My teeth throbbed with hang over, they felt thick, furry, and a deep-rooted ache crawled up my face and into my cheekbones. A pressing, sweating pain held my head as I pulled my eyes half open, looking up blearily with a heavy-lidded gaze. He was looking down at me, my hand still gently enclosed in his. I breathed a small sigh as his thumb lazily played over the tips of my fingers, soothing, cooling.
The sigh turned into a hacking cough and I rentched up right clutching my chest, trying to grab hold of the pain and rip it out of myself. The cough turned to retching and I tasted the vile, bittersweet taste of vomit on the back of my tongue. The blood pooling just below it.
My feet hit cold floor and his hands guided me shakily towards a sink. the foul, pink-tinged spit hit white ceramic, gunged with blood and vomit. He held my filthy hair out of the sink and I cried.
I spent the next two hours sitting on the bathroom floor, breathing heavily. The only sound I could hear was my own breath wheezing through raw nostrils. He didn't bother me, didn't talk to me, I think he went to his chair by the bed and pretended to read a book.
It's not that I didn't care, I did care, but I was more scared. Scared to move in case something else inside of me broke. But I meant what I said before I fell asleep. More than anything else, more than getting better, I didn't want Angel to pity me.
I peeled off my dirty clothes wincing at each graze that had cotton tangled in it. Water hit me, cold then hot, tears streamed down my skin as pain scraped at my body and the water settled itself to a tepid medium. I turned up the heat preferring to scald my skin than let the dirt stay for any longer than necessary.
Afterwards I stood shivering on the tiles. My body not adjusted to room temperature. Automatically I dried but looking down at the thin, fetid
material that was left of my clothes I pulled the warm, wet towel more firmly around myself and let my feet sink into the soft, padded carpet.
"I- I don't have anything to, uh, wear."
I looked away embarrassed, I don't know why - it's not like I packed before my little excursion. Still, the dependence made me feel weak. I didn't like feeling weak. He looked up from his book and picked up a small pile of clothes from the bed, walking slowly to place them in my tiny, sweating hand.
He could probably feel the steam off my skin, see the water droplets hanging from my glistening lower lip, smell the warm, clean just-washed, non-fragrance from my damp hair. He could probably hear my heart beat.
"Sorry, they're a bit big but-"
I waved him off.
"Thanks, not like I thought you'd have convienently sized woman's clothig lying about... You don't do you?"
Suddenly I worried, not that he would have the clothes more who would wear them. Not that I thought he would, but that would mean there was a woman in his life. I didn't want Angel right now, I didn't want anyone, not after-- But I also didn't want to intrude on some life he might have built and as selfish as it may seem I didn't want him to make someone else happy when I had given up that privilege myself. He shook his head quietly.
The bed was soft and warm, freshly changed. The window was half open to let a breeze of cool air caress my skin and I sank into the mattress in over sized sweats, chewing nervously on one sleeve.
"Buffy?"
My head shot up causing a bolt of pain to hit the back of my eyes. Angel nodded towards his sweater a slight frown colouring his features and I very deliberately removed it from between my teeth.
He sat by me, not wincing as I scooted further up the bed. His voice was low, placating, tired.
"Why?"
"Why, what?"
"Why this?"
He took hold of my arm, his thumb pressing gently over the holes still waiting to to close over.
"I told him I'd quit."
My voice was unclear, covered in layers of upset, trying to push past my raw, gungy lips.
"I told him, if she died, I'd quit. So, I quit."
-----
The blackened kerb stretched out beyond my cheek, the side of my face - once a plump rose - was hollowed out and grafted into the sidewalk.
My arms were tangled underneath me, pressed hard between my jutting hips and cold, cracked cement. My skirt tossed upwards provided no dignity and the panties thrust back on haphazardly - they were backwards - were ripped along the left-hand seam.
I heard footsteps and I heard them fade away. I was just another junkie. Except I wasn't anymore. I was just some poor street kid that had the misfortune of being abused. Or maybe a prostitute that had been conned out of cash. I know that's what people thought when they passed me that night, because in honesty that's what I used to think when I saw them, the ones that looked like they were sipping from the gutter. If they crossed my path, my path would change direction.
I tried to get my arms out, to readjust my skirt, but I was too heavy, too sore. Strange cause I'm sure I didn't even weight ninety pounds by them, more like ten.
It was then I registered a humming. The louder it got, the nearer, the more I realised it was a voice. I curled. My hands reaching out for my knees as they in turn sought out my chin. The movement was feeble, looked more like agonised writhing than an attempt to save myself.
Hands held my shoulders and I sobbed out a cry. This was it; either they had come back for me or some street gang was about to tear me into pieces for fun.
Hands rolled me over. Angel.
-----
The pads of two fingers dimpled my eyelids. I breathed out stale air; none of the air in this room had been circulated through a body. Not a breathing one.
"I killed you because.. I had to. But as I got older and more and more people left me I realised what you meant about loneliness. You don't have to be alone, to be completely alone. You just have to outlive your hope."
My voice wavered. I stopped, hoping for some kind of response, something to relieve me of pouring out my heart. It didn't want to watch it evaporate, not when I knew he wouldn't breathe it afterwards.
His eyes dulled, because he knows that pain, he lived with that pain every day, but he had never given up fighting. Not like me. Silence over took everything, the fabric-swish, clock-tick, water-drip mundanity of life ceased for me as I divested myself of secret pain I'd pockets and powdered out for so many years.
"So, you just left and decided it might be more fun to shoot up and get raped than actually be strong for once?"
"I was nothing but strong, no one can keep feeling that pain and just live with it, Angel. Nobody's that strong!"
He had my number, I wasn't strong. I never had been. All my life I let someone else pick up the slack for me, whether it was in school or at home or when I was slaying. I'd always had someone around to pick up the pieces and maybe, just maybe when that someone was me, I freaked. Maybe that's why I bailed. But I can't believe that was the only reason because I'm not so weak as to run away at the first sign of something hard. Hey, I stuck by Angel didn't I? I fought to keep him, and maybe I didn't fight hard enough but I was barely eighteen years old, I didn't know what I was fighting against, what I was fighting for. Angel's gaze was so cold. So angry. There was something about the way he held himself that belied all the information, emotion that he was hiding from me.
"Buffy, you never even tried. You didn't even grieve. You left before they buried her and never came back. You haven't even seen your sister's grave and she's been dead for three years."
His voice was pleading as if he was asking me something. I know he's seen her grave. And I wanted to, but I was scared that if I did it would all get too much, because I loved her so much.. And she was a part of me, and when she died she took some of me with her. How much of someone can get left in death before they rot away?
"Please, please just don't."
"Don't what? Punish you? Make you face what you ran away from? Make you snap out of your insane fantasies and wake up to realise you were just raped Buffy, you were half dead, on the street, you couldn't move because they beat you so badly and you chose this!"
My voice cracked.
"I never chose this. Okay, Angel? I made a mistake and I got trapped in it, but I never asked for this. Never".
His voice wasn't even a whisper anymore.
"What did you ask for?"
"You".
His hand leaned out in comfort but I lashed it away with a sloppy backhand, crying out as my attempt to quell my crying failed. I sank in on myself, as he sat beside me helpless. He didn't touch me, didn't speak to me, he just sat beside me and held one of the pillows on his lap. His eyes holding me.
The sigh turned into a hacking cough and I rentched up right clutching my chest, trying to grab hold of the pain and rip it out of myself. The cough turned to retching and I tasted the vile, bittersweet taste of vomit on the back of my tongue. The blood pooling just below it.
My feet hit cold floor and his hands guided me shakily towards a sink. the foul, pink-tinged spit hit white ceramic, gunged with blood and vomit. He held my filthy hair out of the sink and I cried.
I spent the next two hours sitting on the bathroom floor, breathing heavily. The only sound I could hear was my own breath wheezing through raw nostrils. He didn't bother me, didn't talk to me, I think he went to his chair by the bed and pretended to read a book.
It's not that I didn't care, I did care, but I was more scared. Scared to move in case something else inside of me broke. But I meant what I said before I fell asleep. More than anything else, more than getting better, I didn't want Angel to pity me.
I peeled off my dirty clothes wincing at each graze that had cotton tangled in it. Water hit me, cold then hot, tears streamed down my skin as pain scraped at my body and the water settled itself to a tepid medium. I turned up the heat preferring to scald my skin than let the dirt stay for any longer than necessary.
Afterwards I stood shivering on the tiles. My body not adjusted to room temperature. Automatically I dried but looking down at the thin, fetid
material that was left of my clothes I pulled the warm, wet towel more firmly around myself and let my feet sink into the soft, padded carpet.
"I- I don't have anything to, uh, wear."
I looked away embarrassed, I don't know why - it's not like I packed before my little excursion. Still, the dependence made me feel weak. I didn't like feeling weak. He looked up from his book and picked up a small pile of clothes from the bed, walking slowly to place them in my tiny, sweating hand.
He could probably feel the steam off my skin, see the water droplets hanging from my glistening lower lip, smell the warm, clean just-washed, non-fragrance from my damp hair. He could probably hear my heart beat.
"Sorry, they're a bit big but-"
I waved him off.
"Thanks, not like I thought you'd have convienently sized woman's clothig lying about... You don't do you?"
Suddenly I worried, not that he would have the clothes more who would wear them. Not that I thought he would, but that would mean there was a woman in his life. I didn't want Angel right now, I didn't want anyone, not after-- But I also didn't want to intrude on some life he might have built and as selfish as it may seem I didn't want him to make someone else happy when I had given up that privilege myself. He shook his head quietly.
The bed was soft and warm, freshly changed. The window was half open to let a breeze of cool air caress my skin and I sank into the mattress in over sized sweats, chewing nervously on one sleeve.
"Buffy?"
My head shot up causing a bolt of pain to hit the back of my eyes. Angel nodded towards his sweater a slight frown colouring his features and I very deliberately removed it from between my teeth.
He sat by me, not wincing as I scooted further up the bed. His voice was low, placating, tired.
"Why?"
"Why, what?"
"Why this?"
He took hold of my arm, his thumb pressing gently over the holes still waiting to to close over.
"I told him I'd quit."
My voice was unclear, covered in layers of upset, trying to push past my raw, gungy lips.
"I told him, if she died, I'd quit. So, I quit."
-----
The blackened kerb stretched out beyond my cheek, the side of my face - once a plump rose - was hollowed out and grafted into the sidewalk.
My arms were tangled underneath me, pressed hard between my jutting hips and cold, cracked cement. My skirt tossed upwards provided no dignity and the panties thrust back on haphazardly - they were backwards - were ripped along the left-hand seam.
I heard footsteps and I heard them fade away. I was just another junkie. Except I wasn't anymore. I was just some poor street kid that had the misfortune of being abused. Or maybe a prostitute that had been conned out of cash. I know that's what people thought when they passed me that night, because in honesty that's what I used to think when I saw them, the ones that looked like they were sipping from the gutter. If they crossed my path, my path would change direction.
I tried to get my arms out, to readjust my skirt, but I was too heavy, too sore. Strange cause I'm sure I didn't even weight ninety pounds by them, more like ten.
It was then I registered a humming. The louder it got, the nearer, the more I realised it was a voice. I curled. My hands reaching out for my knees as they in turn sought out my chin. The movement was feeble, looked more like agonised writhing than an attempt to save myself.
Hands held my shoulders and I sobbed out a cry. This was it; either they had come back for me or some street gang was about to tear me into pieces for fun.
Hands rolled me over. Angel.
-----
The pads of two fingers dimpled my eyelids. I breathed out stale air; none of the air in this room had been circulated through a body. Not a breathing one.
"I killed you because.. I had to. But as I got older and more and more people left me I realised what you meant about loneliness. You don't have to be alone, to be completely alone. You just have to outlive your hope."
My voice wavered. I stopped, hoping for some kind of response, something to relieve me of pouring out my heart. It didn't want to watch it evaporate, not when I knew he wouldn't breathe it afterwards.
His eyes dulled, because he knows that pain, he lived with that pain every day, but he had never given up fighting. Not like me. Silence over took everything, the fabric-swish, clock-tick, water-drip mundanity of life ceased for me as I divested myself of secret pain I'd pockets and powdered out for so many years.
"So, you just left and decided it might be more fun to shoot up and get raped than actually be strong for once?"
"I was nothing but strong, no one can keep feeling that pain and just live with it, Angel. Nobody's that strong!"
He had my number, I wasn't strong. I never had been. All my life I let someone else pick up the slack for me, whether it was in school or at home or when I was slaying. I'd always had someone around to pick up the pieces and maybe, just maybe when that someone was me, I freaked. Maybe that's why I bailed. But I can't believe that was the only reason because I'm not so weak as to run away at the first sign of something hard. Hey, I stuck by Angel didn't I? I fought to keep him, and maybe I didn't fight hard enough but I was barely eighteen years old, I didn't know what I was fighting against, what I was fighting for. Angel's gaze was so cold. So angry. There was something about the way he held himself that belied all the information, emotion that he was hiding from me.
"Buffy, you never even tried. You didn't even grieve. You left before they buried her and never came back. You haven't even seen your sister's grave and she's been dead for three years."
His voice was pleading as if he was asking me something. I know he's seen her grave. And I wanted to, but I was scared that if I did it would all get too much, because I loved her so much.. And she was a part of me, and when she died she took some of me with her. How much of someone can get left in death before they rot away?
"Please, please just don't."
"Don't what? Punish you? Make you face what you ran away from? Make you snap out of your insane fantasies and wake up to realise you were just raped Buffy, you were half dead, on the street, you couldn't move because they beat you so badly and you chose this!"
My voice cracked.
"I never chose this. Okay, Angel? I made a mistake and I got trapped in it, but I never asked for this. Never".
His voice wasn't even a whisper anymore.
"What did you ask for?"
"You".
His hand leaned out in comfort but I lashed it away with a sloppy backhand, crying out as my attempt to quell my crying failed. I sank in on myself, as he sat beside me helpless. He didn't touch me, didn't speak to me, he just sat beside me and held one of the pillows on his lap. His eyes holding me.
