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William was not entirely pleased. Although her promised to support his father’s developing relationship, he found it difficult to follow through. Rupert asked him, or practically begged him, to be a better family: one that was there for each other, not just because they had no one else, but because they wanted to be.

So, he would be the dutiful son, even if Mrs. Wilcox, the single most boring teacher he had ever seen, was the culprit. At least his father was finally acting the way a father should act. William was sick and tired of their old family lifestyle. He didn’t forgive Rupert for his shortcomings, but he wanted a new start just as much and was willing to put them aside indefinitely.

The doorbell knocked him out of his progression of thought. William yawned and looked at the clock: it was 3am. Deciding it was too late for visitors, he tried to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, the bell didn’t miss a beat as it started up again. The boy slapped his forehead in annoyance and succumbed to the call of the outdoors. He was surprised to find Angel holding a bottle of cheap vodka and smiling goofily.

“Hey! William!” he slurred slightly. “Want some?” Angel shook the bottle in an attempt to seduce William into having some. Unfortunately, he wasn’t having any of it.

“Angel, what are you doing here? Go home.”

“Hey, hey, hey! Hold up now! I’m really drunk and I can’t go home yet. Can I hang here for a while? Please?” William was still suspicious of Angel’s motives. He seemed to want to be their friend, but why would a guy like Angel want less popular ones like him and Buffy. Nonetheless, he let him in.

“Don’t you have other friends to hang out with? Maybe the ones who got drunk with you?”

“Nah, they all have their own one’s to go home to.” Angel looked slightly confused at his response, but shook it off and collapsed on Williams living room couch. “Whatchyadoin?”

“Well, I was sleeping, but now I’m talking to you.”

“Yep. Yep, you are. So…” There was a long pause between the two teenagers and neither looked at the other directly. “So,” Angel interrupted again. “So… what’s new with Buffy? Hmm?”

“She’s with her mom in D.C.”

“Oh! Right, right right! Totally I remember. So, uh…” Angel shifted his eyes back and forth over dramatically. “How far have you gone with her?”

“It’s none of your business, now is it?” William retorted, put off that he asked. However, he couldn’t be completely angry at the drunken jock.

“True. Oh boy, I remember that girl was tons of fun to fool around with. Am I right?”

“Yes…”

“I mean… she told you right? That we hooked up?”

“Yeah, she told me.” William didn’t know what he was trying to get at.

“Sweet, yeah. Let me tell you, she was the best third I ever had!” Angel belched obnoxiously as the color drained from William’s face.

“Really? Third base, huh?”

“Yeah and hell man, she was grrrreat!” He said ‘great’ like Tony the Tiger, possibly an attempt for humor, but it fell flat when William neither laughed nor spoke for a while. Suddenly, the boy stood up and grabbed Angel by his shirt.

“Are you lying to me?”

“No! What the hell would I have to for? You said she said it! Dude, what the hell?” William decided that Angel was far too drunk to make up a lie like that and sat back down in a huff.

“Nothing… I just… didn’t realize you went that far.”

“Woah man, you said she said it to you. I’m just saying.” Angel seemed completely oblivious to the other boy’s plight. William sat rigidly. He was upset by the knowledge that she lied to his face and went to third base with the idiot jock sitting across from him.

“Angel, I think you’d better go,” he said between clenched teeth.

“But I have to sober up! I can’t go home yet, you know how it is.” William rubbed his temples and nodded.

“Fine. Stay down here ‘til you sober up, and then go home. And don’t make any noise.”

“Ok dude,” he replied as he closed his tired eyes and sunk deeper into the couch.

William nodded once more and went upstairs thinking how angry he was at himself for being such a sap. When he collapsed back on his bed, he gave up on any chance for sleep.

……………………

Buffy woke up after what seemed like twenty minutes, which is why she was incredibly surprised when she looked at the clock. It blinked 7:15am, which meant she had been asleep for almost thirteen hours! She guessed she did not realize how tired she was.

Groggily, the girl stretched her aching limbs and slid out of bed. The button of her jeans was firmly implanted in her stomach and made a red and purple circle directly below her belly button. It felt tighter when she stretched some more.

Buffy wandered through the hallway to find her father. He was bound to be up for work by then. Surprisingly, it seemed that he had already left for work as three coffee cups littered the sink along with a spoon and soaking paper plate. Joyce always used to say how much of a pig he was in the kitchen. Buffy smiled and shook her head. Then, she moved to clean the dishes. What else was she going to do?

She wondered why her father wanted her there so much if he was going to work until the day she left. Hank Summers worked from Monday to Saturday night every week, which explained the infrequency of his visits.

When the dishes were cleaned and dried, Buffy stared at the many cabinets and wondered if it was worth looking through all of them to put the cups away. In the end, she decided that it wasn’t and wandered into another hallway. If anything could be said about the Summers houses, it would be their incredibly unnecessary largeness. Buffy’s house had many more rooms than were needed. Most of them were filled with knick-knacks and old clothes, if not nothing at all.

Searching through the many rooms of her father’s palace, Buffy finally came to a room with a pink star sticker on its front. Eliminating her mother and father from the possibility of owning of the peeling sticker, she assumed it was her room and opened the door.

The room was stuffed to the brim with old clothes and toys that Buffy did not even remember playing with. It was all hers though; that was definite considering the many crudely written Buffy labels written on the boxes in washable marker.

Sifting through a few of the boxes, Buffy came to a box full of tapes. Having nothing better to do, she grabbed the box and brought it to the main living room to watch them.

The first was a video of three year old Buffy in a princess costume jumping up and down yelling, “Ticky feet!” because she couldn’t pronounce “trick or treat”. Buffy laughed at her pure, undiluted adorableness. The second video was of a ten year old Buffy sitting in the front seat of her mother’s convertible pretending to drive. The third, fourth and fifth showed similar scenes of the girl growing up, but the sixth tape was different.

The sixth tape was a video filmed by Dru and Buffy when they were thirteen. They were singing spice girls into hairbrushes while they danced around her old room. Buffy’s jaw dropped when the camera flipped to show Dru alone shaking her butt at the camera and singing along to the sugary lyrics. It was the most embarrassing thing she had ever seen and she loved every minute of it.

Suddenly, an idea struck her like a mallet to the head. She had to call William.

……………………

William’s eyes were bloodshot from staring at the wall for hours. He knew he was being melodramatic and that Angel was probably lying, but he didn’t know whom to trust anymore. Part of him just wanted to stay in bed for the rest of his life to escape the trials and tribulations of his life.

The phone rang. William dragged his arm across his bed and to the nearest phone. He dragged the receiver back to his ear.

“Hello?” he grumbled.

“Hi! William? It’s Buffy.”

“Hello Buffy.”

“I miss you,” she said softly. William did not respond for fear of his voice breaking. “So, it um turns out that I am going to have to stay here until Sunday. My dad wants to spend time with me or something, which is kind of ridiculous because he’s always gone.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? What kind of answer is that?” Buffy was disconcerted by William’s monotone.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you when you get back, pet.”

“Yeah… well, the real reason I called was to tell you that I found this really embarrassing video of Dru and I was thinking that maybe we could show it to everyone. You know, to get back at her. Like, we could show it at open mic night at the Bronze.” Buffy’s idea was met with complete silence. “William?”

“I’m here,” he yawned.

“Ok, so what do you think?”

“Sounds kind of mean if you ask me. That kind of puts you on the same level as her.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Buffy, it’s 7am, I haven’t slept fifteen minutes all night and frankly I can’t talk right now.” There was a pause, and then Buffy responded with a strained tone.

“Um… ok. I’m sorry to have called. Talk to you later. Bye Wi-“

“Wait!” William did not want to end the conversation on bad terms, especially because he missed her so much. “I have a question for you.”

“I thought you couldn’t talk?” she started sounding angry. William pictured her with her hand on her hip. In normal circumstances, he might have laughed at the image.

“It’s just that… well, Angel came over last night drunk as hell and he said… he said that you guys went to third base?” He prayed that Angel was wrong. However, the lengthy hiatus that followed proved otherwise. “Buffy?”

“Why does it matter?” her voice was shaky over the receiver.

“Why does it- Buffy, it matters because that means you lied to me! And you lied about that jock idiot to my face!”

“I’m sorry William, it just didn’t seem important at the time to talk about how far we-“

“No! I can’t talk about this anymore.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just thrown by this. I miss you and I wish you were here, but for now I think we should I don’t know… think? For a while?” She didn’t want to agree; every fiber of her being told her to say no, but she felt awful for lying to him. She didn’t realize what it would mean at the time.

“Ok, William. I guess… I’ll talk to you in a few days then.” She promised she wouldn’t cry until she hung up the phone.

“Ok. Goodbye Buffy,” he said as he hung up and dropped the phone. This was the best plan of action for it was the most logical one.

But William was never a logical man when it came to matters of the heart. This was the thought that brought his hand back to the phone to dial her number. Buffy picked up and sniffled loudly.

“Hello?”

“I’m an idiot.”

“What?”

“I’m an idiot and a bad, rude man. Forgive me?” He heard a sigh of relief on the other line.

“Oh, thank god,” she said before giggling. “I thought you weren’t going to speak to me again.” William chuckled as well.

“Why does every problem between us seem like the end of the world, luv?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe it’s because we are each other’s world… or something like that.” William smiled and subconsciously twisted his finger through the telephone chord.

“Definitely. I miss you so much, luv.”

The two continued talking and planning Dru’s demise for a while. And what neither of them realized was that a very pissed off Angel stood eavesdropping at the bottom of the stairs.





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