All Together, One After Another
by Nyohah
5
Mourning in Fashion
"Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem
essentially the same, except that the one happens to be seen in a
celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
So I'm standing in an Express in a mall in Kansas City, Missouri, looking at skirts, and this really hot guy is checking me out.
Kansas City, Missouri. Isn't that sort of oxymoronic? Kind of like black and pink.
And you know what they have in the Express in Kansas City, Missouri? Rows and rows of black and pink.
And a hot guy totally checking me out.
I lift a skirt—black and pink, you guessed it—as cover for my checking him out back, and he is hot, and young—but not too young—and normal-looking, and living. And I'm so ashamed of checking him out that I have to pretend to be looking at a skirt when I ought to meet his eyes and give him a flirtatious little smile, and maybe a coy look, so that he progresses from checking me out to trying to pick me up.
But no. I lift up the skirt. It looks like something Madonna would wear. Back when she sang "Like a Virgin."
And what worries me most is that, after quickly glancing at Guy comma Hot long enough to register that he's wearing Tommy, I find myself staring at the skirt with the realization that it perfectly matches my mood. The colors, not the scary eighties lace-and-bow combination.
The pink is for the Hellmouth being gone and the First Evil being dead. The pink is me, Willow, and Xander making quips about shoes and mini-golf while Giles pretends to exasperated by us. The pink is for the world that has once again not ended, and let's party!
The pink is for hot guys checking me out.
And the black is for—everything else. The girls who died when I didn't even know their names. Anya. Xander's eye. All our homes and our jobs and our purpose in life. Because much as we hated the Hellmouth and wanted it gone, what do we do now? Work at the Doublemeat Palace for the rest of our lives? The pleasure cruise will end sometime, hopefully some time before we completely bankrupt Giles.
And I'm standing in the middle, unsure of what I should do. I should be mourning, but I've gotten what I've wanted for so long—a normal life sans Hellmouth—and how do you mourn getting your longest and most desperate wish? But the glee that was so easy to come by as we watched the aftermath and bid our goodbyes to Sunnydale—when it was least appropriate in the wake of so many deaths—that glee has been waning, and so here I stand, distracting myself with an ugly skirt made of black and pink.
The pink is for the hot guy checking me out, and I can't make myself even enjoy it because—
Because the black—the black is for Spike. Because he had to go and ruin everything by saving the world. I can easily convince myself not to miss the guy who used to steal my underwear. Or the guy who tasted his own nosebleed. That's easier done than said. But the guy who saved the world? The guy who stood by me when everyone else abandoned me?
I miss him. The black is for dwelling on our last conversation, if it can even be called a conversation. The pink is for the subject of that conversation. The pink is for my confession—what is the proper color for love if not the pink of construction paper hearts? The black is for his reply, and for not knowing if he was right, or if I was. The only way I will ever know will be to have him standing in front of me so I can see the true him, and not my memories of his last moments as a hero, sunlight streaming out of him. And standing in front of me is exactly where Spike can never be again.
I can not love the evil, annoying vampire who said I have stupid hair. I'm not sure about the man who told me I am insufferable as a prelude to building me up from rock bottom.
So as the hot guy is met by some friends, and they all turn to leave, I stay where I am, holding a skirt I have no interest in.
Frozen.
