He's a hunched figure on the dock. And that's mostly all he is these days. Or a face drowned in a cup of black coffee he hates, or a disgruntled expression behind a lens, or a knock at my window in the middle of the night. That's what he's been reduced to.
And somehow, the guy still throws me for a loop.
"You know, I think there was a time I was happy." The opening statement. I sit beside him, because it's easy, and I let him hurt, because it's not.
"And yet another self-analytical, angst-ridden rant from the mind of Dawson Leery." I chuckle sardonically. We lock eyes through my golden bangs and the sheet of glass over his pupils. His smile is genuine, leaking the boy that I used to know through.
"What have you got for me today?" I ask him.
Dawson lets his legs dangle and kicks at the hazy summer air, mosquitoes drifting above the water. "I'm sure there was a time I was happy, Jen. I just don't remember when." And then he looks off, and I swear it's as if he sees her face plastered on that horizon. "And I don't remember how to get back."
I smile despite his pain and pull my knees to my chest. "We all had a time we were happy. And we all have the times when we're not. That's what makes us grow up."
"It sucks." He says flatly, and I laugh. "You find my misery amusing, don't you?"
"No, no, no." I assure him, although part of me does. "It's just so classic. Joey Potter. The strikingly beautiful girl that can make the world fall apart, the stars collide, and the two best friends in the world hate each other."
He looks to the creek, like all his answers are within it. The way they always were. "It's exhausting, you know."
My neck snaps. Dawson's rants are usually the same words in different sequences but this, this is new. This is progress.
"What's exhausting?"
"Hating him."
A glimmer of hope. I melt. "Then why don't you forgive him?"
"Because I can't. I can't just stop, Jen. I can't stop hating Pacey the same way I can't stop loving Joey. The same way he can't stop loving Joey. The same way she can't stop loving him."
"So what this sounds like to me," I sum up, "is that you're all stuck inside these emotions too big for any of you to step outside of."
"Something like that."
It's like Capeside goes quiet when Dawson thinks. His eyes are elsewhere, and he's got that classic pout, and God is he beautiful when he's angry. He's grown up thinking he was the focal point of everything, and for some reason I truly believe that.
"Dawson, what's it gunna be like this year?" I continue off of his look. "When Joey comes back? When Pacey comes back? When you have to watch their relationship grow?"
"It's gunna be hell."
"But it doesn't have to be! Dawson, you can find someone. You can let yourself be capable of loving again. You know that don't you?"
"I will never be able to love another human being the way that I love her." He tells me, with all the seriousness a 17-year-old should have.
"But…maybe you could." I scoot closer, feel myself step inside his magnetic field. "You just gotta let yourself."
He looks at me like I will never understand anything about the world.
"Dawson, there's something I've learned since I got to Capeside and…I'm thinking now's the time to impart my new-found wisdom onto you."
He chuckles. "I'm listening."
"At one point, we realize that we need to make ourselves happy. And that, we'll only ever be as happy as we allow ourselves to be."
He turns to me with hardened eyes – what a love lost can do to you. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you should follow Joey's lead. Dawson, that girl spent so many years living her life for you. And then she woke up. She woke up because as much of the world that you are to her, she realized she needed to stop hating herself for loving Pacey. And that's why they're on that boat, Dawson. That's why she's experiencing this whole untouched world, and you're sitting here moping on a dock with a girl that probably doesn't know the first thing about love. You think she made a mistake? Then how come she feels so alive?"
It's a long time before Dawson looks at me again, before there's anything between us besides the festering tension and his heavy breathing. But Dawson was always reliable.
"So what do I do now, Jen? How do I go from moping on a dock to loving someone?"
I smile slow. "One step at a time." I stand and I reach my hand out to him. But he just shakes his head, and his eyes go back to the beautiful mess that is Capeside, Massachusetts.
But for the first time, I think he's looking for something other than his leading lady. And that's definitely something.
"Dawson?" I stop before I can make it down the dock. He looks up from the water, gold like bracelets and sweet like perfume.
"Yeah?"
"You gotta let go of the hate to be happy. That's just…that's just what it'll take to give you back your life."