Joey woke in the morning feeling no more rested than when she went to bed. She had lay in bed half the night trying to clear her mind and fall asleep. More than once she got out of bed, prepared to go up to the penthouse and finish the conversation she had started with Pacey. Before she got out the door her common sense, or pride, got the better of her and she climbed back in bed. Somewhere close to three in the morning she had dozed off only to see Pacey's face in her dreams. When her alarm went off at 8, she was more than ready to get up.

In the bathroom she flipped the light on and groaned at the face looking back at her in the mirror. "Good lord, you look like death warmed over, Joey, get a grip. He's just Pacey and you are just talking to yourself in the mirror." Joey laughed at herself and turned on the hot water in the shower.

Under the therapeutic pulse of the shower, Joey pondered where her anger towards Pacey came from the night before. In all the time that had passed she had never once been angry with him for leaving, she had always blamed herself. But maybe it was easier to be sad and feel sorry for herself than to feel abandoned and wronged. Who knew - for all her training in psychology and human behavior, she was never very good at figuring out her own.

Stepping out of the steam in the bathroom, Joey glanced at the clock on the nightstand and noticed the message light blinking on the phone sitting next to it. Someone must have just called, it wasn't blinking when I woke up, Joey thought, probably Chris wanting the Pacey scoop.

Joey followed the directions to retrieve her message. Dawson's voice came through in her ear, "Hey Joey, I have some bad news, Andrea's dad is in the hospital in Florida and I am going to drive down to Grand Rapids to catch a flight down to Naples and be with Andrea and her mom. I'm leaving in a few minutes but I already checked and you can rent a car in town to drive back to Chicago with. I don't want you to miss out on skiing and since Pacey is here you won't be alone. I'm really sorry about this but I will probably be back in Chicago after this so we can get some work done on the project. I already talked to Pacey and he said that he would still be meeting you at the lift at 9:30. See you soon, love ya kid! Bye."

"Shit," Joey said, hanging up the phone, "Shit, shit, shit. What am I going to do now?"

Spending the whole day alone with Pacey wasn't exactly something she was prepared to do, it would have been heard enough with Dawson there. Thinking maybe she could catch Dawson before he left, Joey picked up the phone and rang down to the desk. "Good morning, I was wondering if I could find out if my friend has checked out yet. His name is Dawson Leery."

"Yes, ma'am, Mr. Leery checked out about 20 minutes ago," a friendly woman on the other end of the line informed Joey, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you," Joey said politely and hung up the phone with a clunk, "Shit."

Joey realized that she was just going to have to make the best of it, up until a day ago the idea of seeing Pacey again would have cheered her up, maybe she could find that mindset again. Her anger was still there but pushing it aside for the purpose of being pleasant company could be a good idea and that was just what she would do.