Dawson's face showed almost nothing, in the usual confused and silent look he gets when something like this is setting in. Joey had tears in her eyes, but none of them were falling. Pacey had been crying for at least an hour, but he had finally calmed down. His eyes were red and puffy, and glazed over with memories. Jen was in shock. She sat with her head against the wall and her feet propped on the empty chair across from her. Jack was torn to pieces. Every few minutes he would cry again. None of them said anything, no words of comfort had been exchanged. Each others presence was comfort enough.
"I don't understand," Jack burst out, "How could she do this? And how could I have not seen it coming? It was my job to watch out for her. I was supposed to protect her, how could I just let her down like that?"
"Jack," Jen said quietly. "It's not your fault. You know she wasn't on her medication. Nobody saw this coming." She reached over and rubbed his back with one hand.
Jack's outburst had sent Pacey into tears again, remembering that Andie was the only one who had ever believed in him. He knew he owed all of what he was, his resteraunt, his confidance and probably even his life to her.
Then the table grew silent again, because nobody could believe that Andie would take her own life.
The next morning, Jen woke up in Jack's guestroom. She pulled her bathrobe on and peeked over the edge of Amy's crib. Her beautiful daughter slept peacefully, fully unaware of the termoil her mother and her friends were going through. Jen wished she could return to that form of innocence for just one moment, just one, only to feel what it was like to be undamaged. To be completely aware of what's going on around you, but to peacefully know that there's nothing you can do about it. That's something you lose as you get older, Jen thought to herself, the ability to accept what you can't fix.
But Andie could have been fixed. There was nothing that she couldn't have gotten through, with the help of her family and her friends, and yes, her medication. Andie had always been numb, and Jen didn't think her suicide was intended. She thought it was just a desperate attempt to feel something.
Jen walked down the hallway to the living room. Jack sat on the couch, a mug of coffee between his hands. There were dark circles underneath his eyes, his face looked drained, like he had cried all he could cry and there was nothing left inside. Just a big incredible nothing.
"There's coffee," he said, not meeting her gaze.
She turned into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee, adding the sugar and creamer the way she liked it. As she was leaving the room, she saw a photograph hanging by a magnet on the refrigerator. It was the day Andie left Capeside for Italy. The five of them. Jen remembered that day. It had been shortly after the ecstasy incident, when everyone had hated her for accidently giving it to Andie. But Andie's speach had made it all turn around. She had made her friends accept Jen again, and for that Jen always felt like she owed Andie everything.
Jen tried to pull herself together, for Jack's sake, and went to sit next to him on the couch. "Did you sleep?" She asked him quietly.
He shook his head. "No," he said.
Jen nodded. "I woke up throughout the night."
"It's horrible," Jack said. "I have to bury my sister this afternoon, and I can't do it."
"It is horrible, but you can do it, Jack. You have to."
"I don't want to go to the funeral. I don't want that to be the last time I see her."
Jen's eyes started to cloud over from tears, and she closed them, refusing to let them show. She had to be strong for Jack.
"It's not fair. She was such a genious, and she always worked so hard at everything. She gave one hundred and ten percent to everything she did. She would have been such a success at any career she wanted."
Jen just nodded, knowing there was nothing she could say to make this any better for him.