I guess you don't have to be anybody's Psychic Friend to figure out how it all went down. Not like I had anybody thinking me and Robin were gonna set up shop in the burbs somewhere and be the bi-racial, sportfucking, vampire-slaying heads of the homeowners association, right? It's not even all that fucked up that it was him who left me. Not like it's the first time I scared a guy off. What's fucked up is that I didn't want him to. That I actually loved the stupid fuck; that I would have done just about anything to keep it together - that's the shit that threw everybody.

Hindsight's 20/20 and all; looking back it was for the best, but at the time you'd have thought they were picking me up for a return trip back to prison the way I acted. I can't believe that I was stupid enough to let my guard down. Everything I learned over 23 years of hard times and making my own way fell right out of my head when he started spouting all that self-esteem bullshit and having the goddamn nerve to believe in me. The minute somebody pulls that shit - thinking you're worth something and making you believe it, too - that's the minute they buy your fucking soul and I don't know if you ever get it back.

All I wanted to do was kill vampires and survive - use a little of what Angel taught me about redemption; make up for some of the bad shit I done. Robin, man - he wasn't what I expected. Hell, he wasn't anything like what I was looking for. He came in with his stupid cashmere sweaters and his $300 shoes and he looked at me like I was smart and useful and capable and clean. He looked at me like that enough times and I bought into it.

Whatever philosopher or politician or fortune-cookie writer ever said "the bigger they are, the harder they fall," well, that poor son of a bitch must have been in love once. Like me. It wasn't love at first. Early days it was all about fucking, about tearing into each other like wild dogs because the world hadn't ended. A lot of people died, and when people die, the living fuck harder, longer, louder - like we've gotta prove that we're here with screams and tears and come.

Robin let me down in bed - human frailty's got nothin' on Slayer strength and stamina. It sorta explains why B was partial to boning the enemy, souls or no souls. Doesn't take a soul to fuck til you're raw and then fuck some more because it feels good to build the pain up in layers and tear it down in blood. Souls don't count for shit in that mix. After a while, when he wanted to make it all about sweetness and light and feelings I went along with it. I waited for him to start shit and took care of myself when I needed to. Hell, I'd been in prison; I knew all about getting myself off and a hundred ways to do it. I knew just what pictures to bring to mind to get me going, and just the ones to have my pussy clenching on my own hand in three minutes flat.

But, through all of that, I was falling in love with him, believing in him, believing in me. I let him in, and he took a piece of me. And when it was all over and I was back on my own again, I missed that fuckin' piece, because I'm starting to think it was the best one.