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Author's Chapter Notes:
Just an FYI: I don't have a beta, so if anyone sees any mistakes that my tired eyes haven't picked up, don't be afraid to let me know. I'd appreciate it :)

Here's number 3 ...






The worst moments of my life all have Dru in them. I don't know what that says about our friendship but that's the truth. Some are Dru's fault, some are mine and some are just life. The biggest problems I've had in life never turned out to be the ones I had worried about for weeks or months beforehand, like my exams. I was a wreck for weeks in high school before we took the SATs and Dru scolded me constantly because I wasn't being her wingman at the weekends. But then I aced them completely. 720 math, 800 verbal. I never did find out what Dru's scores were but she assured me they were higher than mine.



No, the biggest problems were things like coming in from playing outside to find my mother's lifeless body on the living room couch. I remember how white and cold her face was to this day. It's there in exact detail as if I was looking at her right now. I don't suppose it'll ever go away. I can remember that. I can't remember what happened right after I found her. All I remember is that I found her, saw her face and then I was wrapped in Dru's arms. Sometimes my dad's too but mostly Dru's. It all goes blurry then and the next thing I can remember is it being 2 in the morning and I'm lying in bed crying with Dru wrapped around me. The funeral is less of a blur but again, the most distinct part of it is the smell of Dru's hair, the feel of her hand holding mine, the sound of her voice telling me I'd always have her. Pretty strong stuff for a 10-year-old. Sometimes I think it's the trauma of that moment that cemented me and Dru together so tightly.



Xander says she uses me and I let her. But he's hardly objective, is he? He and Dru have always had this hate-hate thing going on. I've never really understood why but I always saw it as they were like two magnets drawing me in and they just couldn't help but repel each other, it was their magnet-nature. And he was never really around for the moments when Dru was my everything. She wasn't all bad. She isn't all bad now. If I didn't love her and she didn't love me there wouldn't be a problem, would there? Well anyway, he says she's a user, poison, someone who steps on me because she can - because I let her. I wonder what he'd say about this then?



I haven't told him yet. I don't want want to hear another of his rants about how Dru is the baddie. I can't listen to that right now because everything I've ever read, every movie I've ever seen and every instinct as a girl tells me that I'm the bitch in this situation. I slept with my best friend's fiance. I slept with him. It doesn't matter that I met him first, loved him first. It doesn't matter that he's the only thing in the world that's ever made me feel complete since I saw my mother's white, cold face. It doesn't matter because she has him. And I stole a piece of him for myself.



The Xander voice in my head is telling me that she did it to me first .. but she didn't. Spike chose Dru. Dru didn't steal him from me. I was standing there when it happened, after all. The memory is pretty much ingrained on my brain. I know exactly what happened.





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I'd always heard that college was a time of freedom and while that has the makings of a cheesy teen movie, it turned out to be true. For me at least. I had a piece of my life that wasn't ruled by Dru. She wasn't in it, it was mine and everything in that piece of my life was mine. And I had every intention of keeping it that way. But then I made the biggest mistake of my entire life, one for which I pay every single day.



I got scared. Like I said, I never really moved past all those pathetics hurts and insecurities of youth. Sometimes a rebellious part of me thinks that Dru never let me leave them behind but surely I let her do it to me? It's all my fault in the end and I can't blame Dru for going after what she wanted. Even if it was what I wanted too.



It happened in the middle of my senior year. Spike was looking to get into a law school after we were finished and I was thinking of maybe sticking around to get another degree, something that baffled him beyond all measure. We'd been study-buddies for most of our tenure at college, something I kept hidden in the imaginary walls of the campus. At the time I would have said I just didn't think to ask him into my life proper because we were just friends, study-buddies. But now I know I was afraid of what would happen if I took him outside those walls.



We'd been sitting in the library not too far from where we'd first met, when he asked me.



"Hey Summers," he'd said, with an uncharacteristically guarded look on his face.



"Yeah?" I said around a mouthful of cheese sandwich that I was trying to eat while hiding from the staff, because I knew their crazy policy about eating around the 'precious books'.



"What do you say we go out for a real drink this weekend, huh? Celebrate the last few months of college in style?"



I started choking. I could feel my face threatening to turn a horrible purple colour when his hand reached over to pat me on the back, helping me to swallow. When I raised my eyes to his, he had that smirk in place - the one that made my toes curl - and I couldn't help but smile at him.



"Okay," I said shyly.



"Okay?"



"Yeah. I mean I'm allowed to celebrate, after working all these years."



"You don't have to justify it to yourself, Buffy. You're allowed to have fun, you know."



"Tell that to my dad. But I am allowed, right? People go out with friends all the time and -- and we're friends, right?" I asked, wanting him to say no, not friends, Buffy! Future lovers and perfect married couple! but of course he didn't.



"Yeah, we're friends," he replied quietly.



So there it was. I had a not-sure-if-it's-a-date-but-it-might-be-a-date date with the boy I'd been in love with, at that time, for three years. The boy that quite literally had to fight off the girls with a stick. Or so he told me, but even as gullible as I was back then I found it hard to believe that he'd actually had to poke a girl with an actual stick in Biology class at his high school back in England to get her to stop asking him out. But then again, he was worth getting poked with a stick for. If you got him, that is. And I was hoping against hope that I would get him. I was hoping so much that he would finally realise I'd been in love with him since sophmore year of college and every time we got together on campus was the highlight of my life. That he was the jewel in the crown of college for me. He was my ticket to freedom - a life of my own.



Of course I should have known what would happen. I should have known not to ask her. But she was my best friend and I was scared of making a fool of myself and losing Spike altogether. So I phoned her. I just wasn't sure if he wanted to go out as my friend, which is all we'd ever been, or if he had finally seen me as a girl and wanted me the way I wanted him. So I phoned her. And she very quickly volunteered to come along. I'll be your wingman for a change, she'd said. I should have known what would happen. I'd been kidding myself for years that the hottest, smartest, sweetest, funniest guy I'd ever met would want me. Especially when a goddess like Dru was in the room. I'd always been so careful of what I said about Spike to Dru in the years he'd been just mine. I guess there was a part of me that knew as soon as he saw her and she saw him it would be over. And while I thought it would hurt, I never knew just how much it would hurt until it happened.





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I was late. I got stuck at work - the traditional coffee house college job - when a co-worker called in sick and I couldn't get Dru on her cell. So by the time I got home, changed and got to the bar they were already in there. Together. I could see his hair as soon as I walked through the door. And when my eyes focused on them I felt my heart shatter fully for the first time. But not the last.



He was perched on a bar stool in the corner with Dru practically in his lap. She had her big wide eyes open and I knew she was pulling out the big guns, which meant she liked him. A lot. And he was smiling at her, that secret little smile that always made my knees weak; the one that made me feel so special. Oh god, he was smiling that smile at her and I thought I would die right there; half in, half out the door of some cheesy bar in LA. I tried to get my feet to move but I just couldn't. I felt frozen, all my worst fears coming true right in front of me. It wasn't until I was bumped from behind and I fell forward, crashing slightly into a nearby table, that I broke out of my daze. Of course by that time I was the focus of the whole bar, including Spike and Dru, and they were making their way over to me as I stood just inside the bar, my dress now covered in some luminous alcohol that was seeping into my skin as I stood there, awaiting their arrival.



"Buffy, are you okay?" he asked me, his expression caught between anxiety and concern and all I could think was that she wanted him, she wanted him .. and she'd get him, of course. She was at that moment standing just behind him mouthing 'oh god, so hot' at me and pointing at Spike. I felt a wave of nausea fly through my body and I needed fresh air more than anything at that moment in time.



"I'm actually not feeling too great, you guys," I found myself saying, desperate to be gone, to be away from their flirtation. "That's why I'm so late. So I think I'll just head home," I mumbled, turning to leave. I heard Dru shout that she'd call me and I just couldn't believe the feeling of misery that overtook me. She'd call me. After spending a night with my Spike. Oh god, I thought I was going to be sick.



I paused on the sidewalk outside, trying to gather my thoughts and make some sense of what had happened to my dream night. I'd done what I'd always known I shouldn't have - I'd shoved Spike and Dru into each other's orbits and they, of course, chose the perfection of each other over the mousy mess that was me. The one in a million chance that he liked me the way I liked him turned out to be in fact zero in a million and whatever chance I'd had to make him really see me would have evaporated the second he laid eyes on Dru. Dru; who everyone always flocked to, who got everything and everyone I'd ever wanted. I felt a bubble of semi-hysterical laughter bubble up in my throat. Of course it happened like this. It always had in the past. Why did I think this would be any different?



"Buffy?"



I turned at the sound of his voice, swallowing my bitterness as best I could. When I looked at him my head was such a jumble of thoughts and feelings that I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn't know whether I was going to just turn and run down the street to get away from him or just start beating him over the head with my bag, screaming why don't you love me!. I settled for plastering the fakest smile on my face.



"Yeah?"



"Are you .. are you okay?" He seemed so strangely nervous and I felt my stomach drop. The idea he was aware of what I felt for him filled me with blind panic as I stood there watching him. God, I was hoping against hope he wouldn't realize I was wearing my date dress. I couldn't stand the idea of him knowing; if he'd known I loved him and was sitting there wanting Dru and thinking how he could let me down gently. God, I would've rather he hated me than pitied me.



"Sure, I'm okay. I'm just tired and covered in someone's drink," I laughed shakily. I swung my shoulder around with a fixed smile, indicating I'd just keep walking down the street, but before I could turn away he grabbed my arm and turned me back.



"No. I mean, are you okay .. you know, Dru said--"



"Oh yeah, you two. You should totally -- you'd be perfect for each other, don't you think?" I said lightly, the bile rising in my throat, my face a hair's-breadth away from cracking but I reigned it in. I don't know how but I did.



"You -- you think so?" he asked faintly.



"Sure, I've always thought you two would be great together," I lied, using up a year's worth of bravado.



"Oh," he'd said. I couldn't bring myself to look into his eyes. I could hear myself telling him I was cold and had to get home or my dress would have a luminous green patch until the end of time and then he'd let me go. I walked away down the street and couldn't imagine ever feeling worse. It was all over. Another win in the Dru column and she hadn't even really been trying that time.





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So that was that. Spike and Dru, Buffy's friends became Spike & Dru, the couple. And that's the way it's been ever since. It's been years now and it hasn't ever got any easier. Seeing them together, hearing Dru tell me how good he is to her, how passionate he is as a lover, how he worships the ground she walks on. Turns out I lost Spike anyway. Over the years he's gone from being my friend to Dru's boyfriend and while we're still in each other's lives, there's always a barrier there. Always. Dru is smack-dab in the middle of us and I can see it every time he looks at me; that wall behind his eyes that stops me from getting to really see him the way I used to.



There have been moments when I thought I'd get a reprieve. Like when Spike got the job offer in New York. I thought it would all be over. They'd move and I'd stay in LA and it would finally be over. But of course Dru couldn't have that. She'd begged me to go and even though by that time I had a job I liked and Spike looked uncomfortable and Xander knew about my feelings for Spike and desperately tried to get me to say no to her, I just couldn't. She'd cried, for god's sake. She'd cried and begged me to go with them to New York; said she couldn't live her life without me. And I went. I'm here. I moved across the country to continue to torture myself. And six months ago when we all went out to dinner and Dru told me they were getting married, I looked from Spike's surprisingly quiet face to the huge ring on Dru's finger and felt that last part of me die. The last part of hope, however wrong it was to have it. It was over. All done.



Only apparently it wasn't. I got him. For a little while. I had my moment in the sun. And in the process I betrayed not only Dru but myself too. My much-vaunted principles. I've always resented her getting what I want, what I love but I can't excuse this. I betrayed her in the worst way possible; I slept with her future husband. God knows what he was thinking on my birthday but I know what I was thinking. I was thinking .. finally. I finally got him. And the thing that makes me feel worst is that I can't even bring myself to regret it. I just can't. I had him.



I'm crying, as I knew I would be. It's the second day of my thirties and already I've started on a bum note. I can smell him on my sheets and I just can't bring myself to wash them yet. It makes me feel less alone when I can smell him on my pillow. But I know I'll have to do it eventually. Wash the sheets. Forget the night. Get on with getting on. Erase it all from my mind. But not right now. Right now I'm going to sit in my PJs on my bed and relive the feeling of when he was with me, when I finally had him after all these years. I'm still not sure if it's worse than before. Now that I know what it's like to touch him, smell him, look into his eyes. No, I'm not sure if it'll be worse in the end but I can't bring myself to care right now. He was mine for a couple of hours and before I make myself forget, I want to enjoy remembering.





TBC


Chapter End Notes:
TBC



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