20 | buffy summers

CHAPTER TWENTY | BUFFY SUMMERS

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Two days before Halloween, I decide to trust my instinct and ambush Xavier on his day off, knowing he won't be able to dodge a straightforward question. There are plenty of things Xavier can pretend not to hear, but I'm determined to break the cycle.

"Hypothetically, would it be a stupid decision to attend a Halloween party?"

Xavier, hidden behind a copy of A Tale of Two Cities, stirs in his seat. "It depends."

"On what, exactly?"

"On which version of me you're asking that question to. Do you want me to be the adult who's responsible for you in the state of Alaska, or do you want me to be the cool older brother?"

I sigh, settling on the seat across from his with a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin, made exclusively for us by one Clara St. Germain. "Which of those versions is in a better mood today?"

"Neither of them. I don't like Halloween. I think it's pointless."

Xavier never took me trick-or-treating back when we were younger; it was always our parents or Emma's. He's never been the fun-loving older brother with a distaste for the rules, though I've always been considered more well-behaved than him thanks to my sickening obsession with being a people pleaser. No one ever believed my thin threats about tricks, deeming me as tooth-achingly sweet as the treats they dumped into my pumpkin basket, and I knew I was doomed to never be taken seriously.

I'm not expecting Xavier to be particularly helpful, but he's the tie-breaking family member when Mom wants me to go to the party and Dad is vehemently against it. I'll never break the tie by myself, ever the lover of not making life-changing decisions—most of the time—so I'm depending on Xavier to make this choice in my place, but I can't have him take a page out of my book and refuse to do it.

Sidney carefully approaches us, jumping to the empty space next to me, and curls around herself, head on my thigh. I know she's sensing something unusual in the air—like how she might be left behind for a few hours while I drink illegally with a bunch of college students or how the dynamic between me and Xavier almost feels like how it used to be back in the day—and I won't put past it her to know exactly what it is, but this is one of those moments I find myself wishing she could just be a regular pet.

Regular. Normal. There's that word again.

Xavier sets the book aside with a sigh. "Look. I could tell you these parties are an important rite of passage for every teenager and young adult, but I don't need to remind you that you're—"

"Reeling from the most traumatizing experience of my life?"

He glares at me. "Nineteen. If you drink, if you get caught, it might just be a misdemeanor, especially as a first-time offense, but it stays on your record. There will be consequences. Community service, fines, not to mention what might happen if you drink too much." He avoids my eyes now, like he does when the conversation gets too personal. Something small and tight wraps around my throat. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you, especially when you're on my watch. When I heard about Camp Comet, I—"

"You what?"

He gulps, staring at a random spot on the wall.

Turning him into the villain in the story isn't the move and it's not comforting nor is it part of the acceptance process, but the person I want to be angry at isn't here anymore. I don't get to be angry at Jake and I can't be angry at myself for being involved, for surviving when no one else did and all the odds were stacked against my survival, either, according to Doctor Albott and everyone else in my life. Xavier is all that's left, the final piece in the chess game, and I hate admitting I resent my own brother, but no one ever tells me what to do with all this hurt and heartache.

I needed him. He wasn't there. Now that he is, there's still an invisible brick wall standing between the two of us and, no matter how hard I hammer away at it, I can't bring it down. I can't pretend these feelings aren't here, as negative as they are, and scooping them under the rug in Chicago or in Juneau won't make it go away.

"I thought you'd died at first," he reveals. "It was my first thought, as soon as I started reading the article. I turned on the TV, heard all those names being read—Emma, Zach—and couldn't even bring myself to turn on my phone. If I had, then . . . then I would've known. I would've known you were in the hospital, injured and traumatized, but alive. I kept watching the news, kept reading, and then they started showing footage of you in that shock blanket. Dad kept trying to block the cameras, but I still saw you, even after convincing myself you were gone. My brain was already grieving someone who didn't even die, and I didn't know how to go back and face you after that."

I take in a sharp breath, watching my cup of tea tremble between my hands. Sidney scoots closer to me. "But what does that have to do with everyone else?"

Xavier blinks, finally looking my way. "What?"

"Zach, Emma, Cecelia. Everyone else. Why not go back for them? It wasn't my funeral."

"Wendy, you're my sister. It doesn't matter that it wasn't your funeral; you matter more to me than—"

"And yet you weren't there!" I stand up from my seat, startling Sidney, and she jumps off the couch, already alert. "I needed you to be there, you weren't there, and you didn't even call. You didn't even text me. I had no idea where you were, if you were okay, if you even cared, and your silence was enough for me to draw my own conclusions. So what if you thought I was dead at first? I wasn't. I'm not. You're still treating me like a goddamn ghost. You still treat me like the girl that got left behind, and it makes me feel like I'll never move on from that." I wipe away a pathetic tear from my cheek. "I don't get to move on from that because that's all I ever will be. I'm the girl who survived. I'm all that's left. You don't get to do that to me."

He stands up as well, but his posture is a lot more intimidating than mine will ever be, even without him wanting it to be that way. I back away.

"That's not fair and you know it," he argues. He doesn't raise his voice, but he doesn't have to. Men don't even need to raise their voices in order to make me cower away in fear. "You don't know the whole story."

"Have you ever considered that I don't need to know the whole story?" I throw my hands up in the air in frustration, while Sidney presses her body against my leg in solidarity, but also as a reminder to keep my cool. "What else do I need to know? What excuse is coming next? You somehow convinced yourself I was dead all along and you didn't want to face your dead sister? Or was me being alive too much for you to handle?"

His own hands fly to his hair. I'm selfish enough to note it's still the exact same shade as mine. "Listen to yourself, Wendy. Listen to the words coming out of your mouth right now."

"Why?" The first time my voice ricochets off the walls, neither of us are expecting it. Even Sidney hesitates. "Why is it always me who has to stop and think about what I'm saying? How come everyone else gets to do and say whatever they want to me, and I'm just supposed to sit back and take it? If you think it's not fair for me to be upset that you completely blew me off after the worst day of my life, then try having someone tell you they thought you were dead. Try having someone tell you they never expected you to survive. Tell me how that feels."

He steps forward, reaching out for me, but I back away towards the hallway leading to the staircase. "You don't understand. That was the kind of thing people don't usually survive—"

"—and I did. I truly am sorry my survival has been so inconvenient to you."

Knowing damn well I'll regret it, I still turn my back on him, stomping my way up the stairs, with Sidney trotting behind me.

──────────

"I'm so glad you've made it!" some girl I've never spoken to in my life tells me, pulling me in for a tight hug as soon as I'm within reach. I can smell the pungent scent of alcohol in her breath, which might explain the excessively warm reception, even when I awkwardly pat her back. "Callum was so convinced you wouldn't make it and wanted us to not badger you, but you're here!" She takes a step back, still holding me by the shoulders, and I recognize the shade of green of her eyes. "You have to meet everyone!"

"Who's everyone?"

"Come, come!"

She drags me by the wrist across the living room, expertly dodging the largest concentrations of people, which leads me to believe she's either used to this or she's familiar with the house, maybe both. We come to a stop in the kitchen, where the only people I recognize are Odette and Callum, keeping to themselves in a corner as they share a private conversation.

She notices me first, lips stretching into a wide grin, a gesture I've never seen her wear. "Wendy! You're here! Oh, I love what you've done with your hair."

"Thanks?"

I haven't done anything special with my hair besides braiding it a bit and pulling it up into a ponytail, but I suppose she has never seen me with my hair up. It seemed like a good idea at first, before I left my house, but I'm regretting that decision now, as it leaves my face fully exposed, and ponytails can easily be grabbed by ill-intentioned people. Something so innocuous is now largely responsible for me regretting having left the house.

On the other hand, Xavier is home. I've been trying to avoid him as much as possible for the past two days, even when he offered to take care of Sidney while I'm gone, like extending an olive branch without actually spelling it out, so I don't want to not let my pride take this win. After an unnecessary argument, with both of us being so unwilling to call a truce, I don't want to open the front door with my tail between my legs, which would just prove his point.

I'm not ready for this. I'm not strong enough for this. I'm not capable of making responsible decisions.

Oblivious to my inner turmoil, Odette gleefully introduces me to everyone in the kitchen, who I assume are Callum's friends. The girl who first greeted me is, as suspected, Callum's twin—Maeve—and this is indeed their house, explaining how easy it is for them to both navigate it and be respected by the other attendees; after all, you don't want to get on the host's bad side. There are far too many names for me to remember and I'm unsure if they expect me to remember everything later on, but I still try my best to pay attention to conversations and mingle.

I'm the shiny new thing, attracting sideway glances and whispered gossip, and, though I try to ignore all of that, it quickly becomes unsustainable. I can't focus on the actual conversations I'm having, with the background noise and the whispers about me being somehow much more prevalent and making the words directly spoken to me sound like white noise.

I do appreciate that they've tried to be welcoming and continuously get me involved in activities only after making sure I'm comfortable. It's a lot to ask from strangers, and they've still gone through the trouble of accommodating someone who means nothing to them, so I try to be on my best behavior to make it all worthwhile for them.

"I don't think I've ever seen you on campus," I tell Maeve, sitting on one of her pristine kitchen counters. I'm mostly trying to figure out where I know her from, as I sincerely cannot remember ever seeing her around, but she knew who I was as soon as I came through the front door. One can easily recognize me from the news, with everything from Camp Comet having been publicized and dissected to oblivion and exhaustion, but I like to be certain about the people I choose to associate myself with these days.

"I go to Anchorage," she explains. "I live there, but Cal wanted to throw a Halloween party, so I decided to come home for the weekend. I hadn't been back since May and couldn't miss out on the chance to spend some time with him before he leaves next semester. He's spending a semester abroad, in Europe," she adds, noting the confused look on my face. "He didn't tell you?"

I shake my head, wishing I had something to do with my hands. I already miss Sidney, as I'd have an excuse to not look people in the eye if I needed to keep an eye on her. "We're not exactly friends. I'm friends with Odette and Betty."

She nods in understanding, moving a curl away from her face. "Got it. I can't keep up with Juneau drama anymore, but he mentioned you were coming, so . . ." She shrugs, refilling her cup with vodka soda. "I hope this doesn't make me sound like a stalker or make it seem like my interest in you has everything to do with one single event of your life because I'm a Journalism major. If you didn't know, you know now. So, my girlfriend, Julie, came here with me—we operate in this where you go, I go manner—and . . ." She briefly glances around her, checking her surroundings in a way that almost looks like mine. "She went through something a few years ago. Something similar to yours. She's fine now, but it took her a while before getting there."

A shiver runs down my spine, stomach dropping like a rock, and I down what's left of my own cup of Diet Coke so I won't have to say anything. The drink is so cold it hurts my teeth, but it masks the shivering by using an adequate excuse, which is helpful, but I know I can't keep running away forever.

I don't know what she wants from me. She's trying to explain it, but she walks around in circles for an eternity before actually getting to the point, and, by the time she'll get there, I'm afraid I'll be so ready to bolt that I won't be of any help.

I'm not certain if she's expecting me to somehow be able to help Julie, considering I'm barely able to help myself—Doctor Albott doesn't like my coping strategies and doesn't find them healthy, either—or if this is supposed to teach me a valuable life lesson, but, either way, part of me cannot help but feel used. It feels like everything I do or everything that involves me has to serve a purpose, like I won't ever be a person outside of the Final Girl persona like that's the most interesting thing about me.

Perhaps it is. Perhaps I was never decent enough to be looked at twice before.

"In a way, I thought it would be helpful if I got the two of you to meet," Maeve continues, like I haven't dozed off for the past few minutes. "There's no hidden agenda behind it, I promise. One thing she tells me all the time is that there's no one else in the world who gets it besides those other girls, the ones that have been through something similar. Even when the sole survivor is a man, it's never the same. They never make horror movies where you spend the whole time watching a man go through terrible shit for the sake of entertainment and exploitation of trauma. It's always a woman, like the mere act of existing as a woman in this world is an act of defiance, like it justifies being put through something like that. I don't know." She glances at my cup. "Would you like a refill? Like, it's totally fine if you don't want to talk to Jules, especially at a Halloween party, but if you feel up to it, let me know and I'll go get her. You doing okay there?"

"Can I have what you're having?"

She frowns. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Are you on any meds?"

"Isn't everyone?"

"Fair enough."

She reaches out across the table to prepare my cocktail, while I drum my fingernails against the marble countertop, heart pounding in anticipation. I don't drink, as it doesn't take that big of an amount of alcohol to send me over the edge, but I'm already at my wit's end after the events of the past few weeks, and need something to take away my nerves. I shouldn't be drinking while taking Zoloft, and I would have never dared to contradict Maeve's very valid concerns under different circumstances, but nothing about this is normal.

I'm supposed to be the responsible one, the one that refuses to break the rules, but that dream died at Camp Comet. Pre-Camp Comet Wendy would never do such a thing, God forbid, but Juneau!Wendy takes the cup of vodka soda and downs it, even when its contents burn their way down her throat. I have gotten drunk before, always under Emma or Zach's supervision, but they're not here to keep an eye on me, and I find I don't need them to.

When they needed me, I wasn't there. It feels like appropriate retribution.

I don't know what washes over me—if it's the nerves, the alcohol, the mention of Julie, the Final Girl, or a combination of all three—but a switch in my brain flips and all those concerns feel like they're miles away now. The colors around me are more vivid, the heavy bass melody of the song blasting from the speakers thundering in my ears, and even my heartbeat falls into motion. I don't even need Sidney for this.

The house is spinning when I come to my senses, but I'm in the middle of a dancing crowd, with a pair of hands holding me by the hips. Whoever is standing behind me, swaying along to the beat, is as tall as me, not nearly as gigantic as Zach, and the mere thought of letting someone touch me this intimately makes me nauseous. I push his hands away, but not being touched when everyone else around you is intoxicated and likes bad music is borderline impossible, so silly little me has to deal with the grossly inappropriate touches to the small of my back as I attempt to stumble away towards safety.

It hasn't been that long since it happened. I know that—at least, the rational part of my brain knows that—but I can't stop beating myself over dancing with a stranger, like it will always be a betrayal of Zach and everything he meant to me, and I can't understand how some people move on from that. How do they move on from losing the love of their life and go on to marry someone else? Where do they store their guilt? How is there room for someone else when all that matters is ensuring no one ever gets to put you in the same situation that killed everyone you ever cared about?

When I stagger into the kitchen, the room stops spinning. Hell, even the world stops, and everyone is staring at me like there's literal blood on my hands.

Wait.

"Julie," I blurt out, searching for Maeve, but all their faces blur together right in front of my eyes. "I need to talk to fucking Jules."

"I'm Julie," a small girl from the crowd says. Like me, she wears her hair away from her face. Unlike me, she's not hiding from the world anymore, like she has found her final room. "You're Wendy Collier."

──────────

final girls sticking together? i love that song