Pain
*"Oz.don't you love me?"
"My whole life I've never loved anything else."*
He said those words.I don't know if he meant them or not. I want to believe he meant them, I *think* I believe he meant them but.shouldn't that stop the pain? The crying? Shouldn't that stop me from desperately wanting to open the Hellmouth myself just so I can throw myself in it?
Oh, God, I can't stop crying, I can't stop hurting. It hurts *physically*. I think my heart is going to tear out of my chest if I shed one more tear.
Oz. His name, the mere thought of his name makes my throat constrict and makes me dizzy as more and more and more tears just keep coming. They won't *stop*, why won't they stop?
I loved him, *love* him so much. I'd envied Buffy's infatuation with Angel for so long, I'd been 'in love' with Xander for so long, and then came Oz. He was so sweet. He saw right through me he knew I was just jealous of Xander at first, and he knew he could wait until we were both ready.
I never thought I could hurt this bad. I never thought it could be worse than it was that night when Oz and Cordelia caught Xander and I kissing and the days that followed. Oz had told me that not having me was like losing an arm.or a torso. I thought I knew what he meant, I thought I felt it
too, but I didn't. Not until now. I think I'm going to die.
Guilt. Here comes the guilt. Leave it to me to find something *else* wrong with myself during the worst day of my life. The worst of the worst days of my life. I've been through vampires, demons, prophecies, numerous apocalypses, and some of the worst monsters ever known to mankind-I've been put in a coma, I've been held hostage, but none of it compares to this
pain. Not even close.
But back to the guilt. For some reason, I think about Buffy and Angel, and I feel like I shouldn't be drowning in my misery because look at them! They were in love, they made love, he lost his soul and turned evil and emotionally tortured her, then he got his soul back and turned good again
but she had to kill him to keep the world from getting sucked into hell, three months later he came back from hell for her, and then he finally left. While they were still in love. How can anything in my dowdy life compare with that? How can what I feel compare to what Buffy felt? But somehow I know that it does. Because if her pain was worse than mine, she would have to be dead.
*"Right now I'm just trying to keep from dying..I can't breathe, Willow. I feel like I can't breathe."*
I remember her words from right after Angel had broken up with her, when she was talking to me, and I finally know what she means.
I look in the mirror and I almost laugh at myself. Look at me. My eyes are puffy, my nose suddenly grew ten sizes bigger and is all red, and my lips are nearly swollen.
But *look* at me. As tears stream down my cheeks, I remember looking in the mirror in tenth grade. Long, wishy-washy hair that was always in my face, always a timid look in my eyes, and.well, we won't even get into the clothes issue. And after Oz, I was happy. There was happiness in my
reflection. Later, my hair was shorter and not hiding my face as much I didn't need to hide from the world as much. When I just started college, I was.I was a grown-up. And now.
I burst into another set of tears and my legs decide they don't feel like supporting me anymore as I fall to the floor in a sobbing heap.
Oz, please come back to me! I'm nothing without him. He gave me every shred of self-respect and confidence I ever had, and now that he's gone, what am I? I'm just the dowdy little red-headed nerd I was for the seventeen years before Oz. I knew how dependent I was on him, and I liked it. I liked the dependentness because it somehow made me feel whole. It made me feel complete because I knew that he would always be there. It wasn't even a question. Willow and Oz. The cute ones.
I'm sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, and I'm going to lose my voice before I stop because I can't. I can't stop crying, I can't stop sobbing, I can't stop *hurting*, I can't stop hating, and I can't stop loving. Does he feel like this too? Or does he feel like.maybe not like a burden's been lifted, but does he hurt as much as I do, or does he just.I don't know. What if he loved me less after the whole Xander kissage thing? But at graduation.no. But maybe.I don't know. I can't think, I can't reason, I can only feel.
When I close my eyes, I see her. I see her in the cage with my Oz. How could he do that? Why didn't he tell anyone? If he had just told me about Veruca, we would have found some other place for her. But I know that deep down he must have felt that animal attraction. But was it stronger than
his love for me? I don't even want to think about that. Well, I know that *she* certainly must have felt it since she was willing to kill me for him!
God, she almost *killed* me. What would I have done if Oz and Buffy hadn't have come in? I almost laugh, because at this point, dying doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
I wanted to kill her. Thank God she's dead or *I* would have done it. After all the initial shock and hurt of first seeing them together, I just wanted to rip her throat out. I guess Oz beat me to it.
She was insane. All that stuff about the wolf being inside them all the time. I guess she must have been right about some things because it seemed to hit Oz pretty hard. She's the reason he's gone. She's the reason I'm sitting on the floor in his dorm room sobbing so hard my stomach hurts.
The door opens and I see Buffy walking in the room. Seeing her only makes me cry harder because it brings back the guilt and somehow, more pain. Buffy knows me better than.I can't even think his name.
Oz.
I'm screaming instead of sobbing now.or is that in my head? I don't know, I'm in a daze, but I can see Buffy, with sympathy in her eyes. She sits down and hugs me and holds me like a big sister, like she did when we sat only a day before, with Veruca lying dead in front of us and Oz in a drug-induced sleep by the door. That only makes me cry harder. I'm convulsing and shaking, and am I ever going to stop crying? Am I ever going to stop this? I'm never going to be whole without Oz. I don't think I'm ever going to recover, and I don't know if I *want* to recover. I just
know I want Oz.
More tears. More sobbing. More shaking.
Does this ever stop?
Does pain ever stop?
