*****
I dreamed last night that Xander was still alive. When I woke to the horrible realization that it was only a dream, I cried for the first time since his funeral. I miss him. That seems like such a simple, self-explanatory thought. But when I try to think of a way to explain the funk I've been in to Willow, I can't even begin to. And even if I could, she would just respond that she misses him too. I don't think I can stand hearing that. So I say nothing, avoiding the subject of my moods altogether.
She hasn't seemed to notice. It's been two months and five days since Xander died. Willow was back to normal a week after his death and I've spent the entire time forcing myself to face each day without him. It sounds so melodramatic, but this feeling of hopelessness weighing on my heart is terribly real.
I've been thinking about him a lot. Sometimes I'll just be sitting in class and a Xander thought will come along. Sometimes they make me sad. But most of the time I'm just happy that I have at least that much of him left. I'll remember a joke he told once and smile, just a little but it's more than I've smiled in months. Or I'll remember the way his face looked when he didn't fail a test he thought he'd bombed. Those are good memories.
Then there are the memories of conversations we had when nobody else was around. Some were strange, like long, drawn-out debates about whether Batman or Superman was the more powerful superhero. Some were more serious. He told me that he loved Cordelia. I don't think he ever really admitted that to anybody else. And he told me about how his emotions had gotten all mixed up over Willow. He wanted to explain, I think. He wanted me to understand so I wouldn't hate him.
We talked about that one over pizza one night after we had finished studying for our Chemistry test. Willow had drafted me into helping him study since she and Buffy were taking advantage of a night off from patrolling to go shopping. So we studied and then he explained and I let him know that everything was cool between us.
Our conversations were less awkward after that. He told me about Jesse. He recited whole conversations they had had word for word. Xander talked a lot more than I did. He talked and I listened, making gestures with my eyebrows every once in a while. It was a system that worked well for us.
I remember every detail of the moment I realized I was in love with him. Every detail, that is, except the date. It was sometime during Christmas break, I know that. After Christmas and Angel's return and all that, but before school started. It was one of those lazy break days that all run together without school to keep track of them by breaking up the weekends.
I was laying on my bed listening to the CDs my mom got me for Christmas. My mind was in that wonderful empty state where all the problems of the world don't matter. Devon calls it a level of being. I call it the effects of a whole lot of marijuana.
And then Xander walked in. He was carrying a pizza and a six-pack of beer. He set them both down on the corner of the bed then sat on the floor. Taking a piece of pizza and a beer, he started eating without saying a word. I looked over at him and sat up immediately when I saw the anger on his face.
"Xander? You okay, man?" I asked stupidly. He was obviously not okay.
"Fine," Xander mumbled around his mouthful of pizza. "Just wanted to get out of the house for awhile."
He opened a can of beer and tilted his head back, downing a large gulp. It was the first time I ever saw him really drink. He had sipped at beers before, but I'd never seen him look like he was drinking to get drunk. "Where'd you get the beer?" I asked. When Xander was in one of his darker moods, I had to take more roundabout routes to get him to talk about what was bothering him.
Xander shrugged. "Out of the fridge at home. There's enough there that they won't miss it. Why?"
"No reason," I answered, grabbing a piece of pizza. "I was just wondering. Is there always a lot of beer at your house?" So I wasn't exactly subtle but I didn't know how else to ask him about his family.
He looked at me, his eyes narrowing, and then he sighed. "Who told you? Cordelia again? Or are Buffy and Willow spreading the tasty little rumor now?" His voice was bitter and angry, nothing like the wittily sarcastic tone I was used to.
"What?" I asked, taken aback by his voice.
"You're feeling sorry for me," Xander answered. "I can tell by the way you're looking at me. You wouldn't be looking like that if you didn't know about Christmas and everything. So, who was it?"
"Willow," I admitted. "She told me Christmas Day. I'm sorry, Xander."
"It's okay," he said, shrugging again. It was a slow, tired movement. "It's sorta like camping." We both knew it wasn't really okay, but the tone of Xander's voice was clear. "I don't want to talk about this anymore," it said.
We fell silent. I ate my pizza slowly, trying not to be too obvious as I watched Xander thoughtfully. He finished his slice of pizza and polished off his beer, then reached for another of each. He carefully avoided looking at me, staring instead at the corner of the bed. Finally he looked up and said abruptly, "So, what about you?"
"What?" I asked again. His questions were catching me off-guard. "What about me?"
"You know all kinds of things about me, including the little tidbit about my family of drunks. So, what about you? All I know about you is that you play guitar and that people call you Oz. Is that even your real name?"
"It's my real name," I answered softly. "It says Oz Matthews on my birth certificate."
"Were your parents hippies or something? Oz is a pretty strange name to give a kid."
I set down my pizza and sat back against the headboard. "My brothers named me," I said, feeling the old knife twist in my gut.
Xander set his own food aside as well and looked up at me seriously. I think he could tell that this wasn't something I liked to discuss. People always thought Xander was just a clown, but he knew how to be serious when he should be. "Brothers?" he asked curiously. "I didn't know you have brothers."
"They died a long time ago," I answered. "I don't really talk about them much. Devon knows, but that's just because he knew me before they died."
"So why are you telling me?" Xander asked with a shake of his head.
"You asked," I said, shrugging. "Nobody else ever bothers to." That wasn't the whole truth. But I couldn't figure out the whole truth in my own head, let alone explain it to him. "Jeff and Tommy were twins. They were three years older than me. When they were little, their favorite movie was _The Wizard of Oz_. I think it was actually the only movie they had. Mom says they would ask to watch it two or three times a day. But they couldn't say the whole title. They just called it 'Oz'."
I've heard this story more times I can count. Mom tells it whenever she starts missing Jeff and Tommy, which is often. Telling it hurts more than hearing it, though. When I listened to Mom, I could let my mind wander just enough to avoid the sting of memory. But telling it, I couldn't stop myself from remembering them. It was the little things like the way they used to sit under the old tree in the yard playing marbles that I remembered most. They would hunch over the little patch of dirt with their heads close together. Sometimes, if they were feeling really nice that day, they would let me play too. I worshipped my big brothers.
"When mom told Jeff and Tommy that she had a little brother for them inside her, they asked how I got there. She didn't know how to explain so she came up with the first thing they would believe, that I was a gift from the Wizard."
"Your mom told your brothers the Wizard of Oz made you?" Xander asked, raising an eyebrow. I could tell he was trying not to laugh.
I smiled and nodded. "Yeah. So whenever she talked about me after that, they always asked, 'Oz?' Finally she started calling me Oz, too. I guess it was just easier that way. Dad didn't care, so when I was born they named me Oz. Jeff and Tommy always liked that."
Xander stared at me for a moment and then asked softly, "How did they die?"
"Dad got drunk one night and drove them into a tree." It was easiest to say it bluntly, to get all the pain of the statement over with at one time.
He didn't say anything in response, just nodded slowly and looked at me with this expression of understanding and compassion on his face. That was the moment I knew I loved him. I would trade everything I own for the chance to go back to that exact moment and tell him that. Maybe he would still be alive if I had.
I miss him. I want him back. And I want to be able to sleep through the night without waking to be surprised that he's still gone. If I can't have him back, I want to accept that he's gone, but I can't. I think that's the worst part of it all.
~end~