If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
Hannah is just coming in from her morning run, exhausted when she notices Peter walking out of the lodge.
"Hey, I'm glad I caught you. Listen Dawson's at 2 month today. I could sit down with him if you want, but if you've got time."
"No, I can do it" Peter says with a sigh and heads in to he lodge where the cliffhangers are hanging out.
"Hey Dawson, Can I talk to you for a minute?"
Dawson walks over to Peter and go to a more seclude area where no one is around.
"Have a seat" Peter says, and they sit across each other with a small table chess in between them. "I just want to let you know that I think you've come a long way in 8 weeks. And I'm very proud of you."
Dawson smiles brightly and sits up tall.
Peter continues "You know that right? And now you've got to work on those grades man. You're not a newbie anymore. No more getting by without doing the work."
Dawson's looks away for a spilt second, as if he's been caught. His nervous have made him feel like his stomach is in his chest.
"You got me? Listen Dawson, I've seen you on the trail doing things you never thought you could do before"
"Yea, but that's different." He says shaking his head back and forth, already doubting himself before he's even started.
"No, we're tested everyday. Every one of us. Sometimes you just got to dig deep."
Dawson slowly looks up at Peter.
"I'll see you later." Peter says as he stands up and pats Dawson's shoulder before walking away. Dawson slumps down even further into his chair and leans his head back, letting out a big sigh as he thinks about his struggles.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Later that day the cliffhangers are in history class with Jeff.
"The British army had better weapons, more soldiers….So why did we win the Revlotuion?" He asks the class.
"We were hunters. We knew how to fight." Kat answers
"Good, but that only helped so much. England was the biggest military power in the world. How did we ever break away?" Silence "Anyone?" Jeff looks around. "Dawson?"
"I don't know" Dawson shrugs with honesty
"Come on, impress me." Jeff challenges.
"Maybe because the French came in and saved our butts. And King George, well he was like bad and stuff. That's why."
"Correct Dawson." Jeff says and the bell rings, dismissing the class.
"Alright, PSAT tests on Thursday and don't freak out…you'll all do great. Leave your reports on the table." He says as most of the class has gather their things but Dawson still hasn't gotten up from his seat.
He notices that most of his peers are gone, so he trys to quickly gather his things and sneak out while Kat stopped to talk to Jeff.
"Dawson, hold on…." Dawson stops and slowly turns around.
"No paper?" Jeff asks
"No, I didn't do it." He says quietly as he turns to continue leaving the class.
"Whoa, look around, you're not in your old school anymore. I don't want you ignoring your school work, I want your paper. I want 500 words by Friday."
"Look, I know all this stuff, all right. I don't need to write down in a paper."
"This isn't up for discussion Dawson. You'll have time to work on it after PSATs."
"I'm not coming in to take those tests!" Dawson replies angrily
"Why not" Jeff says more like a statement than a question.
"Just don't worry about it" Dawson says as he turns and walks out of the classroom.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the Cafeteria Jack has just grabbed his food tray and is walking over to sit by Joey. Pacey is still standing in the food line with Andie right behind him. She's playfully touching his chest, smiling up at him.
"Come on, not now" Pacey tells her, pulling her hands off his chest. "I don't want to get put on restriction again, all right."
"Don't worry, nobody's going to notice anything." She says leaning her head on his chest as he stands awkwardly with her.
Joey just looks down at her food, and starts randomly stabbing her fork on her salad. "I don't know who she's kidding. She's so wrong for him. It's like temporary insanity." She tells Jack as he looks over to see what she's staring at.
"Well, I mean, I think he's crazy. You are much smarter than she is."
"Smart?" Joey says with a small half smile.
"Yea" He assures her.
"Juilette!" Hannah calls out as she's walked into the cafeteria to witness Andie cuddling up to Pacey in the middle of the food. She walks over to Andie, so no one else can hear. "After dinner, you're on room restriction, until last light, understand?" Andie doesn't directly reply, she just grabs her food tray, looks down and walks over to sit at the table.
Dawson finally walks into the cafeteria with Jeff tailing right behind him.
"Don't push me." Dawson says
"Problem Dawson?" Hannah asks, clearly witness the tension Dawson has within himself.
"Dawson decided he wanted to be on dish washing duty tonight." Jeff tells her.
"Alright go on, 15 minutes to eat dinner, then hit the scrubs." Dawson nods and goes to get his dinner.
"I thought we finally got through to him" Hannah says
"He still isn't doing his work" Jeff replies, looking back over at Dawson. "I don't know" he continues "I think there's something going on."
"Did you ever go over his public school records?"
"Yea, last year he was in a class with 36 kids. Poor teacher barely knew who he was, let alone any possible learning differences."
Back at the table
"This just isn't like…..food" Pacey complains, staring at the meat on his fork.
"Yea….The Turkey Terazini here is always problematic." Jack, whose sitting next to him, replies
"It's horrible." Andie chimes in. She's sitting across the boys.
"You're just going to toss it up anyhow…" Joey tells her, from her spot at the head of the table.
"That just means she'll have to taste it twice." Jack says as Andie makes a snarky face at him.
"I'm telling you guys, this test….why are they making us take a test with the word practice in front of it." Dawson complains to the guys, as he puts his tray down to sit right next to Andie.
"It's prep for the SATs….for College." Andie tells him
"I'm not going to College." Dawson replies quickly
"Woah Anger Management Dawson."
"I wasn't even talking to you Andie." He says so frustrated now that he just gets up to leave without ever taking a bite of his food.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The next day Jack and Pacey are out on the patio behind the cafeteria, playing a game of hoops, while Dawson is sitting on a bench nearby. He's tying his shoes when Andie walks over "Guess what time it is?" She says in her usual perky tone.
"Payback time?" he asks
"Wrong! It's time for you to apologize." She says in a gentle tone now. "…..to me?"
"Don't be so sensitive Andie, you know you take worse from Joey every day."
"Joey's cold. You're not. You can't fool me Dawson, I'm the best actress here. Underneath that dreamer exterior is a real down to earth guy. But don't worry, I won't tell. And now's the part where you tell me what's bugging you."
"No, now's the part where you stop worrying about me."
"I'm trying to be a friend here."
"Don't, just stop trying to get in my head." He says as he gets up to join the guys in the game.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Meanwhile back in the lodge Hannah and Jeff are discussing Dawson and how to deal with his learning differences.
"I've got to get him to put pencil to paper if I'm going to confirm what's going on." Jeff tells her.
"So, umm, are you thinking we're looking at Dyslexia?"
"Almost certainly. He's just scared and unsure right now. I don't want to aggravate him with any specific testing"
Later that afternoon Dawson is in the boys cabin, just sitting on his bed with his journal when Andie walks in holding some books.
"Dawson? What are you writing?"
"Nothing" He replies quickly and shuts his journal and pushes it under his bed.
"It's time for the tests."
"Just go ahead and go." He waves her off but she doesn't budge.
"You have to take it Dawson." She walks over to his bed and sits down right next to him
"Why? It's just another way for them to tell him how dumb I am."
"I always thought you were the smart one. You know everything in class." Andie encourages him
"That's different." He says shaking his head. "It's different writing it down. I mean I failed every test they ever make me take."
"You just have to concentrate and try harder."
"You don't get it." He says.
"What don't I get? Tell me, what don't I get?"
"I can't even read the test." He looks over at her "Everything I read, it's all mixed up. It's backwards. The words, they uh, they don't make sense. You know. All they ever told me was try harder. You're not trying hard enough." His voice slightly cracking as he's trying not to let his emotions get the best of him.
"So you've got a problem, everyone here's got a problem. Me for instance, I've got bulmia."
"My problems got a name too. It's called stupid." She grabs his notepad from his nightstand.
"Here, sign your name."
"Nah."
"Come on" she says and he artistically scribbles his name, like a graffiti artist.
"It's beautiful." She tells him looking him in the eyes.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Later that day the cliff hangers are in the classroom taking their placements tests and Dawson looks around the room noticing how much other people have gotten done when he can barely even get started. He keeps looking from his paper to Andie to the clock and back to the paper. His frustration continues to grow deep as he just opens his blue book and scribbles across it in big letters then gets up and runs out of the class room.
"Dawson?" Andie calls after him and Jeff walks to the door, "Dawson, where are you going?" He calls out to him but he's already gone. Jeff walks over to his spot on the table and looks at what he wrote down and sees that it's just a bunch of squiggly lines.
As Dawson walks outside the class room he sees Mike, another student at Horizon, and his friends shooting hoops. Mike approaches him first and says "Hey, man did you finish your test already?"
"How about you mind your own business" Dawson snaps back.
"Look I'm just tying to help, what's your problem."
"You." He says and he push Mike.
"Oh now you want to fight? Bring it on"
Dawson just growls and runs straight into him and knocks him to the ground and they start fighting which doesn't last long as they both get caught and are pulled apart by the consolers and sentenced to immediately go clean the bathroom floors on their hands and knees with toothbrushes.
"This isn't over, I want you where there aren't any counselors to save your butt." Mike tells him in a low whisper so that Hannah won't hear.
"Bring it on." Dawson replies and they continue scrubbing in silence until they finish the bathroom and move on to their next room to clean.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Its dinner time and the group is entering the cafeteria to get there dinner. Jack and Pacey walk past Dawson as they find a table to eat at, but they notice that Dawson is mopping the floors still serving his punishment for walking out of the exam.
"What's up with Dawson? Andie, what'd he say to you?" Pacey asks.
Andie just stays silent
"Andrea?"
"Nothing, he's just... He's just thinking about some things." She tells them.
"Hey, what's up with you, huh?" He asks noticing her distance lately.
"Nothing." She says just as Joey walks over to them.
"Later at the lake. It's all set." Joey says.
"What's all set?" Pacey asks.
"They're calling each other out." She tells him.
"But Hannah's on duty. We could get into trouble." Jack says.
"Look, she's got the whole campus to cover. I don't care about you guys. I'm going to be there." Joey tells the boys and walks away from the group.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
After they finish cleaning up their trays and stuff from dinner, Andie sneaks away and goes into the boys dorm knowing no one is in there. She walks over to Dawsons bed and pulls out the notebook he hid from her earlier. She opens it and sees some scene sketches and some sentences of the descriptions of the scenes that he tried to write but couldn't. "Oh, my god, he really can't write" she says to herself and goes and takes it to Jeff.
Jeff later calls Dawson to the class room for a meeting. They sit down at the table and Jeff slides Dawson back his notebook.
"You went through my stuff? He asks with anger in his voice.
"No, it was found by a student." Dawson sighs.
"Yeah, and her name's Andie."
"Dawson, look, I've been through your records, talked to your parents, talked to every teacher I could. I think we've pulled this together."
"Pulled what together?" Confused by what they are trying to tell him.
"We believe you have a learning difference called dyslexia."
"Yeah?"
"And it's very common, Dawson. Very common. Your brain just works a little differently than others, turns things around, backwards. Sound right?"
"So I'm stupid. I don't see things like everyone else." He says and looks down, ashamed with himself.
"No, you don't. As it happens, most dyslexics are smart, really smart - way above normal, often excelling in visual arts. But when it comes to reading and writing that's where they have the trouble. This is our fault, Dawson, for not catching it sooner. Problems like this can slip by for years in school. But we've seen it before. We should have noticed sooner. I apologize, Dawson. I do. Things are going to start getting better. We know how to deal with it. I promise."
When he finally walks out of the classroom of the lodge he see Andie waiting in the lounge. When she hears him walking she jumps up off the couch and tries to meet him but he just puts his arms up.
"Oh, back off."
"I was trying to help. You needed it."
"I don't need anything from you, all right?"
"I am so sick of you. You're not a little kid anymore. You've got some problems, and if you don't deal with them, you think they're going to get any better? These people want to help. They're here to help. Don't be so stupid."
"Shut up." He tells annoyed with her enough already.
"Yeah, you're stupid. If you can't see when people really care about you, you really are stupid." he just looks at her and continues to walk away and make his way to the woods.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
The other cliffhangers are already walking in the woods towards the lake looking for the fight that's supposed to happen between Mike and Dawson. Andie finally catches up to them "Where are they?" she says and Jack spots them standing next to the lake and points them out to everyone.
"Ready?" Mike asks Dawson.
"I'm sorry" he tells Mike with sincerity in his voice, shocking Mike.
"Say again?" Mike says confused at what is going on.
"I was a jerk... And I'm sorry." He tells him
"You think that's good enough?"
"Hey, it's all I got."
Mike looks back and sees that they have an audience and doesn't want to look like a fool. He turns back to Dawson and desperately tells him "You've got to give me something."
"One shot. I got that coming." Dawson says. Mike just pushes Dawson backwards and he falls into the water.
Pacey sees what happened and gets upset at Mike. "I'm going to kill him." Pacey says and as he starts walking over to him with the rest of the gang following.
Dawson pulls himself out of the water laughing "All right. That's your shot." Mike extends his arm to help pull him out, but Dawson pulls him towards him and Mike too falls into the water laughing.
"What, it didn't even go one round?" Joey says disappointed that there wasn't a real fight.
"Yeah." Pacey says.
"That looks like fun." Joey tells them as she starts walking towards to lake "Come on in!" Dawson yells out to them. They all start jumping in and Pacey walks over to grab the rope that tied to a tree to swing from. "You in?" he says to Andie but she just shakes her head no and sits on the ground. He notices' her distance with him and he's starting to get bored with her and not really caring that she likes to spend with Dawson.
Hannah has finally found the kids after running around the school looking for them and she spots Peter standing further back in the woods watching them play. "Peter, what are you doing?" Hannah asks. "Ah, summer in the mountains. Nothing like it, huh? Makes you feel young." "Peter, this is crazy. We can't-" "No, no, give them a minute. I mean, even our kids need to be kids sometimes. And of course tomorrow, they'll chop enough wood to build an ark."
Dawson is out of the water now and walks over to Andie and has a seat next to her: "You coming?" He asks her "No, I look like a cow when Im wet." "
Ah, you look fine. You look perfect, Andie." She looks at him and smiles but shakes her head no.
"Yeah, I guess we all got our problems, huh?" Dawson says.
"Sorry about your notebook. It was wrong." Andie tells him
"Nah, you did the right thing. You know, I got a... I got a disorder. I can't remember the name but, uh, it's real. I owe you."
"You don't have to." she says and bites her look as she looks him up and down, and with that he leans in and kisses her. He pulls away to see her reaction but when she seems okay he goes back in for more and they start making out. What they don't know is that Joey has looked over from the water and sees what they're doing and is shocked that Andie would do that to Pacey.
Xxxxxxxxxx
The next day the cliffhangers are all doing their own individual assignments for swimming in the lake unsupervised. Dawson walks out of the kitchen and goes to sit on top of a picnic table, just as Andie walk over holding some books.
"Hey, you on kitchen?" She asks as she takes a seat next to him.
"Yea, until like the second coming. What did you get?"
"Woodshed. Um, " She pauses and looks down at the books that are now in her lap. "Jeff got some books for you. Said it was a good place to start."
Dawson just sighs and looks away. While he's happy to now know why he's been struggling, he's not sure that he's completely ready to face this.
"He said maybe I could help, if you wanted."
"It's okay, I'm not a big fan of books you know."
"He said these would be good for you. Here, read it to me."
"No" He says with a small chuckle because he's embarrassed.
"Come on, you've got to start somewhere. It's just me, right?" He looks over at her and fines her staring equally into his eyes. They look at each other for just a few moments before he breaks the eye contact and grabs the book from her hand to start reading to her. She just smiles and looks at him in awe for his courage to tackle his fear.