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-- updating ch. 19,20,21 in a chunk --

Chapter 20 Just say it

Thursday, July 31th 2005

Nineteenth Entry.

After that morning on Monday, I saw him every day for the rest of the week. Every morning, he was my alarm clock, singing to me and playing his guitar. Every night, he held me until I fell asleep. His face was the last image in my head at night and the first thing I saw in the morning. Every day, he told me he loved me.

I didn’t say much in these visits. Many times, I wouldn’t even let him come near me. The pain was just too much and my heart broke with every touch. Sometimes, I would just listen to him talk and stare at the wall. I hardly ever responded to him. I certainly wasn’t warm.

Thursday, June 2nd, 2005

By Thursday night, I was consumed by the numb sensations running up and down my back. I felt as if I couldn’t feel anything… everything I touched was just icy and cold and I could never comprehend what it was underneath my fingers. I was hardening. I was becoming a shell.

And when he crawled through my window for the fourth day in a row, I suddenly found my outlet. I couldn’t stop myself from jumping into his surprised arm, nearly toppling him over. He was hot under my icy skin and he was a living fire that I needed.

I nearly killed him, I think, when I pressed my lips to his, devouring him practically whole. I was urgent… I needed him, I needed the heat he provided, I needed what he made me feel.

“Buffy?” his voice mumbled beneath my lips, but I cut him off with my probing tongue. He kissed me back and my heart sighed in relief. His arms went around my waist as he staggered over to my bed and deposited me onto the sheets. As I fell back, he followed and soon, I felt the full weight of him against my body, pinning me to the mattress. I was alive.

I had forgotten how delicious his mouth was as our urgent tongues dueled it out and I had forgotten how he could make me shiver with just a finger running the length of my body.

“I need you – “ I gasped when we pulled away for a long breath. His eyes were clouded and his chest heaved.

“Buffy,” he breathed before capturing my lips again. Both his hands sought out mine and our fingers intertwined as if they did it everyday. He ran his hands up my arm, then slid them down my upper body, resting them on my hips. I couldn’t get enough of him and before I knew it, my hands were slipping under his shirt and working to lift it over his head.

“… Buffy?” he asked me quietly as I flung the black shirt across the room and pushed him over so he was lying on his back. “What are we doing?”

“Feeling good,” I whispered in his ear before viciously biting it, eliciting an enticingly erotic hiss from him. “I wanna feel good.”

I licked a line up his neck and along his jaw, then sprinkled kisses under his chin. “Tell me you love me,” I pleaded in his other ear.

“God, Buffy,” he panted, “I love you. You know I do.”

He cupped my face in his hands and reached up to kiss me sweetly. I opened my mouth to let him in and our tongues danced together. A beautifully languid dance that I missed so much. Feeling his body under me and his mouth against mine slowly began to calm me down. I knew it couldn’t go further than this, and the fire that I sought out from him had been given to me and now I knew I had to put it out. I didn’t want to do something I regretted.

“Can you just… kiss me?” I asked, silently after we broke away.

He smiled and kissed me again.

His lips were tender and soft and his movements were slow and fluid. We stayed like that for a long while, tasting each other, reveling in the feel of each other. After a few moments of silence, he asked, “What happened, love?”

“It’s weird,” I told him, rolling over to my side and wrapping an arm around his waist.

“Need more than that,” he grinned, kissing my forehead.

I buried my head in the crook of his neck and sighed. “I kind of felt like my entire body was given a Novocain shot. I needed you.”

“You have me,” he told me.

I smiled. “I know.”

He left a little past midnight when he thought I was asleep. I kept my eyes closed as he gently lifted himself up from the bed and walked across the room to retrieve his shirt. Before he left, he kissed my forehead and told me he loved me.

I opened my eyes as I saw him position himself over the window to grab a hold onto the branch of the tree he was preparing to climb down. I went back to sleep, smiling.

Maybe…. just maybe, things could get better.

Friday, June 3rd, 2005

Then Friday rolled along and I was proven wrong. He came back to me late at night the next day – Friday - and I knew from the moment I heard a branch snap from outside my window that something bad had happened. Or something bad was about to happen.

“Buffy, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

I looked up from my homework to see him climbing through my window the same way he had climbed in every single other night of the week. At his words, my mind started racing and the world around me seemed to spin a little faster than usual.

“Leaving,” I repeated slowly. Maybe he didn’t mean what I thought he meant.

He paced around the room, restlessly. “The plane for London leaves tomorrow at noon,” he told me, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t know until this morning. Apparently, Cec told me about it first thing when she arrived. But I swear I didn’t hear a bloody thing until this morning.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage. I bit my lip then asked, “How long until you get back?”

It occurred to me then that when he came back, he would more than likely be a married man. Would I be ready to take that? Was I ready to let him go? He already said that he would stay if I asked him to, right? Was that just because he thought I was carrying his baby? Or was it because of me.

“Not for at least a month or two,” he told me, still walking the length of my room. He refused to look at me and I could see his jaw working itself into a knot.

“Oh.”

I couldn’t say anything else. All the questions I wanted to ask him… I couldn’t. He stopped walking and suddenly turned towards me. “Buffy…?”

“Have a good time,” I cut him off, turning around to get back to my homework. Something in me clamped up and I couldn’t really breathe anymore. I took a couple of deep breaths and closed my eyes, forcing my guts to stay in my stomach.

“Love?”

I didn’t let him finish. “You’re a great dad. I’m sure of it. Just … go and be with your family.” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. His family. He wasn’t even married… yet.

“Buffy… I – “ he tried again, and again, I stopped him.

“And make,… and make sure you keep yourself safe,” I was starting to ramble, but I couldn’t help it. “Take pictures! Lots of pictures… and send me postcards. I hear it’s cold in London… rainy, too. Maybe you should bring extra layers instead of tha-”

“Buffy…“ he raised his voice a little, but I couldn’t bring myself to face him.

“I’ll miss you,” I rushed out.

“Buffy!”

“What?” I quickly wiped a tear from my eye before he could notice and turned around to finally look at his face. It was contorted in… something that seemed like pain. His eyes were shining, probably from tears. He looked desperate for something. Something I couldn’t quite put a finger on.

“Please… try to listen…” he begged me, quietly.

“Listening. I’m all ears Buffy,” I attempted a smile. It didn’t work. Even if it did work, it wouldn’t matter because he wasn’t looking at me anymore. His stare was fixated on a picture hanging on my wall.

“I love you.”

He said it reverently. He said it in a way that let me know that he was completely serious. Oh. I tried collect the tide of thoughts rushing all over. I love you, too.

“I know,” I managed. He tore his gaze from the picture and faced me. He took a step closer and accentuated his words.

“I don’t want to leave…”

Don’t… I love you… My brain - my heart - was screaming at me, but my mouth wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t say what I wanted – I needed – to say.

“But it’s the right thing to do.”

Silence. I gritted my teeth. It didn’t feel like it was the right thing for him to do. His eyes dropped to the floor then flew back up to mine.

“Remember what I told you that night?” he asked, almost pleadingly. “When you told me about… the baby? That I would – that I would do whatever you wanted me to do?”

Stay… I love you, I begged. But the words never left my mouth.

“The only thing I want you to do, is to be happy… be with your family… “

What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I tell him? My throat felt completely dried up and I tasted a bitter tinge at the tip of my tongue. His face fell.

“Right,” He paused. “My family. Buffy – “

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you… I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed hard. I tried to say it.

“Please, don’t make this harder than what it is,” I whispered. I felt like I was falling off a cliff. He looked like he just fell off a cliff. Why was it so hard?

“It doesn’t have to be hard…”

I love you…

I took a deep breath. “Spike, I – “ I couldn’t say it. God help me, I couldn’t say it. I loved him so much and I couldn’t even bring myself to tell him.

“Yeah?” he looked up, hopeful. Say it.

“I’m going to miss you,” I said quickly. His eyes widened and mine swelled up in tears. I brought my hands to my face and tried to control my breathing.

“Oh,” his shoulders slumped. None of us said anything for a while. The temperature rose a few degrees and you could almost cut the tension with a knife. “I’ll miss you, too. I love you.”

I love you!! I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout it to the world. I wanted to jump into his arms and whisper it into his ears again, and again, and again. I was going to yell out from rooftops and bellow it across the Pacific ocean. I was going to jump for joy and proclaim my love forever. I took a deep breath and said… “Yeah, you told me.”

Pathetic. Sad.

He looked away. He couldn’t even bear to look at me anymore. “Oh. Yeah.”

Stay with me…

“You should go.”

He took a deep breath. Or a few. “I suppose I should.” He reached me in two quick steps, hugged me for two quick seconds, then was out of the door before I could even blink an eye.

My head fell against my desk and I started to cry. Why couldn’t I tell him I loved him?

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A/N: One more chapter of diary entry left... and then we'll be going into third person and to the present time.





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