Chapter 40
“Elizabeth, how’s your project coming along?”
Elizabeth started at the voice. It was actually one she’d been avoiding by keeping all sorts of wacky studio hours. “All right,” she lied through her teeth. She’d been pretty permanently stumped ever since she got the assignment. There were a couple ideas she’d considered bouncing off of Spike, but that option was closed to her now.
“Blank canvas kind of ‘all right’?” Joyce pointed out wryly.
Elizabeth looked at the empty painting before her. “Yeah, well…” she trailed off, not knowing what to say.
“You’ll have all of Spring Break to think about it,” Joyce assured her. A devilish smile crossed her face. “And at least you haven’t just spun off a self-portrait like certain other students who will not be named…”
Elizabeth grinned at the two spectacularly un-thought-out final projects that a pair of jocks had graced the studio with. “I’m stuck,” she agreed.
“You’ve come up with something to be stuck on, and that’s half the work right there,” Joyce encouraged her.
Elizabeth bit her lip. “Look,” she finally began, “do you know—?”
“That something came between you and my son?” Joyce finished for her. “Yeah, I know. Although only second-hand, since apparently this is a ‘call dad’ sort of problem…”
“How can you still be so nice to me, then?” Elizabeth wondered.
Joyce sighed. “You hurt my baby,” she agreed, “and the mother in me is screaming for blood. But the teacher…the teacher sees another young student, horribly confused by life, and it’s the teacher’s job to help with that.”
“So you want to kill me and help me?” Elizabeth inquired with a smile.
“Just the ‘help’ part, really,” Joyce assured her. “It’s half of what being a grown-up’s about.”
“I don’t think I could do that,” Elizabeth admitted. “I’d be killing me right now. Or, at least, writing a big, fat F in my grade-book.”
“I didn’t realize that dating William was part of the curriculum,” Joyce teased lightly. “Although,” she turned a skeptical eye to the pair of crappily sketched portraits off to one corner, “that might explain a few things…”
Elizabeth managed a smile.
“And you don’t seem to be denouncing my son’s name from the highest parapets,” Joyce pointed out. “That’s quite an accomplishment of maturity right there.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Elizabeth insisted.
Joyce smiled. “You know, he says the same thing about you. You two seem to have the opposite of the usual blame-game, more like the anti-blame-game.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “How can he possibly think it’s his fault?” she demanded. “I was the one who—”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Joyce pressed softly. “I get the feeling that you kids didn’t quite talk things through enough.”
Elizabeth groaned. “I suck at the talking,” she admitted. “I…I don’t mean… It just comes out all wrong!” she exclaimed in exasperation.
“It seems to come out just fine,” Joyce countered, “only to the wrong person.”
Elizabeth couldn’t really argue with that.
“Now,” Joyce turned to the blank canvas that had mocked Elizabeth for so long, “don’t tell me you don’t have any ideas?”
Elizabeth’s brow furrowed as she ran through her chaotic thoughts about the project. After only a moment’s pondering, she opened her mouth to speak…
* * *
“Can we…talk?” Elizabeth ventured nervously.
Spike’s expression was a perfect mixture of anger and hope, stubbornness and uncertainty.
“If you don’t want to, I’ll understand,” she assured him. “But I would like to…talk.” God, why was it so hard to get that word out? “God, why is it so hard to get that word out?” she repeated out loud.
He curiously raised an eyebrow.
“I’m trying not to suck,” she explained.
A slight twitch of his lips.
“At talking, I mean,” she hastily amended, “Mr. Gutter-Mind. I’m trying to break my habit of saying idiotic things that have no connection to what I’m thinking.”
“Yeah, know exactly what you mean,” he agreed, scratching his scarred eyebrow absentmindedly.
“So can we?” she inquired. “Talk, I mean. And I promise not to suck.”
A little chortle escaped his lips.
“Or I promise I will,” she ventured to tease. “Whatever will get you to agree to talk to me.”
He gulped at that. “Cruel vixen,” he joked lightly.
She shrugged, unable to deny the accusation. “Do you want me to go away, or do you want to talk?” she inquired again.
He gave her a skeptical look before swinging the door open. “Hurry up about it, Summers,” he grumbled. “’ve got better things to do, y’know…”
She couldn’t help but smile, charmed by his defensive posturing. “Yeah, the middle of midterms is probably a shitty time,” she agreed. “Does that suck, too?”
“Not so much,” he assured her. “Just finished a paper.” He settled down into the chair at his desk.
“History?”
“English.”
“Oh. Right,” Elizabeth nodded, shutting the door behind her. Nervously readjusting her skirts, she sat on the edge of the armchair across from him.
For a moment, they each looked at the other in anticipation.
“You wanted to talk,” he finally spoke up.
“Um, yeah…” Her cheeks flushed. “The thing is that you do this thing to me where my heart starts pounding like crazy and I can’t think straight and…” She trailed off, embarrassed.
“Should see a doctor about that,” he retorted.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was much easier to think this way; she could just pretend that she was saying the words out loud to herself, practicing them…
“I’m sorry about some of the things I said,” she began.
“Oh?”
The metallic click of a lighter let her know that he’d just lit up a cigarette. She was surprised to find that she’d missed the scent. He always smoked cigarettes from England, and they were much better smelling than the cheap Americans brands. Very distinctive, too. She allowed herself to savor the scent for a minute, let it wash over her…
“I…implied some stuff,” she agreed. “I got angry and…some of the vital stuff – the stuff that didn’t make it quite so bad – didn’t really get said.”
“This other stuff happen to be a ‘not’ in the sentence ‘we’re over’?” he inquired.
“Not exactly,” she said apologetically.
“Then, isn’t this whole conversation a bit like pourin’ salt into an open wound?” he countered.
She sighed and ventured to open her eyes, looking right at him once more. “You were the best thing I’ve ever had in my life,” she admitted softly.
Whatever he’d been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been that.
She waited until the complete stunned surprise was over before she continued. After all, it was hard enough to find words to describe this once, so she wanted to be sure he heard her. “This isn’t easy for me, or fun. Every second I…” She let out a sigh of exasperation when the words failed her once more. “I feel like I’m drowning,” she finally began once more, “and you’re the oxygen I need to live, and I just need to go back to you, and then everything will be all right again…”
“Are you sayin’ you want to get back together?” His tone was carefully neutral.
“No…well, yes…well, I don’t know… Argh!” she exclaimed in frustration. “Why can’t I…?”
He shrugged and took a quick drag of his cigarette. Elizabeth watched his fingers fidget over the filter. He was undoubtedly nervous and probably just as confused as she was. It would’ve been nice to know whether he hated her or loved her or both, but she didn’t really think it was fair to ask. Plus, she’d given up her shot of doing this the easy way, so hard way it was…
“We were kinda doomed,” she finally settled on a few short sentences. “And not because you didn’t love me enough or,” her face flushed, “I didn’t love you enough. We were just from different worlds. And I’m not saying my world’s better,” she insisted vehemently. “It’s just…different. In some ways it’s worse than your world, and there are some things that I like about it. It’s just this completely different…thing.” Her hands fluttered about in exasperation at how badly this was turning out.
“Fascinating,” he said sarcastically. “Really.”
She knew what he was doing. He was trying to bite at her insecurities about her intelligence because he was afraid she was going to cut into him next. It really was scary how well she knew him. And this time she wasn’t going to rise to the bait.
“That trick won’t work on me,” she pointed out gently.
He seemed to slump into his chair in response, looking more defeated than she’d ever seen him. It was clear from the circles beneath his eyes that he hadn’t been sleeping well. It was probably evidence of crying as well. The urge to just go over to him and hold him and take care of him was practically overwhelming, but she fought it.
“Just get it over with an’ get out,” he demanded sullenly.
She gave him a soft smile. “You know what I wish?” she asked.
“What?” he gave her a scowl for good-measure.
“That all these problems would just go away. Then I could beg your forgiveness, and everything would be good again.”
“What makes you think ‘d give it?” he bit back hurtfully.
“I don’t know if you would,” she admitted. “I’d like to think so, but that isn’t what matters. What I really want to do right now is try to win you back. Just try.”
“If everythin’ else went away,” he reminded her with a grumble. It was a more gentle grumble now, though.
“Yeah, but it’s not going to just vanish on its own, is it?” she agreed.
“Rarely does.”
“And that’s kinda why I had to do this,” she sighed. “Why I have to fight every instinct in my body that’s just telling me to go to you.”
“The sense vanished a while back,” he informed her.
“Sorry about that,” she assured him. “That would be the sucking.”
“’ve heard worse,” he pointed out.
She managed a rueful smile in response. “I don’t know what I want to do with my life,” she admitted. “I’m just a kid, really. But, thanks to my ever-annoying father, this huge choice has been forced upon me, and I’m really just not ready to make it.”
“’d kinda noticed,” he accused.
She grimaced. “Yeah, well it’s not exactly going to give me the time I need,” she decided. “If I want to choose the one path, I’ve got to do it now. I go for the other… Well, in a lot of ways, that’s the path of least resistance.”
“The path of non-resistance,” Spike echoed softly.
“And I don’t know which one I want,” she concluded. “There are some appealing things about each and…” She shook her head. “No one should have to deal with this,” she decided.
“But you do.”
“But I do,” she echoed. “God, I’m so sorry to have put through all of this…”
“’S your life,” he pointed. “I wanted to be a part ‘f it. The good and the bad.”
“And the ugly,” she grimaced.
He managed a ghost of a smile. The first she’d seen since she came in.
“I miss you,” she informed him wistfully.
The smile was gone. “Yeah,” he said flatly, grabbing for another cigarette.
“I really do, y’know,” she repeated just as confidently. “I wake up at night and…well, usually I manage to roll right off the bed ‘cause I’m not used to being alone in it.”
No reaction beyond disinterested contemplation.
“I actually had to start sleeping the other way, so now I crash into the wall instead,” she went on. She sighed. “Is there anything I can say?” she wondered hopelessly.
He thought about that for a long time. “Not sure,” he finally admitted.
“I never wanted to see you hurt,” she assured him. “God, I just…” She got choked up at this point and had to fight back tears. She blinked in surprise when a Kleenex box tapped her on the shoulder.
“Had to stock up,” Spike muttered, looking her in the eyes for the first time.
She managed a shy smile. “Thanks,” she whispered, taking a tissue and blowing her reddened nose. “Kinda have a Kleenex farm back in my own room, too.”
“A necessity.” He backed away and sat back down in the desk chair.
His distance was like a palpable ache, but she forced herself to concentrate. “I wanted it to be better,” she finally got on track. “For you.”
“This is better?” he inquired skeptically, scarred eyebrow raised.
“Well, see, the idea was that you would move on and be free. Run off and be merry,” she joked lightly. “There’d be some frolicking and the like, and I’d still be stuck in my miserable life, but I’d at least know that you were happy.”
“Martyr complex much?” he scoffed.
“Much,” she agreed. “Very much. But…”
“Another ‘but’,” he sighed wearily.
“There are some things that I have to do alone,” she informed him, “and I realize that it’s not fair to you, but—”
“What’s not fair to me is you tryin’ to dictate all this to me without even botherin’ to explain yourself,” he interrupted angrily.
“I’m trying to explain!” she shot back. “If you would just listen, I—“ She cut herself off and took several deep, relaxing breaths to calm herself down. “Why are you making this so difficult?” she wondered in exasperation.
“Me?!” he demanded in shocked indignation.
“Yes, you,” she agreed. “Are you really so afraid of what I have to say that you decide to turn everything into a scream-fest instead? ‘Cause I gotta say, me screaming is a lot worse than me talking.”
“’m not doin’ a bleedin’ thing,” he insisted.
“You’re trying to provoke me,” she countered, “and we both know it.”
He sulked with all the skill of pouty child. Elizabeth’s respect for Joyce increased tenfold. He must’ve been one hell of a handful what with the stubbornness and that adorable lower lip jutting out. Almost impossible to refuse…
“There are just some things I need to figure out,” she continued doggedly. “For me. I need to know that I’m making the right choice, and I need to know that it’s something I’m doing for myself and not just because it’s what you want me to do.”
“Only wanted what made you happy,” he insisted.
She smiled softly. “I know,” she assured him, “but I need to figure out what makes me happy.”
“And ‘m not it?” he demanded, eyes fierce.
“No, you are,” she insisted. “Or were, or…something. But there’s got to be more to me than ‘us’, and I need to know what that is before I…” She sighed. “I just need some time.”
“Right. And we couldn’t discuss this earlier because…?” he snarked.
“Because I’m very, very confused right now, and it took me this long just to piece together that much,” she informed him matter-of-factly.
His eyes flickered heavenward for an instant as if seeking inspiration. “I would’ve—” he began.
“I know,” she assured him, “but I need to do this alone. If I let you help me… I’ll just cave into you because I really can’t resist you very well, baby, and then it’ll just be me going along with whatever happens and never really bothering to learn…”
“Wasn’t exactly complainin’,” he pointed out.
“No, you were,” she countered, “in your own way. And you were right.”
“Told you so,” he couldn’t help but tease.
A silent laugh followed her smile. “Yeah, you did,” she agreed. Her fingers suddenly felt the irresistible urge to reach out for him. She sat on her hands in response.
He smirked around his cigarette as if he knew exactly why she had just done that. Which he probably did.
“When I look at you,” she began nervously, “I see such strength and…I want that.”
A quirked eyebrow.
Her face flushed. “Not like that,” she hastily amended. “I don’t want you, I just—” All-out flinch. “I do want you,” she corrected, “but that wasn’t what I was talking about.” She nervously braced herself for the imminent explosion, eyes squeezed shut tight.
He chuckled. “Go on, pet,” he assured her that he was more amused than offended by her strange rant.
She gave him a grateful smile. “Why do I suck so much?” she wondered.
“As I recall, you din’t suck much at all.” The words from his lips without thought. He grimaced. “’m sorry,” he insisted immediately. “I din’t mean—”
“It’s all right,” she assured him hastily, blushing slightly. The fact that she didn’t do that had been an issue they’d carefully skirted around, largely because she wasn’t enough over Angel’s assault to really handle it.
“Just to prove that I suck, too,” Spike sighed wearily.
Elizabeth couldn’t help but giggle at that. “And very well, too,” she informed him.
“Bloody hell!” He rolled his eyes heavenwards.
“Sorry,” she assured him, “too good a set-up to refuse. Although maybe we should find a less, er…distracting word than ‘suck’. How about ‘blow’?”
He gave her a disbelieving look.
She whapped herself on the forehead. “Words hate me,” she informed him, hopelessly embarrassed.
“Dunno,” he shrugged, “they seem to be havin’ fun.”
“As long as they’re laughing with me and not at me,” she shrugged. “So where was I?”
“Well, you were blowing for a while, an’ then you were sucking, and before that you were sayin’ how you wanted me,” Spike responded unhelpfully.
Elizabeth gave him an annoyed glare. “What would I ever do without you?”
“An’ that was before all that other stuff,” Spike agreed.
Elizabeth sighed as the conversation turned serious once more. “That’s what I need to know the answer to,” she informed him. “Because I know I can do it. As nice as the words ‘I need you’ are, they’re never really true.”
“There were a couple times when you got me…” Spike began to joke before trailing off. He nodded slowly.
“You deserve…” she sighed. “You deserve so much more. You deserve someone who can be just as strong and confident as you are. Someone who knows their path and—”
“’S all a myth, you know,” he pointed out. “I have no more clue what I wanna do with my life than you do.”
“But you’re—”
“What?” he cut her off again. “’m a sophomore with no major, no clue what I want to do when I graduate. I just put on more airs than you. We’re no different.”
“Given that I have to make my choice right now,” Elizabeth pointed out, “I’d say there’s still a difference. And you deserve—”
“If I deserve so much, why can’t I deserve what I want?” he pointed out.
She shook her head. “You’re trying to annoy me again,” she informed him. “You’re—”
“’m—”
“—intentionally cutting off all my sentences,” she plowed straight through yet another interruption.
He couldn’t help but let out a bark of laughter at that. “Doesn’t anythin’ work on you?” he wondered absentmindedly.
“Nope,” she assured him. “Because I know all about you. Every little thing, every little quirk, so you’ll just have to get used to it. You can’t trick me. I can see beyond any bravado you put up.”
He seemed strangely touched by her admission, and she immediately wished she’d told him something like this sooner. “I did have a point,” he finally commented with a sigh.
She nodded. “You did,” she agreed, “and you very much deserve me – hell, way better than me – if that’s what you still want.”
“And here comes another ‘but’,” he predicted.
“This is where I got the strange notion in my head that all I had to do was think about something and you’d instantly pick up on it telepathically,” she only half-teased.
“I have no clue what you’re about to say,” he assured her.
“Good,” she decided. “It’d be pretty pointless to have this conversation if you did.”
“Words can be nice,” he countered.
“Yeah,” she agreed softly, “they can. But these words aren’t going to be nice. They’re going to be kinda painful, harsh, even a bit selfish.”
“In other words, real,” he commented.
“Unfortunately,” she agreed.
“Let’s have it then,” he insisted, his voice quavering only slightly. “’ve got plenty more Kleenex where that came from.”
She smiled at him sadly. “I have to be by myself for a while,” she informed him. “I need to figure some things out, and when I do, I have to really be sure that it was me who made the choice.”
He let out a weary sigh. “And ‘m supposed to what? Just sit around and wait while you make a choice that could cut me out of your life completely?”
“No,” she bit her lower lip, “I don’t expect you to do that for me. If you want to move on, I’ll understand. I’ll be pissed, but I’ll understand.”
“This is some clever way of makin’ it all my fault, isn’t it?” he half-joked.
“No,” she assured him, “not your fault. We’ve both got issues, but…I’m the one who has to work on things at the moment. I don’t expect you to wait for me.”
“Good,” he crossed his arms over his chest defensively, “’cause ‘m not promisin’ you anything.”
She managed to keep the inner smile off her face. Despite what he said, she had a sneaking suspicion deep down inside… In any case, she’d done something right here today because the naked hurt in his eyes had been replaced by something else. Not exactly the open love and devotion he’d shown her before. More like understanding. And maybe a little hope.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, daring to approach him.
He didn’t move away.
“I’m just…difficult,” she assured him.
“’S the difficult ones that’re worth it,” he responded matter-of-factly.
She smiled and leaned in to brush her lips across his forehead. To her surprise, he didn’t try to stop her when she backed away again. Although that was definitely a good thing because it would have been so easy for her to fall back into her old pattern right then. Just a word, really, or a look…
He was very studiously not looking at her. Apparently, the chipped black nail polish on his thumb was quite fascinating.
“I miss you,” she informed him, hand on the doorknob. “God, I miss you so much…” She discovered much to her chagrin that her eyes were tearing up again. She batted at them ineffectively.
“Luv…” His face was closed off from her again now, but his voice sounded strained.
A fierce resolve took over her in that moment. There was so much she was still unsure of, but of one thing she was positive: she never, ever wanted to hear that pained tone in his voice again. Somehow, something was going to have to change and…
“I’ll see you around,” she assured him with a wan smile before leaving him alone to his thoughts once more…