Sometimes he says, “I love you, I love you, Buffy, I love you.” And I listen. No matter how much I wish for him to stop or to kill him, I listen. Because at least someone wants me then. At least someone cares enough about me to beg to me.
Every night after I finally fall asleep, I get up and stumble into the bathroom. I look in front of the mirror, wobbly legs supporting me, fresh tears running down my face. I wonder why I let this happen. Every night I see him in the mirror. I see his face telling me that I’m a whore, that I am disgusting. I fall on the floor, my knees hitting the linoleum with a soft thud. My head bent over the toilet, I throw up over and over again. Trying to get him out of me. Trying to get his taste out of my mouth. And every night I silently beg for his forgiveness, and I pray for him to come back to me. I do not love him, but I need him.
And who I do love? He’s not coming back. Ever. He lives in his own world now. It is different than mine. And every night after I throw up and cry some more, I slowly crawl and make my way back into my bedroom so I do not disturb anyone else in the house. I pick up my phone and dial the number that I know by heart. I dial the number of the person who owns my heart. I always hear his voice, or hers, or someone else that works with them that I do not know. Every time I hear a voice on the other end of the line, I hang up. And if it wasn’t his voice, then I call back. I wonder if they wonder who I am, who it is that calls every night and hangs up.
But tonight he says my name. He knows it is me. He has known. Only his own body probably shakes with fear as does mine when he is there. I let out a whimper and he says my name again, “Buffy.” We both just stay there, silence is all that we have. I curl my body up in the creves between my bed and night stand where my phone normally sits. But now the phone is up against my face, the cradle in my lap. He talks to me again, his voice pleading, wishing for me to say something so that he knows that I am okay. “Buffy…is it you? Are you okay?” Even I know that he is aware that his questions are foolish. He knows it is me, and he knows that all is not okay. Not all is right. Because he left, and now my life is different.
I sleep with things and people that I should not. I say someone else’s name when I moan out in ecstasy. Only he does not know this. He does not know that of which I do. He does not know who I am anymore. Just as I do not know him. And the silence that takes over both of us makes my eyes water again. The knowingness that we will never be together again, that we do not belong. Neither of us. We are both on our own, both different from the world. He is a vampire with a soul, me, I am a Slayer; she who hunts and kills vampires and other evil things of the night as long as they are not fully human.
My breathing is choked up by my tears, and I slowly pull the phone away from my ear. I regret what I am going to do, but I have to. At least now he is sure of who it is that calls every night and hangs up right away, pausing only when she hears his voice. A sad smile always spreads over my face then, knowing that he is happy, that he is as alive as he can be. He can read me. I know because as I lower the phone to it’s cradle, I hear his voice saying my name, telling me not to hang up, to talk to him. But I do not listen. He is not my keeper, and I am not his toy. I shake my head at his words, silently telling him, “no.” Because I know that if I was to talk, my body would crumble even more than it already is and I would burst into fresh tears that have welded behind my untrusting eyes.
The phone hits the buttons on the cradle and I wonder if he stays on the line and listens to the static for awhile. That is what I do sometimes, if the person on the other end in L.A. hangs up first. But that does not happen often. Not often enough. Silence is all that is left for me now, and I embrace it readily. I lean my head up against the side of my bed, the phone and cradle still in my lap. The cord connecting the two is long and spiraled. Like my life. It carried his voice once, and I silently beg for it to carry it again.
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