The Letter

Dawn and I had laid there on my bed in the quiet enjoyment of sisterly company for a while. Occasionally there would be a crash from downstairs or a squeal. The Training Pants had officially run out of their cuteness factor, at least for the day. I habitually wondered what Faith was doing down there, or if she even was still around. Maybe she had taken off to get more cigarettes. Wouldn’t really be a surprise, after all, she usually didn’t stick around in the same spot for too long if she could help it.

I knew that Dawnie had fallen asleep by her half-snoring, half-wheezing noises. She hadn’t changed into pajamas, but I didn’t want to disturb her. I laid in the dark and strained to make out Faith’s voice through the various murmurs from downstairs. At one point I thought I heard her for sure, so I tensed up and listened harder, but when ‘she’ said “You are SO full of it, Amanda!” I realized it had just been Kennedy. They sounded a lot alike. Well, through the walls they did, anyway.

I’d been losing sleep over the First for so long that I should have been tired. I don’t even know when I finally did fall asleep, but I woke up just enough to open one eye, look around to see that all was well, and then drift off once more about 20 times before the sun rose. When the alarm went off, I was certain that I had been awake forever, vividly prepared for every insignificant happenstance. Dawn, on the other hand, could barely manage to rouse herself in order to prepare for school.

As I showered, peacefully, I thought about something other than Faith for the first time since I’d seen her in the graveyard the night before. I speculated to myself the benefits of waking up earlier than all the Potentials. This fleeting amusement lasted mere seconds. Each time I remembered the words of my letter, I felt dizzying humiliation that lined the border of regret. It was a physical pang, the same kind I used to get as a kid when mom would flash me a look that said I’d just screwed something up.

I washed the same parts of my anatomy repeatedly, not stopping. Shoulders, chest, armpits. Shoulders, chest, armpits.
Shoulders. I realized I’m in love with you.
Chest. I realized I’m in love with you.
Armpits. I realized... I’m so fucking stupid.
Shoulders. So fucking stupid.
Chest. So FUCKING stupid!
Armpits. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Stupid!

I neglected to lather any additional regions. I am a firm subscriber of the ‘soap-trickles-down-and-thus-cleans’ theory.

I stepped out of the shower, dressed, and touched up the make-up I’d been wearing for at least 24 hours. Some part of me hoped I’d open the door and she’d been standing there in the hallway, leaning against the frame. I pictured her saying “How was that shower, B? Wet enough for ya’?” before grabbing me by the collar and kissing me. It didn’t matter that I legitimately knew this fantasy was entirely ridiculous, I still suffered disappointment when I stepped out to find the corridor empty.

It seems masochistic, but the hopeful prospect of Faith greeting me in every corner of the house as I absent-mindedly completed my pre-work routine made time pass by with a lack of misery. The anguish unfolded upon my arrival at the freshly and partially deserted Sunnydale high school. There was no possibility of a chance encounter with her in the Principal’s office, or at the vending machines, or in the copy room. Just me, the scattered students, and Morning Wood (another Xanderesque giggle-enducing epithet).

Even that would prove to be rather short-lived.

“You’re fired.”

“What?” Extend my disbelief.

“Effective immediately.” Morning Wood thought he had that whole badass thing going on.

I came fully into the office. “You’re firing me? I just refrained from kicking your ass!” Disbelief quickly morphed into defensiveness, and then attempted intimidation. It’s a slayer trick. You scare people, they give you what you want. I’d been doing it for long enough that I now adapted it perfectly to blend in with normal, non-superhuman stuff.

Robin Hooded-Wood (Xander again), gave his reasons which were convincing and relevant. How convincing and relevant? Just enough to mask that he was futilely asserting himself over me in the only possible realm that he could. A weak move, but I conceded. I didn’t loathe him just yet... that would come later. For the time being I still considered him to be an ally when he wasn’t all emo-angst and pompous.

I took Xander’s Chrysler home and got Starbucks for the Training Pants girls on the way. I thought about the First, but there was nothing to contemplate. It was simply the same worn-out ideas floating through my head like a looped track from a shitty club DJ who never knows when to quit.

Through the front door. No sign of her. Into the kitchen. The girls were laughing out loud, crowded around various clusterfucks of spilled cereal, failed attempts at omelets, and dirty plates on my counter. Suddenly they noticed me; their faces instantly froze.

There’s that slayer intimidation again. I’d gotten so good at it, I could do it without even trying. “Whoever cleans this shit up the fastest gets a caramel frappachino.”

They scrambled like gerbils on meth amphetamines. I mumbled something about how they should have put that sort of energy into their training routines before I heard the distinct thud of well-worn Army boots making their way down the stairs. They weren’t Spike’s, it was daylight. I knew it was her even before I turned around and our eyes locked. My gaze seemed to have frozen her there, her body mid-strut at the bottom of the staircase, her right hand abiding in it’s casual contact with the rail. I moved through the door frame and walked towards her without looking away from her face. In a brief second I thought I’d have the nerve to never stop walking, and somehow I’d find my lips touching her lips, my chest rising against her chest, my tongue encouraging her tongue. I didn’t find that, and instead stood a fair three feet away. It wasn’t close enough.

“G’morning B. Anything big?” She muttered, her face littered with telling signs of exhaustion.

I struggled inwardly for a second. My lack of immediate response made her give me the classic confused-Faith furrowed brow and the half-tilted head. She surprisingly had not demanded a patent for those two yet, at least as far as I knew of.

“Not too big,” I said, sighing, “there’s some Starbucks if you want it.”

She finally removed her hand from the staircase rail and slipped it into her pants pocket. “Thanks, but I’m good. Putting coffee in with my ulcers is like inviting somebody’s ex-boyfriend to their party, ya’ know? Lots of fun until they run into each other and then it’s the shits.”

God, she’s so dumb sometimes.

As if to really drive the point home that she’s the biggest dork on the planet, she started laughing at her own joke, even though she was clearly trying like hell not to.

I ignored her. “There’s also tea.”

“What’s up with you?” Faith blurted out, ignoring my polite tea offer.

“Besides the impending apocalypse? Probably... nothing.” Lies.

She scoffed aloud. “Yeah right. I may have been gone for a couple of years, but it didn’t ruin my people-skills. If I ever had ‘em to begin with. I can tell when the Big Bad is under your skin and I can tell when it’s something juicy. Your eyebrows do different things.”

“You can tell what I’m upset about because of my eyebrows? Do they spell out words? Do they need to be tweezed?” I tried to joke. She was making me nervous. I didn’t mind having a conversation about our letters, as long as I was in control. But whenever I was powerless against her, I always left feeling the same.

“Hey, I was in your body for a bit, remember? What do you think I was doing all of that time, besides social experiments on the public reaction towards blondes versus brunettes?”

“I don’t want to think about you and Ril-”

“No, gross. I wasn’t talkin’ about that.” She hastily interrupted, shaking her head with mock disgust. “Nah, I mean when I was standing in front of the mirror, for like, hours. Making faces and... shit. That’s how I figured out your eyebrows. So quit changing the damned subject and tell me what’s on your mind, slayer junior.”

I hated it when she called me that. Worst of all nicknames. Ever. “I’ll break your legs if you call me that again.”

“You’d try.” The corner of her lips turned up in the mother of all mischievous grins.

“You want to know what’s bothering me? Aside from ultimate doom and peril approaching us?”

Faith shrugged stoically. “Sure, let me have it.”

Deep sigh. I quickly checked to make sure all my emotions had been switched off, protecting me from any possible pain or humiliation. “Remember the letters I sent to you when you were in prison?”

She didn’t even have to think about it before responding automatically. “Let’s not talk about that.”

“Ok.” Stabbing, tearing, humiliation and pain. Fucking broken emotion switch. Turn off. Damnit you fucker, turn off!

“Ok.” Faith brushed past me and straight to the kitchen, charging through the door that led to the basement.

I stood and stared. A remorseful masochist.