Three Simple Words

by Jamie

[reviews]

I look at her for long moments.

I sit behind her and I stare at every aspect of her. The way strands of her hair float in the gentle breeze, the way she occasionally rubs the back of her neck, how she changes the way she sits on her seat.

I notice her. I give her more attention than I've ever given anyone.

So why doesn't she return it?

Sometimes I feel like I'm fighting an uphill struggle on a slippery slope. Like, every time I think I'm getting closer I just fall on my face. All of this...all of this desire is burning me. I can actually feel myself being choked by it. Silently I'm screaming, but of course she can't hear me. God, if I was her I wouldn't want to. I'm pathetic.

And yet I'm pathetically head over heels. You don't understand how a single touch, the smallest indication that a 'Hey' might mean something, anything more, the way on some days she sits closer to me than usual, can affect me. Sometimes just how tightly she hugs me in the mornings when I see her can set me off thinking.

I've just realised I'm staring. I snap out of my vision and look surreptitiously to the side. Cordelia is smirking at me.

Great, that's just great. I can hear her muffled giggling as she exchanges some brainless joke with one of her sheep. As if on cue, she turns around and glares at Cordelia. That's my girl. As she turns back round to pay attention to the teacher, she flashes a smile at me and I can't help but grin back goofily. When she can't see me anymore I let my forearms fall forward, and my head falls softly to the desk.

I have to get a grip.

---------------------------------

We're lying on the couch.

It's a Sunday night, and we're lazing away after too much pizza and too many films. Xander and Giles left a while ago, and I'm just enjoying the feel of my back against her chest, the room lit up by a few candles that flicker slightly now and again. The television is a blank square of nothing in a darkened room, the curtains drawn.

We're just talking, the way people do sometimes. You know how it is on occasion where you just feel totally relaxed with someone and you talk for hours. Sometimes it's about meaningful things, some of the time it's just chatting idly, not really with a topic in mind.

That's us, in that moment.

And I'm about to ruin it.

The words come almost like a slip of the tongue. Maybe it was. I've been thinking for days, for weeks about how to phrase the next sentence that spills clumsily from my lips, but in the end my brain and my soul just say it in the most primitive way possible.

"I love you."

She sighs and smiles, then tightens her grip around me for a few brief, yet unbelievably blissful seconds.

"Love you too." She mumbles, as she drifts off to sleep peacefully. I lie for a while, listening to her rhythmic breathing, our chests in sync as they rise and fall.

I know she meant she loved me as a friend, but I can't help the way those three simple words made me feel. It did more for me than any other combination and arrangement of words and letter could.

It gave me hope.

Because, I think, as I turn my head around so I can catch a glimpse of my sleeping angel, there's always tomorrow.

---------------------------------

She doesn't know I'm not really asleep. I said I loved her back, knowing she would take it as friendly.

Because, to be honest, I'm afraid of what I really meant.

I can sense her dropping off to sleep, I can feel her breathing slowing, becoming deeper and more regular.

Just before she falls completely into unconsciousness, I hear her mumble "I love you Buffy."

Trying to keep as still as possible, I move my head forwards, and gently kiss her head. There is no more doubt, no more fear, now that I have the barrier of her sleep to protect us from our emotions.

"I love you more than anything, Willow."



I should be less of a coward. The mighty Slayer, bane of all that walks in the dark.

But, as every teenager's adage goes...

There's always tomorrow.





- End.