Like Other Girls...

Okay, here’s the rest of it. Oh, and by the way, Fingersmith got the cookies cause she guessed the past three animes I watched, not just the last one. (love the name. great storyline in that particular one).

Buffy closed the door quietly, having made sure that her mom couldn’t overhear them, and watched as Faith slid out the window and to the roof, beckoning her after. Not the safest of places, or the warmest, for a talk, but it was a nice enough night that she didn’t mind much, so long as she could get this overwith. “Her name was Glory….”

Faith looked up as Buffy said that, only just barely settling into a seat on the roof as she did so. Faith’s brows rose, and she leaned back on both hands, watching the blonde quietly. Glory huh… nice name. Not.

“She… um…” Buffy shook her head, staring down at her feet as she pulled her knees to her chest and tried not to let the memories make her emotional. “I… We knew each other in elementary school, but were in different classes, so I never saw her much. I don’t know what happened to her in middle-school, but in High School, she became kind of… a bad ass. She wasn’t really a slut, or called a slut… but she skipped a lot of classes, and almost got suspended for smoking a lot. Even though, when I was still the ‘Queen’ I looked down my nose at her, she always flirted at me and winked whenever I tried to make fun of her. She… she and I got into an argument just before the last year ended, when we were alone, and she ended up shoving me against a wall and kissing me. I never felt anything like it.”

“Hmph.” Faith growled, glaring at the branches and leaves of the tree next to the house, which she had used to climb to Buffy’s window. She might have wanted to do something like that with Buffy once or twice… but she never would have, she didn’t think.

“It kinda scared me, but every time I saw her those last few days of school, I would freeze, and couldn’t help remembering how her lips felt.” Buffy sighed, still staring down at her feet, feeling chilled despite the warm, night air. “I don’t remember which boyfriend I had at the time, but I ended up dumping him out of sheer boredom not too long after. Glory and I… we kind of ended up starting to meet after that. Not really dating, but she would take me somewhere, saying that we would do something fun, but we always ended up just making out. It wasn’t great at home, Dad was always gone, or arguing with mom… and Tara was usually hiding away somewhere with Spike or some of her friends. I looked forward to my time with Glory, even if it wasn’t all that meaningful, and chafed when I had to hang out with my cronies from school. By the end of the summer, she’d told me that she loved me, that she was in love with me, and we…”

Faith frowned into the silence where Buffy had cut off. The stubborn, loud girl seemed so vulnerable, and she could almost swear that she could see the hint of a tear in Buffy’s eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to say it, Faith guessed. “You fucked.”

“We had sex.” Buffy corrected, as if there was a difference. Perhaps to Buffy, there was. “Things didn’t start changing until we got back to school. We hadn’t gone anywhere public so far, kind of a mutual agreement, but she wouldn’t even look at me in the hallways. I… I wanted to come out to everyone, be public, but she wouldn’t even talk about it with me. She seemed to be getting farther and farther away from me, even when I was trying to make myself better. It… I didn’t know what was wrong.” There was another long silence, and both girls were staring up at the clear, starry sky above them. “She’d almost gotten expelled for her smoking on school grounds again only the day before it happened. The gym was off limits, cause the floors were being polished and the bleachers were being lacquered. She had ducked in there to have a quick smoke, and I ducked in after. I wanted to talk to her, about coming out finally. When I saw her smoking, and she still wouldn’t look at me, I kinda snapped. I started yelling at her, asking what she was doing. I wanted to know if she was trying to get expelled, I told her if she wanted to get away from me that badly, all she had to do was say so. She only glared at me and flicked the cigarette away, asking if that made me happy, and if I’d shut up before someone heard us. The trash can she threw it in had a bunch of paper towels and some of the left-over lacquer… and went up in a blaze, and the bleachers were next. We both panicked, but I told her to run, so that she wouldn’t get caught, and tried to find a fire extinguisher.
“The fire department came just as I ran out, still holding the empty extinguisher, and put everything out, but I still got in trouble for being in there when it was off limits. They tried to prove that I set the fire, but no one ever could. That didn’t stop the rumors though.” Buffy scowled then, closing her eyes as she remembered. “I went to Glory’s house after everything was over. I wanted to see if she was okay… I probably wanted to yell some more. I… I’d always been okay to just walk in before. Her parents weren’t home, I knew that, and she never minded me coming in. She hated me knocking, really. But… when I went inside. She… Glory was on her dad’s pool table, skirt around her waist, fucking some greasy jock from the grade above her. When she saw me, she didn’t seem to know if she should smile, or stop. I just ran. We… um… didn’t speak again after that.”

Faith was silent for a few minutes, trying to imagine what Buffy felt. In her life, she’d been blamed for plenty of shit she hadn’t done. Hell, half of what was on her record she hadn’t even heard of till someone pointed the finger at her. That she could get, but she figured in an insightful moment that that wasn’t what was bothering Buffy so badly. B was hurt by what Glory did. She hadn’t ever cared about someone like that before, but in all of her flings, they’d always known what she wanted out of it. She’d never told anyone that L word. Absently, she realized that if anyone had ever done that to Red, she might have killed them. Her brows knitted together and her fists clenched. “That’s… That’s really fucked up, B. Ya don’t say shit like that and then… Fuck, even I’m not that bad.”

“Yeah… I know….” Buffy’s voice was tight, and Faith finally looked over at her again, realizing that the blonde was, indeed, crying. “I… I’m kinda over it now. I mean, I was stupid to believe her, when she acted like that. I think I knew that she didn’t mean it… but it hurt. I… I never told Tara. At first I didn’t think she’d understand about Glory, then I just didn’t want her to know how gullible I was.”

“It’ll be okay, B.” Faith finally said softly, loosing the harsh tone she’d had before and scooting over. Awkwardly, she put an arm around Buffy’s shoulders, letting the blonde lean on her and cry into her. It felt weird, and uncomfortable, but inside she felt kinda warm for doing it. “It’ll be okay.”

TBC