Chapter 9: No Sonnet
My
friend and me
Looking through her red box of memories
Faded I'm sure
But love seems to stick in her veins, you know
Yeah, there's love if you want it
Don't sound like no sonnet
Faye was debating whether or not to join Spike on the balcony. She wanted
to very badly, not for his company but because she was fixing for a cigarette
hardcore. She amused herself sometimes with this silly addiction. She
would be sitting somewhere, perfectly content, until all of a sudden and
for no reason, she would get fidgety. And she would ignore it for awhile.
She'd start biting her nails and a pencil or something. And then she realized
that she would often end up holding the pencil like a cigarette, dangling
it loosely from her fingers as if it were the 6th appendage. And that
imagery would be the final nail in the coffin. She needed one and she
needed it now.
Dammit. Why was her partner so damn moody? Well, fuck him. It's not his balcony. There was no reason why she couldn't go out there if she wanted to. She grabbed a butt and practically stormed out the back door, slamming it open with more force than she had intended. She paused, waiting for a reaction. Nothing.
That was beginning to grate on her too. Just when you think you know a guy. She sighed and pressed her face up against the Plexiglas, looking down over the ledge with a casual death wish curiosity. "Can I ask you something?" Spike suddenly asked from behind her.
Faye tensed at the sound of his voice, mainly because it did not sound hostile in anyway. "Uh...sure."
Spike didn't ask right away. He just stared at his hands for a bit, as if debating if he actually wanted to go through with this now that it was out there. "If you uh...you know. Found your family..."
Faye nearly gasped, and had to actually close her throat for a second to keep herself from coughing on the smoke she just swallowed.
Spike noticed her shock and seemed slightly amused. "I don't mean to get personal with you," he added quickly. "But I'm just curious about something."
"No, go ahead. I'm pretty damn curious now myself," she admitted.
Spike smiled a bit as he twirled his lighter in his fingers. "If you found them," he continued. "And it turned out they were these drinking, cheating, abusive, mullet sporting little shits," he practically spat. "Would you still be glad you found them? Or would wish you just went on not knowing? You know? Just with the picture in your mind of how they should have been?"
Faye looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time, amazed he had ever bothered to ask her a question of such depth and introspection. "Well," she said softly. "I would still be happy," she said. And she was pretty sure she meant it.
"Why?" Spike asked, sounding almost frustrated. "What is so damned significant about a bunch of people who happen to have the same last name as you?"
"Because," Faye said a little more defensively than she thought she was going to. "It's nice to think you come from somewhere. It's nice to think that somewhere out there, there's another little freak who'll understand your little freak problems. Someone out there who makes the same weird sound in their sleep or slurps their soup too loudly or can make three loops with their tongue." Faye paused to demonstrate that she could, in fact, make three loops with her tongue, and then sighed. "It's just nice to think that there's a reason why you're so messed up. That there are people somewhere that just by the sheer power of their genes made you this way. It's nice to think the way you are isn't an accident."
Spike shook his head, still obviously confused by this whole concept. He hadn't gazed upon the other families here with envy or regret, as a little part of him expected. Just relief. Relief that he was never allowed to know that kind of pain and relief that he had the freedom to break free of situations that bothered him, even if he didn't always choose to. "I guess my real question is," he continued. "Why, if all families are so screwed up, would people keep coming back?"
Faye's entire demeanor changed at that moment. Her slightly fired up posture of a few minutes ago was replaced by a defeated slump against the glass. "Because they'll take you," she said in a voice belying more emotion than Spike had ever thought possible. She stamped her butt out and directed her next statement out somewhere over the horizon. "No matter how badly you treat them or how much you screw up and no matter how many times you've proven to them over and over that you really couldn't give a flying fuck, they take you back. And for no good reason." She turned and opened the sliding door to go back into the room. "And if you can't see the value in that," she said to him over her shoulder, "Than I feel sorry for you." And with that, she closed the door.
Spike didn't go after her. He didn't react. He didn't do much of anything. He just stuck his tongue out at the rising sun in three perfect loops.