All About Spike - The Lecture by Colleen

The Lecture
By Colleen

“Buffy, listen to me. You never listen to me. I hate the way you’re treating Spike. It’s wrong. You don’t know how great he’s been. Not just with helping the Scoobies fight, but helping me. I wouldn’t have gotten through the summer without him.

You remember when I cut myself? Well, I wanted to do more. I wanted to cut so deep and bleed out the pain and never come back. You don’t know what it did to me, watching you jump and knowing it was my fault. But he told me how stupid that was. Told me that it wouldn’t bring you back. Told me that it would kill him, losing us both.

So he was there for me, every day. He’d come over to the house and play cards, or watch videos with me, or just talk. He loves to talk. He knows so much, about history and stuff. Things he’s lived through, yeah, but other things too. He’s really smart. In the fall, before you came back, he helped me with my homework. Not the math, I can handle that. The other stuff, history and English.

I went to the crypt a lot, too. Sometimes I’d drop by, and catch him crying. You don’t know how much you mean to him. He loves you so much. He’d always snap out of it when he saw that I was there, though. Guess he thought I was depressed enough. It rips me up inside, when he cries.

Of course, I don’t drop by anymore. He told me to stop. I know it’s because you told him to tell me. He doesn’t come to the house anymore, either. Not to see me, anyway. Why did you do that? I miss him so much. He’s my friend, Buffy. Not just because he loves you. He cares about me, and you wrecked that. Sometimes you make me so mad.

But the thing that pisses me off most, my God, the way you treat him. You treat him like shit, Buffy. He could be the best thing in both our lives, and you keep hurting him. I’ve heard the way you talk to him, the way you talk about him to your friends. It’s wrong. It’s stupid. Especially because you’re with him.

Don’t think I don’t know. My friend Leslie saw you at the Bronze. She told me she saw my sister making out with this really hot blond guy in a black leather coat. So don’t pretend you don’t care about him. Don’t pretend you don’t want him. Why don’t you just give him a break, call him your boyfriend and straighten things out? Then we both can have him, don’t you see?

God, Buffy, we could be a family. Don’t you want that? He’s amazing.”

*****

Dawn turned from her dresser mirror and sat on her bed. She picked up her pillow and hugged it to her chest. “No point in even trying,” she said to herself. “She never listens to me anyway.”