Return to Hit/Miss Chapter Twenty



Hit/Miss
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Author: eklipsej
Rating: PG for now... will up that if necessary.
Disclaimer: All Buffy characters were created by and unfortunately belong to the creators of BtVS, other characters that might pop up are mine.
Note: Thoughts in italics.


"So what do you think? How'd it go?" The redhead asked his companion eagerly.

Tara shrugged as they stepped into the elevator.

"Pretty well I guess."

"You guess? Come on sis, I'm sure you totally blew them away!"

"Well, we'll find out soon enough I guess." She said, zipping her coat up in preparation for the blast of cold air she knew they would feel once they left the building. "So how was your class?" She smiled and changed the subject. Tara's mind wandered however, not hearing her brother's response to her question as they stepped out of the elevator and exited the building.

She had been in New York for almost week, interviewing for various graduate programs and getting in a visit with her brother Donnie at the same time. The interview she had just come out of was at the same school where her brother had attended his undergraduate degree and where he was now enrolled in a sports management program. It had gone remarkably well. Her interviewers had been impressed with her academic record and portfolio. In fact every interview had gone just as well if not better. And yet…Tara couldn't be as excited as she knew she should be, especially not after this interview. This was her last one, and she was headed back to California the following day.

As ridiculous as it seemed considering the city she was in, Tara couldn't help but be disappointed that she had not run into Willow. At every school she had gone to she half-expected to turn the corner and bump into the redhead. In fact, just the day before she had been waiting in a hall at NYU and thought she had seen a flash of red hair and a familiar looking bag that might have been Willow's. Unfortunately Tara did not have the chance to confirm as the professor she was waiting for chose that moment to come out of her office.

That interview, Tara felt, had been the best of the lot. Wouldn't that be something if that was Willow and she was a student there? And I'd end up going to NYU but she'd already have graduated?

Tara laughed to herself at the thought as they reached the top of the stairs leading down to the street. Her eyes drifted to the sidewalk and she had to squeeze her eyes open and shut a few times to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

Forgetting about her brother, who was still going on about a project for one of his classes, Tara ran down steps. When she reached the halfway landing she called out to the redheaded woman at the bus stop, but the squealing brakes of a bus pulling up to the sidewalk drowned her voice out.

She swore to herself as she gripped the handrail so as not to trip down the rest of the way and when her feet hit the street level she called out again. The woman at the bus stop turned her head but it was only to smile her thanks at a man who let her get onto the bus ahead of him.

Tara called out one more time to the redhead, but the girl sitting by the window didn't hear or see her. She reached the bus stop just as the bus began to pull away. As she stared at the bus disappearing down the street Tara gripped the pole of the bus sign.

"Damn it, Willow."


Continue to Hit/Miss Chapter Twenty-Two


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