Dawn let herself into the house.
 
3:25. Yes!
 
If she’d actually been at school, this is exactly when she’d be getting back. Janice had been so right – an afternoon at the mall had totally made up for Buffy’s bizarre refusal to let her celebrate Black Friday with their cousins.
 
Dawn slammed the door shut and waited a few seconds in the hallway, listening.
 
No Buffy. Like there’s a surprise. She’d barely been home all week. Dawn might as well have stayed out and got ice cream with everyone else. Mind you, that would’ve required cash, and any time Dawn mentioned “allowance” these days, Buffy suddenly found somewhere else she desperately needed to be. Dawn almost missed all those weeks Buffy hadn’t got out of bed unless she was forced to. At least she’d been there.
 
Dawn dumped her bag on the kitchen island and untied the cutest top in the history of ever from around her waist. There were funky frog earrings stuffed into her cast and a sweet silver chain in her back pocket. Retail therapy: cures what ails you. She cut off the tags and carefully buried them under the other garbage. Then she opened the fridge. No change since yesterday. Buffy still hadn’t gone food shopping.
 
Yeesh. A girl could only eat so much yam.
 
They’d been out of cereal for two days now. Popcorn for three. Although they seemed to be weirdly well stocked with yoghourt still … almost like it was breeding in there.
 
Dawn grabbed the jar of pickles from the back of the fridge. They were kinda old, but they’d have to do for now.
 
Where was Buffy going all day every day that couldn’t include a market? Not like Dawn missed her sister or anything, because she didn’t. Buffy and her had never really gotten along that well. Just because she’d been dead for a few months didn’t mean Dawn suddenly wanted to spend all her time with her. Because she totally wasn’t interested in doing that. Not even remotely. And Dawn didn’t miss any of Buffy’s friends, either. Just because they’d all hovered obsessively while Buffy was gone didn’t mean Dawn cared that they’d dropped her completely as soon as Buffy came back. She didn’t need Buffy’s friends. She had her own friends – friends who actually wanted to spend time with her.
 
And really, so what if Spike had basically stopped being her friend since whatever weirdness had made him leave Lolly’s? Buffy could have him. He was lame. Also moody. And if this week was anything to go by, he had terrible taste in take-out – everything he got was too spicy, and he put anchovies on pizza. Gross. He’d probably bring something even worse for dinner tonight. Stupid vampire.
 
But Dawn would be fine. She had her pickles. And, courtesy of Janice’s brilliant idea to fake a migraine and go to the mall, she now had all weekend to study for her biology test. There were definitely things to be thankful for. And it could only get better, right?