The Wedding

I’ve never been a big fan of weddings. My view on them has been somewhat warped given the fact my parents gave up so easily on their marriage. And I can’t say I’ve been around healthy amounts of normal relationships. My own are testament to that. I seemed to have had a ‘thing’ for Mr. Wrong. Quite a few Mr. Wrongs, then a close call with a Miss Wrong; that should maybe have been so right, but was spoiled before it began.

I guess that’s why I feel kind of out in the dark today. The gang are all blustering around me; Dawn just got her hair caught in the zipper of her dress and I swear she nearly passed out with hyperventilating, and Willow just flew headlong across the bed as she struggled to balance on one foot, doing her best to squeeze her other foot into a gaudy pink shoe.

I want to feel happy, and giddy, like they do. . .but I can’t seem to bring myself to smile and mean it.

“Buffy, you need to hurry up and put that on,” Willow tells me as she points to the large mess of pink in my hand.

The dress isn’t that bad for a bridesmaid dress I suppose, but it could be better. Xander’s soon to be wife isn’t completely devoid of fashion sense, but her favourite colour is just a little too bright for me. Especially right now. Black would probably be too bright for me right now.

Ok, much sombreness going on with me, that’s obvious. What isn’t obvious is the real reason why. Not to anybody else anyway.

I think they’re all telling themselves that I’m just missing the ‘good old days’. Yunno, the days when our teachers would try to eat us, and Halloween parties took on a whole new meaning, my vampire lover decided post-coital smoking wasn’t as satisfying as killing my friends, being made invisible, having my best friend try to end the world because her girlfriend got shot with a bullet meant for me. Those good old days.

Yeah, I’m not missing them much. At least not in the way they think. I still slay, I’m just not so much on the front line now. Giles said I deserved a break, and I probably did. I took a vacation; not long, just two weeks in Rome, seeing the sites with Dawn. When we came back all the organizing had been done. All the places for our new ‘slayer family’ to stay had been found and I was going to get to choose where I went between staying in LA, or going with Giles and most of the others to Cleveland.