**Buffy POV**
Trimester One- 7th Grade (1997)
You know how on the first day of school you are all excited and everything. You have a new outfit, nervous about seeing your friends again after a long summer break; well that was how I was. Nervous and all.
I had the perfect outfit, blue jeans, and a red long top with flowers on it, and on my hair I wore and headband. So that was what I was wearing for the first day of school, plus white flip flops. I got it all from Anthropology. Cool huh?
Oh by the way the school I got to is William B. Stern Prep School. It’s for really smart people. Well not really because all you have to do is sign the kid up in the Elementary School. But once you go to the Upper School you have to be really smart if not they kick you out! At least that’s what I hear. And that they are super mean. But the seniors are supposed to be nice to use. But everyone supposed to call us ‘sevies’ meaning, seventh grades because we are the new kids in the school. The young vulnerable ones.
Oh yeah, the Upper School starts at grade seven and goes till grade twelve, the whole school system is really messed up. So we really start Middle School in seventh grade. But everything is super expensive because not only is the tuition like twenty thousand dollars but we have to pay for my entire books too. This alone cost like two hundred fifty dollars. Plus binders, pencils, and pens and all that stuff you need in school. Super expensive. Also I forgot to add are schools is really rich and if you’re not rich your pretty much screwed. Good thing we’re rich.
So I walk down the stairs to my house and my dad whistles and I glare at him. I hate when he does that. He makes such a big deal about things that I wear sometimes. My mom asks if I want breakfast and I sort of shake my head, who eats in the morning? I grab my bag and head out the door towards the garage where I climb into my Dads Volvo. See… rich and all.
Once my Dad gets into the car and my stupid sister Dawn he drives to the Elementary School and as I watch her enter the huge building I can’t help but have relief wash through me. I hated that place. Almost everyone thought I was pretty stupid. The guidance counselor there once told me if I thought the school was to hard then I should leave. My dad and mom got super mad about that.
But as my dad finally pulls into the lane of the carpool for the Upper School, I start to get nervous. What am I doing here? I’m not smart. I take a deep breath and look out the window, I see all these tall people and I can’t help but wonder why again I have to be so short. I look at my dad and he gives me a smile, I grab hold of my blue Jagsport bag with a red comforter in it and I walk slowly to school. All these people look at me. I pull my ID around my neck with the blue strap they gave me and I can’t help but feel a little nervous.
I think part of my anxiety is the fact that Lysette isn’t going to the school anymore. See in sixth grade I had twelve best friends. Lysette was the main one. The leader you can call it. Though now that she left, I’m sort of scared to see what happens. Are we still going to be friends like we used to? All of us? All twelve us? I don’t have any other friends then those people. I wasn’t aloud to have anyone else. But now she left and she is going to Jules West now, because the school is too expensive for her parents to pay even if her Mom teaches here. So she has to go to Public School.
I cross the sidewalk once the guard tells me its okay. I see a huge yellow bus that just came from the Lower School and tons of older kids come out. They push past me and show there ID. Once I enter I see all the students showing there ID to the teacher so I take my ID and show the teacher and she nods with a smile on her face. I give her a grim smile. I can already till I’m a little late.
I walk inside and see a huge yellow banner welcoming everyone back to school. I walk more into the school and see on the left the hallway for my grade. The Sevie grade. I see everyone from my grade hugging and smiling at each other and I can’t help but feel left out. I wish I had more friends then eleven and now the very best of my friend doesn’t even go to the school anymore.
I find my locker. 586. There is no one next to me but then I hear the bell ring for the minutes before Homeroom and I curse a little. I can’t be late on my first day. I try to open my locker, but in the Lower School we had to buy locks but here there attached to the locker and I can’t even open them. I kept trying to pull it open but it wouldn’t budge. I see a teacher in the hallway and give her a look. ‘Please help me, I’m desperate’ and she smiles and comes over.
“Hi, can I help you?” She asks nicely and I can’t help but think she is really nice. Even though she has a big ass and huge hair.
“I can’t open my locker,” I whisper and then the five minute bell saying that you should be in your class already rings and I have to hold back tears. And then I remind myself that I shouldn’t cry. I’m not aloud to cry in front of people. They’ll just make fun of you.
“I’m Mrs. Vander Walde,” the teacher tells me as she shows me how to open it. Turn left and press the number then turn right once and then turn it left again and wait for to stop and then pull. Once I get it I can’t help but have a smile on my face. She asks for a piece of paper so she can write me a note on why I’m late for my first homeroom!
I try to find my homeroom class but I can’t find it anywhere, I start to panic again and I look around me. I don’t see that nice teacher anywhere but then I see down the hall my Guidance consular and I run towards her.
“Where is room 102?” I ask shyly.
She smiles at me and tells me to follow her and I follow her in the direction of what is called the 100s hallway. She points to the first room on the left that has a purple box saying class 102 and it’s dedicated to some person. I open the door and once I enter everyone stare at me. I look down and look to see if I know anyone. There are a few people but I haven’t talked to them in a year. The teacher who is obviously going to be the homeroom teacher smiles warmly at me and she smiles and points to a chair next to this really hot guy and finally there is someone hot in out grade.
“Everyone welcome to the 1997 school year, and I hope that everyone has had good year. My name is Mrs. Sobeil and I’ll be you’re Homeroom teachers, these people,” she said pointing to a girl in a blue jersey, a girl with bad eyebrows, a blonde, a fat girl and the really hot guy who I am sitting next to, “are my Homeroom helpers.”
That is when it finally hits me that the hot guy next to me isn’t in my grade but he is in an older grade. A high school grade. I look down a little and wonder do we have hot guys in the Upper School opposed to the Lower School? She once again points to the pretty girl in the blue dance jersey and I finally recognize her from Jennifer’s dance team on MTD.
MTD is a dance place that I learn how to dance. I can say I’m fairly good. Not the best in the world but defiantly not the worst in the world. Then Mrs. Sobeil talks about what will be happing in this class over the year and already I’m about to fall asleep but then she mentions my schedule and I’m up and running to find everything out. She calls my name and I get up and I take it and look it over.
For the first time I don’t know any of the teachers and I don’t know who is good and who sucks and who I should just stay away from. My first class is Structure Study Hall, I’m in special needs. Well not really, I just have ADHD. My mom says I’m special. I just think everyone in the class is stupid. Not really, it’s just funny seeing the teachers squirm when we say that. They get *so* upset.
I look around the room and see people compare there schedule’s and I feel… well I don’t know what to feel, I just now that I hate that feeling that I have no friends in the class. I get up as the bell rings and scramble out of class. I run down the hallway toward where my locker is. I do that thing that Mrs. Vander Walde teaches me and I open my locker and I can’t help but be happy that I opened it. I grab a pencil from the gel pencil case I had since I was in fifth grade. Everyone write on it. In Math last year with Mrs. Pasun class, Cordelia used to draw on it all the time.
I look around and I finally see that I’m very lost. I walk down the closets hallway and see an older kid and he looks down at me and I look back down. I ask someone where the class is and he points down the hall and towards the left. I walk slowly and I really don’t like the fact that all these people are looking at me.
I walk slowly into the room and see Kathy and Samantha sitting at a desk and for some reason I feel my insides twist. I look around and see a woman with gray hair and a woman with white hair and a mole on her cheek. I look around the desks and see they are white and long. Not like desks that you see in a normal school. These were attached. And two people in each. I sat on the edge of the second row and looked around again. I saw Penn sitting there. I smile a little and he gives me a smirk. I sink into my seat and see that Kathy and Samantha where whispering about something and then I see Kathy look back at me and I shrink some more.
Twelve best friends my ass.
The lady with the gray hair starts yelling and suddenly I don’t feel so good.
***
I look around my next class and see that, Virginia, Percy’s girlfriend was in it. So was Fred. I look across the room and see this new guy in it. He is sort of hot. I don’t know, just I know his new. And he defiantly has to be the newest hot guy I have ever seen. I look around the room again and the teacher that is in the front is so short! She has glasses and looks really funny.
I’m sitting at the end of the room right next to the door. I see the teacher and I hope she won’t be like the teacher in the other class who yelled and told us things that we weren’t aloud to do. I look across the room and see the hot new guy looking at me and I wave a little. He seems so lost and I just can’t help but feel a little bad for him. The school seems like a school that everyone gets lost in.
***
I hate science. I can already see that. The teacher is a bitch. And there is no one in my class. Expect Sunday. But I can’t stand her. The only reason I’m even friends with her is because she was best friends with Lysette. But she always gave me problems in sixth grade. I walk to where I learn the cafeteria is and I remember how they told me to slide my ID card so I could get lunch. I slide and I push the handles to I can get through. The person behind me gets a ring. And when I hear it I jump as high as the ceiling. Well not really. But it is pretty high. It sounds like an alarm when someone steals something and they catch you.
I go into the one of three lines and wait. The older grade, the eighth graders are staring at us like we’re Martians. I get to the front of the line, finally. And see that they have pizza and French fries. I order two pizzas and a lot of French fries. I take a cup and see that there is a salad bar and a place to get soda. I pour soda into my cup and grin. I love soda. Well not soda. I like Sprite. I grin to myself till I hear my name being called.
“BUFFY!” I turn and see Kathy yelling at me sitting with all the guys and my friends. I give her a fake smile and walk slowly towards the table she decided would be ours. The table at the front of the cafeteria. With chairs and not benches. I sit next to Sunday and smile at everyone. I look across the room and I feel my inside tearing when I see Willow and Xander laughing. They used to be my best friends. And now… I’m part of the “group”. I laugh. I hate these people. Hate em’. No one knows what they did to me. I start eating my food being quiet as always. I see the new kid sitting at a table with the cool dorks and I smile a little at him. He gives me a little wave and I give him the warmest smile I can do.
Kathy rolls her eyes and I shrink back into my seat. Why did she have to ruin everything? Who did she think she was? Who said she could be the leader of the group? I sure as hell didn’t. I made Kathy. I’m the only reason she was in the group. I was her only friend last year till she thought she could rule the world with Lysette. I eat quickly and for the first time in years I wish that I had class.
***
Math. I hate Math!! It’s so annoying. I hope it dies. I’m sitting here in the back. Looking at this messed up teacher who has red hair and seems really stupid. This is the last period of the day. Thank God, I felt like the whole time I was suffocating. I really can’t wait till I get to leave this place. I hate it already. No friends, no nothing. Life sucks.
The bell finally rings and I get up quickly and run to my locker. I really want to get out of this place. I pack my bags up and I run swiftly towards the front of the school that will let me out. I look at all the cars and I don’t see my Mom’s jeep anywhere. I see seniors driving there cars home, kids holding hands, making out against cars. I see at the far end where all the trees are kids smoking and laughing. And I wonder will I be like that? I see the new kid and I smile at him again. He comes over and leans against the stone I’m on to. He gives me a weak smile and I shake my head. I know how he feels. I might have been going to this school since I was five. But today felt like a whole new world.
His ride comes and I see an older girl get inside and he runs towards the car. Right before he gets into the back seat of the old Volvo, he waves a little. I give him a smile again. I see Kathy and Percy get into there green Mini Van, Honda, oh and did I mention there twins. Percy waves and I smile. Kathy smirks and I try not to flick her off.
Thirty minutes later I’m still waiting for my Mom and when I finally see her jeep I’m trying hard not to explode. I go into the front seat and trying to keep my calm. Why was she so late on my first day of school? I lean against the window and hoping that we can get home faster.
When we finally get there I climb out of the car quickly and hurry to my room without saying a word to my Mom or Dawn. I lock my door and do the only think I know what to do when I’m upset. I walk into my private bathroom, kneel in front of the toilet and let the whole day come out.
7th Grade- Trimester Two- December- 1997
Do you know how many things can change in a few months? Tons. So when Drusilla joined the ‘Group’ I totally had enough, I moved. I went up grabbed my tray from the line and instead of sitting in the long table near the door with the chairs I went and sat with Willow and Xander. It was scary at first. I mean I wasn’t sure if they would be happy to talk to me or something. But they all greeted me with open arms. It’s funny, how many things can change.
I’m failing science. Like really. I never failed anything before, but I don’t really care. I’m getting a C in Math and again I don’t really care. The only thing I’m doing any good in is English. With Miss Daum. I never really liked English before, I didn’t like writing and reading, well I did, just not the things they made us read. But we read this Helen Keller book and now we are doing poetry and everyone can’t stand it, but I sort of like it. Not like I’m going to say anything! I mean, and then they would think I’m some weird nerd that likes that sort of thing. And I do, like that sort of thing; I just want people to like me more.
It’s December 15th. I love that date. I don’t know why. It’s my date that I imagine snow. Love, winter. It’s weird huh. Maybe it’s that Winter break is coming soon and that means Christmas and presents.
“Buffy,” a high pitched squeal says at the lunch table and I look up and see Angel coming towards me, “You know you are the bestest friend, and the coolest. Cutestet, smaretests-“
“You want a French fry?” I ask holding one in my hand.
“See how well you know me?” he said taking it from my hand and sitting on the bench. Willow and Xander chuckle. They think we like each other. That’s sort of sick. I mean its Angel. And yeah, he is sort of cute. And sort of new, so he doesn’t now my past. But he doesn’t like me. He likes hanging out with the cool kids. I hate those people. Especially Darla. She tries to get Angel do anything for her. He does, I think. And I get so jealous. I think I hate her.
I lean against his arms and start eating my French fries and so does he and we laugh about how Ms. Seltzer is so short, our Page to Screen teacher. Willow and Xander hide there grins but I known they want to say something. I mean I have known them for freakin’ ever!
“Well I’ve got people to see and things to do, see ya later Buffy!” Angel said as he got up from were he was sitting at the table, which was next to me, and goes over towards another group and begs for French fries.
I shrug my shoulder a little when I see he is sitting next to Darla and Cordelia and talking to them. I try to shove away that feeling in me but it doesn’t seem to go away. I look back at Xander and Willow and they both have there eyebrows rose. “What,” I say, annoyed.
“Nothing,” Willow said with a funny smile on her face. “Angel,” Xander said at the same time.
I glare at him, “What about Angel?”
“You care two in love with him,” he said with a huge smirk on his face.
“I don’t,” I hiss and turn away from them and see Amy staring at us, “What!”
“Nothing,” she said raising her hands, “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah will you were,” I say as I look around the blue and purple cafeteria. My gaze finds were Max is sitting and I bend my head down. Why every time I see him with a different girl I want to cry? Because you like him. My eyes widened a little and I look around the table scared someone heard my thought. I breathe a little knowing it was just a thought. A little demon in my head. It wasn’t true, I try to convince myself. I grab hold on my blue assignment book that is now black because that was what I did when I had nothing to do in class. Used my black ink pen painted the whole thing black.
“Will I do would love to stay and chat but I have to go and finish something for History,” I say as I stand up and grab my assignment book and my huge red book that I was required to buy.
“Well have fun,” Willow said as I started walking way.
I turn back and smile, “Yeah, tons.”
The sign out sheet, which is yellow, is sitting in the lap of, “Mrs. Kalter.”
“Hi Buffy, where are you going?” she asks. This is what happens when you need to leave the lunch room and go somewhere. You have to go up to the teacher that is sitting at the desk and tell them were you are going to The library, the atrium, bathroom, meeting a teacher or going to detention.
“I have to go to the library,” I say.
She smile, sort of worried at me, and I give her a smile as she rights my name down on where I am going. The only reason she is so worried is because I’m getting a D in her class. But I mean it is only French, what does it matter.
I walk slowly towards the library, which is at the corner of the school when you enter, and then suddenly change my direction. I walk slowly towards the 100 hallway to where the bathroom is. I don’t feel like doing history really, ancient China, which let me tell you is piss boring.
I open the bathroom swingy door and I sigh in relief when no one is inside. See the thing about our school is that we have nine subjects. But so every subject can be an hour they make us have a block schedule. Which means that you only have six subjects a day. So you have an A day with periods one through six. B day which is seven through three. And a C days, which I hate, is periods four through nine. So now every class is an hour and a minute long. So with a half hour break, which is lunch, we learn from eight AM to three forty five PM.
But not everyone has lunch at the same time. Seventh and Eighth graders have lunch after the second class of the day, tenth and ninth have it after the third class of the day and the eleventh grade and the twelfth grade have it after the forth class. So all these classes are funny but right now I really hope no one from an older grade comes to the bathroom. I wish there was a lock on the bathroom door.
I look at the door and then at the mirror. I’m not exactly that pretty girl. My hair is ugly, black, and well my mom says its brown but its so dark and ugly I hate it. I wish I could get highlights. My mom said in high school I can get them, but that is so far away from now. But when I can, no one will recognize me. I’ll be a blond, no one believes me but they’ll see.
I look at the door again and then turn slowly back to the mirror and lift my shirt and stare at myself. I have the smallest boobs. I’m not even an A yet! And my stomach is fat and I look like a goddamn freak! I let my shirt drop when I hear the door open. A senior comes in and looks at me funny but I don’t met there eye as I grab my books and rush out before I do something stupid.
I walk down the hall quickly and run right into someone. I look and see I ran right into Angel. I sigh and he looks at me funny, “You okay Buff?”
“Yeah,” I say quickly.
“Really, looks like you were going to kill yourself there,” he said jokingly. I stare at him and breathe, he doesn’t know, so he can’t mean anything. Right…
“Nah, of course not silly,” I say as I give him a push, “I’m just upset over my Science grade; I’m getting a D-. Sort of sucks huh?”
“Defiantly agree with you,” he says as we make are way back to the cafeteria. I lean my head against my shoulder. Everything will be okay; I mean I do have the rest of the year, right?
7th Grade- Trimester- April- 1998
I think this is the longest year of my life, after first grade which, let me tell, took forever but the year, seventh grade year, isn’t even over yet! APRIL! That’s were I am in life. April of 1998. I still have two whole more months. Two whole months to get out of this hell. I sort of slap my head against the table and then I feel Xander and Willow staring at me weirdly. I thought they knew I was crazy. I mean they have now me since ever!
“You need something?” I snap.
“Someone is being prissy. PMS?” Xander asks.
I narrow my eyes at him. “That is none of your business.”
“Are you okay, Buffy?” Willow asks gently.
“Well let’s see, I’m getting like a C in Math, I’m failing Science, and History, I might add and uh I’m fat and ugly. No, I don’t think I’m okay,” I snarl at her. And I know she doesn’t deserve it, but I just need to get away. Everyone is driving me crazy!
Willow’s eyes go wide, “Buffy, you aren’t fat! And you’re differently not ugly!”
“Yeah, yeah… tell it to the preacher,” I snap as I get up, from the white bench in the cafeteria.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
I shrug my shoulders and point outside, “I just need to think.”
I walk slowly and open the white and glass doors that lead me outside of the cafeteria. I watch as some of the boys in our grade zip past me, a few going, “Hey Buffy.”
I smile at them and for a moment I feel like I’m liked and people think I’m ‘hot’. Whatever that means. It’s sort of funny because you want people to notice and the more you try the more they notice but in the end no on does anything about it. It’s like you shouldn’t even try because everyone in this school knows who you are since you were like five. So if you’ve been here forever, like me and you aren’t ‘popular’ now, doubt you’ll ever be.
I actually have a funny story about being able to be popular. Cordelia, who is the most known girl in our grade. I thought she had no idea who I was, now she does but in third grade I thought she didn’t even know who I was. See Darla, who had like no friends back then was upset because Cordelia wouldn’t let her play with her and her friends. So she made a group and choose a few kids who could play with her and she choose *me* as one of them. But she didn’t choose Darla but, being me of course, I stayed with Darla because I was such a good friend. When Cordelia finally let Darla play with her and her friends she totally bailed on me. Sometimes I think I gave up my only chance to be popular. A wrong decision in third grade… What a joke.
I open the gate that leads me to the fields. We have a lot. Four to be exact and one tennis court. But the one thing that are school doesn’t have is a football field. It’s to ‘dangerous’ for students to play. I roll my eyes at the thought. Don’t they think that kids with more money than God can do a lot worse things?
Look at Aura’s brother, he sells drugs. And Percy, he owns the goddamn school and every mall we go shopping too. Look at Drusilla, her mom is part of like the FBI or something. And then there’s me. I’m not poor, defiantly up there in the rich kids. I have my fair amount of Abercrombie clothes and designer shirts but you know what I do have that the rich kids don’t. Fatness and ugliness.
I look up and see Angel over there with Cordelia and Darla and I feel this squelchy feeling in me. I don’t mean to love him. It sort of happened. And it’s not like its soul mate love or anything; I just have a crush on my best friend. I want to slap myself. I’m such an idiot, it’s not like he would notice me anyway. He likes girls like Darla and Cordelia, just because they are so damn popular. Cordelia isn’t even that pretty and Darla is just an ugly blonde slut! Well she did make out with Drusilla at that one party, or was it Cordelia.
I look around and see Penn at the football field. I smile and wave a little and he smiles back. I and he are good friends. But his ex- girlfriend hates me, because he broke up with her because of me. I’m sorry that I feel proud of that fact, but she was a bitch to me and I’m glad he broke it off with her.
Spinning around I see Willow and Xander coming towards me and for some reason every time I see them I feel safe, like no one can hurt me. They smile at me and I smile back. Willow takes my hand and I lean my head against Xander’s shoulder.
“So, how’s life?” Xander says as we walk around the soccer field.
“I don’t know, it pulls tricks on us,” I whisper looking up at the blue sky.
We walk by Angel and he looks at me and for the first time I don’t feel lower than him. I feel higher. I walk by him proudly with my best friends hands wrapped around me. He is never going to have friends as good as mine and if he wants to hang out with sluts than he can. I smirk at him and roll my eyes and maybe that was a little for show but then I turn my head back towards my friends and I smile. I don’t think I smiled that huge in a long time.
7th Grade- Trimester Four- June, 1998
Today is the last day of school. Like I’m complaining. I’m sitting right now in my Mom’s jeep as she drives me and Dawn home. I look out the window and look once more at the school that I go to and I’m thanking God right now that I don’t have finals the next week and have to come back to this hell hole. The seventh grade is the only grade that doesn’t have finals this year. See we used to have Science finals but I guess they decided to change it because it’s the eighth grade that has the one final and that’s science. And thank God I don’t have a science final. I would so fail. I think I actually did get an F on my report card.
I lean back against the leather chair and breathe deeply. I remember watching Cordelia and Darla hugging and hoping to see each other next year. Watching Hogan, Percy and Ford all slapping each others backs and telling them how great it was to finally get the hell out. And what did I get? I get “I’ll miss ya, Buffster,” from Xander who I will probably see in fifteen minutes and a hug from Willow. How lame is my life?
But I guess Angel sort of made it better. I’m so over him though. At least I like to think that. It sort of put a smile on my face.
***
“You’re just going to leave without saying goodbye? Really Buffy, that hurts,” Angel says as he saw me closing my locker and look slowly around for someone.
I smile at him and he helps me pick up some of the books that I have to drag home now that the school year is over. “I just figured that you have to say goodbye to other people. You know like Darla and… Ford. I guess. I don’t really know.”
I know I’m trying to make him feel bad for me. But really he *does* pay no attention to me sometimes. I remember when my mom couldn’t pick me up one day so I had to take the bus home and I’m waiting for the bus to come and pick me up when I hear Andrew and Jonathan talking about how Angel had asked Darla out. I swore I felt my heart break right there and then. I knew I liked him before I heard that but when I heard the words that he had asked Darla out and she had said yes, I knew then for sure that I liked him. It really broke my heart. Especially when he didn’t tell me anything about it.
It felt better to know that she had dumped him the next day. “Don’t make me feel bad, Buffy.”
“I speak of truth, Angel,” I snap back at him.
He looks down for a second before back at me. “So what are you going to do this summer?”
“Get as far away from America as I can possibly can. Or WBSDS.” He looks down again and I sort of feel bad. “Well not you, Angel. Just the work.”
He looks up at me and smiles but I already know what I said was a lie. I need to get away from him. I need to go to England, the place were my father was born, and stay there as long as I can so I can get ready and come for another lifetime of school. In England I have friends and boys. Boys that are interested in me! Fat, brunette me! It makes me happier knowing that I am hot, just the boys at WBSDS are stupid.
“Well I’ll miss you, Buffy Summers,” he said as he walked me over to my Mom’s jeep and handed me all the heavy books that I have to take home.
I open the handle to the green jeep and look at Angel and give him a small smile. “Me too.”
***
So yeah, it’s not happily ever after but it’s something… right? When my mom pulls into the driveway and I open my door and step out and smile seeing the house that I have grown in. I love this house. It has everything. Well, all my memories of hell that is. I run up the stairs and enter my room. I look around and look into the mirror that is standing up. I look into it, and hated what I saw. I was going to change this summer.
First the hair. Defiantly need to do something with the hair, with the bush of hair that I have. I feel like everywhere I go it’s sticking out and in my way. I lay my hand on it and try to flatten it but it just sticks up more and I grumble. I take a bunch into my hand and look at the color. I need a new color, not this brown looking crap. I want blonde but my mom says that I’m way too young to get a full head of highlights. I say fuck it. I need it. But does she listen… NO.
I pull my shirt off and look at all the fat that comes out. I close my eyes and looking at this disgusts me. I don’t understand how people like Darla and Cordelia have no problems with eating. I heard Harmony talking in the hallway once to Aura about how all Cordelia does is eat when she is over at her house and look at her, she is perfect. I grab hold of some of it and I swear that I’m not going to look like that anymore. Even if I have to kill myself with a diet and workout everyday but I’m not going to hurt myself. Not again.
***
I looked down at the toilet and saw all the brown and green throw up all over it. I hated looking at it, knowing what I had just done to myself. I felt tears well up in my tears and forced them back… I couldn’t cry again. Every time I had cried last year, in sixth grade I had only been made fun of. When I had felt down and all my friends were going against me all I did was cry. At least that’s what they had said.
It had started like that, comments that had taken to seriously. When Lysette had said I was chubby I didn’t really understand but when Kathy, who was fat, also called me that I was always so self conscious, always looking at the mirror seeing how fat I really was. I didn’t know how my hand had came down my throat just the next thing I knew I was throwing up and it was so easy to do that it seemed to happen all the time. People had stopped calling me fat but it was funny because all it seemed to do was make me look over her shoulder all the time trying to see if people would look at me funny. I remembered the looks Amy and Willow had given me one day in English when I had come back from the bathroom. I looked down at the floor and that’s when I had built the wall. A wall of no tears.
I flushed the toilet and leaned against the tiled floor and closed my eyes. I really couldn’t do these anymore. I looked up at the cabinet and saw the stacks of medicine for period cramps and got up slowly and walked like a possessed women towards the mirror cabinet. I started to open the red bottle when I heard the phone ring, I close my eyes tightly and try to ignore it but it keeps ringing and I want to slam it against the door but I pick it up and raise it to my ear.
“What?” I snap into the phone. Can’t they see I’m trying to commit suicide here?
“Jeez, you’re in a bad mood,” Angel says on the other line.
I feel like all the air is knocked out of me and I feel the tears well up in my eyes. “Angel, what do you want?”
“I just need the homework for Science,” he grumbles.
I feel the walls start to fall and I grab hold of the counter so they won’t. They can’t. My knuckles turn white I’m holding them so tightly. The walls can’t fall; I worked to hard building them for them to fall. “Angel… this really isn’t the time.”
“You know right now I’m glaring at my wall, just so you know. Make time for me Buffy Summers. I’m here stuck in your life, asking for homework, always.”
And I collapse. It’s not fair. I just start crying and sobbing on the phone and I hear Angel asking me what’s wrong but all I do is start crying. I hear him hang up but all I do is walk slowly into my room and hold onto Mr. Gordo as I fall into my bed. I feel the walls start coming down, cracking like a leafs crack up in the winter. All crispy but my fall isn’t crispy. It’s messy with tears and snot.
I hear my door open and I look up as Angel comes over. “Hey.”
I look up and I feel messy and I must look messy to. I put my head in my pillow and I feel him smooth the hairs on the back of my head. “Are you okay?”
I just sniffle into the pillow. “Well, if you’re not going to answer I’m just going to have to stay here.”
And he did stay, for the rest of the damn night while I cried. It was then that I knew that I was in love. With Angel O’Connor. I mean he just saved my life.
***
I close my eyes tightly at the unfriendly memory and the way I had treated Angel since then. Yeah, I might love him but that didn’t mean we’re meant for each other. I hear my mom call my name and I come down the stairs slowly.
I see my Dad, Dawn and my mom all sitting around the living room with a box in the middle.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“We know it’s the last day of school and we bought you something to congratulate you on surviving the first year of The Upper School,” my mom said.
I look over at Dawn who is grumbling. She is in second grade, little Dawnie and she is just grumbling because I finished school today and she still has another week. I smirk at her and I take hold of the box. I know its cloths because the label reads Saks Fifth Avenue. It’s sad really because I used to have tons of cloths. I had clothes from Abercrombie that everyone had wanted and what do I have now, old clothes.
I open the box and what do I see there… “Oh My God, Mom!”
I say as I hug her. My first Juicy Couture outfit. In Pink. I know this is the first sign of wanting designers but come on, how can you not be grateful and you know what, I don’t care if that does make me a AP. (American Princess) I’m proud of it.