TITLE: The Upper School

AUTHOR: Danielle

EMAIL: AU. Buffy's POV throughout middle and high school, dealing with normal teen things… and Angel.

DISCLAIMER: All the charchters are Joss Whedon's, the school and teachers own themselves, (will the schools is … but) but all names are changed for privacy.

RATING: PG… There is some, will, this chapter, a lot of cursing. Also, if I have offended anyone with comments in this chapter, I want to clear it up now, that it is for the story and not what I really feel.

DEDICATION: To my Willow and Xander, and to MY Angel.

FEEDBACK: Would love some!

AN: This is my disclaimer. This is not my life, please do not think that one teenager went through all this. There are some serious issues going to happen in this fic and if you need clearing up on certain things, feel free to email me or IM me at MooShee16.

8th Grade- Trimester Three- March, 1999

I rolled my eyes at me teacher, who was insisting that I buy a binder for his class, but why should I, there is only like three months of school left! Teachers. I look to my left and I see Cordelia cracking up and watching her crack up makes me want to crack up to. So, I start to crack up. Not the best thing.

"What is so amusing, Buffy?" The stupid teacher asks me.

Just looking at his face makes me crack up more. I mean he is so large and funny looking! "Buffy, go to the Discipline Office!"

"What!" I yell at him in shock. I mean I know laughing isn't the best thing to do to a teacher, but the Discipline Office! So not fair.

"Please, take your books and go ahead. I trust you know were it is?"

"But, that is not fair! I didn't do anything! I just laughed!" I yell at him but he sort of smirks at me in that way that teachers do when they shouldn't be doing something but do it anyways. I scowl at him and all I feel like doing is taking my freakin' book and throwing it at him.

"Do you want to add a detention to that?"

I glare at him as I pick up my books and start to head out. Once my back is to the door, I make sure the door slams before heading to the stupid Discipline Office! Yes, there is such an office. Because there were, so many people being sent to different people of authority last year they decided to make an office just for being in trouble. Brilliant really. Last time I was there, which was two days ago, they made me write repeatedly that I will not talk during class again. My bloody brilliant school, I solute them.

As I walk towards the office, I pass a bunch of people but when I look ahead in the distance, I see someone I really don't want to see. He notices me, and starts to comes towards me and I try to look for an escape route but I just can't find one. My heart starts to hammer against my chest and I feel like I'm walking towards a chamber full of everything I didn't like. I really didn't want to talk to him right now. But I did.

"Hey," I say, putting a fake smile on my face.

"Watsup?" he says coming way inside my comfort zone.

I take a step back and look into Ford's eyes, there is something deep in them that sort of draws me to him, but something so chilling that pulls me away. After that night, were I had hooked up for the first time, we started to spend a lot of time together. I remember coming to his house, soon after that, and we would be able to talk for hours.

Still, as much time I spent with him, I wasn't even sure if I liked him. But I couldn't stay away from him. I was drawn to him. He was different from everyone else. He wasn't afraid to be different, and listen to loud music and wear nail polish. He didn't care.

"Nothing, I just got to sent to the discipline office. You?" I say.

"I hate Spanish," he says plainly and I laugh at his response at a lack of what to say.

Whenever Ford would say something like that, I was never sure if he was serious or not. His gaze always stayed the same way. He never changed and that is what scares me about him. He would say something like 'That girl, I hate her, I wish she would die' and I wouldn't be sure if he was serious or not. He told me once that he wanted to have sex, and he didn't care with who. He just wanted to. That sort of freaked me out because we were just hooking up a few minutes ago.

We weren't boyfriend/girlfriend but we weren't friends either and that was clear to everyone. The first time I gave him a blowjob, it was the weirdest thing that ever happened to me. And disgusting. I felt like I was sticking my toothbrush deep in my throat, the only difference now was that it was thicker. When he came, it splashed all over my stomach and his shirt that it was pretty embarrassing. Since then we learned to make sure it didn't happen again. His mom keeps asking what happened to that shirt.

"Well, I better go, before you know, the teacher comes looking for me," I say as I move away from him.

"Want to hang out Friday?" he says, his eyes giving the true intentions of his words. Want to hook up Friday?

"I can't. Me and Angel are going to see a movie, maybe Sunday or something," I say, trying to ignore the look of hate that crosses his face when I mention Angel's name.

Him and Angel totally hate each other. Angel doesn't care that we got close, all he sees is the boy that uses me. I keep telling him he doesn't use me but he never listens. It's the one thing me and Angel don't get along about. He hates when I mention Ford and he hates when I tell him that I was with him. He gets this look in his eyes.

Sometimes I think it's jealousy and other times I truly think Angel hates him. But the difference between him and Ford, and I like this, is that Angel never has this dangerous look that Ford has.

Ford told me once how he used to cut himself at his old school. I told him I didn't believe him, and he pulled up his long shirt and showed me. I remember tracing them and how he looked up into my eyes and he pulled me close to him and kissed me. It was then that I understood that he was closer to me than anyone else. It sort of broke my heart that he didn't have any friends. Not that I had so many close friends either.

"Sunday then," Ford says and gives me his smile, that I only get.

On Friday me and Angel went to go see the movie when we decided to ditch it and go get ice cream instead. We sit at the table, and he keeps looking at me funny, and now I can't handle it anymore. What is he looking at!

"Do I have something on my face?" I question, smiling at him happily.

"Nope, I was just thinking about things," he replies as he takes a lick of his ice cream on his cone.

"Like what? And you have to share because we are best friends," I say as I take his cone and hand him mine.

"Hey!" he replies but starts eating mine anyways.

"Well, what were you thinking?"

"About how things have changed and then not," he said.

I scrunch my eyebrows in confusion. "Huh?"

"Well you know, you being friends with Darla and everything. But then your still same old Buffy."

"I hope that is a good thing," I say looking at him with happy curiosity.

"Old Buffy is a good Buffy."

I decide I don't even want to now his thoughts on the new Buffy and decide not to mention it. I take his hand in mine and I can't help but feel those feelings. Like the electricity, like I want to flinch but I don't. It stings but it feels good. He twines my finger through his and I smile at him. We do this sometime, hold hands. It's nice.

It's late when I finally get home and I hear the yelling in the house already and I flinch. My parents yell all the time at each other lately. I hear a bang and then a shatter and I know my dad just threw something at the wall. I hear my mom screech at him and I quickly climb the stairs. I close my door shut and stair at my wall with pictures of NYSYC and Backstreet Boys on my wall. I lay quietly on my bed and try to pretend not to hear the yelling downstairs.

I hear my mom climb the stairs and I know she is going to come into my room and fight with me. She does this when her and dad fight. Every time they fight she looks to fight some more with whoever is around and she usually chooses me just because we never agree on anything.

The door opens and she walks into my room, her face angry. "Buffy, why did you come home so late?"

"I was out with Angel, remember?"

"Are you telling me I don't remember things?" she says glaring at me and I don't understand how parents can change one subject to another so quickly.

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I am talking! Now stop changing the subject and answer the question!" Mom yells.

I have no idea what she is talking about. "What question?" I say raising my eyes in expectation.

Mom looks at me and for some reason she seems to get madded. Shit. "Buffy, stop pretending that you know everything! I'm sick of it! You don't know anything. You are to young to know as much as I know."

I looked at my mom in shock. Weren't we talking about how I was coming home late? "Mom, I never said that I knew anything!" God what the hell is her problem! She gets so PMSey sometimes. I roll me eyes and I shrink when I see mom see that.

"Don't roll you eyes at me, young lady. Who do you think you are, acting like this is nothing. I need you to lose the attitude!"

Now I'm pissed. I wasn't even doing anything! "What was I doing? I was sitting here and you come and here and start yelling at me! I didn't do anything! "

"Don't yell at me!" Mom said as she started walking towards the door.

"Mom, I wasn't yelling," I say frustrated. What does she want from me! I don't understand!

"Yes you were. Buffy Summers you stay here and you don't leave this room."

"What! That is so not fair!" And now I scream. I swear, my mom is going through menopause or something.

"When you act like this anything is fair."

"Mom, your are so overreacting!"

"No computer," my mom said as she opened the door and started out.

"Mom, this is so not fair! What is going on with you!"

"This is fair when you act like this, keep going like this you aren't going to have any computer for the week," the evil bitch from hell said.

I glare at her as she leaves my room and I want to just yell after her how much I hate her, how much I love Dad more than her. I go over to my bed, yell into my pillow, and try to calm down. I hate her so much, damnit I hate her more than anything.

I just want to call someone to complain, anyone but I can't think of anyone I want to call. I pick my cell phone up and dial Cordelia's number.

"Hey," she says happily.

"Hey," I say, best I can, but I just seem to feel a sob come into my throat as I hear Mom and Dad start to argue, about me, again, like always.

"You know, I'll call you back later," I whisper before hanging up and calling someone I know I shouldn't but have to call.

"Hello?"

I sob into the phone and suddenly all the tears start coming out.

"Hello!" The voice says worried.

"Wi- Willow?" I sob as I fall onto my bed.

"Buffy?" she questions in a way to silent voice.

I start to sob some more, and I fall onto my bed and sob into my pillow. Everything seemed to fall apart slowly, everything seemed to be going away. I cry harder and slowly I start to unravel the story to Willow as she comforts me. I cry, for the first time since I can remember. I let all those tears fall out and the anguish that has seeped into me since the begging of the year, since I wasn't best friends with my best friends anymore.

"Are you okay?" Willow says, as my sobs start to end slowly.

"No."

"Can you explain it better now?" Her voice is so nice and welcoming that my tears start to fall again. I was so mean to her? How can she like me even.

"My mom is such a bitch," I whimper into the phone. "She doesn't give a shit about me."

"Buffy… She loves you," Willow says, and I can tell she was confused in how I can call my mom a bitch.

"Everyone hates me!" I finally say as the silence expands.

I can feel like she is rolling her eyes and I felt more tears well up. "No body hates you."

I sniffle a little and I feel my heart give a tiny pinch. "You and X-Xander hate me."

"We don't hate you," Willow says, she sounds annoyed, and I feel my throat quench up.

"Yes you do." And it was the sentence I never liked to think, but was always their in my head. Haunting me with its thought. The only people I trusted, the only people who were ever there for me, hated me. Suddenly things were dizzy and I didn't know what to do. Were was I? Who was I? What was I doing? And those were the million dollar questions.

"Buffy, we don't hate you… we're just- confused," Willow replies to my statement. "Disappointed."

I gulp and my throat tightens. "I didn't now what I was doing. It suddenly what I wanted seemed in reach and I took it, I didn't know I was going to screw everything up."

"Buffy, you don't need to explain it to me."

"And I know I disappointed you," Ignoring what she said. "I turned into this freak, this spoiled rich girl even though

I didn't flaunt it. I was rude and mean and I know that.

"And I, Willow, I don't know what I am doing anymore," and the sob reaches my throat and I start sobbing for a totally different reason now. The reason that should have come first, the reason that knew but ignored. Something that I did to myself. "I'm so lost, and so afraid. All I want are to people to love me. I just want someone to take care of me! And I know I'm spoiled for thinking that and a bitch but I can't help it… I'm so alone and all I think about is how I wish I can just come over to your table and sit there, and just not be afraid anymore. "

By the end of my long babble I'm sobbing on the floor, crying my heart out and I feel so lost. And all I want is for someone to come and hug me. But no one does.

I sit at the table at school and I know Cordelia is staring at me funny and I know my eyes are red and vainy, and I look tired, but I am. I sit at the table with the French fries and Mac and Cheese they served today at lunch and the smell sort of stinks and I'm really tired.

"Earth to Buffy!"

I jump in my chair and almost the whole table is staring at me. I rub my eyes and look at them. My eyes wide, and tired. I know I don't look good today, and I know I look drowsy but hey doesn't everyone have the excuse to wear sweats once in a while?

"Huh?"

Darla rolls her eyes at me, and I sit sort of hunchbacked in my chair. I'm just so depressed. Angel is looking over at me, worry in his eyes, like always. It's getting really annoying I'm not a baby and he doesn't need to treat me like one. I roll me eyes at him and my eyes land on one of the bench tables.

I look at one of the tables closely and see Willow, Xander, Anya, and a few others talking really seriously about something and I feel my stomach sort of quench. I look away quickly before staring into the eyes of Spike who is looking at me curiously, his smirk large.

"Nothing," I say as I eat a French fry and shake my head. "Nothing, I'm fine."

"I didn't say anything."

But all the while my heart is sobbing inside of me.

And Spike knows that.

TBC