Story: And it All Became So Clear (chapter 1)

PROLOGUE

Chemistry, I used to find this class interesting, I really did. The problem I guess wasn't so much chemistry as it was that I seemed to having a lot of trouble concentrating recently. I mean I couldn't follow a word the teacher was saying, and these lapses in concentration seemed to be happening more and more frequently. To tell you the truth I kind of felt like I was becoming lost in a dense fog. Everywhere I looked nothing was clear and things I used to see were disappearing. To be quite honest it was really a royal pain in the ass, after all I had a life to live, one that had just been thrown into turmoil and really did need my undivided attention.

Shaking my head in an attempt-which failed miserably-to clear it I looked up and at the back of the head in front of me. This may sound strange but I knew it well. It, the head that is, was bowed down slightly. At least somebody was able to concentrate. The reason I knew this head so well was because it belonged to my best friend, Buffy Summers.

Buffy, was actually the cause of a lot of the haze surrounding me. I'm not blaming her for it, but since she came to Sunnydale and into my life a few years ago she's turned it upside down. My life was now remarkable, scary, exciting, confusing and much more. To be certain things hadn't been boring since Buffy arrived in town. It was just that as a result the last two years and perhaps who I knew myself to be where all up for debate.

I was sure about one thing however, and that thing was perhaps a bigger problem than all my other ones put together, and let me tell you my other ones were considerable. Anyway when I finally moved out of la la land I saw Buffy staring at me. Her lips were moving but I couldn't exactly be sure what she was saying. The word "Chloroplast" came out of my mouth in response to her question. I can't be sure why I said it but the answer seemed to satisfy her and she turned back around. Once her back was completely towards me once again I let out a tiny sigh them propped my head on my hand and turned to look out the window. It was sunny as usual. Sunny Sunnydale.

Buffy shot looks back at me throughout the rest of class. She was worried about me, I knew that. Truthfully I had been avoiding her for quite some time, I really had. A few times when she looked back at me I saw pain her eyes and I knew it wasn't because of being the Slayer, or because of Angel but because of me and how I was acting. I was hurting her by avoiding her. She would never say that but I could tell that it was true. That in turn hurt me because the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt Buffy. She was probably the most important person in my life. She really was, and that was part of the problem.

Anyway what I decided was that I was going to take off again today after school before she could talk to me but that this would be the last time. I was going to go home and deal with what I had to deal with and I was going to come to school the next day and be my old babbling self. If there happened to be any residual stuff to deal with then I would pretend to be my usual babbling self. Either way I was going to stop hurting Buffy by avoiding her. And while I was at it I was going to have to think of a convincing lie to tell her about why I was acting so strangely. I didn't want to lie to her but I wasn't ready to tell her the truth yet. Once I got all of that settled I was able to concentrate, a least a little bit.

I sat on my bed with a carton of ice-cream, butterscotch ribbon, in front of me and a picture, framed, off to my side. I was eating the ice-cream straight from the carton, I looked like the cliched troubled teenage agonizing over her adolescent woes, and I was, I really was. In the framed picture was a photograph of Buffy. I can't tell you how long I lay there looking at that picture, only that it was quite some time. I was mesmerized. I always was by Buffy.

People say your teenage years are the best and hardest of your life. I think that's true, but if you want to know a secret it's even harder when you're in love with your best friend! You see there it is. I'm in love with Buffy. I told you it was a big problem. I've known crushes, I can deal with crushes. After all I had one on Xander for years.

My immediate and biggest problem was my love for Buffy. And it is love, let me assure you of that. People are always quick to dismiss teenage love as lust or hormones and truthfully most of the time it is. Case in point: Xander and Cordelia. But other times it really is love and that's how it was for me. Who would have guessed that a little Jewish girl would have such big problems? Not me, that's for sure.

A lot of the trouble lay with the fact that I was so unaware, or perhaps in denial of my feelings for quite some time. It's not just a river in Egypt you know. I had never recognized at least consciously an attraction to other women, and my attraction to Buffy was intertwined with out friendship allowing me to deny it. How you may wonder did I finally see the light? I'll tell you, it was a visit from the little green-eyed monster. Yes, jealousy. When I learned the reason Angel lost his soul was because he and Buffy had been together, I was consumed with an intense mixture of anger and jealousy. I pushed it aside at the time because Buffy was hurting and needed me but I felt it, boy did I feel it, and boy did it confuse me.

I managed to push it down, squash it and hide it away after that. Sure I started looking around a bit more in gym class but that didn't mean anything. At least that's what I told myself. Then there was Oz. He swept me off my feet, he really did. Nobody had ever looked at me before, boy or girl, and I was charmed. He was funny, and smart and a musician, and cute, and things went good for us. I mean I even got over the whole werewolf thing. But then my feelings for Buffy started surface again. I would watch her practice with Giles, watch how she moved, think about how beautiful she looked, and then I would think 'Shut up brain. You like boys remember?' And so would go the internal debate, over and over.

Then more trouble. I know, I know, it's something about living on a hell mouth. It follows you around. What was this trouble? Xander. Finally after years of indifference he decides he likes me. What do I do? I internally debate more, but finally after years of want and a need to prove myself as a member of the heterosexual family, I give in. What happens once I do? We get caught making smoochy, smoochy, and Oz won't talk to me, and Cordelia impaled herself. But the worst part about it was that after it all happened, and I was all sad, Buffy declared that we were having a slumber party. That's not the bad part, what is is that in the middle of it I started crying. I mean I was really bawling, I couldn't stop even though I wanted to. And Buffy, she came over to me and wrapped her arms around me and kissed the top of my head and held me telling me that everything would be alright. And I believed her. Sitting there in her arms despite all that had happened I felt alright. What I realized was that I was exactly where I wanted to be. After I got the crying under control I continued to kind of fake shake because I didn't want her to let go. I never wanted her to let go. So sitting there wrapped in my best friends embrace supposedly crying over my two lost men I let go, and I embraced my feelings and let the love I felt for the woman holding me flood though my body.