THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - FELL ON BLACK DAYS

"Whatsoever I've feared has come to life

And whatsoever I've fought off, became my life

Just when every day seemed to greet me with a smile

Sunspots have faded, now I'm doing time

Now I'm doing time

'Cause I fell on black days

I fell on black days"

SOUNDGARDEN (From the album "Superunknown" (1994))

Sent: April 18th, 1999

From: Jen Rocks

To: A Girl Named Joey

Subject: The plot thickens!

Hi, Joey. How's it going? Here in Capeside, it's been an interesting week to say the least! Remember from my last e-mail, how I told you that I'm pretty sure Dawson has been cheating on Mary-Beth? Now, granted, it wasn't myself, who saw him in that window and although, Abby says that she's sure, it was him that she saw, she only caught a small glimpse of him and in passing, no less, which is why I've decided to find out for sure, what exactly is going on. Our plan therefore (myself and Jack's) is to do a stakeout of the house tonight and see who shows up there. It's a long shot, I know, but in any case, it's a good excuse to spend some alone time together, like we haven't had enough of for my liking this past week or so. Whatever happens, I'll be sure to keep you posted on the outcome.

The only other interesting news is that my mom called Grams to hear, if I'd be interested in coming home to NYC for the summer. On one hand, it's comforting to know that my folks haven't entirely forgotten about me but seeing as she can't handle talking to me personally yet, experience tells me that it's far too soon for us to take a large step like that. Of course, if someone, say a girl, who'll be home from France by then, offered to come with me and act a buffer of sorts between us, I could be persuaded to try spending an extended weekend down there? I don't want you to feel obligated to do it, but I can't help thinking that if I brought a goody-two-shoes like you with me, it could be exactly what the doctor ordered for me and my estranged parents.

In any case, I just hope you're doing awesome!

Jen.

Sent: April 19th, 1999

From: A Girl Named Joey

To: Jen Rocks

Subject: re: The plot thickens!

Hi, Jen. First of all, if I can do anything to help you mend fences with your parents, it should go without saying, that I will! We'll have to fit it in with my summer school though, but I can't imagine, there'll be any issues with it, to speak of. Pacey might get a little jealous, seeing as you'll be stealing me away from him, but after being without me for half a year, I'm sure that he can make it through an extended weekend on his own!

I have to admit that I'm finding it extremely hard to believe, that Dawson would cheat on MB, considering how upset he got, when he found out about his mom's affair last year. Part of me doesn't want it to be true, but if it is, at least promise me that you'll try to keep things as private, as you can. Don't forget that Capeside is a small town and that the things you do aren't forgotten as easily there, as they are where you come from.

Here in Toulouse, it has been another rather quiet week. Emma's ex Trevor (who I told you about us staying with, when we were in Paris) came for a visit this past weekend, so we had a fun time playing tourist guides for him, now that he was finally on our "Home Turf". Emma and he are obviously still pretty hung up on one another, but with her heading home to England after the schoolyear is over, while he'll be staying in Paris, they've made the smart decision to keep their relationship on a purely platonic level, for now at least. With finals approaching rapidly as well, I have to spend whatever time is needed on my schoolwork, in order to be ready for them.

Best of luck on your stakeout!

Joey

"This is bad! As in, really bad!" a despondent Abby told Pacey, only minutes after they'd been given their latest report cards. She'd brought home worse ones before, it wasn't that. In those cases, though, the only one that she had to show it to was her mom, and she knew from experience that if she waited until her mom was drunk enough, it would be signed with barely a glance at what her grades had been. This time, she had to bring it home to Bessie, and with how much everyone had been on edge, since Mike (Joey and Bessie's dad) got paroled, there was no saying how she'd react to an even for Abby, honestly measly showing like this.

"I guess, you'll be joining me and Joey in summer school, then?" Pacey asked.

"It sure looks like it! Maybe, I can change a few of those D's into B's, without her noticing" she mused to herself, which only drew a small laugh from Pacey.

"And see if you can get one past Bessie? Abby, take it from someone, who's known "Sherlock Potter" since he was six! She'll notice it in a second and all you'll have done, is make an already bad situation worse" her friend explained to her, and she knew that he was likely to be right, little as she wanted to admit it.

"Isn't his just the best day ever?" a widely smiling Jen, who'd been waiting for them to pass by her locker, asked them.

"Someone's in a great mood! Could it have something to do with her having a date with her boyfriend tonight, I wonder?" Pacey teasingly asked Jen, whose smile had practically been plastered on, since Abby had first seen her that day.

"At least, one of us is having a day to remember, for all of the right reasons!" Abby sarcastically answered, before Jen could fall into yet another of her lengthy spiels, over how crazy she was about Jack.

"Your report card wasn't anything to write home about then, I take it?" Jen asked her.

"I believe that the word you're searching for is "Cataclysmic"! Summer school, here I come!" she depressed told Jen, whose smile finally faded a little.

"Maybe, it won't be that bad" Jen tried to reassure her, even if it wasn't helping much.

Seeing as the restaurant was undergoing it bi-annual fumigation that day (a natural consequence of lying as close to the ocean, as they did) and she would have rather preferred to get the worst part of her day over with as fast as possible, than putting it off, Abby headed straight home after school.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the only one home was Mike, who was busy fixing their washing machine, that had once again decided to go on one of its many recent strikes.

"Making yourself useful, I see?" she jokingly asked him.

"I may as well, now that the restaurant is closed for the day. How was school?" he asked back, even if it didn't look like, it interested him all that much.

"It was school. What more is there to say about it?" she dead panned, drawing a small smile from Mike, whom she otherwise hadn't seen smiling all that much, ever since he moved back in with them.

"Bessie and Bodie decided to use the opportunity to take Alexander down to the playground, so he could work off some of all of that excess energy".

"He certainly has more than his share of that! Did they say when they'll be back?"

"They've been gone for a few hours, so it shouldn't be all that long. Do you need their help with something?"

"Not really" she told him, not wanting to divulge too much to a guy, she still hadn't had more than a few conversations with in private.

"I know that we're still practically strangers, Abby, and that it has to be weird for you, all of a sudden having me living here with all of you. Don't think that it isn't weird for me too".

"That's understandable. I'm guessing that this wasn't your dream scenario, when you were ..." she began saying, before stopping herself, when she remembered Joey's advice not to bring up either the subject of prison, or the time, he'd spent there.

"In the big house?" Mike asked, finishing her sentence for her.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up. If it were me, I'd probably want to forget all about it, as fast as I could" she told him truthfully.

"I don't. Look, Abby. No one knows better than me, how much I messed everything up for not only myself, but just as much for those I love. Prison, jail, the big house, whatever you want to call it, only made me that much more determined to become a better man from now on and for the rest of my life. If that includes facing up to the ghosts of my past, it's what I'll have to do. You're sure, there isn't anything, I can help with? I know that I'm no Bessie or Bodie, but I was the father figure in this house for a long time, before I threw all of it in the trashcan, when I got busted" Mike kindly asked, and she figured that there was no harm in seeing, if she couldn't learn a trick or two from him, that would help ease the process of telling Bessie, that she would have to attend summer school. A prospect, Abby definitely wasn't looking forward to!

"How would you tell her something, you know that she doesn't want to hear?"

"That depends. Are we talking something like having broken a plate at the restaurant, or the kind of thing that could have long-term consequences?"

"I'd say that it falls somewhere in the middle, leaning towards option number two".

"In that case, I'd tear off the band-aid and get it over with. You could try to butter her up first, but knowing my daughter and how perceptive, she usually is, she'll pick up on something being off, long before you'll get around to telling her, what you need to" Mike answered, and Abby knew that he was probably right, too. Just from the half a year or so, that she'd lived with Bessie, Bodie and Alexander, one thing that had become clear to her was that if you tried to keep anything a secret from Bessie, the likelihood of it still being a secret a week later, was practically zero to none.

Knowing this and that going a whole summer of pretending to be doing other things, whenever she had to be in summer school and was expected to pull her weight at the Ice House as well, was a no-go, only left her with one choice.

When Jen had first come up with the idea of doing a stakeout of the house, where Abby supposedly had seen Dawson getting it on with some "Mystery Girl" (whom his "girlfriend" had later found out couldn't have been Dawson's girlfriend Mary-Beth), Jack had mainly said yes to helping her for two reasons. The first, and main reason, was to at least try to be a nice boyfriend towards a girl, he was now basically playing for a fool by making her believe, that they could have a potential future together. For as much as he'd tried to be into the idea of making out with her and work it up in his mind to be the greatest thing ever, once they got down to it, the story was always the same. His "Little Buddy" down between his legs reacted to her kisses, like it did to watching grass growing or paint drying, and his fantasies almost instantly jumped to it being some handsome male celebrity, who'd taken Jen's place. Not even that though, made it anything resembling an enjoyable experience for him and the one time, she'd grabbed his hand and made him feel her breast up had (even if it was on top of several layers of clothing) almost made him feel like he was violating her trust, by pretending that he was into it, when he was the complete opposite of it. Plus, he had already gotten his driver's license and could use his mom's car, practically whenever he wanted to, a pair of small luxuries, that Jen would still have to wait a little over a month until her own sweet sixteen, until were afforded to her.

The second reason was simply to get his mind off all of the other problems in his life, most of which were rooted in his immediate family. Neither himself or Andie had told any of their friends, but the fact was that their mom's ratio of good to bad days had, after a short period of things beginning to shift in the right direction for her, noticeably shifted in a negative direction lately. Three times over the past month, they'd had to have her mom's psychologist drive up from Providence to administer sedatives to her, because Andie and himself been terrified, that she'd become a danger to herself and would do something drastic, that couldn't be easily forgotten, or reversed afterwards. In what felt to him like a cruel twist of fate, it had become the siblings, who were being punished perhaps worse than anyone, after losing their brother, and while Jack had become hardened enough over the past year, that it would take something close to the literal end of the world to rock his world too much, Andie was another story. It constantly worried him, how these events were affecting her already fragile mind, that was still healing itself after her total and utter mental breakdown half a year earlier and the thought alone that she could end up right back where she was, when things were at their lowest and worst for her, terrified the living hell out of him, more than anything similar happening to himself ever could.

This was also why he, in spite of it being against his own common sense, had agreed with her that their dad should come up for weekend visits, whenever his busy work schedule permitted it and this week, he'd (for once in a rare while) taken most of Friday off from work and had already arrived in Capeside, by the time they got home from school.

"How's it going, Jack?" his dad asked Jack, who was in the living room and doing what little homework, he'd been given for the weekend, so that he could simply enjoy the rest of it, without having it hanging over his head.

"Okay, I guess" he answered his dad, who sat down on the couch next to him, not caring that his son already had his head buried in his schoolbooks.

"Can you put the books away for a while? It's been too long, since you and I had a conversation that lasted longer than a handful of minutes, at the most" his dad requested and seeing as Jack was nearly done anyway, he did as his dad wanted him to.

"How are things at work?" Jack asked, not that he didn't already know what the answer was likely to be.

"That's one of the main things, I need to talk to you about. I figured, that if anyone will take the news in a calm way, it would be you, so I'm hoping that you can be my ally, when it comes to telling your mom and sister. I was informed last week that the office, I work in, is being downsized" his dad told Jack with a grave look on his face, that said all too clearly how he felt about the whole situation.

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"In short, it means that with the exception of a couple of those at the very top, who have been offered replacement jobs at other branches of the company, all of us working there will effectively be fired, when their lease on our building runs out at the end of next month. Jack, I know that it sounds bad and it sure wasn't how I wanted my career there to end, but it's been in the air for the past couple of years, that at least one of the North-East branches would get shut down and ours probably won't be the only one" his dad calmly explained, while Jack tried to let it all sink in.

"I'm sorry, is all I can say" he replied to his dad, who allowed himself to smile a tiny bit.

"Thanks. Will you help me tell Andie and your mom?"

"Sure, dad. Not to sound selfish here, but how will this impact mom, Andie and I?"

"It's not in any way selfish to ask that, Jack. If anything, I'd say that it's completely understandable, if you're a little worried right now. I can't say that I'm not right there with you, considering that I'll have to get out on the job market, for the first time in close to thirty years and I'm not as young, as I was back then, where I could have taken any job in my field and would have been more than happy, just to be working. In case that I don't find a job before the office closes, the first thing that will probably have to go is our house back home in Providence. The payments on this place aren't cheap and we've only barely begun to pay back our bank loan on it, so paying high mortgages on two houses at the same time makes no sense, from a purely logical standpoint".

"You're not thinking about selling this house, are you?" Jack had to ask, seeing as moving back to Providence right now, was just about the last thing, he felt like doing.

"It wouldn't make any sense to, for several reasons. For one thing, the property values in Providence have risen quite a bit over these past several years, so we should get a far better prize for it, than what we paid. The other and most important element to that decision, is your mom. I couldn't for the life of me ask her to go back to living there, after everything that happened with Tim. No matter what happens, our main goal as a family is still has to be, to get her back to her old self again. Nothing can ever change that!" Jack's dad told him imploringly and for all of his dad's faults, not to mention the untold number of disappointments in him, Jack had felt since Tim died, he knew that his dad wouldn't lie about something as serious as this.

"I guess, you'll be coming to live with us full-time, then?" Jack asked, although he could already guess, what the answer would be and not one, he'd want to hear.

"Right now, it looks that way, but there's still close to a month and half for me to find a new job down there, so it's nothing to go into a panic over just yet. Hopefully, with my resume that shows me as a dedicated employee, who's never stepped out of line and always did his best will be enough to land me a job in my field, that also pays enough for us to be able to keep both houses. Stranger things have been known to happen; you know?" Jack's dad told him with a small wink of his eye, to pretend at least, that he himself found it plausible, like Jack's sixth sense told him that it probably wasn't.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and I'm sure, I can say the same for Andie and mom".

"I'm sure, too. By the way, are you going out on a date with your girlfriend tonight or are you staying home for dinner?" his dad asked with a kind smile, that for once showed how happy he was for his son.

"Was it mom or Andie, who told you about Jen?"

"Both of them. Although, I wish, you'd been the one to tell me. Why did you feel like you needed to hide from me that you've found, from what your mom and sister tell me, is a very sweet and lovable girl, that you've fallen head over heels for?"

"I don't know. Maybe, it's thanks to what happened with Tim, that it still doesn't feel right to act, like I've moved on from it" Jack answered, giving the best reason that he could, that wasn't "I'm actually gay and also ashamed of myself, that I've been more or less accidentally made a straight girl fall in love with me". In any event, it made his dad look at him with a kind of understanding in his eyes, that he hadn't seen in him, since before Tim passed away.

"I know exactly what you mean, son. It took me months, before I allowed myself to smile again, after we lost him and even then, it was only to satisfy some people at work, who were getting worried over my always depressed state of mind. Still today, it feels like I'm living in this limbo, where I haven't given myself the pleasure of living a normal life yet and when that'll go away, is impossible to say. That you've managed to take the first step and it's thanks to something as great as teenage love, is nothing to be ashamed of! In fact, it's something, all of us should celebrate, because you're showing the rest of us the path towards healing, Jack! And, you know what? If Tim could have been here, he'd be saying the same things, I am right now. I can only hope for your sister, that she finds someone, like you've found in that girl. Jen, was it?"

Jack had to take a moment or two, before answering his dad's question, even if it was just about the simplest question, he'd been asked in his life. He'd, practically for as long, as he could remember, felt like his dad had seen Tim as his "Number One Son", most likely because Tim had been their first born and on top of that, the kind of son that almost any parent would look at and have no reason to be anything, except for filled with pride. Jack couldn't say that about himself and the way that he'd slowly become more introverted, as he'd grown up, had sometimes left him with the feeling, that his dad was disappointed in him. To be praised like this and told that he, who had sometimes felt like the red-haired stepchild of the family, was showing the way for everyone else in their family, was therefore in many ways both an honor and a tough pill to swallow at the same time.

After all, his dad wouldn't be heaping all of this praise on him, if he knew that Jack's whole relationship with Jen was based on a rather huge lie.

Abby was back in a familiar situation to her: Having run away from home and feeling like, she had nowhere to go. Bessie, for lack of a better term, had blown a gasket, when Abby had told her the news about herself having to attend summer school and had threatened to kick her out of the house, when Joey came back. Not that she'd said so in so many words, but it had been the gist of what she'd said and it now had Abby in a situation, where she didn't know if she'd been bought or sold. Part of her had long feared, that something like it could happen, if nothing else for purely logistical reasons. In many ways it was the perfect size house, if you were four people living there and living five people there was still possible, but six was clearly one too many and it would lead to little conflicts happening all of the time, if it was tried. If there was one thing the past few weeks had shown, it was that it would be nearly impossible to make work.

That of course left the question of where to go to, to find a bed or just a floor to sleep on, for the night? Going to her mom's house was out of the question, considering that she was likely to be deep into her daily alcohol intake already and was still a little bitter, that Abby had refused to come back to live with her, after she'd gotten out of the hospital. Like many alcoholics, from what Abby could tell, her mom was great at forgetting all of the bad things she'd done, especially if they'd been done while she was under the influence and an evening of listening to her excuse herself from all of the things that had gone wrong in her life, like they were someone else's fault entirely, would have been pure torture for Abby to have to sit through and still keep her mouth shut, in order not to get kicked out again.

Then, there was the video store, that she could try her luck with in a tight pinch, but with her already knowing that Dawson was having a trainee there on this evening (seeing as he'd complained loudly over it, when they'd quickly talked about his movie at school earlier that day), it likely wouldn't be the best choice. She couldn't go to Melissa's house either, since Melissa and her folks were visiting some family in the next town over and wouldn't be home until late in the evening. Jen was out on a stakeout with Jack and she didn't want to go to Grams' house to beg for a bed for the evening, when they hadn't had more than twenty conversations with one another, by far the most of which had been very short. There was Pacey's house of course, but it was practically on the diametric opposite side of town and if he wasn't home, then she'd be asking a woman, she'd only talked to a few times before, for a place to sleep. Arguably, her best choice was to go to the house, that Jen and Jack were "staking out", but for one thing it was an over five mile hike up and down several small hills in a pair of shoes, that definitely weren't meant to be used for that purpose and for all she knew, they could have already seen, what they needed to see and long ago driven off to somewhere else, by the time, she got there.

With her not knowing what else to do to pass the time, until either Jen plausibly would be home from her date/stakeout with Jack, Abby went down to a familiar spot, where she used to hide out, whenever she wasn't welcome back at her mom's house. The same place, where her life had forever changed for the better, on the evening when Pacey had found her down there.

What Jack exactly had expected, when he'd agreed to go on a stakeout with his girlfriend, was hard to say, but it hadn't involved himself being as bored out of his skull, as he was. To make it worse, he'd agreed to without thinking about it, that Jen could choose the music for the evening, which she'd apparently decided to use to expose him to some of the music that she'd been into back in New York. In other words: Lots and Lots of Angry Girl Rock! After having listened to what felt like it had been a whole day (and in reality had been less than two hours) of songs by girls, who had clearly all been outsiders back in high school, where they were either foully badmouthing the kind of girls, they didn't like or, in all kinds of not-so eloquent ways, belting out all of the frustrations they had with the male gender as a whole, he already felt like he'd sat through enough of it for a lifetime already!

"We should probably turn off the music to save on the battery. I like it, it's not that, I just don't want to get stuck here!" he lied to her, seeing as he didn't want to ruin the great groove, the music had clearly put her in.

"Can't you just fire up the engine?" she suggested back, making him curse his bad luck, that someone had wizened her up on how car batteries work!

"It ... ehm ... wouldn't be very undercover of us, to stay parked here with the engine turned on. It's not good for the environment either!" he tried with and luckily for himself and his ears, it also worked, and she shut off the noisy music.

"Aren't you the environment's prime champion? This is a waste of time! No one has shown up at that house for two hours and with our luck, not a soul will!" Jen thought out loud, just before something interesting finally happened! A car, with what looked in the near darkness like was a male and a female figure, pulled up to the curb and out stepped two people, that it took them until they stepped into the streetlights, to begin to recognize.

"The girl is clearly Hannah, but who's the guy?" he had to ask.

"I'm pretty sure that his name is Warren. I've never talked to him, but he tried to convince the entire school that Joey had sex with him, after she turned him down".

"What a charming guy!" Jack blurted out, although it didn't surprise him, that such a thing could happen in a place like Capeside, where the social rules of high school hadn't changed all that much, since the days of the sexual revolution.

"She told Abby that he got her pregnant and after Abby had begun to spread the rumor, it made him 'fess up to everyone. Strange as it may sound, it actually became one of the defining moments in mine and Joey's then-budding friendship!"

"You're right. That does sound strange! The questions are, what's he doing here with Hannah ..."

"Does Chris have any idea, that Hannah is sleeping around on him ..."

"And is this some sort of love nest, that basically everyone can use for an evening of bedtime fun?" he suggested, making Jen smile to herself.

"Are you saying that I should ask Dawson tomorrow, if we can use it sometime this week?" she teasingly asked him, which probably made him blush a little.

"I didn't mean it like that! Not that I don't ..."

"It's okay, Jack! I don't want to ruin this thing between us, by rushing headfirst into something, we're obviously nowhere near ready for, any more than you do. Plus, as fun as your little theory sounds, I have to doubt it. Isn't the only logical answer that it's only Hannah, who's using it as her own little love-nest, as you so poetically put it?"

"You don't think that Dowson would sleep with her, would you?"

"I mean, I could be wrong, and Mary-Beth is by a country mile the finest actor on the face of the earth, but my natural in-grown sense of logic tells me otherwise! Not to mention, who else among the students at Capeside High is stinking rich enough at our age, to be able to rent a house that size? My guess is that there's only one of them and her initials are HVW!" Jen stated firmly, right before their attention was turned away, when they saw a familiar vehicle come driving towards them. The 4x4 that Joey's family owned and drove almost everywhere, they went.

As it pulled up next to them, they saw that it was only Bodie, who was sitting inside of it.

"I thought that was you, Jen" he said, after they'd rolled down the windows, so they could talk. Thankfully, both Hannah and Warren had already headed inside of the house, so there was no chance of their cover getting blown. "Have you seen Abby tonight?"

"No, I've been here. Is she missing?" Jen asked Bodie, looking immediately concerned about her friend.

"Bessie lost her temper with her, so she ran away from home, the poor girl. I've been to Melissa's house, the video store, your house, even Pacey's house, trying to find her. Since I left Pacey's, I've basically just been driving around, hoping for some blind luck, but I haven't had any of it yet" Bodie worriedly answered.

"Have you tried her mom's house?" Jack suggested, but it only got him a headshake from both of the others.

"They aren't on the best of terms. I have one guess, as to where she could be, but we'll have to drive down there. It's right by the beach" Jen explained.

Up until a minute earlier, the subject of Abby's safety had been the furthest thing from his mind. Now, it was all he could think about.

Abby was bored to tears, just sitting down under that half-roof down by the beach by herself. Which, in turn, made it hard not to think too many negative thoughts about the ramifications this day could have on her entire future. Things had been going so well for her, and in less than a day, her entire life felt like it had been turned upside down, for the first time since the day where her mom had been in her severe car crash. She'd only just finished writing "Abby + Mellissa 4-Ever" in the sand, when she heard a familiar and welcome voice coming up from behind her.

"Jen told me that I could find you down here" Bodie said, and she quickly stood up, so they could talk face to face.

"She did, huh? Remind me thank her later".

"You'll get your chance soon. Her and her boyfriend are waiting for us up by the road. I hope, you know that Bessie didn't mean what she said about kicking you out. You're a part of our family now, it's just that ..."

"There isn't room for all of us in the house anymore. We don't have to try to hide it, it's just how it is and when Joey comes home for France, it'll only get worse!"

"We'll figure out a way, where we can make it work, I promise. It's just that right now, it's an adjustment period for all of us, which is why I have a suggestion for you".

"What kind of suggestion?"

"I spoke to Evelyn, Jen's grandmother, earlier tonight, and she'll be happy to offer you a bed at her house temporarily, until we work things out on a more permanent basis. Your only other choice is coming home with me, but it's all up to you".

It didn't take Abby many seconds to make up her mind and perhaps no one was more thrilled over this choice, than the girl that she would be sharing a house with for the immediate future.

END OF CHAPTER FORTY-THREE