July 2000

How much can I get away with?

How far am I gonna take this thing between me and her?

Just stick with the here and now. Good slayer/not so good slayer. We slay, we shop (okay she shops, I steal), we have those conversations that only ever remain on the surface of the water. You know what I mean? The kind that start off in your head… "okay today I’m gonna tell her about back home, about mom, about that shitheap I called a life back before I was chosen…" but before you do that best make things light and airy you think so your mouth goes with "So what’s happening B? Hitting the college books hard?"

Jeez Faith, lame much?

This type of talking doesn’t just remain on the surface; it skims the fucking top of it. A whole biblical walking-on-water miracle in my head as I hear her go on and on about lectures I’ll never go to and books I’ll never read. And all the time I’m screaming inside!!!! Angry at her for being so together, so pro-life with the whole "I’m a slayer but that shouldn’t bite into me time at all." Going for mochas with Red. Teasing little Dawnie. Having a mom who at the end of the day asks how patrol went and gives her a brownie. I want that!!! I want that with her!! Man I don’t even like brownies, too fucking sickly, but right now I’d kill to have what she has. To have her….

But she’ll look at me sometimes. Usually when my head is screaming inside, mashing all my thoughts around, zooming so fast I think I hate her and love her and loathe her and want her in the same instant. She’ll look at me and its like she knows there’s something there, in me. Something below the surface. Something she thinks she’d like to reach and bring into the light. Something she knows won’t turn to dust like all the rest. And when she looks like that, I feel myself smile. A smile that’s just for her, curled at the edges, kinda sexy, maybe slutty. I see how far I can take it with her, and if she’s close, I’ll let our bodies touch. Just an inch. In fact not even an inch, it’s lighter than that. But when I do it. When I start to let her see me. When my skin connects with her….

…..bliss man! Freakin mind numbing, soul reaching bliss. I feel alive when she’s near. When I dare to smile at her and let the image linger on my face way past the cut off point that says "platonic/non-sexual friend here" its like my life rids itself of the pain and the bad stuff and I’m left with like 30 seconds of feeling alive for the first time in my life.

No wait. Not the first time. I have felt this before. Exactly this? Nah, probably not. But still, I remember that alive feeling from back then, remember the look in eyes as brown as my own when I’d turn up with a smile. A look I sometimes catch in the green eyes of the slayer when I smile the same way now. But though something’s I might have felt before, known before, it is different with B. It’s harder. I have more to lose this time…

...so why am I doing this?

How far is this gonna go?

Five by Five