Carelessly
by FireHorse

~ How carelessly ~
~ You gave me your heart ~
~ And carelessly I broke it, sweetheart ~
~ I took each tender kiss you gave to me ~
~ Every kiss made you a slave to me ~

Anya wanted a church wedding. She got it. She wanted an exotic
honeymoon; we compromised with my paycheck and went to New Orleans. Anya
wanted a house with a picket fence, so we rented one. She wanted all of me.

She only got part of me.

I tried, honestly I did. I mean, wouldn't you? A warm, loving woman who
loves you, wouldn't you try to love her back? Especially when your other
choice was a cold dead guy who you thought only wanted you.

I didn't realize that he loved me, too. Or that I loved him. Not until
it was too late. Don't get me wrong, I love Anya. Just not like that.

So I tried. But I knew that morning that it wasn't going to work.
Standing on the altar with my ass throbbing, feeling the slow ooze and
being thankful that I was wearing dark pants, I knew.

Spike loved me.

He *loved* me, and he had never said.

Well, of course not. Idiot. I had made it pretty clear that I was in it
for the sex. I used him like a cheap whore, and never paid him, not even
with the coin of courtesy. I actually expected him to be happy that I
was getting married. I never saw the pain.

Until it bled all over his parting words.

"You made your choice. May you have the joy of it."

Joy. Yeah, right. Stuck in a hell of my own making. Remember that old
seventies song, 'Torn Between Two Lovers'? That's me. torn between two
lovers, feeling like a fool. I live in a lopsided triangle. I live with
Anya, who loves me, I love her, but I love Spike more. Spike loves me,
too, but he's gone.

Yep, gone. Gone where the woodbine twineth, like my grandmother used to
say. That was her polite way of saying 'how the hell do I know?'

I went looking for him, as soon as we got back from New Orleans. He
wasn't in the crypt, or the mansion, or any other of his boltholes. All
I found was my Patsy Cline tape, cued to In Care of the Blues. I know
that means something, but what?

I've got to find him, to tell him...what? That I didn't know? Well, I
didn't, but I didn't want to, either. That I love him, too? Yeah, I sure
showed him how much I loved him, didn't I? That it's him that I want? Uh
huh. That's why I married Anya with his come sliding down the back of my
thighs. That I'm sorry?

I think Anya suspects something. God knows things haven't been right
since we got back from the Big Easy. As an ex-vengeance demon she's
probably got some leftover your-cheatin'-heart radar or something.

All I know is, we're all unhappy, and we all deserve better than this. I
made the mess, I'll clean it up. Somehow.