Need
Pacey/Joey, Pacey/Andie, Dawson/Joey
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with DC.
When we broke up, I was relieved. Sad, yes, I missed her. I really did love her. But I was also relieved. I could let my breath out at last. I knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to last. That was part of why I fell for her.
I told Jen that we never hooked up because we never needed anything from each other. And that was true. Joey and I, however, did need something from each other. She needed to fall in love with someone besides Dawson, so that she would be able to say, with certainty that he is the one for her. She didn't know it then, she doesn't know it now, and she may not ever realize that she fell in love with me only because she needed to know the extent of her love for him, but I can see it in her. If I can calmly acknowledge that, how, you may ask, can I still say I'm in love with her? Because what I needed from her wasn't about her anymore than what she needed was about me. I needed to fall in love with someone else, someone besides Andie. And I needed to know, from the first kiss, that it would end. Subconsciously, I knew that I couldn't bear going through falling in love with someone, believing we could last, only to have her kick our love out from under me, not again.
Andie and I were a lot like Dawson and Joey. What we needed from each other was about us, no other lovers to forget, or bury, or fight our way back to. I needed so many things from her, and she gave me everything. I left her because she cheated on me yes, but mainly because of what that represented to me. If she cheated on me, then she didn't need me in the way I needed her, and I thought that meant she didn't need me at all. And if she didn't need me, how could she love me the way I loved her? Now, I understand that she needed me in a different way, needed me for different things. That she loved me just as much as I loved her, maybe more at the end, because her faith in our love wasn't shaken the way mine was.
Dawson can analyze the world, but when he tries to analyze himself, or his friends, his feelings overwhelm him, and get in the way. His jealousy prevented him from realizing that my relationship with Joey wasn't about us, it was about him, and Andie. If he felt things less, maybe he'd have seen that, and we'd all still be close. Or maybe not. Maybe another thing I needed from Joey was a way to grow up on my own, without the wonder boy there, without everyone comparing everything I did to everything he did. The ironic part is, I was with Joey, the one person most likely to compare me to him, the one person who would make everybody else compare me to him.
Right now, I need to be single, to find my own place in the world. Now I need to be Pacey, not Andie's boyfriend, not Joey's charity case, not Dawson's sidekick. I need to get away from Capeside, where all I will ever be is all of that, and the sheriff's good-for-nothing son to boot. That doesn't mean I'm going to fall out of love with Andie, or Joey, or stop loving Dawson. None of them know how much I still care about them, and they won't, not for a while, but I will hold all of them close to my heart while I go out into the world to find myself.