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 Four- June, 1999
Zoning out is something I learned can be very useful. Especially when Darla and Drusilla can't seem to shut up! Half an hour I am here, at the mall, listening to them yap and yap and yap away with nothing in their brain! I am bitter, I know. No one needs to tell me. I'm almost falling asleep, almost but they just seem to need me in their conversation. Jesus. I finally make some excuse about needing to go to the bathroom and I run away. I as I am walking, I run right into someone. Shit.
"I'm so ssss-" and then I stop because right now I really don't need to face the people who I have once again abandoned. And if I finally face both Willow and Xander, it will finally occur to me that I have abandoned them even after they saved my life once again.
"Buffy," Xander says surprised. Well, he shouldn't be that surprised, I mean I am always here. Shopping, because my life is sad.
"Hey!" I say, trying to act all upbeat, when inside I'm scared they are going to come at me with beating clubs. Which can't be possible because they don't have any, but still… I'm a chicken.
Willow looks at me for a second, like she is judging me and I feel my inside fall; she never judged me before. "How are you feeling?" she finally asks.
I scrunch my eyebrows a little and sort of wiggle my noise and out of the corner of my eye I see Xander sort of laugh. "Good, better, I mean, you know."
"That's good," Willow replies.
And now we find ourselves in the tense moment of silence. I always wanted to know how they feel like, and now I wished I never felt them. They aren't fun, at all. I look down at my watch and then back at them and I try to think of anything to say but my mind sort of draws a blank. Great, when I need my brain to work it just doesn't. Fucking brain.
"SO, me and Will are going to go. See you around, maybe," Xander says as he and Willow are about to turn around.
My eyes widen and I think fast (woah, I can think, finally). "Hey, why don't you guys join us?"
That stops them. "Join you?" Xander asks.
"Uh yeah, why not?" A million reasons you idiot. Darla, Drusilla, Xander hates them, Xander, little Willow.
"I don't think that's such a good idea," Willow says and my heart sort of sinks. "But thanks for the offer."
I smile at that and think. "Hey, can I join you guys?"
They stare sort of blankly at me like I said something crazy. "If you want but aren't-"
"They'll get over it," I say.
We start walking and the tense silence sort of falls again, but not so tense. "So what have you guys been up to."
"Oh you know, the usual, smoking, sex, dope," Xander says and I laugh. I missed Xander… I'm such a bad person. How can I miss him when I am the one that abandoned him?
"Do you know why they call it dope?" I ask.
"Why?"
"Cause you turn into a dope," and I start laughing at my own joke, which I think is funny and true, but the important thing is that Willow and Xander are also laughing.
Once we reach the eatery and get our food, and sit down I start asking questions. "So you guys get your report card yet?"
"Nope, but then again I don't want it," Xander says.
"Aren't we supposed to get them in July?" Willow asks.
"Probably… but you probably have nothing to worry about," I say to her as I eat a French fry.
"Maybe… you never know," she says.
"Don't listen to her, she is lying, she got straight As," Xander says pointing a French fry in her face.
"Xander, you can't just assume-"
"I'm not assuming, we got our little cards that show us your grades and I didn't see A- or B+ or C. All I saw was that
stupid letter."
I roll my eyes at him. "A isn't bad thing, Xander."
"Shut up, Buffy," but he is smiling when he says it and I laugh.
:
"It was weird and not," I say on the phone as I speak with Angel.
"Weird?" Angel's voice sounds on the phone.
I smile and I think he knows I am smiling. I love talking to Angel. "Yeah, I mean I totally ditched them and they
were nice to me."
"Maybe they like you, Buffy?' Angel asks in a joking voice.
"Maybe," I reply.
"So what are doing tomorrow?" he asks.
"I don't know, now that school is over I have nothing to do," I say as I pull my pink nail polish out of make- up closet.
"We should do something," he says it so casually that I laugh.
"If you insist, Angel," I laugh at him and he laughs back.
"I really insist that you come with me, I mean I am only here for a week and then I leave," he says and then I gasp.
"NO! Angel! You can't leave me!" I say as I start polishing my toes.
"I have to. Camp is the number one most important thing to me," he says with false seriousness.
"I thought I was number one!"
He laughs at that and I hear him moving around and suddenly I feel my heart drop. I don't want him to leave, who am I going to call all summer when I am bored or when I need to complain or… just to be with?
"Angel, please don't go," I say quietly and for a moment I think he doesn't hear me and of course I am glad 'cause I am more or less begging him not to leave me.
"Buffy…" he says and I wish I hadn't said that.
"I was just kidding," I say, but I don't feel like I was kidding. Why can't I just tell him the truth?
"Buffy, what-"
"Can I write you?"
He is quite for a moment and then suddenly I wish I had never talked and opened my big mouth. "If you don't, I think I might cry."
I laugh and I sort of feel my heart jump. "Then I guess I have to," I sigh and I hear him laugh.
"And send me Playboy. Mom said she wouldn't."
"Haha," I say with no laughter in my voice.
Me and all my friends are at the mall, saying goodbye to each other, because almost every single one of us are going to camp or some weird country tomorrow. I'm going to England, were Mom finally gave me her permission to be able to do whatever I want with my hair, even if I want dye to it black (not that I would, cause, eww goth). I am sitting next to Angel who has his hand around me, and is playing with the strap of my shirt. It feels nice. He is talking to Percy about something but I look up at him and he looks down at me before looking back at Percy. A second later he looks down at me, stopping in the middle of his sentence. I smile up at him and he smiles back down and then looks back at Percy who has a grin like no tomorrow on his face.
"Aww, look at Angel and Buffy," he says with a fake sugary voice.
I roll me eyes at him. "Shove it up your ass, Percy," Angel says, but laughing to the joke anyways.
If only Angel didn't think of me as a sister. If only. That should be the title to the book of my life. IF ONLY! If only I could not be a chicken, if only I could be brave and tell Angel he belongs with me, if only I didn't follow Darla around, if only I could just go to Willow and beg her for forgiveness, if fucking only. I start to zone out like I always do when I hear Darla's squeaky voice call my name. I tense up and Angel feels this and grins down at me. I glare at him.
"Yeah?"
"When are you coming back?" she says, while looking at her nails.
I think for a second. "I don't know."
"Well, if you did I thought we could get together," she says, finally looking at me.
"Huh?" I really am lost to the conversation. I think I need to go back on my ADHD pills.
She huffs and then starts to talk to Dru. I look at Angel. "Did I miss something?"
Before he could answer I hear Larry shouting, "GEEK ALERT!"
We all turn and see Willow, and Xander walking towards us. I gulp, this cannot end will in any way, shape or form. I am such a wimp. God please help me. Have mercy, I swear I won't do anything bad for as long as I live. Well, you know, if I can help it. Like lusting after Angel, I can't help that-
Larry yelling breaks my indoor praying. "What brings you nerds to this side of the mall?" he says in a not so nice voice. I gulp, I am such a bad chicken. Chicken, Buffy you are a chicken. Chicken. Chicken. Chicken.
They look petrified and for a second Willow looks at me, and she looks at me with such disappoint it sort of breaks my heart. I think I feel it cracking. I'm am such a bad friend, and person. I look away before I do something stupid like cry and I hear Larry start mocking them. I turn red and try to look anywhere but where Willow and Xander are standing. I hear Angel tell Larry to back off but he ignores him.
"And you, Harris, you are such a faget!"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP LARRY!"
I think I am in shock of myself. I am standing, puffing, at Larry. Oh shit, shit, shit, shit, I think I am going to die!
Everyone's head turns to look at me, and I know it is a bit shocking. I mean, me, Buffy, is sticking up for dorks. Omigod, and I didn't even see myself standing. But everyone is glaring at me, or looking a bit… shocked. Don't I know any other words! I look over at Willow and she is sort of… Well she is grinning, and that's a good thing. I think. Big grinning. Very good thing. And Xander is… well shocked.
"What did you say Buffy?" Larry says, his eyes I think are turning red…
I take a deep calming breath. Now or never. "You heard me. What right do you have to talk to them like that? They never did anything to you!"
I look over at Darla, and she has this smirk on her face, like she knew I was going to screw up eventually. Well, maybe I wasn't cut up to be popular. I take hold of my bag and climb my way out of where I was sitting and move towards Willow and Xander. I start to walk away from who I was before, and towards who I promise myself I will become. Xander and Willow behind me smiling like idiots. I just need one more look, and as I do I see Larry seething at being told at, and Cordelia being sort of shocked, but having a small smile on her face. Darla is just glaring, and everyone else sort of seems confused.
My heart sort of explodes, in a not so good way and I need to take deep breath but it's okay. Cause just as I was about to cry, Xander puts his hand around my shoulder and hugs me to him and Willow has this huge happy grin on her face and I just looking at how innocent and happy she looks makes me so happy.
We are just about to walk out of the mall when I hear someone calling my name. "Buffy!"
I turn around and I see Angel running towards us. Big grin on his face. "Wait up!"
Of course, I grow roots to the place I am standing. He finally gets to me and gives me this huge smile. I bite my lip but I have a smile on my face, still. It is starting to hurt.
Angel looks over at Xander as he pulls me to his chest and says, "You are going to have to move over. She is my best friend."
My heart flip flops as he pushes Xander lightly and pulls me closer to him.
"Hey! She is my best friend," Xander says as he pulls me back, and I can't stop the big grin that forms on my face.
"No, she is mine!" Angel says and just when he is about to pull me back, I pull out of both them and put my arms around Willow.
"Nope, I'm Willow's best friend."
Willow smiles at me and I smile back and I hear both the guys laughing in the background. I should have done this a lot sooner. As we walk out the mall I feel this feeling of accomplishment. I was finally popular, and I got my taste of it, and it showed me that it wasn't pretty and fun. It hurt and its pressuring and when I look back and look at Angel's face, and he smiles at me with so much pride, I see that finally, I'm happy. Which is sort of weird, I haven't felt it in so long… Oh well.
TBC
9th Grade… first year of High School. Hormones, fun. wink Just letting everyone know, that 9th Grade as I have it stuck in my head is the year of Angel.