Letting Go
© Jan 2001 Prophecy
Note: The song is 'Letting Go' by Sozzi, and can be found on the Dawson's Creek Soundtrack (I'm told. I don't watch the show)
The phone's ringing again. And I let it ring. It could be someone important with my big break so that's why I don't just take it off the hook. Yeah. Right.
It's him again.
Funny - for weeks I sat by the phone, trying to will him to call me. To tell me he made a huge mistake in firing us all. That everything we had, everything we'd worked to build. all the promises were worth more than his obsession with that bitch that damned him.
But it wasn't. I wasn't enough for him - our friendship couldn't sustain him. He didn't trust me enough to turn to when he needed someone.
//Don't call me,
Don't write
Don't show up in the middle of the night
You know that we needed
Some time and space to breathe//
The machine takes the call. # "Cordy, its me, Angel..... Look.. I-I. We need to talk. I'm coming over." #
The bitter scoff I just made was more the old me. Queen C - 'nastiest girl in Sunnydale'. Old Cordelia who hid her aching heart behind the caustic cover of an utter bitch. Not his Cordy. Look, people just don't get it: I need to be needed, but can't bare to be needy.
For a time I was both.
We were a family - Angel, Wes and me. even more so than with Doyle. I think Doyle's death brought Angel and I closer than we ever could have been otherwise. And his death, forgive me, was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Sure, it hurt like hell at the time - but in passing to me his visions I got a purpose. For the first time in my nineteen years I was part of something bigger than myself. And I know I blossomed. I was useful -and I was bound to the 'man' I'd come to care about. Because he needed me.
When I was under the vision-coma thing that Wolfram & Hart facilitated only one thing penetrated the pain and the horror.
Angel held my hand and told me he needed me.
I'm pathetic, but I'd go back into the Hell my vision-coma was to hear him say that again. And MEAN it. If I could make myself care again.
//I still recall the words you said to me
It's what you did not say that sets me free
Now how can I find peace of mind
When you keep coming back again
It's not OK for you to play
This game of see-saw with my head//
Once upon a time I thought I understood Angel. You know, like, really GOT him? I thought that if I was always there, and accepted him, and gave him all this unconditionally it might actually help him feel not so alone. Maybe even be that 'humanizing influence' Doyle labelled me as so very long ago.
He still felt alone.
And after everything we'd been through, I was merely an employee.
Not even a friend. Not 'family' as I considered him. Just. An. Employee.
//Now it hurts too much
And it hits too hard
And I won't play this part//
And thus, Queen C is bad with a vengeance. Because I'm not about to let him see me cry - not again. I will not go back to being his Cordy; the Seer, the secretary. I _WILL NOT_ be the little woman he can treat like shit, apologise to profusely and know she'll come running back. He's all I've got. except this damnable Chase pride.
The pride is the only thing sustaining me at the moment.
I've been to auditions, done some modelling work and stuff since he fired me. Just because I lost my job does not mean I'll give up my apartment or the semi-comfortable existence I've scraped together. With that motivation, it's easier to tolerate the groping hands of casting directors and horny leading men. the casting couch is more inviting than the breadline.
At least there, I can close my eyes and pretend I'm elsewhere. With someone else. Someone with bottomless dark eyes. And large, cold hands.
//Don't call me, Don't write
Don't show up in the middle of the night
You know that we needed
Some time and space to breathe//
Perhaps that's why I can't go back to being his girl Friday? I just can't bear seeing Buffy and Darla always coming first. What's wrong with me? Why couldn't I be the one to sustain him? Why were my promises to always be there, to fight Angelus if I had to, not good enough? I'm not blonde enough? Can't treat him like shit?
That statement would be just hilarious if it weren't so sad. Cordelia Chase - the original Ms Treat-'em-mean-to-keep-'em-keen - completely unable to be cruel to a man. How much I've changed. Shame it didn't do any good. I used to be able to screw a guy over and walk away with my head held high and not a twinge of conscience. Now HE'S been the bastard, and if I could just swallow my pride I'd be back to the Hyperion like greased lightning.
How fucked up is that?
//So now I say the things I want to say
Sometimes it's better letting go this way
I'll always know down in my soul
We really had so far to go I've given all I had to give
And now it's time for me to live//
Yeah, okay, I admit it. I love him. It just KILLS me, because I don't stand a chance. He never saw me like that - not even when I used to try to make him look at me like that. Back in Sunnydale, before he and Buffy got all serious, before Angelus, before Xander - not even then did he see me the way I want him to.
I used to cling to the hope that maybe he'd look beyond the 'family' label I stuck on us, and see that the struggling starlet he rescued from Russell Winters and from herself is deeply and utterly in love with him.
Whatever.
With the distance he imposed on us, and the simple fact that hindsight is always flawless, I can totally tell now just how much I was deluding myself. Which is another reason why this clean break is a better idea than letting myself get sucked back into his world again.
//And I won't look back
And I won't regret
Though hurts like hell
Someday I will forget//
So, yeah, time to move on. Time to stand on my own two feet and stand tall. I'll get over him - just like I got over Xander, like I got over my parents leaving when the IRS took everything. I'm Cordelia Chase. I can do it.
Just like a coyote chewing off its own leg - it may hurt like a bitch, but its necessary for survival.
Geez - melodramatic, much? AND I'm sitting here in the dark, moping. I think I really did spend too much time with that vamp.
We had some good times, some truly beautiful memories that I'll always cherish. Like, every time he smiled at me. The one kiss that I got through catching him by surprise, trying to get rid of my visions. Boy, if I'd been thinking straight I'd never have had the guts to kiss him. The minute I did, though, I wouldn't have stopped for the whole world.
The way he held my hand after that damn vision-coma, the relief in his eyes that I was all right. The times he'd shield me in a fight. When he was under the sensitivity spell thing he said something I'll never forget as long as I live. "Do you have any idea how precious you are, Cordelia?" He had my heart from that moment on.
For so long it was 'Cordelia' though. First time he called me 'Cordy' my heart nearly beat right outta my chest. I *KNOW* he noticed because after that it was almost All Cordy All The Time. I don't ever recall being happier.
Which was why I fought the Darla thing so hard. why I flung those hard truths at him, why I wouldn't JUST LEAVE.
Why I know how damn long its gonna take me to deal. I wonder how long before I stop seeing his face every time I close my eyes? Or before I stop hearing his voice inside my head?
//Don't call me, Don't write
Don't show up in the middle of the night
To say that you've been thinkin'
Cause I know it's just the drink in you//
"CORDELIA - I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE. LET ME IN - WE HAVE TO TALK!"
Okay, perhaps THAT wasn't inside my head this time. I'm shocked and amazed that he ACTUALLY made good on that phone-message threat to come around. I just wish that I could make myself *CARE* that he's here.
"CORDY, LET ME IN!"
He's been banging hell outta my door for a while - and now the shouting. I can't help but wonder if he'll break the door down. He KNOWS I'll send him the bill if he does. That's what sacked employees DO when their ex-bosses start the stalker routine.
//It's funny how we seem to end up here
I never thought I'd see this soul disappear//
One thing I'd never actually prepared myself for was *ANGEL* stopping caring. Angelus? I'd sort of developed a mental plan for dealing with him. Ever since our little face-to-face encounter thanks to Rebecca - yeah, thanks SO MUCH for that, Raven! - I've been psyching myself up for the Angelus-potential. I KNOW he'd want to get his own back for the little water-in-the-face incident, so I HAD to get, like, prepared - just in case.
For a while, I tried to convince myself that it wasn't My Angel that had let Darla and Drusilla kill all those lawyers, that had fired Gunn, Wes an' me - that somehow he'd lost his soul. That would have been easier to take. Call Willow, little gypsy magic, shazam - Angel's back all soulful again.
The quick-fix doesn't work if it's his soul getting all malicious. I mean, I gotta admit, I could understand WHY he let Darla and Dru make handisnacks out of the Wolfram and Hart crew - they've tried to kill us all so often, they're the SOURCE of the Darla problems, etcetera, etcetera. But that's not my call to make - just like it wasn't his. Fighting the good fight does NOT leave room for vengeance.
Besides, hello? The vengeance thing's gotta leave a bad taste in his mouth what with the whole gypsy-curse deal.
//Don't call me, Don't write
Don't show up in the middle of the night
You know that we needed
Some time and space to breathe//
So I tried everything I could think of. Wesley, Gunn and I struggled on as best we could. We weren't good enough. Not even close.
Failure after failure tends to make a girl pretty jaded, and when you've seen the things I've seen 'jaded' is a whole extra dimension on the classic definition. I. Just. Don't. Care. Not anymore.
"CORDY - I'LL KNOCK THE DOOR DOWN!"
Rolling my eyes, I finally get up and open the door for him. He takes my breath away all over again. He's beautiful. How does the song go? 'A beautiful fucked-up man'?
And he takes me in his arms, crushing me to his chest the way I've dreamt about a hundred times.
Except that I DO NOT reciprocate. My arms remained looked by my sides and I look up at him with the weariness that is my dominant emotion lately. That familiar state of flat desperation, tiredness and despondence.
"Go away, Angel," I tell him flatly, dismissing the man I love with every shred of this torn-apart heart and soul that I call my own. Dismissing him as if he were an irritating child.
He stares at me with pain and disbelief in those endless midnight eyes. See how much it hurts, you bastard? Can you feel that in your non-beating heart? Even a FRACTION of the hell you've put me through?
Why does that thought only cause me more pain, not the satisfaction I'd hoped for?
"Just leave me alone. I never want to see you again."
//And this is letting go
This is letting go
And this is letting go
This is letting go//