"Letting Go"
He's gone.
No one blamed Pacey. Least of all, Joey. Prom night was not the best time to air their relationship crisis, but anyone could see it had been a long time coming. And now Joey did, too. He had a meltdown in front of the entire Capeside senior class.
It began with a k.d. lang song. Joey and Dawson had been enjoying a dance together, a brief respite from the drama of late. Pacey walked in on them and went ballistic. The venue was insignificant. The dance had been innocent and Dawson was just the excuse for Pacey to let the demons that had been taunting him out. He was tired of being, as he made very clear, Joey Potter's charity project. He felt like he was the designated loser in this scenario.
"Pacey, I never said that. Look, this isn't about me, this is about you."
"No, it is about you!" he screamed. "It's about you and how you make me feel when I'm with you! Okay? I feel like I'm stupid and I'm worthless and I'm never right. But you know what I realize? That it's not my fault! It is not my fault! Because when I'm with you, it's, 'Poor Pacey, he didn't get into college,' and it's 'Stupid Pacey forgot the limo and ripped the dress and messed up the corsage.' "
"I told you I didn't care about any of that!"
"But I want you to care! I want you to care! I don't want you to just accept it like that's the way it's supposed to be. We are not trapped on this boat, you and I are trapped in this relationship. I can't take it anymore, Joey. When I'm with you, I feel like I'm nothing! I feel like I'm nothing. That's why I flinch when you come to touch me. It's why I never touch you, why I never even think about it. Because when I start to, it just reminds me that I'm not good enough."
Once upon a time, the boy and the girl ran away together on a boat, but this ship offered no convenient escape. True Love had gone down at sea and the only exit from this nightmare led to an excruciating drive home in a dilapidated, gas guzzling limo. The somber passengers, Jack & Tobey, Drue, Dawson & Gretchen, agreed to let Joey off first; on emotional overload herself, Jen had passed out from one too many, and Pacey—well, Pacey wasn't talking at all. For once, his eyes could no longer mask the truth; their blue-green brilliance had turned stone cold.
"You're home early…" Bessie started to say as Joey ran past her. The tears that she had held back for most of the cruise, as well as the humiliating drive home, flowed like acid rain, burning luminescent tracks down the slope of an already sopping wet face. "Jo?"
Hearing footsteps, Bessie turned around expecting to see Pacey and was surprised to find Dawson instead. "What happened?" "It's bad. Really bad." "How bad, Dawson? Is Pacey okay?" "No."
Bessie stood in the dining room, torn between going to her sister and staying to talk to Dawson. He spoke first, but offered little. "I've got to take the others home, Bess. Sorry. Call me in the morning?" He left before Bessie could utter a protest.
zzzzzzzzzz
Everywhere around her room Joey saw reminders of him. The cute couple photos, the stuffed toys he used as puppets to entertain her, the clothes hanging on the back of her door. She grabbed a couple of his shirts and curled up in bed with them, her grieving sobs muffled by the folds of worn cotton. "What'll I do now?" she cried.
Tears flowed freely as she recalled how afraid Pacey had been that he was holding her back when, in fact, the opposite had been true. Her body was now wracked with disparate emotion. He bought her a wall and showed her possibility; he inspired her to dream. She had never felt more creative or as free as when she had been with him—even before the boy and the girl became that thing known as a couple.
She sunk deeper. Joey once thought she had lost her true North when she and Dawson split, the Leery household had been the center of her universe after her mom died. But what she learned from Pacey was even more valuable; she found her anchor here, in her heart. He grounded her and gave her the courage to move forward with her life. She was no longer rooted in the past. She dreamed of the future because of him.
He was my muse! I wish I had told him that. Maybe he would have believed that. At least it would have made him smile.
She had been living this incredible fantasy with him, laughingly thinking of themselves as an old married couple—yet they had never had to deal with anything most adults have to. Their siblings lived in the real world, not them.
His final words to her on the boat echoed in her ears. "I've become a man who hates himself so much he can't even look at his own reflection in the mirror," he said. His self-loathing was startling to her. She knew something was wrong, but never suspected it had gotten this bad. "I wish that I could tell you that being with you doesn't make that worse, but it does... because the more that you love me in spite of that, the angrier that I get at you...and the more that I stop loving you back."
The more that I love him, the more he rejects us.
Was she still breathing? She couldn't even remember taking a breath after that. "You deserve better than me," he said.
No, I don't. I don't deserve anything at all.
She succumbed to the swirling darkness, a cloud as black as anything she'd ever experienced. It hurt to move, it hurt to think, it hurt to breathe…and it hurt to do the most natural thing of all, cry.
zzzzzzzzzz
Bessie stood on the other side of the bedroom door, her heart aching for her little sister one tremulous sob at a time. After pacing back and forth for nearly an hour, hoping that Joey might come out or invite her in, she slid silently against the wall and down to the floor. She still didn't know the full story, but she understood the consequences. "God, if you're up there, you've got to let me know why. Why now? With all the pain that girl's been through in her life, did she really deserve this?"
Finally, about three o'clock in the morning, she picked up the phone and dialed the Leery home. "Dawson, I'm sorry to wake everyone but I really need to know what happened last night." He tried to be diplomatic about it. "Joey and Pacey had a fight," he said, still trying to wake up. "Dawson, I'm not stupid. You said it was bad. What did you mean?"
"I don't know. Neither one of them was themselves at the dance. Something must've happened early on because I saw her wandering around, looking lost. I went to talk to her but she wasn't in a confiding mood. So we talked about… other things. Then I asked her to dance and she seemed to brighten up. She was actually laughing when Pacey walked in and started yelling at her. For no reason."
"Oh my God…"
"The next thing you know they were having this screaming match in front of everyone. He was saying the most awful things to her, Bess. I tried to break it up but Pacey pushed me away. He continued to berate her until she finally told him to go to hell. She walked away. But I heard later that he tracked her down to offer an apology of sorts which only seemed to upset her more. Obviously, none of us was in the mood to attend any after-Prom parties after that so we brought her home."
For a moment, Bessie didn't know what to say. She looked up and saw Joey standing in the hallway, her wrinkled and stained gown glaringly disheveled …her scraggly hair let lose from its bond…everything about her a pathetic wreck. "Thanks, Dawson," she said quickly. "Yes. I'll let you know. Bye." Bess got up from the couch and attempted to gather Joey in her arms, but she was inconsolable. "What'll I do now?" she kept saying as she fought back glacier-sized tears.
How do you comfort someone who's past comfort? Bessie didn't know, but she would have to find a way. Right now, she could only think of clichés. "You take it one day at a time," she said, brushing the damp hair away from Joey's face.
There were times in their relationship when Bessie felt more like the mother and others when she felt like the big sister. On this particular pre-dawn morning, she felt like a little of both. The mother in her wanted to shelter her, protect her, take the pain away; the sister wanted her to open up, talk to her, confide in her, trust her. She led Joey back to her bedroom, helping her to get out of her dress and into a comfortable nightshirt. She brushed her sister's hair and wiped the tears from her cheeks. As Joey got back into bed, Bessie reached to clear the old clothes away, but Joey stopped her and gathered them tightly to her chest, then closed her eyes. Bessie turned off the light knowing full well that neither one of them was going to get any sleep.
zzzzzzzzzz
The Potter girl didn't show up for school on Monday—the Witter boy did. He figured he deserved whatever nasty looks were tossed his way. But he was let off the hook. Much to his chagrin, Pacey discovered that classmates neither of them knew had already made a judgment: Joey was the diva, the control freak; she probably deserved it.
She didn't deserve it. I'm the one who should face the firing squad.
Jen and Jack were strangely solicitous, and he didn't see Dawson at all. For some reason, the only person who looked at him with rapprochement was Principal Peskin, the all-knowing keeper of his former girlfriend's academic legacy. That was easily pronounced, wasn't it? Former girlfriend.
Back at home, Gretchen was unusually quiet and seemed determined to stay out of Pacey's way. It took another full day before she was able to tell him that she and Dawson were splitsville as well; she hadn't wanted Pacey to think it had anything to do with him or Joey. But it did. She claimed she had broken up with him, but Pacey knew better. Gretchen was just an obstacle in Dawson's path and now he was free to pursue his muse again; order was returning to the universe.
zzzzzzzzzz
Bodi came home from work early Monday afternoon. The B&B was booked for the rest of the week and he wanted a chance to talk with Joey alone. She was sitting at the table, contemplating the same cup of tea she had been blankly staring at for nearly an hour. "Do you want a refill on that?" he asked. If she'd had her wits about her, she would have made a joke about the service being lousy; instead she simply waved him away. He pulled out a chair and sat down next to her.
"Do you want to talk?" "Not really," she said softly. He persisted. "Jo, you can't do this to yourself again. You can't just shut down because life isn't going the way you planned it." Joey hid her face in her hands. "What am I supposed to do now?" she asked plaintively. It was the question that had been on her mind all weekend. She pulled at the sleeves of her sweatshirt—his sweatshirt.
"He loves you, Jo. I know he does. Whatever happened, whatever went wrong, that will always be true. But you have to let go." She looked up. Seeing the disoriented look on her weary face, Bodi felt that gnawing sense of heartbreak, as he had so many times in the continuing saga of the Potter sisters. "Maybe he'll come back, maybe he won't. But you have to do it…for him."
"How do I do that?" she asked, trying her best not to lose it again, but finding it increasingly difficult to fight what she was feeling and hold back the wretched tears. Bodi put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her. "You do it a little bit at a time. It's gonna be hard, Joey. But you have to let go here," he said, pointing to his temple, "as well as here…in your heart."
"I don't know if I can do that."
"Try. Please, honey? Try."
zzzzz
I remember everything.
zzzzz
When Joey was absent for a second day, Dawson skipped school to find her. "I'm not going to be there when it all falls apart," he had once threatened. Now he didn't care if people saw him as her consolation prize. He couldn't help himself, he needed consoling too, and he was determined that they could both get through this better…together.
"Hey, Dawson. She's out back on the dock," Bodi told him as he walked up to the B&B. In good times, hanging out on the dock usually meant she was catching up on her reading assignment. Somehow Dawson didn't think that was what she was doing now. "Joey Potter has a Walkman?" he said incredulously as he walked toward her. She didn't hear him at first, only becoming aware of his presence as he sat down next to her on the dock. "What are you listening to?" She lifted up her headphones. "Etta James," she said without much energy at all. "Bodi gave it to me."
"I brought your homework assignments." "Thanks." "I also wanted to announce my intention of dragging you kicking and screaming, if need be, back to school tomorrow." ""That won't be necessary," she announced. "The kicking and screaming part, that is. But I was planning on going back so if you're offering a ride, I accept."
"Can you believe all this build-up to the prom and other rites of passage and we still have to go through the motions of attending school before we can snag a diploma?" Joey smirked. "Is that the semblance of a smile? Did I actually see a semi-quasi-little smile?" "Stop it," she said, quietly but forcefully.
"Sorry, Dawson. Bodi told me about you and Gretchen." "Yeah, proms suck, don't they?" "You shouldn't have gotten in trouble for running after me." He put his arm around her. "Is that what you think? No, it was much more than that. You warned me. It's the Witter way: you don't know you're in trouble until it's too late."
With that, Joey felt the emotion building up inside her. Forcing the tears back, her body began to tremble in response; she denied even that as one solitary tear tracked down her pale cheek. She took a deep breath. As a witness to her struggle, as well as being the one who inspired this particular event, Dawson regretted not thinking twice before tossing out a witless bon mot. He drew her into his embrace, murmuring softly that he was sorry for being so thoughtless. Joey welcomed his arms around her and allowed herself to stay that way until she was calm enough to look at him again.
Good news. He did have good news to tell her. He diplomatically changed the subject back to school. "So…Principal Peskin called me into his office. He wants to see you tomorrow. He says it's important." "Okay." He gave her another hug before releasing her. "So…I'll see you tomorrow?" He kissed the top of her head. "Bright and shiny, sweet cheeks." There was the hint of a smile on Joey's face as he left.
zzzzz
"Principal Peskin…our families…my fellow graduates. I stand here before you aware of the similarities that we share. I know that you're feeling, outside of my incredible stage fright, the same things that I'm feeling: pride and accomplishment, closure and regret, and a hopeful outlook on the future."
zzzzz
Joey Potter walked down the halls of Capeside High valiantly trying to look straight ahead and not acknowledge the pitiful glances being thrown her way. The opinion meter had again shifted when classmates observed the devastated shell of a girl who returned to class on Wednesday. Though she was going through the motions, trying to get back to her usual schedule, she was obviously light years away from the edgy, sarcastic Joey Potter they had grown up with. Today, they saw a girl whose makeup—something they rarely noticed on her—was drawn on harder and heavier, as if she needed it to steel herself from the outside in. The event of her demise was now being popularly referred to as a "promicide".
When word leaked out that Peskin had asked Joey to give the commencement speech, classmates were grateful for an excuse to give her a smile and a thumbs up, perhaps even a pat on the back. "Good going, Potter!" the chorus reverberated. It never even occurred to her that statement would have meant something entirely different two days earlier.
All week Joey had been waiting for a sign, and she finally got one. Mr. Kubelik, the Worthington rep, asked her to bring her boyfriend to the next party—the Dean of Admissions wanted to meet him. Telling Mr. Kubelik that she and Pacey were no longer together was the easy part. Asking Pacey to go with her to the party, when neither one of them had either seen or talked to each other since the split, was decidedly more difficult.
Still there was hope, and the possibility that this was the sign to move forward that she had been waiting for made the lonely drive to Pacey's house worth it. She would simply have to be the one to swallow her pride and offer a flag of truce.
zzzzzzzzzz
The boy watched the girl pacing outside on the front lawn, talking quietly to herself, still not ready to charge the porch and knock on his door. She hesitated before gathering enough courage to announce herself. "Hey," she said. She talked fast, keeping her eyes downcast, as if she needed to get it all out before she changed her mind. It was something about a party for Worthington freshmen, but the boy had zoned out on the message when he noticed that she was still wearing his ring. She hadn't given up on him.
All he could think of was how much he missed her, blurting it out before he could stop himself from saying it aloud. "It wasn't supposed to end like that. We're not supposed to end like that, right?" The girl didn't answer; she couldn't. It wasn't supposed to end, period. "So are you coming to the party with me?" she asked. Knowing how hard it must have been to ask him that, the boy figured he owed her the chance to get her life back on track. So he said yes.
zzzzzzzzzz
A flicker of hope burned in the distance. Perhaps Pacey was the fated one after all and Worthington was his ticket out of Capeside as well. But the gods weren't kind. They cruelly offered him a chance to be a lap dog—just a member of the crew on the dean's yacht, shamefully, not an invited guest. One day, Joey might be an invited guest on such a cruise; Pacey would always be the hired help. His fate was confirmed.
"Let's go," Joey said immediately upon finding out. She couldn't believe that she had inadvertently set Pacey up for another fall. She grabbed his hand, but he protested, saying that she should stay; this was her life now. "How can I enjoy it without you?" she responded poignantly, her eyes brimming with tears she refused to let fall.
Her mind was full of apologies. She was sorry for ever making him doubt himself…for being the one who couldn't own up to her own feelings…for being the one who always made things more difficult…most of all, for being the one to wound those she professed to love. For being the one who couldn't let go.
When Pacey brought her back to the B&B, Joey took a step toward rectifying that fault. She asked if he might consider taking her back home with him. "We could just…sleep," she assured him. Pacey drew her into a warm embrace, both comforting and tormenting them both with its familiarity—her head resting on his shoulder just so, his fist tangling itself in her hair.
"Gretchen's gone," he told her as they entered the house. "Being a Witter she couldn't resist the temptation to flee the coop before the lease was up." Joey tried on a grin but felt like a character in an old flicker. A D.W. Griffith film, to be exact. Dawson had shown her the silent film Broken Blossoms and she vividly recalled the Lillian Gish character, never having known true happiness, trying to force herself into a smile by curling the edges of her mouth with her fingers. That's what it felt like, something unreal.
Pacey fished a clean pair of sweats out of his drawer and gave them to Joey, exiting the room so she could change. When he returned, she was already lying in bed, her eyes closed and almost serene, her breathing measured. He could not hear the pain. He laid down next to her, gathering her up in his arms one more time. It was strange, but he almost felt grateful for this second chance to get it right and give her a happier ending.
When he thought she had fallen asleep, he brushed the hair back from her shoulder and traced out three symbols: I - Heart - U
He relaxed his grip around her and fell asleep.
zzzzzzzzzz
"I'm going to count to ten and then I'm going to start kissing you," the girl whispered. "If you don't want me to…then you're just going to have to stop me." He didn't stop her, and they shared a passionate kiss that built incrementally. From longing but not impatience, from knowing that this time it was right, that they were really, truly, deeply in love and wanted to express that in the most intimate way possible. He folded his arms around her and, in one powerful move, swept her toward the bed; a nervous giggle escaped her lips.
She kissed his beautiful bare chest. "You're all I dream about," she told him. He couldn't wait any longer and drew the girl to him, kissing her again lustfully while moving her back on the pillows. She gasped as he slipped in—reacting, not to the penetration itself, but to the exhilarating feeling of finally having this boy inside of her. A rush of emotions nearly overwhelmed her. The boy tenderly brushed her bangs away from her face. "Are you alright?" he asked. She whimpered softly; he didn't hear what she said and stopped. "Don't stop," the girl responded, almost pleading. "Don't stop."
Both stared at each other in awe. He kissed her on each cheek, then fully on the mouth as he started moving again—slowly, reverently. "I love you," she said, nearly breathless with excitement as she eased into the rhythm of their lovemaking. The sense of completion lit her up from inside. "I love you, too," he said. "Love you today, love you madly always."
She wrapped her legs around him, driving him deeper inside, sighing as she lost herself in the shimmering cloud of euphoria.
zzzzzzzzzz
I love you, too, Pace, and it's killing me. Joey opened her eyes. He's finally asleep, she thought…she hoped. She could feel his warm, steady breath on the back of her neck. Once a sweet turn-on, now just another part of the torture. It had been a mistake to think she could do this. How could she be so close to him and not touch him or kiss him or want him? Yet she knew that this was something she needed to do in order to let go completely, finally.
There was a time when letting go meant allowing themselves to be intimate with each other, now it meant something far more sinister and profound; it meant losing each other entirely.
Pacey shifted slightly in bed and Joey tensed up imperceptibly. But his arms remained around her and she gradually found herself relaxing and drifting off to sleep. When she awoke the next morning, he was gone. So this is what it is going to be like, she thought, as she looked at the ghostly trace of his body still apparent in the bed linen. And in that moment she knew that a part of him would always be with her.