Dawson rushed to the museum like his life depended on it. He didn't want to explain to himself the cold shivers of desperation that had started to get to him. He just felt that he had to see Joey. She was laughing with the guy that worked at the Icehouse. Since when were they friends? Nevermind. He just needed to talk to Joey.
That was when she saw him.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was looking all over for you. I went to the Icehouse and Bessie said you were here." He said with a sense of urgency, hoping she'll understand that they really had to talk.
Jack seemed to have caught on:
"So, uh, Joey, I'm going to take off"
"No, we can all walk back together" Joey said fast. Dawson couldn't help notice the look of panic that crossed her face. She didn't want to be alone with him. His girlfriend didn't want to be alone with him.
"No, that's cool, I've got some errands to run but listen I had a blast"
Just go already
"Me too. Thank you for coming"
"Sure"
Dawson breathed evenly to calm his nerves.
"So you want to check out the exhibit?"
"I already did, Dawson" Joey replied in an annoyed voice.
"Do you want to show me the paintings you liked?" Dawson tried very hard to play the understanding sympathetic boyfriend. He knew it didn't suit him very well but he needed to mend things with Joey.
"Dawson, it's okay. I know this isn't your thing. You earned your points just by coming. That's enough." Joey sighed.
They started walking towards their homes.
"No, Joey, I want to be here. I want to be with you. Jo, talk to me." Dawson said desperately. "What's wrong? I know I hurt your feelings by being too flip about this art thing, and I'm sorry. It was never my intention, believe me. I'm just trying to be us, Dawson and Joey, who analyze and argue and debate and disagree. You've put me in my place a thousand times about some movie. Why can't we just interchange subject? It might actually be a refreshing change."
She was making way too big a deal out of everything and it was freaking him out.
"It is so much more than that, Dawson"
"Then why are you closing yourself off to me? What's changed?"
He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"That's the point, Dawson! Nothing's changed! You, me, were exactly the way we've always been and I am so tired of it!"
Fearing her answer he asked:
"Meaning you're tired of me..."
"No, I don't know Dawson..." Joey raised her arms in frustration.
"You want someone more exciting... someone like Pacey?"
"WHAT?!"
He was thankful that she sounded so surprised. At least she hadn't fooled him on purpose. But then again, he'd known that Joey would never do that anyway. He'd known before that if Joey had a thing for Pacey, she wouldn't be aware of it. She was unconsciously running from Pacey but at the same time keeping others away too.
There were times he wished he didn't know Joey as well as he did.
"Me liking Pacey? Why... What... How? We… we bicker constantly!"
"Exactly! You bicker constantly! Why? Why do you hate him so much, Joey? Why do you hate him and yet whenever he's in trouble you help him? And if he hates you so much why does he drive you to see your father! Spending four hours on the road with you! Alone! I thought you couldn't stand the sights of each other!"
It all made such sense that it hurt. He hated sounding like a jealous boyfriend. People were staring at him and he was making a scene but he didn't care anymore.
He wanted her to protest but instead for a second a look crossed her face. A look of pure fear and astonishment. And even if a second later the look was gone and she opened her mouth to protest, he had seen it.
He had seen enough.
Joey never thought she could like Pacey but she did. And of all people to make her see that, it had to be him.
He just turned around and left her dumbfounded.
Pacey couldn't help himself. He had to go see her one last time. Their whole history of illegal sex was too much to give up on just like that. And it had been more than just sex. He liked her. He liked the way she made him feel, and not just the fact that she turned him on. The first woman to see him. Really see him. The first woman to want him. The only woman to want him.
He couldn't give up on that.
He stood there watching her for a while before coming up with something to say.
"So I looked up this Pinter guy. Harold, playwright, the king of subtext. You say one thing but you mean another. We're big on that here in Capeside"
So true and so sad.
Tamara laughed softly.
"Yes, I know"
"Do you think it's possible for us to have a moment without all the subtext?"
He was tired of hiding the way he felt. He was tired of wearing a mask. He was tired of being a joke and pretending like he didn't have a care in the world.
"Uh, I don't know, Pacey. Words have always gotten us into so much trouble"
"Yeah, well, that's not going to happen this time. I bet you thought I came over to your house the other day to pour out my wounded heart to you, to confess just how much I miss you, and to tell you that seeing you the other day brought back all the old feelings. But, really, I'm fine. You know, I keep thinking that I shouldn't be over this, but I am. You know, sexually, we were pretty good together, but in all other respects, we were on 2 different planets, and that's what I came to tell you the other day. I'm fine. I've grown up."
No I haven't! I'm still not saying what I'm feeling! I still want you! Don't leave me!his mind shouted desperately while his face remained stone cold.
"You have, I see that" Tamara said softly. She always had a way of being all motherly and yet sexy at the same time. The way she looked at him. He felt like she was taking care of him. Mending his wounded soul.
"So..." he chuckled in a desperate attempt to mask the tears that were threatening to come out. "I guess this is it… the last good bye"
Don't let me go
"Good bye Pacey"
It fell on him like a rock. A hard rock. A rock that buried him underneath. She wanted him to go. He had to go. He took a couple of hesitant steps before deciding he couldn't leave.
To his surprise she had turned towards him too and the look on her face told him that she was just as hurt as he was. And now he most definitely couldn't leave.
The next thing he knew, he grabbed her hand and started kissing her like there was no tomorrow. And she was kissing him back. The familiarity of it all struck him and he couldn't think anymore. He lifted her in his arms and backed her against the wall.
"Pacey" she tried to say, but he wouldn't let her. He didn't want to let her go.
Joey stood backed up against the tree. She couldn't believe what was happening to her. This wasn't happening. She couldn't... it couldn't be true... Dawson was just blaming his insecurities on Pacey. It wasn't the first time he'd done that.
Dawson could be a really grudgy guy when things didn't go his way. Joey just sighed and stared at her sketchpad.
That's when he decided to make an entrance. She saw him coming closer and closer. He just stood there without saying anything.
"Dawson, we have to talk" she finally said.
"Yeah, if you explain what's going on. I want you to be honest to me, Joey. I deserve at least that"
He was in pain. She hated herself for putting him in that place. This was all her fault. Her non-commital nature. Her fear of reality. She had hurt her best friend.
"Dawson, you've been everything to me, and I have been your sidekick, your confidant, your other half for so long, and that's how our relationship works. And it's a nice place for you, but for me, it's scary because I realized that, aside from you, I don't have anything. My entire life is attached to you, Dawson."
He didn't get it. She could see it in his eyes that he didn't get it.
"I have spent my whole life trying to hang on to you and in the end I did the one thing I could think of. Because I felt Jen was tearing us apart and I realized that every girlfriend you'd have would do that I became the girlfriend. But now I think it's time I started to fight for myself. For what I want."
"...which is what, Joey?"
Joey sighed.
"Dawson, I care about you so much, but if I ever lost you, I would be standing here totally void of anything else in my life. I live in total fear of doing nothing, of going nowhere, and that is why I shut you out. Because if I can't have something to hold onto independently from you, then I don't have anything at all."
"Joey..."
"Dawson, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I can't be with you right now. I can't be with anyone not until I start to know myself until I love myself..."
"...and this has nothing to do with what I said earlier about Pacey?"
She didn't reply for a while.
"Dawson, if I like another guy, and I'm not saying I do that's just another sign to show we just can't be together right now"
Dawson bit his lip and said nothing.
"I'm sorry, Dawson."
"No, I'm sorry, Joey. You say I'm self absorbed. But this this is the best example of self absorption I can think of..."
"We're still gonna be friends, right?" Joey caught his arm as he was turning to leave.
"Sure, Joey. Whatever. Sure."
Pacey and Tamara were lying down on the floor of the warehouse, none of them actually saying anything.
Another classic Pinter moment, Pacey thought bitterly.
Sex never solved anything. Sometimes it brought even more trouble and confusion. This was one of those times.
He didn't know what to say. He didn't even know what he wanted to say anymore. He wanted her and he had her. In a way. It was never going to last, their relationship had always had the sword of Damocles hanging above their heads.
What now?
Just then someone stepped in.
"Tamara?"
It was Mitch Leery.
"Oh my God!" Tamara whispered, panicked. "I forgot he was coming by!"
"Mitch? Why is Mitch coming by?!" Pacey whispered back while Tamara was getting dressed in a hurry.
"He's my client. He wants to buy this warehouse... Get dressed already!"
Pacey grabbed his pants and put them on but didn't even manage to zip the zipper.
"Tamara?" Mitch's surprised voice spoke from right in front of them. "Pacey?!"
"Mr. Leery Hi!" Pacey said, zipping up his pants in a hurry. He looked at Tamara unsurely. She just threw a look towards the door and begged him to leave with her eyes.
Mitch seemed out of words.
"Pacey..."
Pacey grabbed his shirt. "I uh... have to go have some errands to run..." He said and left in a hurry passing by Mitch who still hadn't gotten his speech back.
On the way out he managed to put his shirt on.
He felt like such a coward. He should have stayed. He should have stayed and faced the problem, just like he did last time. So what if she told him to go? She had told him to go before but he had stayed! He should have stayed.
He didn't go back, though. It was too late. He just wanted to run and hide.
Now what?
He entered the Icehouse with a quick step and sat down at the counter to breathe.
This isn't happening
"Pacey?" Bessie came closer from behind the counter. "Are you ok?"
"I, uh... I need a… a Coke"
"Okay, coming right up... are you sure you're ok? Did you run all the way here? You want to talk to Joey?"
He didn't want to talk to anybody. He had just been caught with his pants off, literally. With his English teacher, no less. What could you say about that? Who would want to talk to you about something like that?
There's nothing to say.
Joey came to the counter hesitantly. She saw him staying there, confused and lost, and started to panic. Had Dawson talked to him too? Why was he there? Why was he breathing so heavily?
She placed the Coke in front of him but he didn't even notice her. He just stood there, head in his hands, breathing heavily. If she didn't know better she would say he was on the verge of crying. But Pacey didn't cry.
Dawson's words still screamed in her head. But it couldn't be true... This was Pacey. Her arch-enemy. The one she loved to hate
...and yet she never hated him. No matter how hard she claimed to she knew she didn't.
She returned to her blank sketchbook. She had a sketch to finish. A sketch she hadn't even started. She didn't know what to draw.
As she looked at Pacey, at his contorted face, his well-defined features, his confused expression, the way he stood there motionless, she started drawing him. A few lines, then the face, and at last the eyes. He didn't move, not even to drink the Coke in front of him.
Her first instinct as she finished was to rip out the page. But she couldn't. The drawing was alive in front of her. If she had to title her drawing she would call it Desperation. It was too good to rip.
As Pacey got up to leave, she stood there watching him as he got further and further away from her and she felt sad and pained. Pained because he was pained. Hurt because he hurt. And she didn't even know what had happened to him.
"Dawson?" Mitch entered his room unsurely. Dawson just stood on the bed trying to be calm about everything.
"Yes, dad" he said, absently.
"I just uh... I..."
Dawson finally looked at his father. He seemed troubled.
"Are you ok?"
There hadn't been many times to see his father like that.
"Did you have another fight with mum or something?"
"No... no-no... No."
Mitch sat on the bed next to Dawson.
"Remember the warehouse I was going to buy from your English teacher Tamara...?"
"Yes..." Dawson said unsurely.
"Well I went there this afternoon to seal the deal and I found her..."
No way.
"I found her with Pacey"
Oh dear God.
"...and they weren't in the most... um decent posture"
That's when Dawson remembered the conversation that had happened in the morning. Pacey still liked Tamara. For a second he chuckled at the irony.
"Son, did you know about this?"
"I knew they were involved at some point..."
"I knew she had left because of a student but I thought it was a rumour"
"Pacey declared it was a rumour because he didn't want her to be charged with statutory rape."
"Wow..."
"Yeah."
Dawson chuckled again.
"Wow"
Everything was messed up.