Title: The Cordelia Diaries: Agony

Author: Cassandra Mulder

E-mail: dana_mulder32@yahoo.com

Website: http://www.envy.nu/angelmine

Written: October 24, 2001

Rating: PG

Classification: Cordelia journal entry; C/A; extreme angst

Distribution: You can have it if you want it, but you gotta ask me first! :)

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: None of this, not even Angel himself (though oh, how I wish and wish!), belong to me. "Angel" is the property of Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt, Mutant Enemy Productions (grrr...argh), 20th Century Fox, and the WB. Don't sue, I'm cursed and can't find a job. That means no money!

Summary: Angel finds out what Cordelia already knew.

Author's Notes: If you read this, and think "Man, this is coming from a dark place!", you betcha it is, buddy! Throw together a little depression, a little hormonal episode, and a really late night, and here you are. The train's still chugging through Angstville...
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I don't want this. I *never* wanted this. It's pain, it's anguish, it's agony. Slow, burning agony that seeps into my chest, then all through my veins, till I want to scream at the top of my lungs to make it go away.

But I can't make it go away. Not while he's here, not while I'm here. My God, not as long as I'm breathing even.

I can't make it go away because he knows. You don't act funny around a vampire for long before you start to annoy him. Or something. It was nothing dramatic, really. He just knew.

Of course, it can't work. And he told me so. It was nothing I wasn't already expecting. It was just like that. Simple. Easy.

Right.

Except for the fact that I held back my tears till it was over, then quietly left the room to bawl my eyes out.

And then when he came to the room I had locked myself in, and asked me so gently to come out, I told him to go away. Not that any of this is his fault, I just can't bear to look at him right now. It hurts too damn much.

I've been crying too much lately. Cordelia Chase doesn't just go around crying like a little baby all the time.

Okay, so this Cordelia Chase does.

Why does everyone paint love as romance, and flowers, and hearts, and stars, and fireworks, and pure, perfect bliss? Happiness out the freaking wazoo, and no problems whatsoever.

These people are *so* not dealing in real life.

Not that every post-teenage girl is in love with a *vampire*, but still. Love is never perfect. *Never*. So why feed me fairy tales, and all that other crap? I believed it for awhile, deep down where no one could see past the no-nonsense exterior. But that was long ago and far away. If you asked me to identify the old me, I really couldn't tell you who that person was and what she was thinking. Or *if* she was thinking half the time, for that matter.

I've grown up, and I know just how imperfect this whole world is, and why you can never have what you want when you want it. Life doesn't work that way. Hell, life hardly ever works at all. You live, you breathe, you muddle through, you're miserable, you die.

Yes, loving Angel is killing me. Sometimes I think I'm the one that's gone "dark" now. Seems like it anyway. He doesn't know what's wrong, I don't know what's wrong.

Or maybe we both do and we just don't want to admit it.

The loving him is not what's going to kill me. It's the needing him. The not being able to have him.

"Cordy, please come out of there," he begs. "I - I love you, Cordelia. I don't know what we're going to do, but right now that's where we're at."

And that's where we'll stay. I won't come out now, not while I'm still hurting this much. I'd just fall into his arms sobbing, and I might not be able to stop this time.

"Goodnight, Angel," I say, by way of dismissal. "I'll see you in the morning."

I hear his footsteps slowly recede. We don't need to be too close to each other right now. It would either be too excruciating or too dangerous.

End