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He did not speak to any of them the rest of senior year. She had been welcomed back into the fold, the prodigal daughter returning. There was no anger, no blame. Angel and Dru treated her the same and Xander was too ashamed and haunted with the sight of Faith sitting across from him every day at the lunch table, close-off and cold. And he, he continued to avoid them. To avoid her. The loss of him was so acute, she'd often found herself wandering the house aimlessly at night. A sonambulist searching for his shadow. He'd quit the baseball team. They lost the state title that year to Hemery for the first time in three years. Xander's baseball scholarship to college fell through, his bitterness already starting to etch lines around his tight mouth. She threw herself into her studies and noticed Will doing the same. Radcliffe had accepted her for the fall and she found out afterwards he was going to Harvard. Fate kept conspiring to keep them together no matter how much he ran away. As valedictorian, his speech was so full of duty and responsibility and ice, everyone at commencement felt bitten by his frost. High school was over and it was truly their last summer, but he had become winter. She had started taking to sitting on the porch swing that last summer. Just sitting there rocking idly back and forth, watching the fireflies flitting through the twilight hours. Watching for him. It was on a Thursday, two weeks after high school had ended forever. Her mother was at work and she was there outside, pushing the swing gently back and forth with her sandeled foot, a book dangling from her aching hand. Every part of her ached for him. Her eyelids were drifting shut, she was already starting to dream. When he slipped up her porch steps, she thought it must be a dream. "Hey." "Will?" "Yeah." The book fell from her suddenly nerveless hand as he sat down on the swing beside her. "What are you doing here?" "Do you want me to go?" "No. NO. Don't go." "Well, then. Here I am." Here he was. He'd come back to her. She'd thought...she'd thought he would never return. Was this a dream? Please God, don't let me wake. "You've been gone." "Yes. Did you miss me?" How could he even ask? It was like asking her if she missed the sun, if she missed her father, if she missed her fading world. She choked back a laugh that flirted on the edge of being a sob. "You know I did." They sat in silence, his foot pushing the swing back and forth, taking over for her own. Her body suddenly immobile from relief. And love. Always there was love. "So I hear you got into Radcliffe." "Yes. And you...well, congratulations. Harvard. That's wonderful for you." "My parents are happy." Are you happy? Will I see you again after this summer? Or will you keep drifting away from me? "My mother is happy too." More silence. Only punctuated here and there with the low buzzing of the fireflies, a car engine humming in the distance. If it were two other people, if it weren't him, if it weren't her, they would just be another couple of sweethearts sitting outside on a porch swing. Exchanging forever vows. "Why did you apply to Radcliffe?" "What do you mean?" "Was it because..." He could be so selfish sometimes. It wasn't for him. It could be if he would allow it. "Not everything is because of you." "I know." Did he? How could he know when she did not? Everything she was was already so interweaved with him. He turned to her hesitantly, met her down-cast eyes. "It was true, wasn't it? What Xander said." "Xander said a lot of things." He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated with her. Part of her enjoyed this. Making it difficult for him. Because he'd always made everything so hard for her, without even knowing it. But the other part of her just wanted to take him into her arms, to smooth down the disheveled tufts of his hair. She didn't know which part would win in the end. "You know what I mean." "It wasn't the whole truth." "What is the whole truth?" She shrugged. "You tell me." He was quiet for so long, she feared she had pushed him too far. But she couldn't go on this way. Clawing at his fortress walls, scraping her hands bloody against the stone. "Buffy, I..." "Yes?" He almost never called her by her first name. She could count the number of times on one hand and still have several fingers left over. Everything in her clenched. Her heart a bird beating its wings desperately to fly. To become whole. To become one. She was almost eighteen and she already knew she had been waiting for this moment all her life. "Will?" He looked off into the distance. She followed his eyes towards the empty street, the green leaves blowing on the trees, the approaching darkness. "I can't love you." The porch swing stilled. He turned and stared into her face, his eyes calm and clear. She saw herself reflected back, small and pale. "I can't. Not ever." She didn't think she would be able to speak again. She was surprised to find she could. Surprised at how her voice could sound so normal and everyday. When every part of her had withered and died. "I understand." She gathered up her book and slipped her feet back into the sandals she had toed off. She looked at him. He was still sitting on the swing, staring up at her. She motioned impatiently. "Well? Get up lazybones and come on in. I think we still have some cake leftover. Ed Sullivan's on tonight and I'm not going to miss that." He followed her inside and when she shut the front door behind them, she shut the door on her secret place. On her darkest voice, dead and silent at last. ***************************************************************** There were no tears as she lay in bed, remembering. They'd watched Ed Sullivan and made plans to go to Shannon's Pond the next day and he'd left with the wrapped-up remains of her mother's bundt cake. There had been no tears afterwards that night either. At almost eighteen, everything in her had dried up leaving her a barren desert. The knowledge of his truth and how it was not what she had always hoped would be their shared truth, made it easy for her to live. At almost eighteen, she learned how freeing it could be to live without hope. All my life, I have been living a lie. When you see me, I am not me. I am something else. Something darker and more desperate. I still do not know what I am. Do you know? Could you show me? Make me whole. Make me yours. Then I will no longer be that other. When you put your hands on me, you burn away the other. Burn me away. |