"I should never have let her talk me into that party when I was mad at Angel," Buffy said as she walked down the street towards Revello Drive. She passed a group of guys, all older than her, but barely gave them a second glance as she thought over the night of the frat party events. She had tried to forget about it, but Xander reading the newspaper article brought it all back.

"On the other hand," she said softly with a shrug of her shoulders. "It got me a possible date with Angel. So, maybe it wasn't of the bad."

She shook her head, realizing she was justifying things she had no business justifying. She and Cordelia nearly died. She knew better than to drink, she knew better than to trust anything in Sunnydale that seemed of the good was truly good.

"I should have known he was too nice," she said of Tom. "He was cute and seemed to really like me. That in itself should have told me something was wrong. Who in the world would like Buffy except a centuries old vampire who couldn't admit he liked her? And Xander? Xander probably likes me because I'm the Slayer. If I was just another girl he wouldn't have noticed me."

She kicked an empty aluminum can she approached as she walked on the street and sighed. At least she was not in trouble with her mom, she was not sure she could take that tonight.

Giles would probably scold her for not confessing all to her mother, but telling her about that night's events would be delving into her being the Slayer. Something Buffy believed her mom would not be able to handle. "That would not be of the good," she muttered.

She realized now the danger she had not only put herself in but her friends with her lie. Xander could have been really hurt and Giles would have never known what happened to her if Willow had not broken down and told him where Buffy had gone.

"No more lies to Giles and no more parties with Cordelia," she vowed as she walked the sidewalk leading to her front door. She was exhausted and in need of a shower to get all the vamp dust off, hopefully her mom would be asleep so she could sneak in unobserved.

***

Cordelia could not believe the way things had turned out. It was all Buffy's fault, she knew she should never have invited her to that party. But no, Richard and Tom wanted her along. Okay, so they were evil and were about to sacrifice them to the giant worm thing, but none of this weird stuff happened before Buffy had come to Sunnydale. In a world before Buffy, Cordelia was QueenC and the idea of any guy, let alone two, choosing someone, anyone, over Cordelia Chase was unheard of. Owen she could excuse, he clearly did not know any better. But Angel, Cordelia thought as she regarded him at a table with Buffy's friends. Surely he knew real quality and beauty when he saw it. He was older than they were, he had to know.

She was successfully tuning out her friends as she regarded Buffy's friends. She could never admit to Harmony or any of them what had happened that night and yet Buffy's friends acted as if what happened was no big deal. None of them seemed to care that Cordelia had been drugged and almost killed. Buffy had left earlier and Cordelia wondered briefly where she went. Did she have vampires to slay? Cordelia did not know how Buffy could do it night after night, how it did not get to her. Then again, Buffy had seemed weird since she came to Sunnydale. Why would she choose to hang with Willow over Cordelia if she was not weird? So maybe in her weirdness things like endless killing and life endangerment did not bother her.

It was a good thing she had lied to her parents about where she had gone that night. She would have been in so much trouble if her parents found out what happened. Of course, had Richard turned out to be legit her parents would not have minded in the least what she did if it meant landing a boyfriend worth something. That seemed to be all her parents, particularly her father, cared about. It bored her to tears sometimes, but Cordelia would rather be bored to tears by money then be the freak that Buffy and her friends were.

She could not take it anymore, her friends rambling on and on as if her life was no different than before. It was time to go home, take a bath and do her nails. A fresh coat of polish in a bright new color would certainly help.

~The End~

Story ©Susan Falk/APCKRFAN/PhantomRoses.com