5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

 

He doesn't watch the show. It seems unreal. High school was never like this, and he doesn't like Joyce, doesn't like Angel. No-one's real, and they're al funny and clever and pretty. He tries liking Xander because Leslie likes him, but he gets bored and the tapes stack up unwatched on the bus.

He reads some of it, but it's all too strange.

Life isn't like that, he wants to tell them. No Powers That Be, no destiny. If there were demons, they'd rip us apart and feed us to the vampires. We'd have lost a long time ago.

He likes Cordelia. He's met the actress, and she was nice to him, and he watches her sometimes because she was polite and friendly, and it's a little, he realizes, like watching on the guys on TV. Dissonance, a new word for him, and he repeats it under his breath as the actress crumples up on the floor, wincing in fake pain.

 

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