by Zzilly14
"Wanna swap life stories?" the curly-haired blonde suddenly asked.
He couldn't believe she just said that. Can we say overly blunt? It sounds like something Anya would say... No, don't dwell on the past. She's been dead for a year and a half. Xander Harris, it's time to move on!
"Well, if I tell you mine, you might not believe it," Xander admitted. "My life has been pretty crazy."
"And if I tell you mine, you might not believe it either," she laughed.
"Why don't you go first and we'll see who's got the craziest life?"
"Okay," she giggled. "Well, I'm originally from Jersey, but I lived in San Francisco for the past seven years."
"Really? I used to live down in Sunnydale. Lived there my whole life, until it became a sinkhole a couple years ago."
Sharona's eyes widened. "Wow, I remember hearing about that. When Adrian saw it on the news, he panicked, wanting to leave California as quickly as possible! Luckily I managed to convince him Frisco was not going to become a sinkhole."
"Adrian?" Xander wondered. "He your boyfriend?"
The woman began snorting, which then turned into hysterical laughter. "No, no. Definitely not. I was his nurse and assistant. You see, Adrian Monk may be a great detective, but... he's got issues."
"A detective with issues? Who doesn't?"
"Well, there's no one like him. Trust me. He's got OCD, he's germaphobic, afraid of heights, snakes, milk... you name it. But he notices things we normally wouldn't see, so he helps out the police a lot on unsolved cases."
"Sounds like an interesting guy," Xander said. "Is he here with you?"
"Oh, no. He's still in Frisco. I went back to Jersey in December... almost remarried my ex."
"Almost?"
"The jerk hasn't changed one bit! I thought he was over his drinking problem, but I guess wanting to marry me meant going back to old habits. So I left him."
Xander's eye widened. "At the altar?" he said, shocked.
"Not exactly. But I would've left sooner if I had known Trevor was the same old jackass."
Xander was quiet for a few moments. Sure, the guy sounded like he deserved it. But the memories of leaving Anya still cut him deep, and he didn't want anyone to know the pain that Anya had surely suffered.
"Were you ever married?" Sharona asked softly.
"Almost. But I left her at the altar. I didn't want to get married and end up hurting her, but in the end... I think what I did hurt her even more."
"Hey, we all make mistakes," she replied. "And the good part is, we can learn from them."
Xander laughed as he ate the last piece of his donut. "True, we can learn from them. But apparently I haven't. You'd be surprised at the long list of women I've dated who were... let's just say, not my type."
"I probably have a longer list of guys that I've dated that weren't, as you say, my type. Usually I learn from my mistakes, but when it comes to dating, that's a different story."
The man coughed a few times, asking, "You're not a demon, are you?"
"A what?" Sharona wondered, dumbfounded.
"Look, I have bad luck when it comes to women. They all turn out to be demons. If you're a demon just get it over with and kill me. I'm tired of being prey to mantis women and ex-vengeance demons and mummy girls and..."
He stopped ranting when he realized the confused and shocked expression on Sharona's face.
