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Stop Whispering
by BehrBeMine
Feedback: That would be lovely. behrbemine@hotmail.com
Distribution: Improv, my sites. Want it? Take it. Let me know where you've put
it.
Improv: #55 - - Radiohead Song Title Challenge
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Don't sue, I'll cry. ;p
Spoilers: Takes place after 'Becoming (Part 2)'
- -
She doesn't know what happened. Mom won't talk about it. Not with her. She just
woke up one morning, and Buffy was gone.
---
Dawn tries not to listen to what people say all around her. Sometimes she closes
her eyes and covers her ears.
Kids in Dawn's class talked about Buffy on the last day of school. Apparently,
it was all they wanted to talk about. They didn't call her by name, she was
referred to always as "Dawn's sister". She took deep breaths and willed the
gossip to go away.
Dawn's sister was a criminal, they said. Wanted by the police for killing
someone. Nancy, the smartest girl in her class, said that made her a murderer.
It was in the paper. All it took was one mention of Buffy's last name in the
article, and immediately the connection was made to Dawn. And suddenly she was
the sister of a murderer.
She figured they picked up on the gossip from their parents. Opinionated adults
that assume they can pass judgment over a situation that they've never been in.
They discuss it in front of their children, because they don't think. They don't
know that there's a little girl in school suffering from the ideas they passed
on to their own children.
She arrived home from school on that last day, silly string in her hair. The
entire school broke out into wild excited screams and shouts as soon as they
pushed through the glass doors at the front of the school. Hundreds of children
with shaving cream and cans of silly string fired at everyone and no one in
particular. She watched as her classmates ran from one another and laughed when
their friends began to chase them. They ran, their short legs carrying them as
far away from the school as possible, because school was over. They were free.
The sound was the very essence of a child's summer vacation: laughter and
teasing from little voices, pure joy in their squeals of delight.
But she did not take part in the celebration. She had things clouding her mind,
questions that darkened her demeanor. She headed straight home, her eyes on the
ground.
Her mother was home, sitting on the living room couch. She was staring off into
space, her mind far away.
Tentatively, Dawn reached out and touched her mother's arm. Startled, Mom jumped
slightly, not even aware that her daughter was home. Immediately she broke into
a smile, and never before had Dawn seen such a smile as that. False and
desperate. She pretended not to notice.
"How was school, sweetie? Did everybody sign your t-shirt?"
Dawn looked down at the plain white shirt covering the top half of her, filled
with the sloppy scribbles of names in permanent marker. Kids did this every
year: got classmates to sign their shirts so they would remember them.
Especially when they got older and suddenly who was in their elementary classes
wouldn't matter enough to stay in their memory.
"Yeah," she said quietly.
That smile remained pasted to her mother's face. "That's wonderful. So. Are you
excited that school's over? Want to do something to celebrate? We could go to a
movie."
"Okay."
--
They saw a funny cartoon in the theater, but Mom didn't laugh. She just stared
straight ahead, thinking of something else. And Dawn would've had to be daft not
to realize what (who) held her mother's attention so.
The popcorn tasted bitter in her mouth, like everything tastes these days. It
settled heavy in the pit of her stomach, making her feel weighted down. She
thought the same thing must be happening with her mother's heart.
---
Dawn asked once if she could have Buffy's room. Her mother closed her eyes and
brought a hand to her forehead, as if she had a headache.
"No," she said simply.
Dawn continued to try to convince her. She stated very true things: it wasn't
being used, she was sure Buffy's bed was lonely, Buffy's room was much bigger
than hers and would have plenty of room to dance to the various pop hits in
Dawn's stereo.
But her mother didn't budge on the matter.
--
Dawn still sneaked into her older sister's room. She raided Buffy's closet,
playing dress-up with all the clothes Buffy had left behind.
She slipped on a too-big leather jacket, and jeans that extended far beyond her
feet. She put on seven necklaces, and dangling clip-on earrings. She put jeweled
rings on each of her fingers, then practiced waving in the mirror at the vanity.
Like she was older, popular, blonde. Blonde like Buffy.
She perched on the chair of the vanity and put on make-up for the first time.
She applied a clownish amount of blush, bright blue eyeshadow that reached all
the way up to her eyebrows. She caked on maroon lipstick, and blew kisses to
nothing in particular. When she found a bottle of silver glittery nailpolish,
she couldn't resist. She painted her nails and toenails, with three coats each.
She rose from the chair and stood back to get a good look at herself in the
mirror. And she laughed, for she looked nothing like Buffy. Still, she liked how
she looked. Grown up.
Giddy, Dawn twirled around in circles and danced below the hand-crafted
butterflies on the walls. She hummed her own secret tune and swayed to it,
pretending she was an ice skater, like Buffy once wanted to be. She remembered
the Dorothy Hamill posters Buffy used to have all over the walls of her room
when she was fifteen. She thought of the time Dad had taken the two of them to
an ice rink, and they skated all day. Buffy helped pick Dawn up again every time
she fell, which was a lot. And when Buffy got too fed up with that, she rolled
her eyes and clasped Dawn's hand in hers, pulling her along with her calm big
sister grace.
Dawn closed her eyes and tried to picture herself holding Buffy's hand. Closed
her fists because she didn't know if it would happen again.
She tried twirling on one foot until she tripped over the long legs of the jeans
and fell to the floor. Buffy would never fall like that.
---
Sometimes Dawn got angry with Buffy, actually a lot of the time, for doing this
to their mother. Making her this sad. Mom tried hard to keep Dawn from seeing
how badly Buffy's absence was affecting her, but Dawn knew her mom. She knew
what the silences and the long pauses before responding meant. It was like her
mother was having difficulty focusing on other things, anything other than her
oldest daughter, who was gone.
Buffy left a note addressed to her mother the day she left. Dawn found it when
she was looking for a pen in the top drawer of her mother's nightstand. She
swallowed a lump in her throat, not sure how it made her feel that Buffy didn't
bother to mention her.
But, then again, that was Buffy all right. Dawn was just the annoying little
sister who always got in her way. The sister who tattled on Buffy for
everything, when it was a fact that Dawn had gotten much better about that.
There was one time when Buffy snuck back into the house via the back door at two
in the morning. Dawn had been in the kitchen getting a glass of water. Buffy had
smiled nervously at her and asked her to please not tell Mom. And she hadn't.
Not that time.
She wondered if Buffy ever thought about that.
---
Dawn walked into the living room one day to find Mom on the couch, reading a
novel. She had joined a book club to get her mind off of things - - she didn't
admit that it was Buffy she was trying to get off her mind, but Dawn could sense
things sometimes. She was quite intuitive for her age. Her mother had said that
once, then had explained what it meant. Made Dawn feel special.
"What's that book called?" Dawn asked.
Her mother smiled and placed a bookmark between the two pages she was currently
on. She held up the book so Dawn could see. 'The Deep End of the Ocean'. It made
her think of scuba diving. How odd for someone to read about scuba diving.
Thinking about oceans made Dawn remember the various times she and Buffy had
gone to the beach with their dad after the divorce. She remembered competing
with Buffy to see who could find the most unchipped seashells in a day. Buffy
always won. Buffy always won everything.
Dawn crossed her arms in front of her, hugging her ribs with her hands. "I think
it's totally mean of Buffy to be doing this to you," she voiced as Mom set her
book down on the coffee table.
She watched her mother's features uplift themselves until she was smiling, one
of those big cheesy grins you plaster on your face when someone's taking your
picture. "Don't hate your sister for that, sweetheart. I'm fine."
Dawn looked away from her mother, confused. Was her mother lying, or was her
intuition (she praised herself internally for using that word in a sentence)
wrong?
"Come sit with me," Mom said, patting her lap. Dawn uncrossed her arms and
advanced towards the couch, where she sat down on her mother's lap. She tucked
her knees and clasped her hands around them while Mom wrapped her arms around
Dawn's skinny body, one arm around her shoulders and the other around her knees,
and held her close.
Dawn felt her mother's chest rise and fall as she sighed deeply.
Dawn's voice was small as she asked, "How much do you miss her?"
"More than anything," Mom said, setting her head down on Dawn's, feeling the
silky softness of her hair on her cheek. "You must miss her a lot, too."
"No, I - - I don't." Dawn closed her eyes and exhaled. She wanted to believe
that she didn't, not really. She was too mad. "She just left, I mean... she
didn't even say goodbye. Like she doesn't even care if she'll never see us
again."
Dawn's stomach hurt. It felt knotted, like her shoelaces sometimes got. Knots
like that were hard to unravel.
"Do you wish she was here instead of me, Mom?"
"No, Dawn." Her mother gave her an affectionate squeeze. "I'm glad to have my
littlest baby with me."
"But you still wish Buffy was here."
There was a long pause. "Yes," agreed Mom eventually, sounding so sad. On the
few instances when Mom was truthful, Dawn didn't know whether she liked it that
way or not. It was hard to know her mother was so upset inside, and she almost
felt better being left in the dark. Sometimes.
---
Mom never shares her pain with Dawn. Dawn will walk into a room in the house and
find her mother and her new friend, Pat, from the book club, talking quietly.
And even though they immediately stop when they realize her presence, she knows
what they were talking about. It's all anybody ever talks about anymore.
Sometimes she feels like screaming or shouting or kicking something. It's hard
without Buffy there, even if she doesn't want to admit it. Can't admit that she
misses her.
She doesn't understand why her mother keeps her tears a secret. Dawn doesn't
tell her that she can hear her crying late at night. She'll walk by Mom's closed
bedroom door, and will sit against the door, and keep herself from crying even
as the sobs of her mother reach her ears.
---
Giles called one day to announce that he had a lead. A girl had been spotted in
the northern part of the state, fending off "inhuman creatures". Giles thought
it best that Dawn not know, lest she get her hopes up for nothing, but the first
time, her mother had told her, anyway.
But then she stopped when she saw how broken it made her daughter when the lead
turned out to be just a rumor. Dawn wouldn't admit it, and in fact had a
mouthful of insults for Buffy, along with a defense mechanism machine in her
head full of reasons why she didn't care if Buffy came back. But a mother can
tell.
--
Dawn couldn't sleep that night. Her own bed felt too lonely, too sterile. She
needed comfort.
Without even realizing what she was doing, she made her way to Buffy's closed
bedroom door. Opening it and peering inside, she wished to see her sister on the
other side. Turning on the light, she looked down when nobody was in there. Of
course. She was still alone.
Tears burned in her eyes, wanting to be released, but she wouldn't let them. She
hadn't cried a day since Buffy had left. She was mad, not upset... she was mad.
Repeating that often helped, but not tonight.
She turned off the light and shut the door as soon as she stepped inside the
room. She felt her way along till she got to the bed. It was so much bigger than
her bed.
Dawn crawled onto the mattress and tossed the extra pillows to the floor. She
hated herself for sniffling, trying to keep the tears trapped behind her
eyelids. Pulling the blankets down from where they were neatly tucked, she slid
underneath them, then pulled them over her head. Curling up into the fetal
position, she let the first tear fall. With the blankets as her cover, she was
where no one could see her or hear her cries. She felt protected from anyone's
reaction. She didn't want anyone to see her like this. Didn't want anyone to
know just how much she ached without her older sister.
Her older sister, who was always ready for an argument with Dawn, who constantly
complained that Dawn was butting into her business too much. Her sister, who
sometimes didn't seem to like her at all.
With the first sob that escaped, she crumbled. The tears fell to wet her cheeks
and the sheet beneath her. She no longer tried to stifle the pitiful noises that
came from her that would break anyone's heart. Maybe even Buffy's. And finally
she cried.
She was suddenly nothing but a little girl broken. She feared she would never
feel whole again, as long as Buffy was gone. As her tears fell, she silently
begged Buffy. Begged her to finally come home.
- - end
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