[7SP] Erica Jong quote
“The trick is not how much pain you feel - but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses.”
The festive music was so incredibly wrong for her mood at the moment, but it was the only thing she knew of that could drown out her mother’s addled babble. She knew that it was going to be hard when she agreed to help her mother with talking the doctor into sending her home, but she thought that she could handle it. Buffy was a tough girl. She had to be, look at the things she fought every day. She was the Slayer, capital S, the girl you didn’t want to mess with unless you wanted your ass handed to you. When she put her mind to something, she didn’t lose. Because when she lost, people died.
But this thing in her mother’s head wasn’t something she could fight. It wasn’t a demon, or a vampire, or any other kind of supernatural problem that a Slayer could take head on with her feet and her fists. This was something she had to trust to people that were other than her, and she wasn’t all that sure that she was willing to do that, but what she was sure about was it was the only way, and she had to let that happen. No matter how much she wanted to help. There wasn’t anything she could do to help, so while her mother was lying upstairs, deteriorating, dying, what was Buffy doing? Buffy was washing dishes.
It was rather anticlimactic, if she did say so herself.
It didn’t help the fact that her mother was probably the one person she wanted to save more than anything in the world. She was her last piece of family. Dawn believed she was family, true, and all the memories in her head told her that Dawn was her sister, was family, but Buffy knew the truth. Buffy knew that Dawn wasn’t real, wasn’t a person, which made her mother’s sickness even harder to bear because she was all Buffy had. She wanted to be the one to rush in and save the day, but how do you rush in to save someone from a brain tumor without a scalpel and a medical degree, so Buffy did what she could do. She took care of her family, kept the house clean, stepped up. Because Slayer or not, that was what Buffy did. So right now, washing dishes.
Lift, scrub, rinse, repeat.
She’d clearly picked the wrong chore to complete. If she didn’t have to stay so close, she’d go patrolling. Replace pain for anger and aggression and take it out on the idiot vamps in the area who decided that they wanted to tangle. Washing dishes wasn’t nearly as distracting. When she was washing dishes, she couldn’t ignore the pinpricks of heat across her eyes, or the way her shoulders heaved as she tried to catch her breath, or the way everything just hurt, and it just became too much to bear.
She hadn’t wanted to cry. She knew that once she started she wouldn’t be able to stop, but she couldn’t stop herself either. It all hit her like a hard rush, and her body caved, tears falling into the sudsy water beneath her. It wasn’t just tears, either, it was full on sobs, her body wracked in ways she didn’t think she could recover from. Suddenly, the music wasn’t covering her mother, it was covering her as well, keeping the signs of her weakness from those she didn’t want hearing it.
Hey, at least it was working.
584 words
The festive music was so incredibly wrong for her mood at the moment, but it was the only thing she knew of that could drown out her mother’s addled babble. She knew that it was going to be hard when she agreed to help her mother with talking the doctor into sending her home, but she thought that she could handle it. Buffy was a tough girl. She had to be, look at the things she fought every day. She was the Slayer, capital S, the girl you didn’t want to mess with unless you wanted your ass handed to you. When she put her mind to something, she didn’t lose. Because when she lost, people died.
But this thing in her mother’s head wasn’t something she could fight. It wasn’t a demon, or a vampire, or any other kind of supernatural problem that a Slayer could take head on with her feet and her fists. This was something she had to trust to people that were other than her, and she wasn’t all that sure that she was willing to do that, but what she was sure about was it was the only way, and she had to let that happen. No matter how much she wanted to help. There wasn’t anything she could do to help, so while her mother was lying upstairs, deteriorating, dying, what was Buffy doing? Buffy was washing dishes.
It was rather anticlimactic, if she did say so herself.
It didn’t help the fact that her mother was probably the one person she wanted to save more than anything in the world. She was her last piece of family. Dawn believed she was family, true, and all the memories in her head told her that Dawn was her sister, was family, but Buffy knew the truth. Buffy knew that Dawn wasn’t real, wasn’t a person, which made her mother’s sickness even harder to bear because she was all Buffy had. She wanted to be the one to rush in and save the day, but how do you rush in to save someone from a brain tumor without a scalpel and a medical degree, so Buffy did what she could do. She took care of her family, kept the house clean, stepped up. Because Slayer or not, that was what Buffy did. So right now, washing dishes.
Lift, scrub, rinse, repeat.
She’d clearly picked the wrong chore to complete. If she didn’t have to stay so close, she’d go patrolling. Replace pain for anger and aggression and take it out on the idiot vamps in the area who decided that they wanted to tangle. Washing dishes wasn’t nearly as distracting. When she was washing dishes, she couldn’t ignore the pinpricks of heat across her eyes, or the way her shoulders heaved as she tried to catch her breath, or the way everything just hurt, and it just became too much to bear.
She hadn’t wanted to cry. She knew that once she started she wouldn’t be able to stop, but she couldn’t stop herself either. It all hit her like a hard rush, and her body caved, tears falling into the sudsy water beneath her. It wasn’t just tears, either, it was full on sobs, her body wracked in ways she didn’t think she could recover from. Suddenly, the music wasn’t covering her mother, it was covering her as well, keeping the signs of her weakness from those she didn’t want hearing it.
Hey, at least it was working.
584 words