The front seat of a van is not the best place to be when you’re searching for the meaning of your own animalistic nature. It is, however, a really good place to think.

And that’s what I’ve been doing the entire time I’ve been away from Sunnydale. And it hasn’t been easy. I’ve had to face up to truths that, had I stayed in town, I never would have acknowledged, I never would have admitted to, I never would have wanted to see.

For the entire time that Willow and I were together, I knew that she had feelings for Xander. I could deal with that because, I knew, in the long run, they were going to be the best of friends, and that was going to be the end of it.

What I was most scared of, what I’m still afraid of, is that someday, Willow is going to realize that what she felt for Xander was a release of built up daydreams and emotions; what she felt for me was gratitude and appreciation for someone who could look at her and see everything she had inside her; and that neither of us is who she truly loves.

Because she’s in love with Giles. She has been for as long as I’ve known her, so I’d guess quite a long time. It’s obvious to everyone, I think, even though none of us are willing to say anything about it.

We may all want them to acknowledge the emotions that seem to shimmer in the very air between them, but we all know that, if they ever do recognize the passion there, it’s going to destroy the very tenuous balance that keeps us all together.

Which is kind of funny, since we’re not all together at all.

Maybe we’re selfish. Deep down inside I think we all cling to that balance and, as much as we may say we want them together, we still don’t say a word. Hell, I know we’re selfish, but I don’t think any of us could handle it if one more major change came into our lives.

I think Giles knows it. Not that she loves him. I don’t think he could see that if it were written in one of his books of prophecy, but I think he knows that if he were ever to admit to how he feels about Willow, the whole group dynamic would rapidly disintegrate into a 90210 very special episode.

We’re all so dependent on one another, and Giles and Willow, without knowing it, I imagine, have become our parents. They guide us and help us, support us and encourage us. The only people they don’t seem to help is themselves.

He’s so repressed, living in his world of teenagers. I’m sure, if the stories of his past are even remotely true – and not just Buffy-embellished – that he’s got to be chomping at the bit for some adult company. And I don’t just mean Olivia, giving him what he needs. I imagine that he wants a family other than the one we provide. I can imagine that he stares at Willow and sees everything he wants in a woman all locked up in a woman he thinks he can’t have.

I know the feeling.

And Willow wants him just as much. She stares at him, her eyes following him with such love and concern. She doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. All she sees is a friend in pain, and she wants to ease it, but she doesn’t know how.

And I’m not nearly man enough to suggest the best way to do it would be to walk up the stairs to his bedroom one night and seduce him.

Because I still love her, you see. Even though it’s fruitless and hopeless, and I’ll never win. You never win when the person you love is in love with someone else.

She’s in love with him, and he’s in love with her, and they’re both going to be miserable for the rest of their lives because they’re too worried about the rest of us to actually admit it to each other, much less themselves.

It’d be funny if it didn’t hurt so much.

Apparently, on the Hellmouth, the course of true love doesn’t just *not* run smooth; it runs in whitewater rapids.

So I have to drive around, staying away from the woman I love because I can’t bear to watch her be around, but not with, the man she loves.

Irony is a bitch.

--End--