More importantly, she’d not tried.
It’d been over a month since he’d left the apartment, and it was too late now. She had to stop it all. Before she went mad.
He was out of her life, where he wanted to be for now. Maybe he was out there somewhere moving on, like he’d said. So maybe it was time for her to do the same. Maybe today was a good idea. But then again maybe not.
Buffy sat on a picnic table in the park, legs hanging over the edge, feet rested on the bench in front of her, waiting for Riley to show up while she listed as many maybe situations as she could. She lived for maybes these days it seemed, as if the whole world was going out if its way to confuse her so she didn’t know up from down. Everything she thought she knew she now had to guess at. Everything she was sure of in her life before was now a maybe.
“Hey.” a warm, soft voice suddenly said, bringing her back out of her thoughts. She looked up and saw Riley’s smile. Like the other night she got the feeling he didn’t often lose or ever have to worry about losing that smile. She envied that kind of a comfort people like him could afford. She said nothing, but stretched her feet off the bench to the floor and hopped down off the picnic table. She still wasn’t sure this was anywhere near a good idea, but she’d given in and called him eventually, after Faith bugged her for a week straight.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” Buffy said. It came out quite squeaky because of how nervous she was so she paused, took a deep breath, cleared her throat and continued. “Erm…This is Buffy…from the diner.” she said hoping he would remember so she wouldn’t seem an even bigger fool than she already thought she was.
“Hey.” he replied, sounding genuinely pleased.
That however did nothing to settle her.
“I really didn’t think you were gonna call.” he said after a few seconds of silence.
For some reason Buffy felt the need for honestly, “I didn’t think I would either.” Perhaps it was so he’d know how difficult she found this, and how hesitant she was about the whole thing. She hoped if he saw that, he would make things easier on her.
“So you wanna go out sometime?”
She paused and then forced herself to answer; she was becoming tired of how meek she was being. “Yeah, sure.”
They set up a time and place and agreed to see each other there. Even though it was the reason she had called suddenly her stomach twisted, and not in a good way.
“You wanna grab a drink of something?” he asked her.
“No.” she said trying to smile, “Let’s just stay here.” She turned and sat down again, but this time on the bench, tucking her legs underneath the table and wringing her hands in front of her, as if hoping the blood would suddenly rush back to them and stop the cold freezing her bones.
There was a chill in the air today and it seemed to match Buffy’s feelings perfectly. The park was quiet and peaceful and almost lifeless, and she hated the thought of removing herself from that sort of a bubble and having to do this somewhere noisy and lively, where she would instantly be out of place and her sombreness would be highlighted like a neon sign above her head.
“Okay.” Riley said, not seemingly bothered either way, but noticing her manner. He moved round to the other side of the table and sat at the bench across from her.
“So…” Buffy drawled after a short silence, “What do you wanna to talk about?”
“I don’t know.” Riley said looking away briefly as if looking for inspiration, but in fact he was trying to think of how to explain what he wanted to say. Buffy was obviously nervous, if not uncomfortable about being here at all, and he wasn’t blind, or unsympathetic. He looked back at her and found her staring, waiting for him to tell her what to do. He noticed she looked completely lost, as if she didn’t know where she stood in the world.
He sighed, “I just want to get to know you, that’s all for now.”
Buffy wanted to relax as the pressure of this leading anywhere was slightly lessened, but she felt she couldn’t, because he wanted to know about her. At a time when she didn’t even know if she knew herself that well.
“I don’t know where to start…I…I’m not good at this.” she sounded defeated.
“At what?” he pressed.
All she did was look up at him, and then she looked down and fidgeted.
“Do you want me to tell you about myself first?” he asked, waiting for her honest answer.
She smiled, “Sure.”
And her smile made him relax, and he began talking about himself.
Buffy wasn’t really listening too much to what he was saying. He talked about Iowa and his childhood, his future plans to move back there one day; he talked and talked, and although it registered on some level, most of the stuff he said never made it to her long term memory, and she was sure she’d forget it as soon as they left the park. He said that he was in his final year doing sport sciences, which made him a few years older than her, and he talked about how he thought he wanted to go into coaching football, but she still wasn’t ready to tell him about herself, so he talked some more.
She just focused on her hands, occasionally nodding and looking up at him to fool him into thinking she was interested. However she lifted her face to him in genuine interest when he started talking about one of his friends Sam, who worked at a newspaper.
“She’s a journalist?” Buffy chimed in.
“Yeah.” he said almost laughing in shock at her sudden eagerness to talk.
“That’s what I’m studying to be.” she said, not so much telling him, just saying it. It came out in a strange tone as if she was gently reminding herself of the fact, and he just happened to be there to hear it.
“Really?” Riley beamed, pleased not only that she was finally meeting him halfway, but that he’d actually got her interested in what he was saying. Feeling on to a winner he decided to continue with the subject. “It’s not a huge newspaper, but it gets a good distribution for its size.”
“I know; I buy it all the time.” Buffy paused, and then leaned forward a bit, “So what does she actually do there?” She waited for him to answer, expecting to hear she filed papers or wrote the horoscopes or something.
“She’s working her way up the ladder pretty quickly recently.” Riley said, “In fact she’s being considered for regional editor, so if she got that she’d be managing the journalists writing the local coverage stories, well I don’t know much about that sort of stuff, but that’s how she simplifies it for me. That and she says it’ll be twenty times the work she’s doing now, and only twice the pay.”
Buffy laughed. “Still that’s an impressive title. A few more years and she could be the proper assistant editor. How old is she?”
“She’s a few years older than me, so she’s put her time in. Just getting what she deserves.”
Buffy nodded. For some reason this stupid story about some girl she’d never met had made her think about her own future. Each bit of the way she’d put herself in this girl’s shoes, as if all this success had happened to her. Like a fantasy, Buffy could almost see what it felt like to accomplish her dreams one day. And it was a damn nice feeling while she was in it, but after it left her slightly bewildered, as if she’d been on a weird trip. This was made clear when she thought she heard him say something completely crazy and out of the blue.
“What?” she said confused.
“I said, do you want me to call her for you? See if she can get you a part time job there?”
So he actually said that?