A Little Light

Schloßgarten
Karlsruhe, Germany
March 18, 2008
14:06


And I believe in reinvention;
Do you believe that life is holding the clue?
Take away all the lonely moments.
Give me full communication with you.
- Syntax, "Pride"

The car felt so much smaller after Buffy's panic attack that we could only drive for awhile before we both needed some air. So here, we are just walking and breathing. I always pictured Germany as damp and drab, the way they show it in old war movies. But it's actually sunny and kind of pretty.

We head north into the woods. Buffy pets a stray dog and I find a quarter, which I think is pretty cool, considering we're in a country that doesn't use quarters. After about twenty minutes, we sit on a fallen tree and I shift the quarter back and forth in my fingers, reflecting the sun off Buffy's red t-shirt until she gets annoyed and swats my hand.

"What?" I ask, as innocently as I can.

She raises an eyebrow. "What am I, stupid? You were doing that on purpose."

"Doing what?"

"Making the light shine on my boob." I start laughing, just cause she sounds so indignant. She just rolls her eyes and leans back a little, closing her eyes against the sun. "It's not just business."

I pause while lighting my cigarette. "What?"

"What you said earlier. It's not just business with us. It's never been just business. I hated you when you first came to Sunnydale." I frown, because this is not what I want to hear. Not at all. "I was going through a really rough time, and I had just gotten everything in my life back. And it felt.. it felt like you were trying to take that away from me." I open my mouth and she puts her hand up to stop me. "I know now it wasn't like that, but that's how it felt at the time. I needed my mom and my sister and my friends and Giles, and suddenly I had to share them with you.

"I don't think it's a great idea to get into everything that happened, but I did like you, once upon a time. Then things happened and I didn't anymore. And now.. I don't know how I feel. I want to like you, but I'm scared to give us another chance. We always seem to screw up." She pauses, looking at me. "Why are you smirking like that?"

"You said we, and us. You've never said that about any of our issues before."

She shrugs. "I guess things change."

"I guess they do," I answer thoughtfully.

We're both quiet for awhile. Then she sits up and turns sideways on the log, facing me. "Tell me something about you."

"What? What do you want to know?"

"Everything. Anything. Just tell me something."

Okay, I officially don't like this game. "Um.. I like pizza."

She rolls her eyes. "Tell me something real. Something I don't already know."

"Uh.. I don't know. I don't have any cute anecdotes about my life or anything." I pull out another cigarette nervously and light it. "If there's something you wanna know, just ask."

She thinks about it. "What was your most embarrassing moment?"

That's an easy one. "First day of kindergarten. We all had to introduce ourselves. I stood up and opened my mouth, but I was so scared that I just peed myself and started to cry instead."

"Aw," her face softens, and she sighs a little. "I was about thirteen, and we'd gone to this water park. My bathing suit was a little small on me 'cause I'd just started getting a chest, you know? Anyway, I'm standing at the top of this huge slide, and these older boys were just staring at me, and when I looked down I realized that my breast had popped out. I wanted to die." I try to stifle my laughter, and I guess I do a shitty job of it. "It's not funny!" Then she starts laughing as well, and I don't feel so bad. "Okay, you ask me something now."

I think about it a little. "Tell me.. about your first time."

"Still a pervert, Faith." I grin. "Okay, okay. Um.. it was Angel. On my seventeenth birthday. We were soaking wet from the rain, and things just.. kind of happened. Then I woke up alone, and the next time I saw him.." Her forehead wrinkles. "He was just.. different. He was being a real jerk, telling me how bad I was.."

"Jesus. No wonder you're such a prude."

"I'm not a prude! Anyway, tell me about your first time."

I falter for a minute. I hadn't thought about her asking me. "How about a different question?"

"No way! You heard my terrible story, let's hear yours now."

I sigh and lean my head forward a little, debating whether to lie to her, but then I remember that that's how things got fucked in the first place. Lying.

"I, uh.. I don't remember his name." She raises an eyebrow, but thankfully stays quiet. This is hard enough to talk about without a commentary. "This guy my mom was seeing before she hooked up with Gable. Real loser."

"How old were you?" she asks softly, all of the amusement gone from her voice.

"I dunno. Eight? Nine, maybe."

She quietly reaches over and pries the burnt-out cigarette from my fingers, tossing it onto the ground. "That doesn't count."

"What?" I ask, horrified.

She shakes her head. "That's not.. sex. Sex is.. different. It's an expression of good feelings that two people have for each other. That? That was.. just a terrible, bad thing that shouldn't have happened." I try to hide the fact that she's pretty much making me cry, and I guess it doesn't work very well because she reaches over and wipes a tear off my cheek. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed."

"No. No, it's okay. I've never told anyone that. Felt kinda good to say it." She smiles a little. "I really need a drink. Wasn't there a bar back there?"

"Beer garden," she says, standing up and stretching.

"Sounds good to me."