It's not like our friendship was complicated. It was easy. Until suddenly, it wasn't.

We had always had a dependable friendship. The boy down the creek, the girl from the wrong side of the creek, and the sheriff's son. A strange triangle that warped and changed shape as the years went on. Throw in some trusty sidekicks in the form of Jack and Jen and you've got an ensemble of Capeside teenage misfits, overthinking and overanalyzing their way through life.

But Pacey and I shared a secret.

He kissed me, not once, but twice and I kissed him back. And he bought me a wall, and he wanted me, needed me to ask him to stay.

I didn't.

I let him leave, and he sailed away from Capeside, away from me. When he came back, it was over. Done.

The triangle faded, Dawson never even knew it existed in the first place. He was too consumed by himself and his goals in life to really notice anything out of place at all. I hid it well, hid Pacey well. Dawson seemed to so much safer. Pacey was a wildcard that at fifteen I wasn't sure I wanted to play.

The triangle became a line, a line from myself to Dawson, and Pacey raged in the periphery, making his way through the girls at school, and then the girls at college. And I watched silently, wondering what I ever saw in him in the first place.

When college started we all moved to Boston and lived together until our degrees were complete. There was banter, always banter. Pacey liked to challenge me, fire me up in a way Dawson never did. So we played the constant word game, challenging each other. It was platonic. I'm sure it was nothing more to him. But slowly, gradually, I started to realize that I lived for that banter. I began to crave it. To crave him. His devious smirk, his dark eyes, his stare. But Dawson was there, and I was with Dawson.

We were soulmates.

That's what he liked to call it, anyway.

In the third year of college, Pacey started dating Audrey. But the banter didn't stop. Sometimes I wished it would. A brush of a finger, a nudge, legs touching while watching TV. It was my oxygen. If it meant anything to him, he certainly never gave it away.

Once, we had all poured into a cab, already drunk and headed for a club. It was Pacey's 21st Birthday. We were celebrating, in excess. Jen had encouraged me to 'let loose.' My skirt was too short, my heels too high. I could barely walk. Vodkas all around.

Another round.

Another round.

Audrey and I were dancing, hands high above our heads, grinding, swaying together in the darkness. My hips moved back and forth, following the music. I was feeling sexy, acting sexy.

Then, my eyes found his. He was watching us, hooded, intense. I realized he wasn't watching Audrey.

He was watching me.

I danced a little slower, moved my hips a little deeper. I pressed my legs together to try and dampen the ache. Audrey turned to me and mouthed "Bathroom," over the booming music and stumbled off the floor.

Pacey stood slowly and walked towards the dance floor. My heart started beating faster. I could feel the pulse in my neck. I didn't stop dancing. I couldn't stop moving. He approached from behind and wrapped his arms around me, resting his hands on my hip bones. We moved together. Back and forth, he turned his face into my neck and breathed, strained, into my ear, almost a groan. Guttural. My eyes involuntarily closed. He started grinding into my rear, I could feel him. All of him.

Hard.

I was filled with one feeling only. Want.

"You're killing me, Jo," he whispered, voice low. I could barely hear it above the music.

I grinned.

"You're always killing me," he breathed.

I wanted to turn around, to face him. But I couldn't. I couldn't look at those eyes. I didn't think I'd be able to stop myself, On a dancefloor, with Dawson at the bar and Audrey in the bathroom.

It continued to build.

We started to move, slowly, towards the back of the dancefloor, to the wall. Behind the crowd, away from the bar.

Hidden.

It's all a dance. We're just dancing I kept telling myself.

His hand put pressure on my hipbone and tried to turn me, turn me to face him.

"Look at me," his lips grazed my neck.

I shake my head.

"Please," he pressed himself into me, harder.

I tilted my head backward so I could reach his ear to speak, to tell him 'no', to tell him 'yes'? I don't even know. His eyes found mine.

I can't breathe.

"I can't," I shook my head again.

"But it's my birthday," he growled, almost pleading.

I turned, surrendering. His hands moved to my waist, tight. "Okay, but only because it's your birthday," feigning a shrug: those blue eyes, hooded, yearning. Boring into mine, I couldn't look away.

He ran his hand up my waist, light as a feather, dusting across my breasts and wrapped his palm around the base of my neck, his thumb gently caressed my collarbone. My head involuntarily tilted back.

I had lost all control. Crackles of electricity seemed to come from his fingertips, leaving goosebumps over my skin in their wake.

How can a touch feel like this? Never, have I ever felt a touch like this.

"Did you know," his lips were back at my ear, "there is only one thing I want for my birthday, only one thing I've ever wanted?" he hid his lips in my hair, gently kissing the base of my neck. Once, twice. His tongue traced towards my ear, warm.

I swallowed, hard.

I was dying, but coming alive at the same time.

I opened my eyes to see Audrey stagger back to the dancefloor, "Baby, you're DANCING!" she yelled and ran to Pacey, turning to grind against him, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards her as she danced between us.

I tried to dance. Tried to stay. Pacey's eyes turned dark. I couldn't look at him. It was over so quickly. Did it even happen? I excused myself and headed for the bar. Taking my place next to Dawson. He was talking to someone, at someone, oblivious. He was always so oblivious. I downed another vodka and put my forehead onto the bar.

For the rest of the night, for the taxi home, as we ate greasy food the next morning, Pacey wouldn't look at me. He wouldn't turn to me. Avoidance. I started to think I'd imagined it all, misread the situation, throwing myself at him. I was mortified. He withdrew.

And it was never spoken of again, written off in my mind as a drunken mistake. Emotions heightened by the vodka in my veins. We continued, uninterrupted as friends.

There were still occasional brushes of a finger, a nudge, legs touching while watching TV, and sometimes I even imagined them lingering longer than they used to.