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This was the last straw. She’d been ignoring it for weeks now but just this morning, the pain had been so intense that she’d been unable to get out of bed.
“Hey, brought you some breakfast! I thought boob-eggs might cheer you up,” Willow said as she entered, balancing a tray on her hip.
“Oh that’s so sweet, thank you. You didn’t have to” Tara tried not to grimace too much as she shifted to sit up. Her back protested at the movement but she managed to keep mostly quiet, only letting out a small puff of air when her back really began to scream. Willow set the tray on the nightstand and rearranged the pillows around Tara so that she could comfortably sit against the headboard.
“Do you think it would help if I gave you a backrub?” Willow asked, settling in beside Tara and putting the tray in her lap.
“Mmmh, m-maybe. I-I-I really n-need to see a doctor about it though,” Tara replied, “just to see what's going on; possibly get something stronger than Tylenol for the pain,”
Buffy sat on the bench, staring at nothing. It had been an hour since the rain had soaked through all of her clothes and she was beginning to shiver but she couldn’t return to that house. Not yet. Not so soon after she had donned the lens that turned so many memories sour. She needed the rain. It helped disguise her tears.
It had finally happened. She’d caught him in the act. In her bed. She’d had her suspicions but ignored the clawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. Ignorance was bliss. A bra that wasn’t hers turning up in Riley’s apartment didn’t necessarily mean he was cheating. Neither did the mysterious texts and phone calls or the late nights when he didn’t come home until midnight or the ginger hair in the shower drain.
But she couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d been cheated after she’d seen the gorgeous red-head riding her boyfriend in her own bed. Heard the amorous moans and exclamations.
So, the cat was out of the bag: Riley was cheating on her.
At least he’d had the sense to look ashamed. He had, at least, looked rueful as she shoved the few items of clothing he kept at hers into his arms and screamed at him to get out; as he almost ran over her sister in his haste to leave.
A figure approached her, drawing her out of her thoughts.
“Room for one more?" Dressed all in black, in one hand he held an umbrella and in the other a battered-looking box of chocolates. Spike.
“Sure,” she answered.
He sat.
The rain continued to pour.
“Don’t wanna share the brolly, love?” he said after about a minute of silence.
“The what?” she replied automatically.
“Brolly,” he said, slightly confused before seemingly remembering where he was, “Sorry, English. I meant the umbrella, love, what with it bucketing it down and all,”
“It’s what?”
“Raining, love,” he chuckled, “separated by a common language, alright. Cor, you’re soaked, here - Dru said this place was sunny,”
“It is called Sunnydale”
“Yeah”
Somehow the silence was comfortable.
Spike - her ex-boyfriend’s cousin - wouldn’t have been her first choice for company, sitting heartbroken in the deluge and yet, the encounter was peaceful. Maybe it was merely that he seemed content to just sit with her in the rain, not questioning why she was there, sitting in the park, in the rain, without a coat.
It was nice.
She knew her friends only meant well when they asked her how she was, what she was feeling, what she planned to do, but it got overwhelming and tiresome. She needed to figure out the answers to those questions before she could tell anyone else and she didn't need her friends to repeat the same questions that were swirling around her head.
The past four hours since she’d discovered Riley and Sandy - seriously, her name was Sandy - had been a whirlwind of screaming, crying, apologising, hugs, questions. Her phone was full of missed calls and unread texts from Riley. Explanations, excuses and proclamations that he only cheated because she didn’t love him, she wouldn’t let him in, she didn’t rely on him, couldn’t make him feel needed. Somehow it was her fault. That’s what it came back to. He absolutely was not in control of his own actions, he wasn't a grown adult so it absolutely, categorically couldn’t possibly be his fault.
A phone rang. It wasn’t hers.
“Oh sorry, love, I’ve gotta take this, mind holdin’ the brolly? Ta,” The umbrella was shoved into her hands as Spike stood up. He swayed a little before catching himself on the back of the bench, blinking as if to clear his vision. She looked at him in concern before turning away to give him the illusion of privacy. He stood behind her, facing away and leaning on the bench.
“Hey, Forehead! To what do I owe the displeasure?” He was pleasant to listen to and despite hearing only one side of the conversation, she was certain she knew who he was talking to. “You realise that you calling me everytime something bad happens to try and make sure I don’t jump off a bridge is counter-productive, right, Anglecakes?-- Because it’s you calling, that’s why! What’s it to you? Why do you care? -- Alright, fine: yes, I was dumped… again-- Wha- way to rub it in! Yes, twice in one week if you must know-- No, actually it wasn’t Dru both times. Don’t you dare ask who the other girl was!-- Shan’t!-- Because it’s none of your business who I do or don’t get dumped by!-- Oh, I’m sorry, mate. Uh, he was cool, I’m sorry. You alright?-- Yeah, I’m fine-- No, I don’t need you to come see me.-- No I’m not gonna jump off a bridge-- or a house, happy?-- No, I know, I’m sorry.-- Alright-- Yeah, give my love to Cordy, she’ll need it-- ‘right, kisses” He sighed and turned around leaning over the back of the bench, “sorry, about that, love; just my overbearing cousin forgetting he’s not my mother”
“Angel? He gets that way,” She said
“Yeah, even asked you to aid him,” Spike responded, “in his mission to wrap me in bubblewrap”
Buffy turned to face him, shocked. “You knew?”
“Let’s face it, Blondie, neither of you are exactly subtle”
After another few beats of silence, Spike came back around to sit on the bench, resting his forehead on his knees and breathing very deliberately.
“You okay?” Buffy asked in concern.
“Mmmhh? Yeah,” he hummed almost groggily, “Just dizzy. It’s the POTS, don’t worry about it,”
“Pots? Oh the- wait, what is that?”
“Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome,”
“I know what it stands for. What does it mean?”
“Wouldya give me a minute, love, I’m trying not to faint on you again”
“Right, sorry,” Buffy sighed, letting him recover.
“See what I mean about ‘not subtle’?”
“Alright”
She let quiet pass between them until Spike recovered enough to sit up and break it himself.
“What about you? How come you’re sitting in the rain alone?”
“That’s private,”
“So was my medical history, but I’ll bet Liam’s given you the pitiful, grand tour of that!”
“Fine! My boyfriend cheated on me with some red-headed floozy so I had to kick him out of the house and everyone needs to know how I’m feeling and, what I’m planning and, how’d Dawn react, and if there’s anything they can do, when all I really want is for the whole world to stop existing and needing me and - just for five minutes not be anybody else’s girlfriend, or carer, or anything and just…hurt… I needed to get away from everything. Let myself hurt,”
The silence that followed had long ceased to be comfortable and now sat with a certain weight that it couldn’t release. Sombre.
“Well, you heard about my pathetic excuse for a love-life,” he sighed heavily, “You’re not alone. We'll both just sit here… being pathetic,”
Buffy chuckled briefly, caught off guard by his melodrama, before her laughter turned bitter. What did Spike know of her? How could he possibly know what she was feeling? Except he’d landed right on it. Pathetic. She did feel pathetic. She felt as if somehow… No, she couldn’t go down that train of thought again or she’d start crying again.
Too late.
Tears filled her eyes and her breath caught in her throat, lungs cramping as she began to sob but this time the umbrella held off the rain so it couldn’t disguise her hurt.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you.” Spike said, “I was referring more to myself with the whole ‘pathetic’ thing”
“Well, I have to report negative-self-talk back to Angel,” Buffy welcomed the opportunity to deflect, “could be a sign of declining mental health”
“He really did give you the whole spiel, didn’t he?”
“Mostly,”
“Somehow, skipped over the POTS? Even though that’s the second most inconvenient condition I have” he said the second part more to himself than to Buffy but she chuckled anyway. “ Do you know what Tachycardia is?”
“Yeah,” she didn’t feel like telling him why she knew that; she’d only start crying again, “It’s when your heart beats too quickly isn’t it?”
“Yeah, yeah it is,” he sighed, “So basically, right, in a ‘healthy’ body, when you stand up, the blood vessels in your legs contract, and get narrower, smaller, to maintain blood pressure in your head. Mine can’t be arsed.”
“Right…”
“Which would be fine except, my head is where my brain is - supposedly - and it kind of needs the oxygen carried in blood to function. And then I get really faint and dizzy, my feet turn purple, so and my heart beats double-time,”
“And that happens, how often?”
“If I stand up too fast or for too long - certain things make it worse: hot weather, illness, a gaping stab-wound - but those are the two main culprits,” he explained, “ also comes with a bunch of other symptoms: headaches, nausea, heart palpitations, brain fog: where you can’t think clearly - that’s a fun one!”
“So simply put…”
“If my brain were in my foot, I’d be fine!”
Somehow that made her laugh: sweetly and unironically laugh out loud at a joke made by a relative stranger about his disability. And for a few blissful, fleeting seconds, all thought of Riley was driven from her head.
Willow slipped her hand into Tara’s restless ones as they sat together in the waiting room. After three X-rays and two MRIs, they were waiting for a doctor to come and tell them the results. Tara shifted again as her back began to rebel against the prospect of being sat in the plastic chair for another twenty or so minutes.
“You alright, honey?” Willow asked, noticing her girlfriend’s discomfort, “Would a walk help? Can I get you anything? Food? There’s a vending machine around the corner. What do you want? Chips? Candy? Chocolate?”
“You’re overcompensating,” Tara adjusted her position again, leaning against Willow with her head on her shoulder,closing her eyes and breathing deeply through the pain.
“I am?”
“Don’t worry, it’s cute,”
“It is?”
“Yep,” Tara sighed again and opened her eyes “How much longer is this gonna take?”
Tara had barely finished asking when the doctor walked out into the waiting room and called her name.
“Huh. Magic!” Willow whispered as they rose and followed the doctor into his office, finding seats only slightly more comfortable than those in the waiting room.
She hadn’t known what to expect but it hadn’t been that.
Scoliosis. It turned out her spine was as bent as she was and that was the cause of the back pains. It was also the reason that none of her clothes ever seemed to fit well - or even the same way twice - and why her arm-span was a few inches longer than her height. It seemed that it was the cause of many oddities and inconveniences in her life. There were treatments: surgeries, braces, drugs, more drugs, and different drugs. All these, in an endless variety of combinations. Spoilt for choice!
At least now, she knew.