Part 9

"Angel, please. I need to know why you did it," Buffy repeated when Angel had yet to answer her question as to why he'd dumped her out of the blue three years ago.

Running a tense hand through his hair, Angel sighed and sat down on one of the plastic chairs near the porch swing. There were a number of ways he could start this conversation, but none of them seemed right. So he decided to begin by saying something he'd wanted to say ever since that night when he'd broken her heart.

"I'm sorry for what I did." And he really was sorry. The last thing he'd wanted to do was to hurt Buffy, but that was exactly what he had done.

"That's good to know," she said sarcastically. "But it doesn't tell me why."

"I'm going to explain. I promise, Buffy," he tried to appease her, shifting in his chair to face her fully. "Just let me get all this out."

Buffy pursed her lips, but relented. "Okay."

Taking a deep breath, Angel prepared himself for the long overdue answer to Buffy's question. He only hoped she didn't hate him even more afterwards.

"That night when... I didn't intend to break up with you," he began, trying his best to keep his eyes on hers. "I was just so confused about everything, and the words came out."

"That's comforting," Buffy mumbled, shrinking back further on the swing.

"I didn't mean it like that," he corrected. "I lo- cared a great deal about you. Whether you believe that or not, it's true. I was never happier than when I was with you. But it wasn't as simple as that."

"It should have been," she disagreed vehemently. "We were happy together. That's all that should have mattered."

Yes, Angel supposed, that was all that should have mattered. Unfortunately, there had been other things that had invaded his consciousness.

"Buffy," he said, hoping that that he didn't sound like he was mocking her. "You were just turning seventeen. I was twenty. And Oz-"

He couldn't even finish the sentence before Buffy was cutting him off.

"Oz? What did he say to you?!" she demanded, hurt that her brother may have had something to do with her and Angel's breakup.

"It's not what you think," Angel quickly amended. "He just...a month or two before your birthday, when he realized our dating wasn't some random thing, he just asked me to make sure I knew what I was doing." At her confused look, he added, "He wasn't against us being together. I don't want you to be upset thinking he was. He just wanted to make sure you didn't get hurt."

"Well, obviously that didn't work," she shot back.

The comment stung, more so because it was the truth. He tried to push it out of his mind. "Xander said almost the same thing to me as Oz. They cared about you and didn't want you to get hurt. I understood why they were both concerned, and I had no intention of ever hurting you. But then..."

"Then, what?"

Angel shifted in the uncomfortable chair, his hands twining in his lap. This was the part he was dreading. The part that no matter how he said it, it probably wouldn't come out as he wanted. But he needed to try. He owed that to her.

"You remember I had started my training for joining the Sunnydale PD a few weeks before your birthday?" Buffy nodded, so he continued. "And you also know that Wes was friends with Giles." Again, she nodded. "The day of your birthday, Wes came to see me after one of my classes."

Twisting his hands together, Angel averted his gaze from Buffy's narrowing eyes. He knew she was already putting together the pieces.

"He told me that he was aware of our relationship, that others were too, and that it was reflecting badly on me because you were under eighteen."

Indeed, the pieces were coming together for Buffy. And she hated what they were saying. She didn't need him to fill in the blanks. "You were over eighteen, training to be a cop, and dating me, who just turned seventeen," she voiced the dots she'd connected.

"Yeah," he confirmed.

Buffy's shoulders drooped, her eyes dropping down to her hands. He'd chosen his future career over her. But if she was honest with herself, she couldn't really blame him. For as long as she'd known Angel, he'd wanted to be a cop. Both his father and grandfather had been one, and he'd dreamed of continuing the legacy. Even after his father was killed in the line of duty, it was still what he wanted to do, maybe even more so. And because of her, he'd almost lost that chance.

"I get it," she murmured, saddened yet understanding the position he'd been in.

A growlish groan sounded from Angel. "No, you don't get it." He stood, and paced a few steps away. "I'm not even sure I get it." He strode back, sat down again. "I was confused. Wanting to be a cop was the only thing I'd ever known. But then there was you. I loved spending time with you, hearing you laugh, seeing you smile. I didn't want to lose that either. But there didn't seem to be a way to have both."

"So you made a choice," Buffy concluded.

"I didn't intend to make it that night." Angel leaned forward, resting his elbows in his knees as weariness set in. "But when I saw you, and you started asking what was wrong, all I could hear in my head was Wes' words, about my job, and the other things."

"What other things?"

"He just...he said some other stuff too," he vaguely answered. The glare she sent his way had him withering, then surrendering to her silent demand for further explanation. "He pointed out that you were barely seventeen, still learning about life, about who you were, what you wanted, and about love. And he also said that in less than a year you'd be applying to colleges and did I want to hold you back from leaving town and going to a good school. He just brought up all the things I hadn't thought about."

"So you broke up with me," she again concluded.

This time it was Buffy who stood up and paced away. But instead of her actions being driven by a need to think, they were driven by the need for space. All these years, she'd painted Angel as a creep in her mind, a guy who had just used her for a while, and then tossed her away. It hadn't really ever occurred to her that there were real reasons behind him breaking up with her. Whether the reasons were valid or not was debatable. Either way, they existed nonetheless, and it made the anger and hate shrink considerably, though not completely.

Angel watched her walk away from him, the crack in his heart widening. He took her avoidance to mean rejection, of himself and his reasoning.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" she finally asked. And the more she thought about that, the more it bothered her. Why hadn't he talked to her about his feelings, his concerns? Did she matter that little to him that he could ignore anything she might have felt or said? A blaze of anger spiked in her eyes at that thought. "What? Did you think I was just some silly schoolgirl who was too immature to handle the pitfalls of a relationship? I know I was young, but I wasn't stupid!"

"I never thought you were," Angel refuted as calmly as possible.

"Then why didn't you tell me any of this?!" she said through gritted teeth. Arms crossed, she eyed him sternly.

"I don't know why!" It came out as a shout, an exasperated shout. But it was the truth. He didn't know why any of it happened. Yes, that was unacceptable, but it was the truth.

Buffy groaned at the circles they seemed to be talking in. She rubbed at her temples, willing away the headache that was forming. She didn't know what else to say to him about the situation.

"I don't know why," he repeated. "I went to your house that night to take you out to dinner and to celebrate your birthday. The things Wes said were on my mind, but I wasn't going to do anything that night... but then... then the words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was doing. When I finally did think about all of it, think about what I should have done, it was too late. You already hated me."

"I didn't..." She wanted to deny that she'd hated him, but she wasn't sure if that was true. For days, weeks, months after the night of her seventeenth birthday, her thoughts on Angel had been anything but fluffy. But had she really hated him? She'd been hurt, yes, but hate? It was hard to say. "What about later? Why didn't you ever tell me any of this?"

"I should have," he said by way of apology.

"You damn well should have!" Needing to be doing something, she more or less stomped back over to the swing and sat down, making sure to keep herself as far away from Angel as possible. "Do you know how much it hurt? The way you acted, I thought you just didn't care anymore, that I was just some random girlfriend who you could throw away without a second thought!"

"You were never just a random girlfriend," Angel denied.

"You made me feel like one." Buffy shifted slightly when Argyle, disrupted by the less than quiet discussion going on around him, moved to lay his head in her lap. She absently stroked his fur, taking comfort in the mundane task. But she quickly refocused her attention back to the current topic. "I don't know if I would have understood what was going on with you, Angel, or if I'd have agreed or disagreed with what Wes said. But the point is you didn't give me that chance."

"I know," he conceded, the dejection clear in his voice. "And I know you probably won't believe me, but it was never about me thinking you wouldn't understand or were too immature. It was about me, and trying to figure out what I wanted, what was right, and what I should do. But all I managed to do was screw everything up. And then I began to think that maybe it was better if you hated me. When it all sank in, when I'd realized I couldn't change what I did, I thought that it would be better if you hated me."

Under his breath, he mumbled, "Managed to do that."

"Why in the world would you think that?" she gasped, staring at him like he was a lunatic.

"If you hated me, it would be easier to move on, to forget." Though it hurt to believe she could ever forget about it their relationship, he'd logically tried to tell himself it was for the best.

Buffy gaped at him. How could he think she could ever forget him, what they had? It was impossible. She knew that for a fact. She'd tried to. But everything always came back to Angel. He was in her blood, under her skin, and everywhere in between. Something like that you couldn't just forget.

"I could never just forget you, Angel."

"But you hated me," he added, believing it to be the truth.

"I didn't-" she started to say, but stopped herself. "You hurt me. More than I ever thought possible. I didn't understand why something so perfect had suddenly turned into a nightmare. And then I saw you, a few days later, with that blonde hooker-wannabe, and the hurt I thought couldn't get any worse became unbearable."

She stopped her train of thought, and focused on another detail. "How could you go out with someone else so soon, knowing I would see you there?"

If he hadn't known what guilt felt like, he certainly did at that moment. He'd done a lot of stupid things in his life, breaking up with Buffy being one of them, but that night at the Bronze was likely classified as his most heinous crime.

"I wasn't really with her," he answered slowly. "I was there to see Oz's band. She started talking to me. I couldn't have cared less about her, but then I saw you sitting with Xander and Willow, and I knew you'd seen me. By then I'd convinced myself you were better off hating me. So I made it all the more easier."

"Good plan," she mumbled, a half-hearted attempt at a joke that fell flat.

"I tried to hate you," she whispered, forcing the words out. "I wanted to hate you, but I couldn't. You were in here." A hand fluttered over her heart. "But I couldn't have you either, so I just pretended you didn't exist. It was easier that way."

"You had every right to hate me. Oz should have too. I never understood why he didn't." For a long time, Angel had wondered how he had remained friends with Oz despite his breakup with Buffy. After what he'd done, Oz should have hated him, even tried to beat him up, but it hadn't come between them.

"I never told him," Buffy said quietly. "It was the one thing I'd never told him. He asked what happened and I just told him we broke up. I don't know why I didn't tell him. I guess I didn't want what happened between us to ruin your friendship. I knew how much of a brother you were to him. I didn't want to be the one to ruin that."

His heart grieved at that. Even at a time when she was hurting, she thought of others first. Any normal person would have turned her friends and family against him, but she'd been unselfish. It was one of the reasons he'd fallen for her.

"I'm sorry." It seemed necessary to say it again, even though he'd already apologized. Truth was, no matter how many times he said it, it would never take back what he did. "I never wanted to hurt you. I-I loved you."

He winced when he said the three little words that had never been spoken between them. They'd slipped out, a product of his raging emotions. How she'd react, he had no idea.

Buffy's eyes widened. He loved her? It was an almost baffling concept. All these years, she'd been sure he didn't care an ounce about her. And all that time he'd loved her.

"You loved me?"

"Yes." Honest. That was the way to go. That was the only way to try to make things right again. "I loved you. And I knew it was insane. You were just seventeen. I was twenty. But I loved you."

He paused.

"I still love you."

She flinched at the present-tense correction. Not only had he loved her, he still loved her. It made her mind whirl, and her heart thud wildly in her chest. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream, shout, throw herself into his arms, but instead she did nothing. How much had she longed to hear those words three years ago? How much had she wanted to tell him she loved him? She'd known three and a half years ago, when he'd gently kissed her goodnight after their first official date, that she was hopelessly in love with him. It had been a hazy dream to have him feel the same way. And now, here he was, three heartbreaking and tense years later, telling her that he felt – feels – the same way. It was mind-boggling.

"I-I..." she stuttered, unable to say anything else.

"Shh." He took a risk, raising a solitary finger to place it over her lips. She didn't shy away from the touch, for which he was thankful. "I know it's a lot to take in."

"Yeah," she agreed in a breathless murmur.

"I want to make it up to you. I want another chance." There. He'd said it, said what he wanted most of all. The shock of his request showed clearly in her wide eyes. "You don't have to say anything. And I know I have no right to expect you to forgive me, but I want to be with you, Buffy. I love you."

"I love you, too." It came out in a rush, and she snapped her mouth shut after speaking. But the teary look in his eyes warmed her heart, made her want to reach out and caress his cheek. She didn't though. It wasn't that easy. "I love you," she repeated, stronger this time. "I don't know if I can trust you."

The gleam left his eyes in a blink, his shoulders slumped. "Please," he begged. "I know I've not given you a reason to trust me, but I'll do anything to prove you can. I'll do anything to make it up to you."

"You can't just say some pretty words and spout promises to make it all go away," she told him, her voice growing tired, worn from the emotionally draining conversation.

"I know they can't." He'd laid all his cards on the table. There wasn't much else he could do. "I just want a chance."

Buffy was silent. Her heart begged her to give him that chance, to reach out and wrap her arms around him, and feel the comfort of his strong embrace. But it was too soon. She was too raw. And the trust was too thin.

Her eyes blinked closed, opening again slowly. "I can't give you an answer right now."

"I understand," Angel choked out, reeling from the round-about rejection.

"Just... I need some time." The last word was clipped, so she repeated it. "I just need some time."

Silently, she stood and hurried to the door, seeking the empty solace on the other side. Stopping under the arch, she clapped a hand against her thigh, signaling Argyle to follow. The dog jumped off the bench and pranced through the door, Buffy following behind. Angel could only watch as the heavy wood barrier swung closed, leaving him sitting there wondering if his hopes were futile.

TBC!!