Only Love Emily I should have expected this. It's what men do. No wonder there are thousands of jobs in it. Not just the vengeance business but dating agencies, talk shows and relationship help books. See if men weren't such bastards everyone would be happy and they wouldn't need all those things. I guess thousands of years of wreaking vengeance made me forget what it was like. This feeling. When it comes down to it evisceration and disemboweling is nothing compared to having your heart broken. With Olaf it wasn't like this. It didn't hurt like this. With all the other men over the centuries, some demons, some vampires, some even human it wasn't like this either. They didn't matter like Xander. None of them. There was the courting rituals and then the sex and then inevitably the break up, but it didn't hurt like this. Did I do something wrong? He always corrected me on things, but he was just helping me fit in. Maybe I'm just not human enough to get married and do these things that everyone's supposed to do. No. That doesn't fit in with the 'all men are evil' theory. Men are evil. No question about it. Look what happened with Riley and Buffy. And Angel and Buffy. Willow and Oz. Xander and Cordelia. The entire cosmos. It's not just men either so there goes that theory. Take Willow and Tara. They broke up, no men involved. Maybe the world is just screwed up. He never gave me a warning. No ticking bomb clock with multi coloured wires. Not even that. And you'd think he'd have the decency to not tell me on our wedding day. Any other day of the year. I never gave a damn about what everyone thought of me until then because I had Xander and wasn't that great? I didn't think it was going to change any time soon, not ever. But in that stupid church with the stupid music and people in their ridiculous clothes and hats I suddenly cared. This is when you're supposed to eat ice cream and watch chick flicks. I just don't know how we do this. People die and people break up and somehow we get through it all. But I don't think I can. The rest of the world does it and I don't know how they even begin to get through it. How does someone wake up one day and eat breakfast and wash their hair and act like everything's normal and fine when it's not? It's ridiculous the way people pretend. When Joyce died Buffy and Dawn picked the coffin - just like that and I still didn't understand. She was gone, forever, and somehow they carried on. I wish Joyce was still here. She was always nice and kind to me and maybe she would know what I'm supposed to do. I don't have anyone to ask anymore.ΚΚ I don't want to eat ice cream and be miserable. The strange thing is I don't want to eviscerate him either. And even stranger, I love him. I wish I didn't. For once, I actually could do that to him, if I wanted. A hundred times over the past few years I've wished for that power back. And now D'Hoffryn offers it to me. But now I can't do the vengeance and punish men, not after being human again and knowing what it's really like. There was a time when I would have jumped at the opportunity but not anymore. People are supposed to comfort me, aren't they? Buffy's depressed and traumatised already. I told Xander that we shouldn't invite her to the wedding if she was just going to depress everyone. Guess we did that without any help from her. She told me that she knew how I felt. I wanted to say that how could anyone possibly know but then I remembered about her and Angel. How on earth did she survive? How does anyone survive? I'll have to ask sometime. Tara tried to talk to me but I just felt numb and I couldn't find words. Never thought that would happen. Willow gave me a hug and said she'd be there for me. Aren't they meant to be there for Xander though? He's their friend. The only reason I know them is because of him. Now I don't have him the logical thing would be for me to go or not see them anymore. I voiced something along these lines to them. Tara shook her head immediately and told me the human thing didn't work that way. That they were my friends, my family, not because of Xander but because of me. And then I started crying even harder and somehow I couldn't stop. I must really have caught humanity bad. I used to think of it that way, like it was some disease too but you know, it's not. Sure it's horrible and painful but somehow it's not just misery, it's good too. Sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're sad and it's meant to be that way. What's important is that people are strong. They look flimsy, like they would break if you hit them too hard but humanity is strong however fragile it may seem. Cancer and mystical energy kills people just like that. Broken hearts heal though - or so I hear - and people manage to keep on going. And there's the good things like love. That help you through it all. I suppose I should be happy to be human and alive and have friends...family. Maybe I will be - once the broken heart awful I can't remember how to breathe shattering pain dulls a little. Until then I'll have to struggle on in the same way everyone else does. Hell - fragile, weak humans do it, someone as young as Dawn does it, someone as traumatised as Buffy who even died does it, so I should be able to. And I will. I have to because what else can I do?