I'm in bed when it happens. It's dark and heavy in the room, the curtains drawn, and I'm in that place between sleep and wake. Drowsily, I sit up and crane my ears. It's the phone. Who could be calling? The only person I told that I was here was my friend Valentia. She sometimes stays with Johnny and I and I figured I should tell her where I was.

Angel's out getting groceries. My bones creak as I get up and place my feet onto the cold, unforgiving floor. The shrill ring keeps on and there's a chill of foreboding in the air. With tense fingers, I pick it up and say a raspy, “Hello?”

“Lizzie!” It's Valentia. Her tone is frantic. It startles me. For a while I had forgotten that she thinks my name is Elizabeth.

“What is it Val?” I ask, sinking down onto the plush chair beside the phone. My heart slams against my ribs as I listen to her voice.

“It's Johnny,” she continues. “He had an overdose, baby. Oh God…he's…he's dead…he's…crack cocaine…Lizzie…”

I can't breathe. Images of Johnny flash before my eyes. Him standing over me, his fist raised while my mouth was open with terror and blood was dripping from between my teeth…his wild stare, his smile as he hit me. The feel of his hands on my belly as I threw up after a drunken binge. His face as he had sex with me and I lay under him, doped up and glassy-eyed so I wouldn't have to face my reality. Pressing a hand to my lips, I gasp into the phone, “What the hell happened?”

“I don't know…he just took too much baby…he was foaming at the mouth…it was horrible. They took him to the morgue…I don't even know who his parents are…shit, do you?”

Staring at the walls blankly, I shake my head and then realize she can't see me. “No…I have no idea…”

“You have to come down to the apartment, get your stuff…I mean, there's no reason to stay away now…and besides, Gino and the boys will be coming by later. Probably to steal everything…”

I'm just sitting still, trying to talk. But nothing's coming out besides, “Sure, ok”. My elbows tremble and start to ache. Oh, no. Not now. I don't want to want this now. No, I need Angel. Thinking of him makes me wild for something, anything to fill me up and make me feel whole. I need his skin and his fingers, his voice and his smell. Angel…where is he? I hang up the phone with Val, rocking myself back and forth.

Johnny's dead, he's dead. I feel free. I feel horrible. Maybe it's guilt. Maybe I feel like I should've been there. To help him. To hold his hand as he died?? To hold the hand that hit me? The hand with the rings that would cut into my cheeks as he rammed it into them in his drug-induced rages? Could I ever caress that hand…

A sound from the front of the apartment makes me look up. Angel comes through the door, his arms full of bags, his hair rumpled. As he sees me, he sets the bags down and comes forward, his eyes concerned, sweet. “Love, what are you doing? I thought you were sleeping?”

It all breaks. I see him, take all of him in and he becomes my whole world for that quick second. Angel, Angel, Angel… standing up, I sob brokenly and fling myself against him with crushing force. His arms grab me and embrace me and crying, sniffing, I rub my cheeks against his neck, where I can feel bare, warm skin. Angel soothes my back with strokes from his fingers, murmuring things to me. “What is it, love?” he asks, his voice tinged with fear. “What happened?”

I'm crying and trying to talk, but all that is coming out is gibberish. He sits down on the chair where I learned the news and cradles me on his lap. He probably thinks that I had a relapse. Maybe snuck some drugs into the house. Maybe he thinks I inhaled that powdered pain and let it stream through my blood like liquidated fire. But he's wrong. I didn't do that. I'm just going crazy.

The sound of his voice reaches my ears finally. He's whispering and holding me close, his whole body around mine. It's making me feel better, and slowly I raise my tear-stained face to look at him. His fingers brush the hair off my wet cheeks. His eyes are soft, worried…loving. “Angel…” I murmur wonderingly, almost questioningly.

He's agonized. But his lips are touching mine, so lightly, so quietly…it's like a whisper. Like imagination. I whimper and press closer, as his mouth covers mine and it's like falling. But his arms are still around me so I know I'm not on the floor, although it feels like it. It's as if I'm lying down, the ceiling rushing across me as all the blood goes to my head. Kissing Angel, his tongue drowning in my mouth, is too good. It makes me moan.

“Buffy…” he mutters and pulls back, his eyes studying my face. He knows something is wrong.

“Johnny's dead,” I utter without inflection, leaning my head on his shoulder, hearing his intake of breath. “He over dosed on crack cocaine…he just died. Valentia, my friend, called me…I have to go over there and get my stuff or else his pusher will be over to take it all.”

“I'll go with you,” he says and grabs a Kleenex, wiping my face free of salt.


I don't protest. I need him with me. I always did.

~~~

As we enter the apartment where I used to live, I half expect to see Johnny coming out from the kitchen, his fist raised, his eyes shot with blood, asking where the hell I've been. But he doesn't. The walls are still and silent. I guess I thought it would be alive in here, with ghosts. But it's dead. It's peaceful. Maybe this place knows there will be no more screams. My cheekbone hurts where he used to hit me. Touching it lightly, I go into our room. Angel doesn't say anything, but he follows me because I'm holding onto his hand.

The bed is messy just like we left it before going to that club. He obviously hadn't made it since then, or didn't even really come home. Grabbing my clothes, I hauled them into a garbage bag and decided right then and there to take them to the Salvation Army. I didn't need them. They were like an old skin that needed to be shed.

Angel sat down on the chair in the corner, his figure in the sun reminding me of nothing I had ever seen before. Angel was always someone caught in the shadows of my memory. In the darkness, teeming with cemeteries and the muskiness of the mansion. Not in the light. Never glowing. I smile at him and lean against the wall. “A lot's changed hasn't it?”

He nods. “Yeah, it has. I didn't think we'd end up here, that's for sure.”

A sudden thought strikes me. “Angel, what do you do? For a job?”

He half smiles. “I'm a photographer. I do editorial work and portraits for celebrities. It's good money. And I can take long breaks. Like when I need to help an old friend.”

Something catches in my throat. A sob, a tear, a sigh. I'm not sure what. But as I stare at him, I suddenly realize he is saying Goodbye. “Must be nice. The freedom.”

“It is,” he admits, and stands up, rubbing his shoulder, looking out the window to the busy New York Street.

“I want to thank you for your help,” I offer, my fingers playing with my silky hair, the blonde strands winding around my thumbs like bolts of thread.

Angel turns, and his half smile is like a balm to my bruises. “Your Welcome.”

I feel like I should shake his hand or something. Like we completed a transaction. Nodding mechanically, I push my shoulders back and try and stand tall. Maybe I can be that Buffy again. Or maybe I can just be someone that is strong. Someone that doesn't run away. It's going to be hard. Already the ache behind my breastbone reminds me that I want a fix. Bearing it, I gaze at my old lover and grin at him. “I have to go…I'm gonna stay with Valentia. Until I can find a place, you know.”

“Buffy…” he murmurs, reaching out a hand. My fingers interlock with his. He draws me towards him and I drop my hand onto his chest, my ear against his beating heart. “I will come back to you…whenever you need help. You know it's never over.”

I stare up at him, my eyes brimming. But clear, strong. I can do this. “I know. I know, Angel.”

He holds me and for a moment, I let myself cling, inhaling his smell, his breath, his heartbeat. I feel him in all his throbbing, hot life and almost grappling with his shirt, press myself into him one last time. He leans down, tipping my chin up and kissing my lips gently. He tastes like the rain.

And then I do the one thing I never let myself do. I let him go. It's not over. It might never be. But I have to be on my own, prove that life isn't too much of a struggle for me. Prove that there might be some Slayer in this skin somewhere. Angel can't do this for me. He was there as he always is, to pick me up and save me, and hold me close in the night. But when it comes down to it…I know it's on me.

“Goodbye,” I say and pick up my bags, absorbing the weight of them with muscles I didn't know I still possessed.

He touches my cheek. “Goodbye, Buffy.”

That hurts, to hear him say it. He never could before. But I turn away, tearing my eyes from his and walking out of the room I experienced so much terror in. It's cold outside. Winter's coming and I don't have a roof over my head, or food to eat. No drugs to calm me, or boyfriend to keep me in line. Looking up at the sky, I imagine this life I have ahead of me and feel so alone.

I start walking, and don't stop until I reach Valentia's place. I don't look back.

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