I'm Still Anne
By M. Bumbarger
I got to thinking about her the other day. Not that I don't think about her a lot 'cause I do. She believed in me. She trusted me. She made me believe in myself. So, I do think about her a lot. At night, when I'm in bed, and the shelter is mostly quiet, or when I'm just sitting by the window staring out of it. I think about her whenever a new kid wanders in off the streets that wants our help. Whenever there's a new face who's decided that he doesn't want to sell drugs or she doesn't want to pimp her body or they realize there's things out there in the dark that are just as bad as gang bangers and crooked cops.
It's funny, but I never thought that I would think that vampires and the things that really do go bump in the night are as bad a gang bangers, or a kid beat beyond recognition 'cause she didn't want pay up what her pimp thought she should or because she tried to work the wrong corner. It's all a perspective thing, I guess. At least with vampires, you know, they get you, one bite and you're pretty much dead. Or like them. But what I see . . . what those kids see and live through everyday . . . hell, vampires aren't so bad after all.
I'm making it now. I'm making it and I'm making a difference, but still I always come back and think about her. You know, Buffy. I wonder what happened when she went back to Sunnydale. I wonder if she actually went back to that place. I mean, it was like she was going to, like she finally figured out that she couldn't run and had to go back and stand her ground, but you never know. I mean, she seemed so strong, but you never know about people really. She seemed strong back when I called myself Chantrelle and a bunch of us thought that vampires would free us when all they really wanted to do was make us dinner. She seemed strong, like she had it all together, but then she ended up in LA, barely holding it together and trying to be something that she wasn't. Just like me. So, maybe she wasn't as strong as we thought.
But I kinda wonder if she ever made it back and ended up dealing with her demons. And I wonder if she ever thinks about me, down here in LA. I wonder if she sometimes stops and looks around and wonders if I'm still doing what I was doing or if I'm actually trying to pull it together.
I wonder how surprised she would be to know that I have pulled it together. I am somebody now. People look up to me, they respect me. There's a whole mess of kids out there – runaways and throwaways – who know that I'm here for them if they need me. They know that they've got somewhere to go and somebody who understands because I've been there.
But I don't think that I would be here right now, doing this if it hadn't been for Buffy. I know I wouldn't be – I would be old and dead just like Ricky. Or maybe cut up and beat up like Rosalie who came through last week. Or shot dead like T-Bone for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I definitely wouldn't be here; I wouldn't be making a difference.
That's why I kept the name Anne. I mean, officially. Went through all the paces to change it legally and everything. Lilah Morgan at Wolfram & Hart helped out with that – pro bono. A little bit of paperwork, and I'm really Anne. No one knew me before I was Anne and that's a good thing – I don't think they would have recognized me anyway.
So, here is Anne, doing good and making a difference. Doing all those things that "Anne" did for me – leaving hope and helping out. Showing the way.
The kids love me, they thank me for helping them. They thank me for seeing them as real people when no one else did or would or could. And it makes me feel good inside. Two years ago, I wouldn't have thought that it was possible to feel this good inside, to look in a mirror and be able to really like what you see there. Two years ago, I really wouldn't have wanted to look in a mirror.
"Anne" helped me see the light. She helped me find my way. And I don't know if she's back to being Buffy Summers now, or if she's still running from whatever she was running from.
But I do know one very important thing.
I'm still standing.
I'm still Anne.
*** End ***