THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - MISSING YOU

"Every time I think of you

I always catch my breath

And I'm still standing here

And you're miles away"

JOHN WAITE (From the album "No Brakes" (1984))

Sent: January 8th, 1999

From: Spielberg's Disciple

To: A Girl Named Joey

Subject: Just checking up.

Hi, Joey. If it wasn't already clear from my (brand-new) e-mail address, this is Dawson writing to you. How did your flight go and how have your first days in France been? I can't say that I don't think about you a lot or sometimes worry, if you're lonely over there. I sincerely hope that you aren't, have already started to feel like you're fitting in and perhaps even, have made a friend or two. Living in a Capeside without you in it, is like being stuck all of the time in an episode of "The Twilight Zone" and not one of the best ones either, those that you want to re-watch over and over again.

Pacey and I had a little "Movie Night Homage" at work to you yesterday, where we watched a few of your old favorites and believe it or not, I caught him fighting the tears over how much, he misses holding and kissing you. You know Pacey, as well as I do and why he wouldn't tell anyone in so many words, but I can honestly say that I've never seen him this broken up over anything before. The first days, he looked to be more or less okay, but it's obviously very tough on him and as his oldest friend, it's tough on me as well, to see him looking so down nearly all of the time. We're trying to band around him as much as we can, but we don't see him smiling nearly to the same degree, that he usually does. I'm sure that an e-mail from you will help to cheer him up immensely, if nothing else to be reminded of how much you love and care for him.

It should go without saying, but I miss you too and one of my favorite pastimes has become thinking back to the fun times we had as kids, when our small world still felt like it was simple and the long summers lasted for what felt like, it was an eternity. You shouldn't worry about me, though and I'd say that I'm doing pretty well, all things considered. My parents wanted me to say hi from them too, so now I've hereby done that.

Hoping that you've having fun and enjoying life in France to the fullest!

Dawson.

Sent: January 8th, 1999

From: A Girl Named Joey

To: Spielberg's Disciple

Subject: re: Just checking up.

Hi, Dawson! It's nice to hear that you're doing "pretty good" and be sure to say hi back to your parents from me. My flight was pretty uneventful and to my luck, the in-flight movies weren't all that bad either, so the hours flew by in no time. My new "home city" is called Toulouse and is roughly two and a half times the size of Boston (which, as you already know, is the only big city I'd ever been to, before this little adventure, I'm on now). I won't lie and say that it hasn't been a huge change for me, living in a tightly packed urban area, where everyone is stuffed together in such a small amount of space, when you're used to having as much breathing room around you, as we have back home in Capeside. There are plenty of nice parks here, but I miss having something resembling wild nature close to me all of the time.

I've somehow (and yes, I'm aware that it's a minor miracle!) managed to make my first friend already and we've hung out almost every day after school, since we first talked on my first school day here. Her name is Emma, she's our age, from England, totally awesome and like me, she's brand-new here and is trying to get used to living "The French Way". We have so much in common, that sometimes I can't help thinking if it's some higher power, that's made it so that we would end up meeting this way.

I'm sorry to hear (although, not all that surprised), that it's so hard for Pacey being without me. I miss him like crazy every hour of every day, so tell him to keep an eye out for an e-mail from me, that I'll send right after I've sent this one. Since working on computers aren't exactly his specialty, you might have to help him out a little, at least the first time or two. Whatever little things you can do to cheer that poor boy up, you know that you'll have my utmost appreciation for it.

We'll speak again soon!

Joey.

The first time Dawson heard the expression "You don't know what you've got, until it's gone" had been a handful of years earlier and except for thinking "Duh!" to himself, he hadn't paid it much mind. Now, where he was without Joey in his life, he kept hearing in his head, like an annoying song, that he couldn't stop from playing on repeat. Pacey was no doubt doing worse than he was, not that it was much in the way of consolation, but it helped in getting himself to feel far less sorry for himself, to see Pacey's moping face far more, than he would have liked to.

"What do think, Joey's doing now?" Pacey asked him, while they were unpacking boxes filled with the latest video releases at "Screen Time".

"Since it's still the middle of the morning, where she is, I'm guessing that she's at school" he answered, and it made Pacey sigh to himself.

"Doesn't knowing that make you feel even further separated from her emotionally, than you already physically are? I know that it does for me" Pacey asked sadly.

"A little. Then again, I don't know if I could miss her more, than I already am" Dawson replied truthfully.

"Trust me, you could! How am I supposed to get through six more months of this, without losing my mind or ..." Pacey said, before stopping himself from saying more.

"Or what?"

"Finding someone to take her place. I knew it would be tough being without her, but I guess, I never thought it would be this close to impossible to deal with. It's like a vital part of me isn't there and I can't do anything to replace it. You know that I'd never do anything to hurt Joey, if there's any way, I can avoid it and if was ever to, God forbid it, cheat on her, I'd feel like the worst guy in the world afterwards. Still ..."

"You miss having her here so much, that you're in danger of it. For the record and saying this as perhaps the one, who knows you better than anyone does, I don't think you could bring yourself to do it, should it come down to that" he finished his friend's sentence. "Maybe, what you're truly missing is just someone to be there for and if you can find that, you'll be alright. Have you considered that?"

"It could be true, I suppose. The only question is: who could that be?" Pacey asked rhetorically, just as the bell rang and a customer came into the store. Turning around, they saw Andie, that constantly ultra-cheerful and super-perky new girl at school, coming towards them with some tapes, she was looking to return. Pacey (in a huge contrast to how he usually acted, when any other customer came into the store) was quick to spring to action and seeing her brought a smile out of his old pal, even if it only was a small one.

"Returning some tapes, McPhee?" Pacey asked Andie, who was one big smile, like she always was, whenever she got the chance to talk to him.

"You should know which ones it was. They were all chosen based on your suggestions, after all" Andie cheerfully replied, as she handed them to Pacey, who right away started scanning them back into their system.

"Since you clearly haven't come in here to complain, I'm guessing that they were to your liking?" Pacey asked and if Dawson hadn't known better, he could swear that the two of them were in the middle of playing some kind of mating game with one another.

"Every one of them! What can I say, Pacey? You already know what I like and don't like!" Andie chirped back and perhaps for the first time since Joey had skipped town, Pacey looked like he was genuinely glad to be told something.

"As if you make it all that hard to tell, Andie? If you need any replacements for these, you'll always know who to ask".

"Not today, I'm afraid. I have a big pile of homework to get through, so distractions aren't what I'm looking for! I'll be in here again tomorrow, don't you worry! Oh, hi Dawson! I almost hadn't seen you there!" Andie friendly said, finally noticing him.

"Hi there, Andie. How are you?" he asked, getting a big smile in return.

"Can't complain, not that I ever can! You?"

"Not doing too bad. Especially not now, where someone has finally managed to put a smile back on Pacey's face. It's kind of depressing, working with a guy who's looking like his dog just got run over, all of the time, if you didn't know!" he answered, while sending a teasing glance Pacey's way.

"Like you're a bundle of joy all the time, Dawson?" Pacey annoyedly asked back, with a "don't bring it up again" kind of facial expression to him.

"I am, more than you are, not that it's saying much these days! Thanks for cheering him up, Andie. He could really use more of it!"

"It's my pleasure, although I don't know what I'm doing different from what everyone else has tried. I should get going, my brother is waiting for me. See you guys tomorrow!" she smilingly said, before leaving the store.

"Why did you have to tell her that?" Pacey asked him, before getting back to work.

"Tell her what? That the only times I see you smiling these days, is when you're talking to Andie? Is there something going on there, I should know about?" he inquired, before getting a look of dismissal from Pacey in return.

"She's so positive all of the time, that it's humanly impossible not to be cheered up, when you talk to her. That's all that's going on, I assure you!" Pacey stated, ending their conversation on the topic in an instant.

In spite of what Pacey was trying to make him (and maybe also himself) believe, Dawson had a sneaking suspicion that if there hadn't been a Joey in the picture, it wouldn't have taken long for his old friend and Andie to become much more than "just friends".

"He has a girlfriend, you know?" Andie's brother Jack scolded her on the walk back to their house.

"She isn't here, is she?" she answered him back and could see, this wasn't the answer that her brother wanted to hear.

"Andie ..."

"I know what you'll say! That he's in love with her and I won't stand a chance with him. You just don't know him, like I do!" she replied, as if trying to make herself believe that any other scenario was the case. "He needs someone like me, just like ..."

"You need someone like him? I'm only trying to look out for you, like a brother should" Jack answered and she knew, he was telling the truth. Ever since they were little kids, he'd been her protector and the only one who always, with no exceptions, would put her needs ahead of his own.

"If she cared as much about him, as she should with an awesome boyfriend like him, do you think she'd be on the other side of the world right now? She doesn't deserve having a boyfriend like him, if she's ready to leave him here, all by himself!"

"How is that fair of you to say, when you haven't met her? Either way, from what I've found out from talking to him, it doesn't seem to me like he's anything close to the cheating type. What's more than that, do you really want to be known as "the other girl"? Jack said, letting her know precisely how he felt on the subject.

"Sometimes in this world, it's a case of "Finder's keepers, loser's weepers"! There's bound to be plenty of other girls, who'll try to take advantage of the situation, so why shouldn't I?"

"Because I know you far too well, to know that it isn't who you are".

"You don't know everything about me, Jack! I could have a deeply hidden dark side, you know about!"

"No, you don't, Andie! Just for argument's sake, let's say that everything works out like you want it to and Pacey dumps his girlfriend to be with you. I'll bet you a million bucks, that when she comes home and you'll have to face the girl, whose love of their life, you stole away from her, you'll feel like the lowest of the low. It's called having a conscience and you simply don't have it in you, to do that to anyone. Not even a girl you haven't met" Jack said imploringly and for as little, as Andie wanted to admit it, she also knew that her brother was very likely to be right.

That evening, after he'd gotten home from work, Dawson had some soul searching to do of the most major kind, over what to do about his situation girl-wise. In truth, he had zero reasons to be anything, except for thrilled with how his relationship with Mary-Beth was going. They thought alike for the most part, she was easy on the eyes and when it came to the girls his own age presently residing in Capeside, there weren't any of them that he'd rather be dating than her. He should have been thrilled to have been lucky enough, that a girl like her liked him back and now, where he'd done all of the leg-work to get this far with her, he ought to have been enjoying his life, with little else to worry about, except for getting good grades and the occasional spat he had with a fellow student, or an unhappy customer at the store and even those were very few and far between. All of it would have been close to perfection, if there hadn't been one major issue overclouding all of it: Every time he kissed her, images of Joey began flashing through his mind.

He couldn't decide with himself, what it was that made it happen. It wasn't like he hadn't accepted long ago, that she'd chosen Pacey for her first real boyfriend. If nothing else, seeing Pacey looking so glum most of the time over how much he was missing the girl, he'd given his heart to, should have been enough of a reason why he was thankful that it wasn't him, who was stuck in that situation. He could only imagine what kind of turmoil was going on inside of the mind of his oldest friend and could easily see how, if it had been himself, it would be driving him crazy on a daily basis. Why then, when there were so many "Shoulds" involved and he had so many reasons to not want it to be himself, did he found himself longing for Joey, like he never had before?

When he looked back at it now, he'd taken for granted that she'd always be there, like a security blanket is for a little kid. He'd known (maybe not for sure, but close to it) that before Pacey and her had become a couple, she'd fancied him and if he had only chosen differently and decided on going for her instead of trying his luck with Jen, it would surely have been himself, who'd had the honor of being the first one to pick an apple off the figurative tree, that was the amazingly beautiful Joey Potter. He'd had his reasons not to and they were well thought out reasons too, but the more he thought about it, the more he was realizing what a fool he'd been a few months earlier. His plan then had been to let the Joey/Pacey relationship play itself out and to be honest, he hadn't expected them to even make it this far. Now that they had however, and it didn't look like the end was anywhere in sight for them, there was a real chance that he'd never get his chance with her and that thought scared him.

After deciding that he'd wallowed enough in his own misery for one evening and feeling on the peckish side, he decided to make his way down to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich before bedtime. When he came down there, he found his mom working over a cup of coffee on yet another pitch for a news story, that like most of the other ones she'd come up with, would most likely not make it to air on their small local TV station, where she worked as a news anchor.

"Isn't drinking caffeine right before bedtime exactly what they tell you to avoid?" he asked, as he made his way over to the fridge.

"It's de-caf. You shouldn't be eating this close to bedtime, you know?" she asked back in that typical "Parents Know Best" tone, that they always liked to use in situations like this one.

"It's just a sandwich. What kind of story are you working on?" he inquired, although he was more interested in getting his sandwich made, than what her story was about.

"Just a piece on how hard it can be, to have to fit into a new place. I'm trying to use Joey as my inspiration, but it isn't working for me so far. Have you heard from her?"

"I got an e-mail from her today. She's doing alright by the sound of it and says hi" he told his mom, while trying to decide on whether to use ham or salami as the "star" of his evening-time snack.

"That's nice for her. Do you miss her yet?"

"I have since I said goodbye to her on New Year's Eve, but I'm far from doing as bad, as Pacey is".

"Poor Pacey! One of my best friends, when I was your age, had a boyfriend, who left to become an exchange student in Argentina. I still remember how badly, she missed him and they weren't nearly as love with one another, as Joey and Pacey are. I'm afraid that in this situation, all you can do is try to be the best friend that you can to him and hope, it'll be enough" his mom said and for once in a rare while, Dawson felt like picking her mind a little.

"Do you remember what you did?"

"You mean, to help her out?"

"You have to admit that the situations are kind of similar, country and gender aside" he said, before sitting down with his sandwich across from her at the kitchen table.

"Doesn't Pacey have a birthday coming up soon? If you throw him a party with all of his friends there, wouldn't that help?" she asked and with all of the things that had been going on in his life, he had to admit that he'd practically forgotten all about it.

"It's next week, from what I remember. It isn't like he has a ton of friends either, so it wouldn't be too much of a problem to set up" he mused to himself.

"There you go! Nothing and I mean nothing, helps someone to get over a bit of heartache, then feeling like they're beloved. Believe me, it works every time!" his mom told him and with himself not being able to come up with anything better, it also looked like the best option, he had.

If he was really lucky, it would even make him feel less bad for spending so much time pining over his best friend's girlfriend.

Andie was thinking about Joey and Pacey too, as she laid in bed that evening, tossing and turning to try to find some sleep. She was now sure, that her brother had been right on the money, when he'd told her that she would be feeling guilty as sin, should something more happen between herself and Pacey, than just them being study buddies. If there was such a thing as a type of girl, she didn't particularly like, it was boyfriend stealers and becoming one of them wasn't on her list of things, she wanted to try in life.

The one time before, when she had broken the rules had been when she was ten and, after being dared to for several days up to it by her brother, had stolen a peach from their neighbor's peach tree. It hadn't taken more than a minute for her to feel so guilty, that she ran back there and begged for forgiveness. With her having felt that terrible over taking something as innocent as a peach, that wasn't hers, thinking that she could bring herself to stealing another girl's boyfriend should have been out of the question. It would have been too, if it wasn't for the many conflicting emotions, that were also the ones keeping her from getting some shuteye.

The other side of that coin was how Pacey made her feel, whenever they talked and how no one before had made her feel that sweet warmth in her belly, like he did. Perhaps even, he wouldn't run away, when he found out about how screwed up her family life was, like she was well aware that most guys would have. That alone made him one of a kind and knowing this, wouldn't it also be insane to give up on him without trying first, even if there was a girlfriend on the other side of the world in the picture? She could make him just as happy, as this other girl did, that much she was sure of.

By the time she finally fell asleep, it wasn't like she'd come any closer to reaching a conclusion on what to do about this, the first big crush she'd experienced in her life.

END OF CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO