Disclaimer: The song lyrics are Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” Great song.
Connor became nervous when he saw Steven Radinsky entering the dorm ahead of him. “Hey Steve,” he said out of habit, despite the fact he wanted to slip by without being seen.
“Hey Connor,” Steve answered looking at Connor somewhat bitterly.
“How’re you holding up? I mean, are you sure you shouldn’t take the rest of the quarter off?”
“Maybe I should. At first I didn’t want to because my parents . . .they went out of their minds when my brother and all those other kids died last month. But now, I’ll be in the middle of class and suddenly I’ll start thinking . . .” Steve looked at Connor. “Do you really think it was youth gangs from East Palo Alto?”
Connor was taken off guard by the question and just started stammering. “How should I know?”
“You were there at the mausoleum on Halloween, right? I mean, I saw you right when it started. Didn’t it seem like they were . . . zombies?”
Connor shrugged. “It was dark. They were probably wearing costumes. I mean, isn’t ‘The Zombies’ the name of the youth gang the cops said attacked campus?”
Steve looked down sadly as they arrived at the door to Connor’s room. Peter was already gone. “This might sound stupid, but do you have a brush I can borrow?”
“A brush?” Connor asked as he unlocked the door and entered. “Like a hair brush?”
“Yeah,” Steve said as he followed Connor in. “I packed mine already. But I want to look normal when my parents come to pick me up.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“So, where’re you spending the break?”
“Boulder Creek,” Connor said, handing Steve the hair brush. “With my family,” he quickly added. He often forgot that others didn’t distinguish between his family in Boulder Creek and his family in New York.
“Sounds nice. Hey, Con, who were those girls you were with that night?”
“What night?”
“Halloween,” Steve answered.
“Oh. Emily, my ex-girlfriend, and her roommate. Why?”
Steve shrugged. “Just wondering what everyone else saw.”
**
Emily quickly wiped away her tears as Dawn entered.
“Too late,” Dawn said. “I caught you.”
“I’m almost ready to go.” There was no particular reason to tell Dawn this. She just wanted a change of subject.
“You should call him before you both go off,” Dawn said.
“And say what?”
“Maybe start by saying you’ve cried every night since you started your ‘break’. That the break was a bad idea.”
Emily shook her head. “I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“So you came up with a solution that hurt everyone,” Dawn said sarcastically. “Brilliant.”
“I have to go,” Emily said, grabbing her suitcase and walking from the room.
Dawn considered following her, but knew it was a bad idea. She’d been too flip during this conversation and knew Emily would need time to cool off.
“Ow!” Dawn heard Emily yell in the hallway. “That was my hair!”
Dawn walked to the door to see what the commotion was, but found herself bumping into a tall guy.
“Is this where Connor Reilly’s girlfriend lives,” the guy asked.
“Ex-girlfriend. But she just left.”
“Oh,” the guy said. Dawn flinched as the guy reached for her. “Sorry,” he said as he picked something off her shoulder. “You . . . you had some lint or something on you. Anyway, I’ll check back after the break.”
Dawn walked downstairs, but hadn’t been sitting on the curb for two minutes before Willow pulled up in her Lexus. Dawn climbed in and hugged Willow. Willow hugged back tightly.
“Let me guess,” Dawn said, feeling the tightness of the hug. “Bad news.”
“Buffy can’t make it,” Willow said as she pulled away from the curve.
“Like I didn’t expect that.”
“And I have to go into work for the morning.”
“What? Google doesn’t give you the day off?”
Willow sighed. “It’s just this project.”
“Kennedy said you’ve been working a lot the last month.”
“Works been busy. But I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“Yeah, but that means Kennedy’s cooking,” Dawn griped. “And her food tastes like ass.”
“I hope that’s a figure of speech. Because if you mean that literally, it looks like you got over Connor pretty quickly.”
“What?” Dawn asked. Then she got Willow’s drift. “Ewwww.”
“Besides,” Willow went on. “You could learn how to cook.”
“Tell you what,” Dawn said, seeing the perfect segue. “I’ll learn how to cook if you let me learn magic, too.”
“Cooking, magic, and chemistry is too heavy a load for one quarter. Besides, I think I know why you’re interested again now. And let me just say, love spells equal sadness, heartache, and possibly Drusilla kidnapping your guy.”
“What if the love spell is to get two people that love each other together?”
Willow glanced at Dawn before turning into the driveway. “Spells can do a lot of things. But they can’t change your heart. And they can’t change your destiny. It can make you different for a little while. But in the end, a person’s true self will always come out. Always. If Connor and Emily are meant to be together, they need to find their way on their own. But you’re sweet for caring.”
“She’s so sad. Her pretending not to be sad not dating him is even less convincing than her pretending not to be happy when she was dating him. But no matter how many times I tell her, she won’t listen to me. I don’t want to be responsible for-”
“You’re not,” Willow cut in. “Dawn, I know you care. But they need to sort this out themselves.”
***
The door to Connor’s room was open as the crowds of students dragged their bags down the hallway. Connor hummed softly to his CD while he packed. Without realizing it, he began singing along.
I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions and I recall
I really don’t know love . . . at all.
Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say I love you right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I’ve looked at life that way
Ah, but now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads
And they tell me that I’ve changed
Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose
And still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life . . .
I really don’t know life at all.
“Better singing voice then I remember,” a voice from the doorway came.
Connor turned to see Angel standing in the hall. “Better than yours, anyway,” he smirked.
“Well, that’s not much of a statement,” Angel said. “It occurs to me that I’ve never visited you in this dorm room before.”
“Well,” Connor said, throwing his arms out. “Here it is. Two whole cubic centimeters bigger than last year’s.”
“Not exactly what I meant.”
“Oh,” Connor smiled. “Dad, come in.”
“Dad?” Terry said as he stopped outside the door. “I thought I met your dad?”
“This is my biological father,” Connor said quickly.
“You were adopted?” Terry said. He shook Angel’s hand. “You a runner, too?”
“Um . . . sure,” Angel said.
“Anyway, just saying bye for the weekend. See you at track practice next week.” Terry headed back out. He’d had actually come by for a longer chat. But seeing Connor with his biological father, he didn’t want to intrude.
Connor ejected his CD and stuffed the case in his book bag.
“You like Joni Mitchell?” Angel said happily. “You know, I saw her in New Haven in ’76. About this time of year. Good show. Of course, I’m partial to ‘Big Yellow Taxi.’”
“I thought that was a Counting Crows song,” Connor said with a wry grin.
Angel threw his hands over his heart, feigning pain. “I have no son!”
“You’re telling me.” Connor said moodily.
“Then what am I doing here?”
“You tell me.”
“I wanted to see you before the holidays,” Angel said quietly.
Connor looked up at him and grinned slightly. “You’re lying,” he said in a surprised voice.
“Okay,” Angel said, sitting on Connor’s bed. “Willow called me. She said you were down.”
Connor looked confused. “Willow called you? Why?”
Angel shrugged. “Willow’s a powerful witch. Apparently every now and then, she does a spell to see if anyone has any curses or hexes on her. She found out almost right away that Vail had altered her memory. Then she fixed herself up. And boy was she not happy about that.”
“And she called you to bitch you out?”
Angel shook his head. “No. Not until she thought you needed me. Oh, and I told her you had nothing to do with casting the spell. So, she says she’s sorry for leaning on you so hard all that time. So, anyway . . . maybe we should do that father son thing. You know. Where we talk.”
“That’s okay. It’s stuff for normal dad, not demon fighter dad.”
“I wouldn’t mind being normal dad, too.”
Connor stared at him and considered saying something. But the several prospects that came to mind would all hurtful to Angel. “I appreciate that. But my dad . . . my other dad, he has more experience with this stuff. Is that okay?”
Angel nodded, but it was clear he was hurting. “I understand.” Angel stood and hesitantly hugged his son.
As he left, Angel realized that when he’d signed the deal with Wolfram & Hart, he’d signed away the right to be Connor’s father. At least as far as the simpler things in life were concerned. He stuck to the shadows and glanced toward the SUV belonging to the Reilly’s.
Mr. Reilly was having a prolonged conversation with Connor’s friend Terry, as opposed to the brief one Terry had with Angel. Mrs. Reilly hugged their son tightly as he came out. Angel could even make out their conversation.
“Easy, there,” Connor said sarcastically. “I have to work with these people! Besides, I think my ribs are about to break.”
“Sure,” Mrs. Reilly answered. “My superhero son who gets hit by cars and-”
“Colleen,” Mr. Reilly said nervously.
“Look, guys, can you hang out on campus a couple hours?” Connor asked. “I need to see some people before I go.”
“This one,” Mr. Reilly said, pulling his son into a hug. “Always running off with his friends during family time. If you spend this whole weekend with Tracy-”
Connor shook his head. “No. All my women have left me.”
“That’s good,” Laurence said. “I need to talk to you about some family stuff. Not bad stuff, just . . . stuff.”
“We’re really sixties dissidents who’ve been wanted by the feds the last thirty years,” Colleen said with a slight grin.
“Oh, that,” Connor grinned back. “Erin and I have known that for years. We’re planning to drop the dime on you once the reward gets high enough.”
“Yeah,” Laurence said quietly, as Connor walked away. “You seem to know a lot of things we never told you.”
Connor turned and glanced back at his father curiously.
Laurence had forgotten about his son’s damned hearing. “We’ll talk at home.”
Angel glared at Laurence and Colleen Reilly. He never knew he could feel such envy. Angel never believed that two people could bring his son such happiness. Or that he would resent them so much for being able to do for Connor what he could not.
****
It was already night time in Atlanta. Craig had gone out with his friends from high school. Emily was in her room. After the flight, she’d been tired and gone straight to bed. Now it was about ten and she was waking up just as her parents were going to bed.
Emily pulled out her copy of Channeling the Wolf. She began reading the fifth chapter for about the fifth time. She was an incredibly fast reader and, provided she understood the material, her retention was almost unbelievable. But actually performing the meditations in the book was more difficult than simply reading about them. So Emily reread the chapter once more in the hopes of finding some small clue as to how she could think away the wolf’s control on her.
“The wolf’s control,” she laughed to herself. She often wondered if the wolf had been responsible for her rushing into her sexually charged but ultimately ill-fated relationship with Connor. Her desire for him had been powerful and all consuming. She’d disregarded common sense and all possible repercussions. And now she, Connor, and Dawn were all miserable. If not for Emily, perhaps Connor would now be happily dating Alyson Inoue, or some other cute girl on campus.
“Alyson,” Emily hissed and she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Even the name still filled Emily with an irrational jealousy. “And Dawn,” Emily went on bitterly. Stupid Dawn who wanted all of them to be miserable if she couldn’t have the man she wanted. The hairs on the back of her neck seemed to sting now. They hurt like they were tiny needles being inserted into the skin. It almost felt like . . .
“No!” Emily said, grasping at the back of her neck. “No, no, no. This isn’t fair! It’s not a full moon!”
But Emily knew it made sense. You sat in a quiet room and went deep inside yourself. Once there, you could contain the wolf if you thought of peaceful and happy thoughts, or so the book told her. But if she went to that quiet place in the center of her mind and focused on things that made her sad and angry and jealous, it seemed only logical that the wolf could take control. This was the last thought that passed Emily’s mind before all human thought stopped and the wolf took control.
In Emily’s room, the large wolf rose to its feet and let out a great howl. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, thinking this must be their imagination, still ran into the hallway to check on their daughter. Parental instinct always took over. And this time parental instinct would get them killed.
The wolf smashed through Emily’s door into the hallway. It swung its claw quickly, smashing Mr. Pierce’s skull and driving his lifeless body into the wall. Mrs. Pierce turned and ran immediately. She stormed into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. The wolf smashed in that door just as Mrs. Pierce dove to the nightstand and ripped a drawer open.
The wolf leapt. Mrs. Pierce reached inside and blindly groped for her husband’s pistol. Why didn’t he take this into the hall when we heard the noise? she wondered desperately as she pulled the pistol out. The weapon, of course, couldn’t hurt the wolf. But Mrs. Pierce would never know that. Before she could turn, the wolf rushed forward, snapping its massive jaws around the woman’s neck and ripping her away from the nightstand. The pistol fell from her dead hand as the wolf bit tighter and pulled her limp body from the room.
*****
Connor was happy to be home. “Where’s the brat?”
“The brat?” Colleen laughed. “You’re in the door eight seconds, and already you can’t wait to see your sister!” She walked to the stairs and called: “Erin!”
“I asked your sister to take care of Erin for a couple hours,” Laurence said.
“Why?” Colleen asked.
“The three of us need to have a long overdo family discussion.”
Connor put his hands up defensively. “They were my roommate’s. I promise you, I’m not smoking again. Even if mom didn’t kill me, the track coach would.”
“You’re smoking again?” Colleen said angrily.
“No! I just told you I wasn’t smoking! They’re my roommate’s! And hey, wait a second. I’m over 18 now. It’s totally legal for me to smoke anyway.”
Colleen’s face contorted into one of rage.
“But I’m not!” Connor added quickly, again throwing his hands up in a gesture of innocence.
“This isn’t about smoking, Connor,” Laurence said. “Look, let’s just all have a seat.”
They sat down around the dining room table, beautifully decorated for the women who’d be eating Thanksgiving dinner there tomorrow. The men would have their turkey in the TV room while they watched football.
“I talked to your friend Terry, today,” Laurence said. “I . . . I probably should’ve gone upstairs, but I . . . I guess I didn’t have the courage.”
Colleen looked at her husband oddly. Connor was equally confused.
“Terry said . . .” Laurence gripped his wife’s hand. “Terry said you were talking to someone you said was your biological father.”
Connor felt a rush of anxiety. Colleen gasped. She covered her mouth with her left hand while her right squeezed Laurence’s hand tighter.
“Dad, I can explain,” Connor said, wondering what he could pull out of his ass to explain this.
“It’s okay, Connor. It’s okay to be curious. But . . . but how did you know?”
Connor leaned back and looked at them with confusion.
“And more importantly,” Colleen added, now reaching for her son’s hand. “Why didn’t you tell us when you found out?”
Connor looked at them as if they’d both just sprouted a third eye. “Found out what?”
Colleen looked at her son guiltily. “That you were adopted.”
*****
At first, he’d been tapping discretely. Then, a little louder. Finally, Connor was nearly pounding on Tracy’s window. When the window flew open, Connor nearly fell off the roof.
“Kelly?” he said, surprised. “What . . . what’re you-”
“After Tracy went to college, I convinced my parents I should get the big room.”
“Oh. That makes sense. Wonder why my parents didn’t give Erin my old room.”
“Erin doesn’t want it. Truth be told, I think she’s in denial about your going away to school. Hey, can you try to talk her into doing the winter play. She says she thinks she’ll be too busy with soccer and orchestra, but we’re doing Sweeney Todd and she’d be perfect for Nellie Lovett.”
“Um, yeah,” Connor shrugged. “I’ll talk to her. I mean, lead in the winter play is a good extracurricular for the college application.”
“That’s what I said!”
“So, um . . . is Tracy home?”
“Yeah,” Kelly said. “Let me go get her.”
A few minutes later, Connor was inside lying on top of the covers on Tracy’s bed. He’d wanted to go to the creek and lay in their sleeping bags like they’d done in high school, but after two years at UCLA, Tracy thought it was too cold in Boulder Creek. Much like those college nights, they didn’t speak. Back then, they’d kiss and pet and occasionally even have sex. Tonight, however, they just stared at the ceiling.
“How’re things with Emily?” Tracy finally asked.
“We’re on a break.”
“Sorry,” Tracy said. “How long? I mean is it a break that’s just long enough for you to go home and make out with your high school crushes?”
Connor felt his stomach turn. He hadn’t even imagined that at this very moment, Emily might be lying in the bed of an ex-flame just as Connor was. He went mad with jealousy at the image of some six and a half foot Georgia football player lying on top of his Emily.
“It’s been almost a month now. I think maybe it’s one of those permanent breaks.”
“You thought ours was a permanent break. But if you asked me to fool around, I wouldn’t say no.”
“I don’t think I’m ready. Can we just talk?”
“Yeah.”
“So, if you’re willing to fool around, I assume you and Andy . . .”
“Yeah,” Tracy said. “Since Halloween. I never should’ve gone on a break with a solid guy like you for a jerk like him.”
“Mind calling Emily and telling her that?” Connor laughed.
“Sure. Give me the twit’s number. I’ll call her and tell her what a mistake she’s making.”
“Twit?”
“What? I can’t call her names?”
“No, not that,” Connor laughed. “It’s just, who uses the word ‘twit’ anymore?”
“I do!”
“Yeah. You’re one of a kind.”
Tracy leaned over and kissed Connor on the lips. He kissed her back deeply, then pulled away.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Still not ready.”
“And here I thought those last twelve seconds solved all your problems. Want to tell me what’s wrong?”
“It’s not that I don’t still have feelings for you. I’m just not over Emily.”
“Not that. I mean, what’s wrong tonight? The thing that’s got you climbing through my sister’s window. Which made me very jealous, by the way.”
They laughed again. Then they were quiet for a minute.
“I was adopted," Connor finally said. “I just found out tonight. Actually . . . actually, I found out like a year ago. But my parents just found out I knew tonight. So we had the big family talk, sans the brat.”
Tracy laid quietly, digesting the information. “What’d they say? Your parents, I mean.”
“They wanted to know how I found out and how I felt about it. Wanted to know why I didn’t tell them I knew. They told me that they loved me. Told me that, whatever I found out about myself, to them, I’d always be their son. Basically stuff I already knew.”
“But it upset you?”
Connor shrugged. “Now that they know I know . . . it’s all real. When I spend time with them, I can’t pretend that my mother gave birth to me. They can’t look at me and think . . . he thinks he came from us. Somehow, that illusion seemed so real. And now . . . I don’t know. It’s less real. It’s gone completely.”
Tracy stroked Connor’s hair. He loved when she did that. And she loved doing it. “So,” Tracy said with a smile. “If we had sex, would that make you feel better or worse?”
They laughed. Connor looked at her and smiled. “Better tonight. Worse tomorrow and for the rest of the year.”
“What about a blow job?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
Connor laughed again, this time blushing uncontrollably.
“Look at you blush,” Tracy grinned. “God, you’re such a prude!”
“Sex isn’t the answer to everything, Tracy.”
“Oh, baby, lecture me some more,” Tracy said, feigning an orgasm. “It gets me so hot.” She turned back to Connor and smiled. “Please tell me there’s something I can do to make you feel better.”
“Can you . . . can you maybe just hold me for a while?”
Tracy wrapped her arms around Connor and laid his head on her stomach.
******
He’d intended to lay with Tracy only moments, but the comfort of her embrace led him to sleep. Connor looked out the window and saw it was almost dawn. He knew he had to get out of Tracy’s house, or at least her bedroom, before Mr. McLaughlin found him there and threatened to castrate him again. Ideally, he’d even get back into his own bed before his parents realized he was out all night.
Connor walked home, reflecting on his relationship with Tracy. Most of it hadn’t even been real. Meeting freshman year of high school, him in his suit and her in the Catholic girl uniform that still made his pulse race. Flirting until he asked her to the Soph Hop and getting the third degree from her dad before he could take her. Lying by the creek to watch the clouds and talk. The pregnancy scare of senior year that had his stomach in knots for a week, but in the end worked out immeasurably better than the pregnancy scare in his real life. He passed the same jewelry store every day that week and stared at the ring in the window, knowing without a doubt what he’d do if Tracy was carrying his child.
All these memories were of times he had never had. He never really knew Tracy at all. He wondered if Tracy had lived a different life before they raped her mind. He wondered if she’d even existed, or if she’d just been invented by Wolfram & Hart. And what about his parents? His sister? Aunts and uncles? Had they existed? Or were they merely creations dictated by his father’s agreement?
This was the thought that was going through Connor’s head when he opened and saw Angel’s bloody face leaning over the prone body of his mother.
“Connor!” Angel said, looking up at his son. “I can explain!”
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