Title: My Bedclothes Are Retarded
Author: Paradox761
Email: Paradox761@mail.com
Website: members.tripod.com/~Paradox761

My bedclothes are retarded. What an odd thought. But my head is filled with odd thoughts. The fitted sheet is coming off at the corners, the top sheet is sliding off the right side of the bed, and the comforter is sliding off the left side. How is that even possible? I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in months. I never had that problem before. Well, not since I was a little kid and I use to cringe whenever I heard my parents fight. But now, it’s like the sound of traffic or rainfall, it just blends into the background. It isn’t anything outside that keeps me from slumber, it’s my own thoughts. It’s interesting, how in the light of day a man can bullshit himself into thinking he’s happy. Into thinking that he’s got a handle on his life, that he knows what he’s doing. But at night, when there’s nothing to distract you from your own thoughts, that’s when the fear comes. Not of vampires or demons or other things that go bump in the night, but of the future. The fear of what tomorrow will bring. I’m not even afraid of vampires and demons anymore, that’s not what I’m talking about. With them, everything is clear. You do what you have to do, and you’ll either survive, or you won’t. There’s no sense in dwelling on something you have no control over. No, what scares me at night, the fears that creep into my mind are the things that I can control. The decisions I make daily, and their impact on my future. In the past few months, I’ve watched my friends enter new chapters in their lives. They’ve moved on from many of the things I still cling to. Why haven’t I moved on? Well, maybe it’s because those things are my only links to them, and that’s what I fear the most. Losing them. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s beginning.

Willow Rosenberg, my best friend in the whole wide world, is in a world of pain and I have no idea what to do. She clings to Buffy for support now, which I understand. I mean, Buffy is the only female friend Willow really has, so it makes sense she’d turn to her. But I can’t help but remember when it was my shoulder she cried on when she was heartbroken. Unless of course it was me she was heartbroken over. For years I pretended not to notice that Willow had a crush on me, because I was afraid of what it would do to our friendship. A friendship that for many years was the only thing I had worth anything in my life. She was everything to me. A best friend, a mother, a shoulder to cry on, a sounding board for my problems. I guess I just excepted that she felt the same way about me, that she valued our friendship as much as I did. I never realized how much pain I really caused her. Not until it was too late at least. Then Buffy came, then Jesse died, then Oz came, then the thing with Cordelia, then Cordelia left, and then Oz left. And now, I feel like maybe Willow needs me again. Like maybe I can be a part of her life again. But it just doesn’t seem to be working that way.

Anya. I sure can pick them. Let’s see, first there was the giant praying mantis, and then the Inca mummy girl, and then of course Queen C, and now, a former vengeance demon who specialized in the torment of men. What the hell is wrong with me? Don’t get me wrong, Anya’s kind of cool. She’s finally starting to accept what it means to be human, and she does actually seem to like me, which is a plus. I’m just afraid that I’m with her for the wrong reasons. I mean, she came along at a time in my life when I desperately needed to feel…well, needed. And now, we’re together and the only thing I can thing about is that I don’t want to break her heart. Maybe I shouldn’t have let it get this far. It’s just, well, it felt nice to spend the night in someone’s arms.

I still remember the sleepovers Willow and I had when we were kids. My parents usually refrained from their nightly screaming matches if she was there, and at the time, that was nothing short of a miracle. I remember how I slept so peacefully whenever she was next to me. We always wound up curled up with each other by morning. I guess our subconscious minds knew even back then. We were supposed to be together. But it’s too late now. I screwed thinks up royal a long time ago, and now I don’t even have the friendship that I was being so careful to preserve. I mean sure, we’re still friends, but not like we were. She was my world. She was everything to me. But I took her for granted, and I never told her how I felt.

Of course I love her, I’ve always loved her. I’ve loved her since the day I saw her in preschool, playing in the sandbox. And every time she smiled at me, every time she touched me, I loved her a little more. And every time I saw her cry, a piece of me died. Every instinct told me to pull her to me and hold her, tell her everything was going to be okay. Tell her that I loved her. But now is not the time. I can’t tell her now, when she still feels like crap because of Oz. She’s got enough stuff to deal with. And I know, this is a chapter in her life that she has to move beyond, and I know that eventually she will. I just hope she doesn’t leave me behind when she does, because I don’t think I could survive without her. So I’ll wait, forever if I have to. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here, in this dank basement, in the dark, with nothing to keep me company by my own thoughts, and my retarded bedclothes.

The End.