; is there something I can help with?”
Spike’s head snapped to the side to find an older gentleman in a suit studying him closely. “Yes. I want to see Buffy Summers. And Beawon’t let me see her.”
“Dr. Giles, Buffy requested not to see him.”
The man named Dr. Giles studied Spike closely. “Are you Spike? From California?”
Spike’s back went up immediately. He straightened. “Yes.” God, he’d already made a name for himself?
“I’m Dr. Giles,” the man said, holding out his hand. “I’m Buffy’s doctor. Maybe we could have a chat?”
Spike nodded slowly, “Please.”