THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - IN THE AIR TONIGHT

"I can feel it coming in the air tonight

Oh, Lord

And I´ve been waiting for this moment, for all my life"

PHIL COLLINS (From the album "Face Value" (1981))

Sent: April 3rd, 1999

From: ThatAbbyGirl

To: AGirlNamedJoey

Subject: Your dad.

Hi, Joey. I hope that you had brilliant trip to Euro Disneyland and no, I wasn´t at all jealous, that it wasn´t me going there with you, instead of that English girl, you´ve become such good friends with! Not at all (she said, very insincerely)!

The big news back here, as I´m guessing that Bessie has been regularly filling you in on, is that your dad will be paroled tomorrow. If you can give me any pointers on things, I could talk with him about, it would be helpful, considering that him and I have never said more than five words to one another before, and even that number could be on the high side! Bessie is clearly glad for him, as you would expect her to be, but I can also tell that him getting out of jail, is bringing back a lot of hurtful memories from his arrest, and the time leading up to it, that she´d rather have left in the past. When it comes to Bodie, it´s impossible to get more than a few words out of him, anytime I´ve brought your dad´s name up, so whether your old man gets welcomed back with open arms by everyone, feels very doubtful at this time.

I don´t want to worry you, when you´re far away across the Atlantic, and you´re unable to affect anything back here. I´m just looking for a bit of guidance, that´s all.

Hoping that you´re (still) having fun!

Abby.

Sent: April 3rd, 1999

From: AGirlNamedJoey

To: ThatAbbyGirl

Subject: My dad.

Hi, Abby. First of all, our day at Euro Disneyland, while kind of expensive, was nothing short of awesome! By the time it became evening, and we had to head home though, I´d already had enough adrenaline rushes that day, to last me at least the next five years!

Yeah, Bessie has already warned me, that my old man being let out of the slammer. I almost don´t want to write it here, but right at this time, I don´t mind being over a thousand miles away from Capeside! Don´t get me wrong, my dad is a nice and friendly guy, but what he did to me and Bessie, by getting busted for selling dope, and leaving us practically high and dry on our own, can´t be easily forgotten. I´m sure, he knows that too.

I can only imagine that the tension inside of the house will be so thick, that you could cut it out in slices with a bread knife, but two easy ways to get him talking is to either mention some kind of food or, if you know anything about football (or American Football, as they call it over here) and in particular, his favorite team, the New England Patriots, they´re usually one of his favorite things to talk about.

I wouldn´t mention jail at all, or ask into what it´s like in there, though. I´m keeping my fingers crossed for all of you, but my sixth sense, mixed with my knowledge of my dad´s past, tells me that him coming back won´t be as smooth of a transition, as we´re all desperately hoping, it will be.

Good luck! (I have a feeling, that you´ll probably need it!)

Joey

If you had to choose one word, that best described Abby´s life, it would be turmoil. Just a few weeks earlier, when she was dancing with her girlfriend, on that magical evening at the school dance, she´d been able to push all of the things, she knew would be coming for her, into the back of her mind. For that handful hours, it had almost felt like there was only the two of them in the world, and whereas she´d always felt like somewhat of an outcast, compared to her classmates, for that one evening, she´d been exactly like every other fifteen-year-old girl, who´s in love up to both ears with their first "Special Someone", and just wants to enjoy them, for all they´re worth. That her "Special Someone" was another girl, had made them stand out like a sore thumb on a handful of occasions, but both of their sets of parents being cool with the two of them "Exploring Their Sexuality" on each other, helped a lot, when it came to ignoring the many dumb small remarks, they had to endure at school five days a week.

She´d known from the start, that her current living arrangement with Bessie, Bodie and Alexander wasn´t a permanent one. With Joey returning in June, after the French schoolyear had come to its end, it also meant that she´d surely want her old room and with that, also her very comfy bed, back. That much was understandable to her, and even if she would be missing having a room of her own and a nice bed to sleep on, she was also looking forward to hanging out with Joey again so much, that it made the positives far outweigh the negatives. However, there was also a wild card, if you will, that she most of the time hadn´t thought much about, even if she probably should have.

Joey and Bessie´s dad, whom Bessie had told her, had been granted parole and would be released from prison the day after, on what should have just been your standard, run of the mill Wednesday.

"Did I tell you that my mom is so broke, that she´s trying to sell the house, before she gets sent to the slammer?" she sadly told Jen.

They´d taken a short trip outside in between classes, to enjoy the lovely spring weather, that had thankfully replaced the chilling cold days of January, February and the first days of March, where you seriously had to consider if it was worth it first, before you ventured outside of any door!

"The news just keep getting better, with each passing day, huh?" Jen sarcastically asked her, while taking in a whiff of the smells outside, that all smelled a heck of a lot better than the mixed odors of arm pit sweat and dollar store perfume, that constantly filled the classrooms and hallways of their school!

"Tell me about it! That´s my childhood home, she´s just selling off, like it doesn´t mean the slightest thing to her! Not that it´s close to being all good memories, I have from living in that house, but we did have a nice handful of pleasant years all together there, before my parents couldn´t stand being married to one another anymore!"

"See it this way, Abby. Now, you can call yourself another victim of our unfairly Patriarchal, Ultra-Capitalist system! Sorry, I listened some of my old extremely angry, hyper left-wing chick metal CD´s yesterday, that I brought from New York and hadn´t listened to in months!"

"Here, I would have thought that you´d be listening to Mariah Carey´s greatest hits these days!" she teased Jen, who made an scrunchy face, just at the thought of it.

"No matter how deeply I´ll ever fall in love with someone, you´ll never find one of her albums on my record shelf! I leave that to Pacey´s older brother, who according to Pacey, owns more than enough of them, for the entire town!" Jen quipped, drawing a small smile from herself, that quickly faded, though.

"Speaking of Pacey, guess who´s the reason why I have to spend my day off from work today, sanding down a boat? I mean, could you possibly think of a more tedious way of spending your precious free time?"

"I´m not sure that Joey would agree!"

"Yeah, well, Joey also has other, far more exciting things to look forward to, when the two of them hang out together!"

"I can try talking to him, and see if I can´t convince him to let you off the hook?" Jen, in what usually would have been an enticing suggestion, offered.

"Thanks, but no thanks. We made a deal and I have a feeling that if I try to get out of it, there´s a good chance that it could come back and bite me in the Hiney later! Plus, I can´t help thinking, that spending an afternoon in Pacey´s very down to earth company, wouldn´t be the worst thing for me".

With Melissa´s parents having company over, and her girlfriend being expected by her folks to be there, it wasn´t as if there were a whole lot of other things, she could fill her itinerary for the day with, anyway. Except for catching up on some of her pretty far back-dated homework, but there was always the day after, to begin getting stuck into that!

"You have to tell her tonight, before this goes even further, than it already has" Jack had kept telling himself, throughout the better part of his school day. The "Her" in question being Jen, and the thing he had to tell her, being what he knew, was probably the last thing, she wanted to hear.

He could remember something similar happening to Tim, way back when he was still in high school. To make a very long story short, one day, he´d brought a new girlfriend named Fiona home, and like they always did in their small family, they´d welcomed her in with smiles and open arms. She seemed like a really nice girl too, even if she clearly also was the shy type, and most importantly, his older brother was obviously crushing hard on her. This was right up until, she admitted to him, that the only reason why she was dating him, was to divert the attention of her parents away from her "real" relationship, that wasn´t with a guy.

Jack could still remember feeling so upset on behalf on his brother, that he wanted to out her to everyone, and if it hadn´t been for the always far more cool-headed Tim explaining to him, that it wasn´t something, she should be blamed for, and much rather, a great reason to feel sorry for her, he just may have. Of course, back then, he´d only been a simple-minded eight-year-old kid, who was no doubt being far too over-protective towards a beloved older brother, that didn´t need him to be, but the fact alone that his younger and far more naïve self had even suggested it back then, still stuck to his memories all of these years later (and not in a welcome way).

Had he, all of those years ago, known in any way, that someday it would basically be himself walking in Fiona´s shoes, would he still have used those words? Probably not, and it only made him kick himself all that harder, when it came to how dumb and not the least, cowardly, he´d acted after the dance. If there had ever been a golden opportunity to just lay it all out there, cross his fingers and hope for the best, it had been the moments right after Jen had confessed her feelings to him, and what had he done? Like the people pleaser that he´d been raised to be, he´d kissed her and all of the time imagined, that it was Jared Leto, he was making out with! On a one to ten "Bad Scale" of things he´d done, this was the only clear-cut ten, that he´d easily admit to being guilty of, and that the "victim" to his "crime" was a girl, who in his own eyes deserved the best and nothing else, only made his conscience feel far guiltier, than it would have, had she just been a random one-night stand.

He´d already done the whole "dating a girl, so no one would suspect anything" schtick to death, when he lived in Providence. On that wonderful day, when he´d said his goodbyes to Kate and their romantic relationship, it had truly felt like an enormous weight was being lifted off his shoulders. By that point, he´d already been dreading and pondering for over a year, how to tell the truth about being gay to the girl, who´d not only been his girlfriend for over a year, but had also been the lucky girl, who´d taken his virginity (just like he´d taken hers that day).

Just as importantly, he also had to avoid word of himself not being straight as an arrow reaching his sister´s ears. Whether he liked it or not, he had to factor into everything that he told his then-GF, that Kate was also best friends with his twin sister, and while Andie had more than her share of lovable and praise-worthy qualities, keeping a secret had never been one of them, and he severely doubted, that it ever would be. When he often joked to her, that she would be the worst secret agent in the world, there was a hint of truth to it and he could all too easily imagine, that something as big as their son being into the idea of doing it with guys, as opposed to doing it with girls, would be dragged out of her by one of their parents, before a week had passed by.

He´d made a promise to himself, as they passed the Providence city limits sign for the last time, that he wouldn´t get himself romantically involved with anyone again, guy or girl, without firstly being honest with them. Breaking that promise only weighed harder on a guilty conscience, that was already plenty weighed down, as it was.

No one knew better than himself, how infinitely little it would take, to make it feel clear as day again. The only question now, was if he could work up the guts within himself, to actually get it done.

"So, Jen and Jack are planning on going on a hot date tonight, huh? I have to admit, I wasn´t sure if those two crazy kids would ever figure it out, without getting a helping hand here and there!" Pacey joked to Abby, while they were simultaneously busy with sanding down his "Over-Sized Rowboat", as she teasingly called it in front of him, whenever she got the chance to.

"From what she´s told me, it´s just a romantic walk down on the beach. But hey, it still counts, right!" she joked back to him, and they shared a small, but hearty laugh.

"I think, that´s what you call going on a date, when you have to follow a strict budget!"

"Something, I´m quickly becoming a master at, if I may say so myself! Who cares what you do anyway, as long as you´re with someone, you´re in love with and they love you back, the same way?"

"I couldn´t have said it better! We can call it a day, if you want to, Abby. I´m sure that you feel like, you´ve done enough sanding for one lifetime today!" he offered, before he dusted his pants and shirt off, from most of the saw dust and small pieces of paint chips, that had built up on them.

"It´s okay. I can stay another hour or two" she replied, getting her a knowing look from him.

"This wouldn´t have something to do with a certain someone, who´s getting paroled tomorrow?" he knowingly asked, and since there wasn´t any reason to try to lie her way out of it, she made a snap decision to open up.

"Who told you?"

"Bodie, the last time I was down at their restaurant, a few days ago. He didn´t seem more pleased over it, than you do".

"I´m not surprised. From what I can understand, the two of them have had a rocky relationship at best, practically since Bessie and Bodie started dating, all of those years ago. Don´t tell Bessie that I told you, but I don´t think she´s all that excited over the prospects of living with him again. Until he can find a place of his own however, it´s how it has to be. Meanwhile, our house is already so full of tension, that even Alexander must be picking up on it, with how fuzzy, compared to his usual rather easy-going nature, that he´s been acting these past weeks or so".

"Speaking of the house, doesn´t Joey and Bessie´s dad still technically own it?"

"I have to plead the fifth on that one, on account of not having the slightest clue whatsoever!" she told him honestly, before blowing some dust off the part of the keel, she´d been working on and looking it over. To be perfectly honest, she didn´t know how far he expected her to sand it down, but it looked fine enough for her, as it was now.

Shortly afterwards, they called time on their project, seeing as Pacey wanted to grab a much-needed shower before dinner. She ended up staying, and actually enjoyed herself quite a lot in the company of Pacey and his very kind mom, even if the dinner itself wasn´t anything to write home about. As an unexpected bonus, Pacey (who´d finally gotten his driver´s license a few days earlier and was eager to start using it in practice) gentlemanly offered to drive her home, in his mom´s car.

"Should we take the longer and more scenic route, or just the fastest one?" he asked her, as he went through all of the in-grown routines, that most young people, who´ve just gotten their driver´s license for the first time, are prone to do.

"We aren´t in any hurry, are we?" she rhetorically asked back.

"The scenic route, it is!" he gleefully said, just as he turned the key, and the car engine began to spring to life.

To start off their little drive with, they mostly small-talked about school, as well as things involving their other friends, who weren´t named Jen Lindley or Jack McPhee. With the days starting to become longer, it was still only dusk, when he drove her home, giving her a chance to look out of the window at the houses, as they passed them by. This was when she saw something, she simply had to point out to him!

"There´s a couple doing it up against the window!" she loudly exclaimed, like it was the greatest thing, she´d ever seen!

"For real? Where?" he curiously asked her, as he quickly pulled up to the curb, to get a look at it for himself.

"Right there! You can see the girl´s bare ass and everything, bumping up against it!" she excitedly explained, before pointing the house in question out to him. When she did though, all he did was let out a small laugh.

"To each their own, I guess!" he dryly joked, before putting the car into gear again. "We should give them their privacy, even if it probably isn´t their biggest concern right at this moment!"

As he began to drive off however, Abby caught a glimpse of something, that he didn´t: The face of one of the participants in this "showing of affection", they´d just been eyewitnesses to.

To her complete and total shock, it was clearly Dawson. Meaning that the bare tushy, she´d just gotten a pretty decent gawk at, could only have been Mary-Beth´s.

After spending the post-school part of his afternoon going over every possible way, he could come out to Jen and all of the possible ways, she could react to it, he´d eaten dinner with his mom and Andie, where he hadn´t said much. Not that he needed to, since Andie had gotten what she thought was the idea of a lifetime for the next school year´s science fair, some concoction that would undeniably prove something, when it came to the depletion of the ozone layer. He was only quarter listening at the most, so her explanation of what it would become, mostly went in through one ear and out the other, while he was busy doing some important planning of his own. After dinner, he´d grabbed a quick shower and brushed his teeth, before he left for his "date" with Jen.

They´d agreed to meet down at the Ice House at seven-thirty, and from there, taking a moonlight walk down by the beach. To this end, it seemed like the moon was even agreeing with them, since it was close to full on this evening and with the temperatures having reached the pleasant range, you couldn´t say that it wasn´t a perfect evening for a romantic stroll.

After they´d exchanged hugs and pleasantries, they started the short walk down there and he was relieved to see, that there didn´t look to be all that many others, who´d gotten the same idea, they had. Doing this would be hard enough, without the chance of being interrupted mid-way through it, so the fewer people they saw, the better. After the only ones, they´d met for a handful of minutes had been a pair of random dog walkers, none of whom paid any attention to them, it was becoming close to showtime and this time, it had to be for real!

"The moon is really beautiful tonight, don´t you think?" Jen asked quietly, as she smiled sweetly at him.

"Yeah, I guess so" was all, he could think of answering.

"You can never see it this clearly, when you live on Manhattan. Until I moved here, it was one of those things, I´d never thought of and now, I really like that I can look up at it. I´m sorry! I´m rambling here! I always do it, when I get nervous!" she cutely told him, as she looked him deeply into the eyes with eyes of her own, that were full of sheer infatuation.

"It would be so easy to keep on fooling her", he found himself thinking for a fleeting moment, before forcing those thoughts out of his head again. He had to do this now, before this poor girl fell in love with himself, and it would truly become soul crushing for her, when the truth about his homosexuality would eventually have to be revealed!

"Jen, there´s something, I have to tell you. I should have done it sooner, but I guess, telling it now is better than not telling you at all" he began, getting an understanding facial expression in return from her.

"You can tell me anything. If it helps, whatever it is, I´ve probably done something ten times worse!" she quipped in return.

Would she still be joking a few minutes from then, when he´d essentially just dumped her and admitted, that he´d been playing her for a fool? He sincerely doubted it.

"I´m a ... I mean, that´s to say that I´m ... a virgin, okay?" he almost stutteringly told her, and immediately, a feeling of self-loathing began to fill him. "It´s just that I know, you´ve tried all of this stuff and ..."

"It´s okay, Jack!" she smilingly answered him. "Wow, for a moment there, you had me worried, that you were going to break up with me!"

"Why would I do that, when I´m with the only girl, I can see myself with?" he told her with what was the fakest of smiles, even if parts of what he said to her would have surely been true, if he´d been straight! In any case, his lie/compliment made her practically glow with joy, so there was that tiny thing to say for it.

"I can´t say that I´m not surprised, but you being a virgin doesn´t have to come between us! I thought by now, you would have known me better, than to think that it could!" she half-joked, before they shared a small kiss, where he tried to imagine it being Markus Schenkenberg´s lips, his own were pressed up against. Which, to some extent, worked for him.

"I like you a lot, Jen, but you´ve tried all of this wild and crazy sex-stuff, that I´ve only heard about! You can´t blame a guy, for thinking his thoughts now and then about it" he said to her, again walking a fine line between lying his butt off and relaying to her some of the concerns, that he´d legitimately had, when it came to dating a girl with her kind of past.

"Jack, I´m being completely honest with you, when I say that I wish, I hadn´t done by far the most of that stuff. They were the actions of a, thanks to how much her parents had horribly messed her mind up, love-starved and screwed up girl, who was kidding herself into thinking, that what those one-night hook-up´s gave her was real love, when all most of those guys did, was take advantage of how young and at times, incredibly naïve, she was. The good side to that, is that I already know, that isn´t who I want to be and I´m also not as ashamed of what I did, as most of those in my family seem to think, I should be. All I can assure you, is that anything and everything we do together, will be by miles more important to me, than anything I did back in NYC. And do you know why?" she asked him with a cute little wink of her eyelashes, like she hadn´t just made him feel even more sorry for her, with every word that had just come out of her mouth.

"I can´t say, that I do!" he replied with a lump in his throat, since he had gut feeling, what was coming next.

"Because none of those guys treated me anywhere near as good or were as healthy for my mental health to be with, as you are. To them, I was just another notch on their bedpost, but you´re so different from them, that it´s sometimes amazing to me, that through and through decent guys like you, are the same species, as they are! This is the first time in my life, where I can brag to my friends, that I´m in the kind of caring and loving relationship, I´ve always dreamt of being blessed enough to be in. It´s all thanks to you and as another first for me, I can´t help thinking that I´m falling in love with you".

"This is your final chance, you lousy excuse for a coward! She´s just admitted that she´s falling in love with you, which was precisely what you didn´t want to happen, so just say those two little words out loud! I´m gay!", he loathingly thought to himself, even if he already knew within himself, that his best window for coming clean to Jen, had already come and gone.

"I´m gay" should have been the words, he said. The only two that came out though, were "You are?"

"Definitely! Just between us, with how long it´s been since anyone has touched my naughty places, I´m basically starting out from zero again, just as much as you are!" she tried to ease his fears by saying. "If you don´t think it´s too personal to answer, how far have you gone with a girl? Are we talking under the bra, or under the panties?"

"I almost don´t want to tell you" He blurted out, although her asking him so openly, made another idea pop into his head. Not that it could be called a good idea as such, but in this particular situation, it just could work. For a short while, anyway.

"There are no right or wrong answers. You can tell me the truth and I promise that I won´t make fun of you".

"Second base" he answered her, lying his b-hind off in every sense of the word. He didn´t want to lie to Jen, more than he absolutely had to. On the other hand, if he told her that he´d gone all the way a couple of times with his long-time ex-girlfriend, she would likely be asking for the same thing before long. This way, he could at least buy himself some valuable time, before them not going all the way could become a real issue.

"We can work with that, no problem!" she reassured him. "And if we have to take it slow, that´s what we´ll do! I want to be in this relationship for the long haul, and if I have to wait a month or two, before we get to the really fun stuff, it just means I have that much longer, to look forward to it!".

"You´ll have to wait longer than a month!" he quickly said, knowing that he could use all of the time, he could buy himself, seeing as he´d now officially become Capeside´s biggest low-life coward! At least, when it came to local fifteen-year-old gay boys, who absolutely were guilty of as charged, when it came to leading wonderful girls like Jen on! Girls, who even in his own opinion deserved so much better, than to be played for fools by guys, they unknowingly had no romantic future with.

"I´ll wait three months, or four months, or even longer than that, if I have to! Maybe, if we reach a year, and we still haven´t done it yet, you might hear some gentle nagging on my side, but it´s still a long time until then!"

"Just be warned. I won´t be as experienced, when it comes to what girls like to have done to them, as those other guys were".

"Again, I don´t care! If you need some pointers, don´t hesitate to ask, okay? It safe to say, that thanks to lots of trial and error, I´ve become somewhat of an expert! She said, just now realizing that she´s outed herself as regular masturbator, to her brand-new boyfriend!" she quite adorably quipped, and for the first time in several minutes, it drew an honest smile from him.

"That´s okay, Jen. It takes one to know one, isn´t that what they say?" he quipped back and seconds later, the two of them were locked in a tight and warm embrace.

Of course, what Jen wasn´t aware of, was that they probably thought about a lot of the same guys, whenever it was self-pleasuring time.

END OF CHAPTER FORTY-ONE