So many girls, chattering, giggling, gossiping. Nervous and trying not to show it. We're doomed, all of us. We're going to die, maybe some, most likely all. Those girls know that, despite all the lies I've fed them.
We're gonna die.
It's too crowded in here. Too stifling, too much life. And to think soon, very soon, there won't be any more. This house will be empty, a shell full of memories of forgotten girls.
I wish for that peace and quiet. Wish that the burden would be dropped from my shoulders. Wish that I could be free to be what I want, do what I want.
Love who I want.
He's standing outside, in the dark. Always in the dark. In the dark about my feelings, about everything. He'd guessed it before, guessed what was in my heart. Tried to force me to admit it.
Didn't work. My silly pride and obstinacy wouldn't let me admit it. How could perfect little Buffy love a soulless monster?
Yet sometimes I wondered which one of us was truly the soulless one.
Only a soulless monster would use him like that, take everything over and over again, using him and hurting him with the same breath. Only a soulless monster could beat him down and take his self-worth just because she had none of her own. Only a soulless monster could slowly destroy him inside because she couldn't bear the thought that a dead man was more alive than her.
Only a soulless monster could destroy the man she loved in the name of righteousness.
And then he'd gone to Africa. Got a brand-new soul. For me, he'd said. So that I could satisfy my austere, hypocritical morals and feel less guilt about loving a soulless monster. Hah.
I wonder if I left my soul in heaven? No, no I don't wonder. I know. That's why I have an emptiness in my heart. Why I couldn't admit that I loved him.
But can a soulless monster like me even love?
I don't know.
And that's why I leave him standing alone out in the dark. In the cold.