Buffy Summers left her dorm room at UC Sunnydale and headed down to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee before she went to class. As she walked down the corridor, Buffy passed a sign for Angels in America, the campus counseling group that helped students deal with their problems before they got out of control. She sighed. Moving on from Angel was going a lot more slowly and painfully than she had anticipated. Everywhere she went and everywhere she looked, she saw Angel or something or someone that remind her of him.

Still thinking about Angel, Buffy entered her English classroom and took the seat next to Willow Rosenberg.

"Hi," Willow said.

"Hi, Will," Buffy said.

"What's wrong?" Willow asked.

"Angel," Buffy answered simply.

"Still thinking about him?" Buffy nodded.

"It'll get easier," Willow said comfortingly as the teacher walked into the room.

"Today in class we are going to do in-class writing," the professor said when the class had quieted down. "I want each of you to write a short story or poem about some event in your life that profoundly affected you. You will hand them in at the end of class. Please begin."

Buffy and Willow looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders at the assignment, and opened their notebooks. Willow stared at the paper, but Buffy immediately began to write about how her break-up with Angel had affected her:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

When hope was high and life worth living

I dreamed that love would never die

I dreamed that he would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid

When dreams were made and used and wasted

There was no ransom to be paid

No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night

With their voices soft as thunder

As they tear your hope apart

As they turn your dream to shame

He spent two years by my side

He filled my days with endless wonder

He took my childhood in his stride

But he was gone when graduation came

And still I dream he'll come to me

That we will live the years together

But there are dreams that cannot be

And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be

So different from this hell I'm living

So different now from what it seems

Now I have killed the dream I dreamed