I watch her sometimes, when she sleeps, she is my best friend and I worry about her. I don't know if anyone else has noticed it, but she's changed so much since he left. It always comes down to him. She loved him and he left, leaving behind an empty hollow wreck of the slayer. I like to think that I understand, but I don't not really, I loved Oz but not with all of me like Buffy loved Angel and it hurt me when he left but it didn't destroy me like it did Buffy.

She has nightmares, awful nightmares and she wakes up screaming his name. I feel so useless at those times and I know she is remembering but just pretend to brush it off as a slayer dream or an ordinary nightmare but they aren't. I want what's best for her and so I act like normal like Angel never mattered to her and she is so over him, but she's not. Like, she confided to me, she told him (okay I read her diary) "It's never over."

It could be said that I'm forcing her to get over him and pushing her into relationships and I am. I just worry about her so much and want her to find someone. I know Riley isn't the right guy, goddess he doesn't even know the real her all he sees is the bright happy, superficial slayer that she has become. I have never seen pain like when she came to my house when Angel broke up with her, she had broken up with him several times but always expected him to be there, then he told her he wouldn't. Her face and her words are seared into my memory.
"I can't breathe Willow, I can't breathe"

I still feel guilty over not telling her when he was dying that he said he wouldn't leave. Or when she was in the hospital I knew Angel would never have bitten Buffy for himself and she would do anything to save him, but I let him take the blame and deal with the guilt.

She has many scars from him and not just the one on her neck, she is weak and feels that she needs a man, that's why she slept with Parker so soon and I am responsible in part for that too. Telling her to go for it, and teasing her about the time she had spent with him. Later when we were patrolling she was so hurt and wanted to know what she had done wrong, the old Buffy would have dealt, but she saw Parker's rejection of her as being the same reason Angel left and Spike didn't help.

The supposed angry puppy dog bite, often seems to hold her to this world I see her daydreaming in class and I know she isn't thinking about Riley when she rubs the scar. It is a constant reminder of what she would have gave up for Angel. When I was younger I loved their story how romantic, a real Romeo and Juliet story, but all I see now is the pain and realise that I am in part responsible for it.

I don't like the person Buffy has become, but then I don't like the person I have become either.

The End