TITLE: The Upper School
AUTHOR: Danielle
SUMMARY: AU Buffy's POV throughtout her middle school and high school life. Just dealing with everything that is around her.
RATING: PG for now, NC-17 later.
DISCLAIMER: All Joss Whedon's, but the school is based on a real school though all names are fictional (including teachers)
DEDICATION: To my Xander and Willow, but especially to MY Angel.
AN: I've gotten a lot of questions on this, and I want to clear it up. This is not my LIFE! Many of the things that Buffy go through are in deed things I went through, but a lot of them are things my friends did as well. If you have any questions on it, feel free to email me.
7th Grade- Trimester Four- June, 1998
Today is the last day of school. Like I'm complaining. I'm sitting right now in my Mom's jeep as she drives me and Dawn home. I look out the window and look once more at the school that I go to and I'm thanking God right now that I don't have finals the next week and have to come back to this hell hole. The seventh grade is the only grade that doesn't have finals this year. See we used to have Science finals but I guess they decided to change it because it's the eighth grade that has the one final and that's science. And thank God I don't have a science final. I would so fail. I think I actually did get an F on my report card.
I lean back against the leather chair and breathe deeply. I remember watching Cordelia and Darla hugging and hoping to see each other next year. Watching Hogan, Percy and Ford all slapping each others backs and telling them how great it was to finally get the hell out. And what did I get? I get "I'll miss ya, Buffster," from Xander who I will probably see in fifteen minutes and a hug from Willow. How lame is my life?
But I guess Angel sort of made it better. I'm so over him though. At least I like to think that. It sort of put a smile on my face.
"You're just going to leave without saying goodbye? Really Buffy, that hurts," Angel says as he saw me closing my locker and look slowly around for someone.
I smile at him and he helps me pick up some of the books that I have to drag home now that the school year is over.
"I just figured that you have to say goodbye to other people. You know like Darla and… Ford. I guess. I don't really know."
I know I'm trying to make him feel bad for me. But really he does pay no attention to me sometimes. I remember when my mom couldn't pick me up one day so I had to take the bus home and I'm waiting for the bus to come and pick me up when I hear Andrew and Jonathan talking about how Angel had asked Darla out. I swore I felt my heart break right there and then. I knew I liked him before I heard that but when I heard the words that he had asked Darla out and she had said yes, I knew then for sure that I liked him. It really broke my heart. Especially when he didn't tell me anything about it.
It felt better to know that she had dumped him the next day. "Don't make me feel bad, Buffy."
"I speak of truth, Angel," I snap back at him.
He looks down for a second before back at me. "So what are you going to do this summer?"
"Get as far away from America as I can possibly can. Or WBSDS." He looks down again and I sort of feel bad.
"Well not you, Angel. Just the work."
He looks up at me and smiles but I already know what I said was a lie. I need to get away from him. I need to go to England, the place were my father was born, and stay there as long as I can so I can get ready and come for another lifetime of school. In England I have friends and boys. Boys that are interested in me! Fat, brunette me! It makes me happier knowing that I am hot, just the boys at WBSDS are stupid.
"Well I'll miss you, Buffy Summers," he said as he walked me over to my Mom's jeep and handed me all the heavy books that I have to take home.
I open the handle to the green jeep and look at Angel and give him a small smile. "Me too."
So yeah, it's not happily ever after but it's something… right? When my mom pulls into the driveway and I open my door and step out and smile seeing the house that I have grown in. I love this house. It has everything. Well, all my memories of hell that is. I run up the stairs and enter my room. I look around and look into the mirror that is standing up. I look into it, and hated what I saw. I was going to change this summer.
First the hair. Defiantly need to do something with the hair, with the bush of hair that I have. I feel like everywhere I go it's sticking out and in my way. I lay my hand on it and try to flatten it but it just sticks up more and I grumble. I take a bunch into my hand and look at the color. I need a new color, not this brown looking crap. I want blonde but my mom says that I'm way too young to get a full head of highlights. I say fuck it. I need it. But does she listen… NO.
I pull my shirt off and look at all the fat that comes out. I close my eyes and looking at this disgusts me. I don't understand how people like Darla and Cordelia have no problems with eating. I heard Harmony talking in the hallway once to Aura about how all Cordelia does is eat when she is over at her house and look at her, she is perfect. I grab hold of some of it and I swear that I'm not going to look like that anymore. Even if I have to kill myself with a diet and workout everyday but I'm not going to hurt myself. Not again.
I looked down at the toilet and saw all the brown and green throw up all over it. I hated looking at it, knowing what I had just done to myself. I felt tears well up in my tears and forced them back… I couldn't cry again. Every time I had cried last year, in sixth grade I had only been made fun of. When I had felt down and all my friends were going against me all I did was cry. At least that's what they had said.
It had started like that, comments that had taken to seriously. When Lysette had said I was chubby I didn't really understand but when Kathy, who was fat, also called me that I was always so self conscious, always looking at the mirror seeing how fat I really was. I didn't know how my hand had came down my throat just the next thing I knew I was throwing up and it was so easy to do that it seemed to happen all the time. People had stopped calling me fat but it was funny because all it seemed to do was make me look over her shoulder all the time trying to see if people would look at me funny. I remembered the looks Amy and Willow had given me one day in English when I had come back from the bathroom. I looked down at the floor and that's when I had built the wall. A wall of no tears.
I flushed the toilet and leaned against the tiled floor and closed my eyes. I really couldn't do these anymore. I looked up at the cabinet and saw the stacks of medicine for period cramps and got up slowly and walked like a possessed women towards the mirror cabinet. I started to open the red bottle when I heard the phone ring, I close my eyes tightly and try to ignore it but it keeps ringing and I want to slam it against the door but I pick it up and raise it to my ear.
"What?" I snap into the phone. Can't they see I'm trying to commit suicide here?
"Jeez, you're in a bad mood," Angel says on the other line.
I feel like all the air is knocked out of me and I feel the tears well up in my eyes. "Angel, what do you want?"
"I just need the homework for Science," he grumbles.
I feel the walls start to fall and I grab hold of the counter so they won't. They can't. My knuckles turn white I'm holding them so tightly. The walls can't fall; I worked to hard building them for them to fall. "Angel… this really isn't the time."
"You know right now I'm glaring at my wall, just so you know. Make time for me Buffy Summers. I'm here stuck in your life, asking for homework, always."
And I collapse. It's not fair. I just start crying and sobbing on the phone and I hear Angel asking me what's wrong but all I do is start crying. I hear him hang up but all I do is walk slowly into my room and hold onto Mr. Gordo as I fall into my bed. I feel the walls start coming down, cracking like a leafs crack up in the winter. All crispy but my fall isn't crispy. It's messy with tears and snot.
I hear my door open and I look up as Angel comes over. "Hey."
I look up and I feel messy and I must look messy to. I put my head in my pillow and I feel him smooth the hairs on the back of my head. "Are you okay?"
I just sniffle into the pillow. "Well, if you're not going to answer I'm just going to have to stay here."
And he did stay, for the rest of the damn night while I cried. It was then that I knew that I was in love. With Angel O'Connor. I mean he just saved my life.
I close my eyes tightly at the unfriendly memory and the way I had treated Angel since then. Yeah, I might love him but that didn't mean we're meant for each other. I hear my mom call my name and I come down the stairs slowly.
I see my Dad, Dawn and my mom all sitting around the living room with a box in the middle.
"What's up?" I ask.
"We know it's the last day of school and we bought you something to congratulate you on surviving the first year of The Upper School," my mom said.
I look over at Dawn who is grumbling. She is in second grade, little Dawnie and she is just grumbling because I finished school today and she still has another week. I smirk at her and I take hold of the box. I know its cloths because the label reads Saks Fifth Avenue. It's sad really because I used to have tons of cloths. I had clothes from Abercrombie that everyone had wanted and what do I have now, old clothes.
I open the box and what do I see there… "Oh My God, Mom!"
I say as I hug her. My first Juicy Couture outfit. In Pink. I know this is the first sign of wanting designers but come on, how can you not be grateful and you know what, I don't care if that does make me a AP. (American Princess) I'm proud of it.
TBCEighth grade is coming! Isn't everyone excited about that. Just a warning now, things are about to change…