To Buffy, Angel said nothing. Most of the time, he acted as though she didn't exist and she found that she was surprisingly ok with that. Strangely, after the initial shock had worn off, Angel's quick rebound with Cordelia seemed to have burned away some of the residual feelings she'd had for him. Any lingering guilt or indecision she felt over hurting or breaking up with him was gone. Painful, but effective way to start getting over a breakup, she thought grimly. It was helpful that every time she looked at the cast on her wrist, she was reminded of the reason for their split.
However, separating their friends hadn't proved to be possible for very long. They were too often torn between Buffy and Angel, so both of them had resigned themselves to being in the same places at the same times. Lunch was one of these instances and was solved by sitting at opposite ends of the long table. Buffy and her strongest supporters were at one end and Angel and Cordelia at the other. She still caught him looking at her occasionally, but he was either getting better at hiding it or looking less often.
Buffy listened with one ear as Heather and Michelle, sitting on either side of her, filled her in on some latest tasty bit of gossip. She played with her mushy unidentifiable entrée unenthusiastically, finally setting the fork down and opening a nonfat yogurt. She took a spoonful and nodded her head in response to something Heather had said. She didn't know why she was so bored hanging out with her friends lately; it just seemed they were always talking about the same things happening to the same people.
Even cheerleading stories failed to rouse her interest. 'I'm just not too into it because I'm upset I can't actually do it right now,' she told herself. 'Once I can get back to it, I'll be just as excited as I used to be.' However, unless the football team started winning some games, any future excitement was going to be dimmed somewhat. Buffy was ashamed of herself, but she did feel some smidgeon of satisfaction that though Angel had been cleared to play, he was completely off his game and had contributed greatly to the loss on Saturday.
Buffy let the cheerful chatter of her friends wash over her and began scanning the cafeteria restlessly. There, in the far corner. She caught sight of Willow's bright red hair and across from her, a glimpse of platinum blond. She wondered what had made him change his hair so suddenly anyway. She hadn't really had a chance to ask him. She hadn't really had a chance to talk to him much at all.
Buffy had been shocked and even a little hurt at his brusque attitude yesterday. She'd thought he enjoyed their study sessions as much as she did and to have him end them so abruptly was…rude. 'Yeah, rude!' Her inner voice chimed in. 'Rude's the word for it. He said he'd help me and then he just deserts me, with good reason, yes, but without saying a word and that's just…' she wanted to fill in the word 'rude' again, but somehow, 'disappointing' popped into her head.
Buffy had no idea what she'd done wrong the evening at his house. 'What was I supposed to do? Let him drown in the shower?' She wondered at the likelihood of that, but then concluded that at the very least, having cold water pouring down on you wasn't very healthy. She couldn't think what she might've done differently though. 'Maybe he isn't mad,' she thought doubtfully, 'maybe he's just really busy and it's nothing to do with me at all, just like he said.'
She didn't know why she was so focused on the loss of the sixth period sessions. Giles had taken pity on her and offered to help her now, she reminded herself, 'my grades will stay up and yay, happy Buffy!' That was the only thing that mattered right? If he didn't want to be friends, well, that was that and she had enough friends anyway. His loss.
She looked over at William again, shifting slightly in her chair until she had his face in view; he was smiling slightly at something Willow was saying and then turning to Tara, grinning and saying something that made the quiet girl blush. She saw the dark haired boy laugh and punch him lightly on the arm. 'Well, good that he found some friends that are acceptable to him,' she sniffed inwardly. She stared at the milky soup of her yogurt and swirled the spoon around and around in circles. 'Why am I not acceptable as a friend?' She asked herself, mentally pouting. 'Oh, well, maybe you are,' piped up her inner voice, 'go on over there and talk to him then, if you're his friend. Go take a seat; I'm sure they won't mind.' Jabbing the spoon into the yogurt, she thought to herself sadly, 'Yeah, right, just go on over and-,' just as Parker slid into the seat he'd asked Heather to vacate for him.
She plastered the best fake smile on her face that she could manage and looked up at him. "Hey Parker."
"What are you doing?" Dawn asked her sister, who was staring at her face in the bathroom mirror, poking and prodding it from different angles. She'd just gotten home from school and as far as she could tell, her sister had been in here for quite some time.
Buffy continued making faces at herself. "Dawn, do I look chubbier to you?"
Dawn smirked behind Buffy's back, this would be entertaining. She peered at Buffy intently, "Yeah, you know I think I do see a double chin developing just…there." She pointed her finger and prodded under Buffy's chin.
"What! No!" Buffy brought her chin down and tried to see what her sister did.
Dawn gave her sister her minute of panic and then laughed. "Buffy, you look the same as you always do."
Buffy frowned. "I gained two pounds."
"Well, yeah, you're not cheerleading, just moping around sitting on the couch watching TV after school."
"Well, my friends are all busy." Buffy said defensively.
"You could go work out at the club, if you wanted to stay in shape. I'm sure there's a lot you can do even not using your left arm." Dawn suggested helpfully.
Dawn could see some light bulb turning on in Buffy's head, she was so transparent, but had no idea what had popped into her sister's brain.
"Yeah, I could go work out. I think I'll go do that!" Buffy said, grinning. "Thanks Dawn!"
Clueless, Dawn shrugged at the mystery that was her sister and left the room.
There were two gyms downtown. One was in the boutique shopping area and the other in the more industrial section of town by the docks and the Bronze. Buffy stopped in the Mindful Body Gym and Spa first, but after only a few steps in the door she doubted that this would be where William was employed. The employees running around in brightly colored stretchwear were all tan and limber from presumably hours of aerobics, and the atmosphere was violently cheerful and upbeat. 'Ugh.' Buffy thought. 'Ok, not here. At least I don’t think so. Well, I can come back if it's not the other place.' She edged slowly towards the door, moving faster as a perky blonde with a jewel toned clipboard headed in her direction. "Wrong address!" Buffy said quickly, smiling apologetically as she escaped.
Buffy told herself she was doing this because of her earlier encounter with the scale. It was a bit harder to explain away the fact that she was considering joining a gym, since she did have access to a state of the art, shiny, huge one at the club that her father was already paying for. She floundered at that one a bit and shoved the thought aside impatiently. She just had to hope this was one of the months her father was busy and just wrote the checks out for the credit card bills without paying attention to the details of the charges. This was the norm, but the months that he did look, the audits were very thorough and he required detailed explanations for any expenditure he dubbed abnormal. She crossed her fingers and hoped again that he was in his busy mode.
She checked the paper she had in her hand. This was the spot. The front stucco was chipping off and the lettering 'Crawford's Gym' was faded and worn. She lingered uncertainly on the sidewalk, clutching her gym bag. The area was neither a good nor a bad one, hovering somewhere in between. During the daytime, the docks were busy and the Bronze, pretty much Sunnydale's only night club, was shuttered and dark. Looking around, there seemed to be quite a few boarded up buildings. The diner down the street was doing a booming business, however. Buffy had been to that diner many a time after Bronzing. 'It's fine.' She reassured herself and pushed the door open.
Jenny hadn't been pleased when William informed her about his new job. "William," she said, "I just worry you're taking on too much. You know I can give you money. You don't have to do this, on top of school and your mother…"
William gazed steadily at her, "I know, Jenny, but I don't like taking your money. You've already been kind enough with the car and I do appreciate that. Least I can do is earn my way enough to put gas in the thing. It won't interfere with anything."
Jenny touched his arm lightly, "I just worry…"
His voice low, he mumbled, "I don't know what to do with myself. I need to do something. Need to help. Please let me."
She brushed her hand along his hair affectionately like he was a little boy and not a young man taller than she was. "Ok then. Ok. But if it gets too much-"
"Gets too much, I'll quit." William promised and breathed a sigh of relief.
Rather than the soothing bell chime of the door at the other gym, this one emitted a harsh screech of unoiled or misaligned hinges as its alert and slammed shut after her with a heavy clunk. Buffy flinched a little at the loud sound and what she could see of the gym on the inside. This gym was as busy as the other, but there were no vivid colors or cheery employees flitting around. It was dull and dingy, the walls a smudged tan and white, the lighting flickering fluorescents. Beyond the entryway, she could see people working out and didn't spy a single woman. This place's clientele seemed to be a rougher sort and exclusively male. The muscles she saw displayed here weren't elongated and elegant, toned by step class or yoga, tai chi or tennis. These weren't muscles for leisure; they were clearly for and possibly from, manual labor. The uniform seemed to be different too, no stretchy lycra here, just sweats and tank tops and t-shirts. She paused, unsure again.
"Buffy?" William said in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"
Caught, Buffy decided her decision had been made for her and summoned up her usual perky cheer. "Oh, I'm here to take a tour, maybe join and work out." She raised her pink duffel in the air slightly, waggling it at him and smiling. "Since my wrist, I uh, haven't gotten much exercise and well, I'm feeling out of shape."
William raised an eyebrow at her. "One, pet, you're not out of shape at all. It's only been a week. Two, why here? Don't you belong to that fancy club the rest all do?"
Buffy shifted uneasily, "Uh…Angel goes to the club. It's kind of awkward, you know?" She bit her lip and prayed he wouldn't ask why it would be awkward if she went while Angel was at practice. 'It would be awkward if he were there!' She told herself firmly, 'and he could be! You never know, he could be! Or uh, his mom could be yeah, or his sister, you never know!' She continued, "Anyway, the out of shape thing, I uh…I'm worried about gaining weight and not being ready to cheer when my wrist gets better."
She eyed him cautiously through her lashes, trying to determine if he was accepting her reasoning. He really looked different in his workout clothes, clad all in black, t-shirt hugging his chest. He looked good. The light hair really brought out his eyes… She worried her lip a little more while she waited for his response. He didn't have time to say anything else however, because another man came up to them.
"Will, you helping this lady?" George Crawford stepped in.
"Yes, sir." William said, fully aware that this was only his second day, "Buffy was looking into the gym, but I don't think she thinks it'll suit her purposes after all." He gave her a meaningful look.
Buffy hesitated and then, discarding William's subtle suggestion, said, "I don't know, it might, I'm not sure yet."
George Crawford saw money heading out the door. He put his arm around her slender shoulders, shot a warning to his new employee over her head, and guided her further inside. "Well, let's just give you a tour and see whether we'll do, yeah?"
William shook his head. Wasn't the right place for Buffy to be hanging out. He sighed. While he'd had a brief flash of happiness at the sight of her when she'd first walked in and he'd missed her the past couple days, he silently admitted to himself, he still didn't think she belonged here. 'What the hell is she really doing here, anyway?' He wondered suspiciously. 'Maybe she thinks she can persuade me to help her with her assignments while she's here. Bounce stuff off of me. Persistent chit, she is.' He knew Buffy had some insecurity about her schoolwork and thought perhaps she wasn't ready to let go of her academic security blanket. ‘Yeah, maybe that’s it.’ He leaned back on the desk and watched as Mr. Crawford shepherded her around the gym.
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