CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHARLIE: BUFFY
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:Friday, 13th October 2000:
My reluctance to expose myself becomes aversion, turns to near nausea. Deep breaths! Deep breaths! With an act of will, I set my mouth in motion.
"Before I got to be the Slayer, there were only two real people in my world. Me and Dawn." I avoid their gaze. I don't want to see the dismay, the disgust, and worst of all, the distrust which I know, as I tell this story, will seep into Willow's green-flecked hazel eyes, into Tara's blue-green ones. "Mom and Dad were... pets, favorite possessions. I was kinda fond of them but didn't love them. Everyone else? Pawns, threats, scenery. If I wanted something and Dawn was in my way, I wouldn't hesitate to screw her over. I'd feel guilty, she was the one person who 'deserved' that privilege, and make it up to her. But I came first."
I stop, close my eyelids, to gauge Will's and Tare's reaction. The sound of their breathing tells me nothing. I can hear the distant, whiny buzz of a fly.
"I hadn't always been like that. I don't know when I turned into such a bitch or when it started, even. Perhaps when Der Kinderstod killed Celia, perhaps in junior high. But what matters is that I became small, selfish and spiteful."
"Celia? Der Kinderstod?" asks Tara as I pause again.
"Celia was my cousin. Der Kinderstod was a monster. I was eight when Cele died."
"Buffy saw her die." Willow tells her.
Tare touches my arm, squeezes it. "Oh, honey."
I jerk my arm from her gentle grasp. I don't want to be pitied. I so don't.