Chapter 2
He was going to do it today.
He was going to talk to that girl in his Sociology class.
He even ironed his pants.
William sat straight at his desk chair and tried to work up the nerve to get up and say something to her. She was seven seats away and she looked upset about something but it didn’t matter because today was the day, no matter what was going on with her. Once he grew a pair and decided to do something, William wouldn’t back down from his plans. If she looked pissed the closer he got to her, though, then he’d just wave politely and try again another time.
The minutes ticked by and William stared at her, wondering what had gone wrong and soured her mood. She was writing furiously in a notebook, chewing on her lip in frustration, bobbing one leg up and down repeatedly, and he couldn’t help but find her distress endearing. Perhaps this would help him out a bit. Perhaps her agitation would deter the natural impulse to vomit, a reaction most women seemed to have around him. Maybe she’d be too upset to notice what a loser he was.
Whatever. Didn’t matter. A man didn’t let freshly ironed pants go to waste.
So when class was over, he took a deep breath and walked down the aisle towards her as she gathered up her books to leave. He stood still for a moment, having never been this close to her before, trying to get rid of the dryness in his throat as he was graced with a wonderful shot of her thighs. They were almost shining, as if she used some special lotion that made them glisten, as if her legs weren’t a teasing sight enough that he had to be this close to them and see how silky smooth they probably were.
“Uh… P-p-pardon me,” he said, closing his eyes and clearing his throat. He could do this. “But…I-I-I…w-w-w—”
Fuck! What the hell was wrong with him? She was smiling a bit, though. Not running, not puking. She might in a minute, though, so he should get this over with quickly.
Start over, William.
“H-hello. I’m William.” He smiled nervously at her. And he really hoped she said something because he hadn’t planned anything after that.
“Hi, William. I’m Buffy.”
She was fucking gorgeous. Whatever bad mood she’d been in, it was gone now, because she was smiling at him so serenely he might die and he finally knew just how green her eyes were.
And now she wasn’t smiling. Now she was looking around the classroom aimlessly, picking at a fiber on her sweater, the charcoal grey one that had the deep v-neck, waiting for him to say something else. She tilted her head and blinked at him, lifting one eyebrow.
“Right, w-w-well…that’s it then. Bye!” And before she could call him a pussy, William turned around and quickly dashed out of the classroom, cursing under his breath and wishing there was hole he could hide in. What the fuck was that?
Seriously, what was that about?
She hadn’t called him an invalid. Her name was Buffy and she smiled at him. Smiled! As if his face wasn’t repugnant and horrid! As if he weren’t the scum of the earth! And what did he do?
“W-w-w-wanker!” he said, scolding himself as he stomped down the hall. He was pissed at himself for blowing it. She was wearing a skirt and smiling and smelling like lilies and looking pretty and he’d ruined his only chance to talk to her. Why was speaking to a girl nearly impossible for him to do?
* * * *
So, when a guy says he’ll “see ya later” after you finally have sex with him, it is in a woman’s complete right to be pissed off about it, analyze it to death and read into the words for the shitty things they are, correct?
When he stretches, yawns and puts on his pants and says, “Been fun. See ya later,” it would be a correct assumption that he is:
1. A complete and total asshole that should be stripped naked and covered in glitter and tampons, duct taped to the front of the school for everyone to see.
2. A liar, because a man who loved you wouldn’t just see ya later.
3. Probably not going to see ya later.
4. Just like all the rest of them!
How could Buffy have been so stupid? She’d finally made love to Parker and then he left the next morning. He took off as if they were buds who’d just had a sleepover from a late night of studying. She made love to him! For an entire thirty minutes!
She was so mad at herself, so mad at men that she’d done nothing but write about how much she hated him in her notebook during Sociology class. Not the best idea when she was barely passing, but she was really, really pissed off. If she was pissed, then she wouldn’t cry about it, wouldn’t embarrass herself in front of the entire classroom. Plus, her creative writing teacher told her how cathartic it was to write about your feelings when you felt them the strongest. Boy was he right!
How could he do that to her?
Luckily, her angry writing ate up enough time and class was suddenly wrapping up.
Glad that it was finally over and she could have a two hour break in her dorm room to listen to depressing music before her next class, she hurried to gather her books and get out of there. But as soon as she made move to stand, mystery guy was suddenly right there, looking as if he might barf all over her.
“P-p-pardon me…” he’d said, and he was so nervous! Mystery guy was nervous around her when he was the intimidating one! And wow, did he have beautiful blue eyes. He was stuttering, which she found adorable considering she’d heard how well he spoke during class. Once she told him her name, though, he just sort of stared at her and she was starting to feel uncomfortable, like maybe she had something on her shirt or hanging out of her nose or something. And she must have, because then he’d just left!
Oh, God, mystery guy—scratch that—William, had finally spoken to her and she barely even said a few words before it was suddenly over. She dug through her purse for a compact mirror and inspected her reflection, searching for a stray booger or a zit she hadn’t seen that morning, finding nothing but a frown on her face. So, what just happened?
Why did all the boys hate her today?
* * * *
Wesley was laughing his ass off. He was lying on William’s trundle bed, his knees in the air and his face red and he was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes.
“It’s not funny!” William said. He slumped down heavily in his desk chair and picked up his twelve inch Seven of Nine collector’s doll, letting his thumb idly stroke her silver-sheathed rump.
“Oh, it really is, though,” Wes said. He finally sat up though he was still chuckling. “Move on to another girl, William. That one’s toast.”
“You’re real supportive!” William snorted, bending the dolls legs so she could sit on the edge of the desk. He hated Star Trek: Voyager, but Seven of Nine had him watching it every week that it aired. And she had great tits.
“I can’t believe you just left her standing there!”
“What was I supposed to do? Every alarm system in my brain was going off, telling me I was about to crash land if I didn’t pull up fast. She’s…she’s so…” He trailed off, tilting Seven of Nine’s head to the side as if she were listening to him, hanging on his every word. Then he knocked it over and stood up, suddenly very angry and frustrated.
“Easy!” Wesley said in horror, scooping the prized collectible off the ground and setting her safely on the desk. “If you can’t treat her with respect, she can come home with me.”
“I froze, Wesley! Got her name, told her mine and…then I just bolted. I’m such a dumb fuck.”
“I could have told you that.”
Wesley pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and then sat down on the bed once more, clasping his hands together between his knees.
“Perhaps all is not lost, eh? Perhaps you should…well, the next time you see her, you should apologize. Tell her that…” He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he drifted off in thought.
Wesley wasn’t much better than William when it came to women and so, he was at a loss for words on how to handle this very delicate situation. He did have a bit of room to guide him, though, having touched three different girls’ breasts in the last year, all of which happened to be a dare but William didn’t need to know those details. The point was, Wesley was the man his friends came to for advice since he was the most suave of them all, if he didn’t mind saying so himself. And he did say it often.
“I don’t even want to think about it any more. I’ll go insane.” William sighed and cracked his neck. “I haven’t even had lunch. Have you?”
Wesley shook his head in the negative. “Not yet. It’s Taco Tuesday.”
William loved Taco Tuesday. How could he forget Taco Tuesday? Taco Tuesday would make everything better!
“Tacos it is, cap’n.” William walked to the door and waited. “Shall we grab Andrew on the way?”
Wesley stood up slowly and said, “Perhaps the first course of action in snaring a fox would be to refrain from calling me cap’n in public.”
“Like you’re any better, Jedi,” William said sarcastically as they walked into the hallway to head to their friend Andrew’s dorm room.
“I only call you that when you’re exceptionally clever.”
“Which is always.”
“Which is rarely ever.”
* * * *
“What a complete asshole.”
“Yeah, Buffy. I wouldn’t even waste my tears on that jerk.”
Buffy appreciated her friends and how they tried to cheer her up. She was sitting in the student center eating lunch—it was Taco Tuesday, after all—and told Willow and Cordelia the tale of Parker the Prick.
“I can’t believe I fell for it,” Buffy said dejectedly. She picked up her crunchy taco, not even caring that shredded lettuce was spilling out on all sides, and took a large bite. The mildly seasoned ground beef and cheese taco smothered the words on her tongue with spicy comfort. But it did nothing for her despair!
“I mean, if I were Parker,” Cordelia said, picking cheese off her taco because she was watching her waistline, “I would have struck a lot sooner. Two weeks of work is a little bit overkill if you’re just gonna slut it up and bail.”
Willow and Buffy looked at her incredulously.
Cordelia shrugged and then scowled as a droplet of grease dripped from her taco and onto her plate. “Gross! Ugh, I’m so not eating this. Since you don’t seem to care about carbs, you can have it.” She slid her plate across the table towards Willow who was gasping in shock.
“Do so!”
“Right. That’s why you keep candy bars under your bed. Because you’re so concerned about your health.”
Willow gasped again and Buffy zoned out, having heard them arguing over their shared living quarters one time too many. She thought about Parker again, and what a dick he was, and how much she just wanted to cry about how unfair everything was, and how she was going to eat an entire gallon of ice cream that evening. Before she could announce how pathetic her plans were to her friends, she looked up and saw a familiar head at a table a few rows back.
It was William!
His equally smart friends were with him, the ones that knew stuff about computers and books and science. She had an English Lit class with one of them, the dark-haired one. She didn’t know his name, but he was also British and wore glasses and said smart things in class. He seemed even stuffier than William and probably thought she was a moron. Oh God, what if he’d told William about how she made a fool of herself in class last week?
She’d stayed up with Parker the night before that fateful day, talking about his stupid poetry which he never shared with her, and she forgot to read her English assignment. She’d raised her hand a good fifty times to ask the professor questions that she should have known the answers to if she’d done her work. More than once, she’d heard people snickering. Maybe one of them had been William’s friend. It was worse, even, when her professor told her that she should spend more time on her studies than worrying about her makeup since her parents probably paid a hefty fee for her tuition. She almost cried. Almost.
Instead, she’d opened her mouth and said, “I’m not even wearing makeup.” She folded her arms triumphantly, but it failed to pack the punch she’d hoped for when her professor removed his glasses and told her to leave his classroom. She was mortified!
And the other one she’d seen around campus a few times, tutoring other students for classes Buffy would never dream of taking, like computer science. That was science? How, exactly, were wires and floppies and electricity and…oh. That’s how. Well, whatever, it was a class she’d more than likely never take.
“Hey, zombie girl,” Cordelia said, snapping her fingers in front of Buffy’s face.
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” she said with a slight smile. “My mind’s all crazy town today.”
“Well, you just missed the slam of the century.”
Buffy turned to her left, just then realizing that Willow was no longer sitting next to her. Cordelia must have won that argument.
“Darn,” she said halfheartedly.
“Willow is just too sensitive. Did you know that she picks her teeth with the end of her nail file? Do you know how gross that is?”
Buffy zoned out again as Cordelia prattled on, her eyes landing on William’s face right as he bit into his taco. His cheeks turned red instantly when he looked up at her, his eyes widened, and then he was choking, dropping his taco with a plop as his hands went to his throat.
“Oh God,” Buffy said quietly, covering her mouth with a gasp.
* * * *
“Mayday! Mayday!” Andrew shrieked nervously as he stood up abruptly, knocking his chair over when he twirled around in panic. “Man down, sector taco!”
William was gasping for air as Wesley pounded on his back. He wished he would die right then. That God would take pity on him, open up the heavens and let him ascend to the celestial clouds that were far away from the embarrassing scene he was currently being punished with. He’d been thinking about Buffy while Wesley and Andrew had a heated discussion about George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg and how they managed to ruin everything good and decent in the world by changing perfectly acceptable cinema, when he realized she was in the cafeteria. Not only was she in the cafeteria, but she was looking right at him.
He’d gasped, forgetting the bite he’d taken, and started to choke on his favorite meal.
“Shut up, Andrew!” Wesley said, slapping William hard on the back. “Drink some water.” He slid a glass over to William.
“Don’t give him water when he’s choking! You have to do the thing with your arms,” Andrew squealed, flailing his hands wildly. “Put your arms around his waist and yank!”
William shook his head frantically, trying to back away from Wesley as he stood behind him. It was so humiliating and half of the people in the cafeteria were now watching in interest as his two friends failed miserably to save him. Wesley wrapped his arms around his ribcage and only managed to shake him from side to side. William felt his chest start to burn.
“Out with it!” Wesley shouted. “Out, out, damn taco!”
Andrew shrieked like a girl and his chin trembled. “Someone help him! He can’t go out like this!”
Just as William was sure he was about to lose consciousness, he felt Wesley release him and another set of hands wrap around his waist. He was too far gone to turn around and see, but whoever it was smelled wonderful. Then they spoke.
“I’ve got you, William” she said by his ear. “One, two…”
She never said three, but he felt her fists plunge straight into his diaphragm and the force pushed the obstruction from his throat, hurling it forward and onto the table. She released him and gently rubbed his back in a soothing manner while he gasped and wheezed. He finally turned to the side to see his savior, his horror coming back tenfold when he saw that it was her. Buffy.
“Are you ok?” Her eyebrows arched in the middle as she looked at him with concern. Her hand was still on his back. Warm and soft.
He nodded, turning away quickly in embarrassment.
“Are you a nurse?” Andrew asked her, wiping the tears that had formed in his eyes from the fear that he might lose his best friend to an untimely and taco-filled death.
“No,” she said, laughing. “I just remember basic survival skills. Like the Heimlich.”
William caught the smug tone in her voice and he looked up at her with a smile. “Th-thank you.”
She bit her lip and he wanted to moan but he grunted instead, covering it up with a cough. She bought it. Taco disaster and all that jazz helping to make it seem natural.
“Can’t have you dying on Taco Tuesday,” she said. She was joking with him. Smiling. She saved his life. She saved his life even after he’d acted like a simpleton earlier that day.
Wesley wedged his way between them, pushing his glasses up and sticking out his chest.
Putting on his suave moves that had been tested time and time again to no avail, he said, “Hello, m’lady. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”
She looked at William over Wesley’s shoulder before she turned to face the intruder.
“I’m Buffy. We have English Lit together.”
“Ahh…” Wesley said, turning around slowly with wide eyes. He looked at William and smiled. “That’s Buffy?” he mouthed silently.
William nodded and pushed Wesley out of the way. “This is Wesley, and he’s an idiot.”
“I’m Andrew,” Andrew said shyly.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you all. Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked William, wringing her hands together a bit nervously.
“Yes, fine thanks. A bit embarrassed but otherwise just fine.” And he hadn’t noticed until just then that he managed to say a complete sentence without stuttering. He smiled proudly.
A girl with large breasts and a cropped brown hairdo came up behind Buffy, looking bored and annoyed. “Buffy, can we go now?”
Buffy spoke to her, though she continued to look at William, smiling. “Yeah, Cordy. We can go. Well, it was nice to meet you guys.”
“You too,” Andrew said, really wishing someone would talk to him, considering the opportunities to talk to hot chicks were few and far between.
William knew his cheeks were red, but she was still looking at him and there was no way he could turn away from her hypnotic eyes. “Yes, nice to see you again, Buffy.”
She smiled, ducked her head, and then turned away to leave with her friend, the three boys watching them intensely as they exited the dining hall.
Wesley came up behind William and grabbed his shoulders, shaking them slightly. “That’s it, boy-o! You managed an entire conversation with the girl even though you’ve got lettuce on your chin.”
“I do?” William panicked, wiping his chin with his hand and groaned when he pulled off a piece of lettuce. Jesus Christ, could he have been more pathetic? Choking and wheezing and food on his mouth like a toddler! No wonder she was smiling at him.
“Calm down. I doubt she even noticed,” he said calmly. “It’s nothing compared to the salsa on your shirt.”
“Fuck!” William grabbed a napkin and rubbed the stain on his shirt furiously while Andrew and Wesley laughed at him. “Well, there went my chances.” He sat down at the table and tossed the napkin on his tray, scowling.
Andrew bit his lip and bounced excitedly. “It’s just like the first season of Lost when Jack gets injured and Kate comes to sew him up and she doesn’t think she can do it but he tells her about that one time he was really scared doing neck surgery and you just know they’re going to fall in love.”
“It was back surgery,” Wesley said, “because Jack was a specialist of the spine and this situation is nothing like that. William isn’t a doctor and Buffy isn’t a fugitive. There is no comparison!”
“Yeah, well, they aren’t trapped on a mysterious island with smoke monsters either, but you don’t see me acting like a girl about it!”
As Wesley and Andrew continued to argue with one another, William closed his eyes and wondered if he were trapped on an island with Buffy, would she fall in love with him? Would they make love underneath the stars? Would they die of exposure?
Did salsa and lettuce ruin his chances with her, or did he ever even have a chance to lose?