JOYCE: Buffy, I'm home. Do you wanna go to, uh, ...? What are you doing? You're running away again? And you're taking my clothes.

BUFFY: Mom, I need you to leave town. Tonight.

JOYCE: Buffy, I'd miss your graduation.

BUFFY: Yeah, that's sort of the idea.

JOYCE: There's no way. I wouldn't dream...

BUFFY: Mom, graduation is a pointless ceremony where you sit around and listen to a bunch of boring speeches until someone hands you a piece of paper that says you graduated which you already know and maroon does nothing for my complection, so don't argue, okay?

JOYCE: (sarcastic) What, is some terrible demon going to attack the school. (Buffy glares, keeps packing) Oh, I see. Oh, you know, Buffy, looking back on everything that's happened, maybe I should have sent you to a different school.

BUFFY: Just promise me that you'll be far away from here.

JOYCE: I'm not leaving you to face an awful monster. If I go anywhere, you're going with me.

BUFFY: You know that I can't.

JOYCE: Well then I can't either.

BUFFY: Mom, I know that sometimes you wish I were different.

JOYCE: Buffy, no.

BUFFY: I wish I could be a lot of things for you. A great student, a star athlete, remotely normal. I'm not. But there is something I do that I can do better than anybody else in the world. I'm gonna fight this thing, but I can't do it and worry about you.

JOYCE: Buffy, you just can't ...

BUFFY: You stay, you'll get me killed. You'll have to trust me on this. Can you do that?

• Buffy & her mom
• Slayerhood

written by: Joss Whedon; . Full transcript at:
http://www.studiesinwords.de/55grad-1.html