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William held her on his lap for a long time after her tears and protestations that he did not love her had subsided. Her body trembled now and then with the last of her sobs, and now she was quiet, her face pressed into the crook of his neck, her hot breath fanning across his neck. He stroked her back and intermittently pressed kisses to her forehead. He thought perhaps she was asleep, but he wasn’t sure.

“I know they were wrong,” she whispered.

He waited, giving her time to continue.

“I told myself over and over that they were cold and heartless. Each new dig they made, I told myself that I’d rise above it; that I’d show them. The problem was that was what it became about. Showing them. I wanted to prove to them so much that I wasn’t all those things they said, but all I did was prove they were right the harder I tried.”

“They weren’t right, Buffy. You’re not what they said—“

“I am. You were right; I do try to have this cold front, and I try to come off as if I don’t care. The thing is though, inside, I care. I want so desperately to feel accepted, and then if I am in some way, it’s so foreign a concept to me that I can’t handle it. That doesn’t make any sense does it?”

“It does. You’re not used to it. You keep everyone at arms length, you don’t let anyone get close enough for even the possibility of feeling that acceptance.”

“I let people down, inevitably. I let them down. No matter how hard I tried, it just wasn’t good enough. All I wanted was some recognition, a nod for crying out loud, that I did well. But there was always something else to prove. Take that and then add in my sixth sense and there you have someone that alienates herself even more. Dru always let things roll off her back, and I tried so hard to be like that and I could never master it. She didn’t care what people thought of her. I always wanted to be like that.”

“Some people have that natural ability, pet, others don’t. We’re all wired differently. You know, I wasn’t always the self – assured, debonair man you see before you.”

She tried to hold it back, but soon a laugh escaped.

“Knew I could get a laugh,” he smiled. “My father growing up used to ride me hard about getting ahead. I think he expected me to have found what I wanted to do at the age of ten, and let me tell you, fireman was not on his list. While I wanted to be out playing with my friends, he wanted me to read and study, be holed up in a study the way he always was. You know, I don’t think I ever saw my parents show any affection for one another, not even once. He wanted me to be a genius and he was disappointed that I wasn’t. So, he thought he could make me one. I rebelled more, as I got older, became a punk that got in a lot of trouble. He pretty much disowned me, which only angered me further. He wouldn’t even try anymore; he’d just shake his head at me and walk away. He died when I was seventeen. Heart attack. My last words to him were “So long, Pops” as I was walking out the door to meet my friends. He’d tried talking to me that day about my future, and I wanted none of it. I left saying that with a wave of my hand, discarding him.”

“What happened to your mom?”

“She married shortly after his passing to the pharmacist. I always wondered why we had so many bottles of aspirin.”

Buffy giggled softly and the sound was music to his ears. “What happened after?” Buffy asked.

“Uncle Rupert became a father figure to me. I went to him and told him that I felt guilty; I told him what my last words were to my father. I think I thought that if he could forgive me, then it’d be like my father forgiving me. He told me that life is short and we have to make the most of what we have, that holding grudges and holding on to the negative things isn’t a healthy way to live. He was convinced that my father was too caught up in the ‘what might have been’s’ in his own life that it ultimately killed him. He gave it to me straight that my father wanted to be a mini-him only better, but that probably wouldn’t have suited him either; me surpassing him.”

“He told you that?” Buffy asked in awe.

“He did. He was right, of course. My father was always jealous of what other people had in terms of success. He always wanted to know more. He wanted to be that genius he tried to mold me into. And as much as I was angry with myself for how things had been left before my father died, I was also incredibly angry with him. It took me a long time to stop being angry at him, and when I finally let that anger go, I forgave myself as well.”

“When did you decide what you wanted to do?”

“Shortly after he died. I had always been a high honor student; I just never let him know I was. I let him think I was a fuck up. Hard working student by day, and hoodlum by night. After that I quit being a hoodlum and focused on going the straight and narrow. I resented the hell out of him for finally getting what he wanted out of my guilt.”

“Wow. I never knew all that. How come you never shared?”

He shrugged, “It’s part of who I am, but not all. It helped mold me into who I am today, but it didn’t make me who I am. And that’s the same with you, Buffy. It’s all in realizing what you are and who you are, not what they want and what they expect. I hate to say it, but you’re never going to live up to their expectations, and you shouldn’t. What have they done to deserve all that’s wonderful about you?”

“Is this where you get self-help on me and start telling me that its their problem they can’t see how ‘wonderful’ I am and not mine?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head and tried to disengage from him. He held her fast, and made her look at him. “It’s true, Buffy. Your parents are people that never should have had children in the first place. For some bizarre reason, they decided to reproduce and then took sport out of trying to ruin their kids.”

“Then how is it Dru came out fine and I didn’t? What is wrong with me?”

“Nothing is wrong with you, Buffy. You and Dru are two different people, that’s all. You can’t beat yourself up for not being like Dru. Instead you should be celebrating who you are.”

“I’ve never been comfortable in my own skin, William.” This time, she succeeded in climbing off his lap and she stood before him. He stood as well, facing her. “The fact is that I can get that my parents were horrible, that I’m a perfect child of the universe and all those other self-help things that you and Dru and anyone else can tell me until I’m blue in the face. You can tell me how wonderful I am, you can tell me what it is I need to do to block out their teachings and ‘come into my own’, but the fact of the matter is, that none of that means anything unless I believe it. You think that by saying you love me – and just when I find out that Dru was seeing you about me, mind you that you start saying it –“

He opened his mouth to cut her off and she held up her hand to stop him.

“You think that by telling me what it is I need to do, or how I need to feel, or how I should think is going to somehow just click in my brain in like magic. That I’m going to have this epiphany, and the skies will open up and angels will start singing and finally, finally, will I see the light. People have epiphanies every day William. You know how many ‘They were so wrong’ moments I’ve had? Several. A million. It still hasn’t changed the way I feel about myself. And I’ve read enough self-help books to know that until I can change that I feel like hell about myself, nothing will change.”

“Your problem is, you have a setback and you think automatically that all they said to you, and all that you feel about yourself is just confirmed by that one rejection or let down! You don’t have any faith in yourself! You let it go too easily. You don’t think, ‘The hell with them bastards for thinking I’m nothing!’ You don’t fight the right way, Buffy.”

“I don’t do a lot of things the right way, William,” she murmured.

“Buffy—“

“I tried once, you know.”

“What?”

“To kill myself. I tried once. I had the razor against my wrist. I went down a centimeter and freaked out. You’d have thought that would have turned me around, but it didn’t. It just made me think that it was one more thing I failed at. Maybe Dru was right.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that,” William told her harshly, shaking.

“William, I’m tired,” she said, defeated. “Just go home.”

“No, I am not going home. If you think I’m leaving you after what you just said—“

“I’m not going to kill myself! Didn’t you hear me? I failed. I got scared.”

“Buffy—“

He was cut off by a loud crash that sounded as if it came from the room next to them. Buffy jumped a mile and then rushed in the room, William hot on her heels. The room had sheets all over the scarce furniture in the room. A lamp had fallen over and crashed to the floor, shards of glass scattered everywhere. William held her back from walking on it, but Buffy’s attention was on the wall. Where she’d taped up the paint samples – what day did she do that? -- the samples were on ripped up and scattered on the floor in little pieces. And, the rug samples she’d put in there, were torn to shreds and scattered with them.

“Bloody hell,” William whispered.

“Think it’s time a little cleansing was done,” Buffy said, incensed. “Damn ghosts aren’t going to get the best of me. I’m the living! You’re not going to scare me away!”

“Now that,” William stated, “Sounds more like it.”





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