I am not looking forward to today. I seem to be perpetually stuck in rewind of Christmas’ past with my mom. Of course those lead to thoughts of Christmas’ past with my dad too. When we were all big one happy family.
What a joke.
It’s weird how you can be going along one day, happy as a clam, thinking nothing can penetrate you and then something happens to make your whole fuckin’ world unravel. It changes everything, sends you spinning and catapults you into a whole new direction you never even contemplated before and has you doing and feeling things that you never thought you’d do or feel.
I think about how you never really know a person. I was watching the news last night with Spike and all it was, was murder, murder, murder. There was this woman and child that were murdered by her husband in their bed. They’d been married for six years, they had a business together and then he just off’s her and their child. He says they had money problems and he’d gotten them in debt and didn’t want to drag her into the misery of it. How fucking sick is that? This woman, this woman who had a child with her husband, had no clue that her husband, the man she loved, was capable of something like that. She had no idea that one day; he would just flip out and kill her.
Spike said that you can tell certain things about people, but you just chalk it up to them being ‘weird’, and that it’s just part of them. That they must convince themselves that they wouldn’t really do that because no one thinks that anyone is going to do something like that and especially not to them, because everyone always thinks they’re the exception to shitty things happening to them. So, the inclination that the one you’re with could murder another is felt and thought of, but it’s just put aside as a quirk. Strange. And the idea that you think you’re impervious to all the bad that could happen is, I feel now, ludicrous. Life can be so damn random.
For example: My mother probably never knew that something would set my father off enough one day that he’d drink himself into oblivion on a regular basis and sleep with whore’s. And I bet my father never knew he would one day do that too. Or did he? There must be some kind of sickness inside another that just snaps one day, facilitating a chain of events that you can’t control or comprehend.
I bet my mother never would have thought that Spike and I would be living under the same roof and caring for one another as we do. I don’t even know how to define what he and I are. But we’re something. We’re something so much that sometimes I feel it’s going to swallow me whole. And I can’t stop.
I’m sorry, Momma.
Looking around the living room, at the wrapping paper and open gift bags, sitting with Spike in front of the glittering Christmas tree, Buffy smiled. “Wow, we went all out,” she observed.
Spike grinned. “Did you really like the ring I got you, luv?”
“Of course! It’s got my birthstone and my mother’s. What’s not to love about it?”
“You don’t think it’s creepy?”
Buffy laughed. “No. I figure one day when I have kids I’ll add onto that. I want my mom’s stone, my children’s, and mine. Did you like the books I got you?”
“Naturally. Just not gonna be able to share my love of poetry with too many.”
Buffy shrugged and stood. “Oh, I’m sure Fred might appreciate it.” She couldn’t help the slight bitterness in her tone though she tried to keep it out.
“Pet--”
“Can we make cinnamon toast now? I’m starving.”
Spike sighed, “Sure luv.”
“What did you and my mom do on Christmas?” Buffy asked over dinner later that evening.
“Pretty much what we did today; open presents, eat, watch TV. Every once in a while we would go out to dinner.”
“Oh, that must have been nice,” Buffy said softly, picking at her food.
“You all right, love?”
She nodded. “Just thoughtful.”
“What did you do?”
“Had TV dinners or pasta and watched TV.”
“Buffy…”
“What?”
“That’s…just…”
“Sad and pathetic?” she offered. “I know it is.”
“And your Dad…?”
“He was too busy with his new wife and kids. He never invited me to come over and I never bothered to ask after the first Christmas came and passed.” She looked down at her plate. “I had too much pride.”
“I don’t think it’s that, Buffy, not in that case.”
“Then what is it then?”
Spike sighed, and settled back in his chair. “I think you were smart. You protected yourself from getting more hurt by his either blatant refusal to see you or by treating you like shit the whole time you were there. You didn’t need that shit.”
She smiled, “You’re angry.”
“Damn straight I’m fucking angry! That man has caused more pain in this family…I hate him, Buffy. I’m sorry to say it, but I do.”
“I know.”
“He hurt you…and Joyce of course.”
“Right,” Buffy agreed, nodding.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be…I get it. You know what really sticks in my craw?”
“What?”
“That no matter how much I hate him… I still love him, too.”
December 25, 2005
Buffy started packing after helping me do the dishes after dinner. She was running up and down and all around gathering her laundry. She’s supposed to be gone for a week, but she’s packing for more like two weeks.
I’m trying to fend off the gigantic ache I have in my chest at the thought of her leaving. I keep thinking ‘It’s only one week’, but I haven’t been without Buffy for two months now. The house is going to be so empty and huge without her. What will I do with myself? Where will I go? I feel so ridiculous thinking like this…I’m a grown man; I can survive just fine on my own. I don’t need to have Buffy here to take care of me…or is it that I take care of her in turn that I’ll miss the most? Not that she needs much tending to, but she has those moments when she’s sullen and retreats within herself, or lashes out and needs someone to talk to.
Angel doesn’t get her. And honestly, I don’t think it’s his fault. I think it’s hers. She doesn’t let him in, doesn’t tell him the things that go on in her mind and doesn’t let him see her pain. For that reason alone, I know this relationship is doomed to fail. So why does she stay? Why does she bother—for that matter, why does he?
Spike barely slept the night before. He’d spent the night tossing and turning, thinking of Buffy leaving, thinking of him being alone, thinking of her deciding she didn’t need him anymore.
When he heard her in the early morning getting ready to go, he got up to make coffee and breakfast for her.
She came down, lugging her suitcase, a duffel bag, and a backpack. Bursting through the kitchen, she heaved a sigh. “Damn, I have a lot of crap.”
Spike chuckled, “You’re going for a week, and you’ve packed for two.”
“No, a month. I packed for a month.”
Spike laughed, “What am I going to do with you?”
Buffy grinned, “Love me. That’s all you can do.”
His breath hitched, and more than anything he wanted to reach out, touch her face, and draw her in…
Then guilt and disgust kicked in and put a wet blanket on the rising emotion swelling inside him. Something that was considered pure was perverse in this case. It was tearing at him; eating at him…it was driving him mad.
When Angel arrived, grumbling about Buffy’s bags, Spike and Buffy stood, facing one another while Angel loaded the car with her things and just stared at each other.
Then she launched herself on him. “You sure you’ll be all right?”
“I will,” he managed to get out through the sob clogging his throat.
“I’m going to miss you. I’ll be home soon.” And she kissed him quickly. Before he could react, she ran out and he let her go, feeling he’d just lost a limb.
Chapter Sixteen
“I’m here. You all right?”
Spike smiled into the phone, relaxing now that he knew she had landed safe and sound. “I’m fine. Are you in the hotel?”
“I am. It’s pretty sweet let me tell you. It’s like an apartment. It’s got a living room, a kitchen…I could live here.”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
Buffy laughed, “I won’t. What are you doing?”
“I was reading with the TV on.”
“What are you doing later?”
“I don’t know. Kind of flying by the seat of my pants.”
“Angel is already driving me nuts. Think I’d get into a lot of trouble if I drown in him in the ocean?”
Spike laughed, “Yeah, I think so. Why is he driving you nuts?”
“He’s just being…him.”
“Buffy…what are you doing with him?”
“Oh, no you don’t. No deep talks now, buddy boy! Listen, I gotta go. He wants to eat,” she sighed with great exaggeration, “Such a simple man. I will call you tonight. Love you!”
The ‘love you’ thing was a first. Spike decided he liked it.
December 29, 2005
All right, so this being alone thing is not that bad. It’s not great, mind you, but it’s not bad. I’ve kept busy. I’ve gone to work and all, and when I’m done, I come home and do some things around the house that I keep saying I’m meaning to do but never do. So far, I’ve washed the windows, weeded the garden, mowed the lawn and started cleaning out the basement.
Fred has called a few times. I don’t call her she calls me. We have plans tomorrow night for dinner and a movie. I suppose in certain circles this is considered a date, but I don’t think of it as one. I think of it as … hanging out. Making a new friend. I can’t consider it dating because…because I just can’t. I can’t because of Buffy, which leads me to Joyce, and then back to Buffy and Christ, I do think too much.
Buffy has called; informing me of her activities and making sure I’m all right. I think when I told her I was finding things to do she was a bit put out by it. Now she knows how I have felt when she goes out with Angel. It’s sick isn’t it? It is. It really is. And now that I seem to be doing well enough on my own, and now that I know I am not wallowing in grief when made to be alone, I feel that my need for Buffy is changing to something greater. Something that is going to bury me alive.
I’m drowning in her.
December 31, 2005
Angel and I broke up. I ended it, though he’d probably say he was the one that did it. He doesn’t get me and he thinks he does and it just grates on me. Why have I stayed with him? Spike asked me that and I had no answer for him. I have the answer now, I have had it, but I just felt like such a bitch for thinking it.
I kept him around because he passed the time, because he amused me, because he was so simple and I could easily confuse and bewilder him. I liked that I was a puzzle he tried to figure out but failed to do so. And that was my fault. I only gave him a piece here and a piece there. The only one that’s gotten all of me is Spike.
Angel told me I was in love with Spike, and that Spike was in love with me. He accused me of secretly harboring desire for my dead mother’s husband and told me I was sick and demented. I don’t even know how it started…
Oh yeah. I wanted to call Spike to see how he was. Angel started on one of his diatribes about how I was dependent on him and I should let him be and this was our vacation together and blah, blah, blah. I got sick of hearing him and told him to shut the fuck up and that as per usual, he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. And that made him snap and that’s when the accusations started.
I broke up with him then. Then he said something really cheesy like “don’t bother cause I’m breaking up with you!” I told him “You’re an idiot.” I left him at the beach we were at and told him I’d find my own way back to the hotel. Well, he hightailed it out of there soon after, tearing off in his rented car and checking himself out of the hotel before I could get there and just leaving me a ticket home.
I was going to call Spike and tell him, say, “You won’t believe what just happened”, but I couldn’t. That was not an area I could get into with Spike. He’s in love with my mother still, and yeah, we are dependent on each other – though it never bothered me the way it has apparently bothered Spike which is why he told me to go on this goddamn trip to begin with.
It’s gotten me thinking of the past two months: Of me, Spike, and our living together-- the whole thing. Angel was right. Or rather, is right. The way I feel. I think he’s right. Funny. I go from “he is right” to “I think he’s right”. Because it’s wrong. It’s wrong and I’ve done so well and at denying it all this time. I have. I really have. I haven’t really even written about it or thought it and if it does pop in my head, I shove it out.
And now I’m crying and I’m confused and my instinct is to call Spike and make him tell me that it’s all right…but I can’t share this. It’s sick and it’s wrong and he’d tell me that much if I told him. I couldn’t bear him telling me it’s sick and it’s wrong…or just that he couldn’t even think of me that way because I’m his stepdaughter and he still loves my mother…my mother. God, Mom, I’m so fucking sorry for this! I’m so sorry, God, please forgive me.
“How was your New Year’s? What did you do? I tried calling,” Buffy said on New Year’s Day as soon as Spike picked up the phone.
“Hi, luv. I went to L.A. with Fred. Couldn’t hear my phone at all and then it died on me.”
“Did you have fun?”
“I did. We just sort of hung around the city, checking stuff out. What have you been up to?”
“Angel and I broke up.”
“What?””
“You sound angry. Why are you angry? I thought you’d be happy to know I wasn’t with the ‘ponce’ anymore.”
“Pet, I just don’t like knowing you’re hurt. And that you spent New Year’s Eve alone.”
She snorted, “I’m not hurt. I’m fine. I’m a trooper remember? I’ve been through much worse than Angel could ever do to me.”
“You never really cared for him, have you?”
“Gee, ya think?”
“No need to be cheeky luv.”
“Sorry.”
“Now I know you’re upset if you’re apologizing.”
Buffy took a deep breath. “Spike.”
“What, luv?”
“I’m…I’m gonna stay here a while longer I think.”
Silence, then, “What do you mean?” he whispered.
“I mean, I think I’m gonna take some time here and not come home tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I…I think I need to.”
“Buffy, I want you to come home.”
“I know and I do want to …sort of…but I think I need to take a bit of time for myself.”
“Is it possible that you cared for Angel more than you let on, Buffy?”
“No…really not. He was just…Passing Time Boy.”
“Then…why?”
“Spike, please. I can’t talk about it right now.” And now she was starting to cry. I want you to love me! And you can’t and I can’t, and I don’t know how to make these feelings stop. I just want them to stop so I won’t feel so goddamn bad….
“I miss you,” he whispered.
“I won’t be long.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”