THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE - CELEBRATION

"It's time to celebrate and have a good time!"

KOOL AND THE GANG (From the album "Celebrate!" (1980))

Abby awoke that Monday morning for once not having a clue what would await her, when she got to school. The day before had mostly been one of celebration, after Sheriff Witter had informed them that it hadn't taken many minutes after they'd been brought into the police station, for Chris and Belinda to completely turn against one another and try to cast as much blame on the other as they could, for what was done to Grams' car. The only one who wasn't celebrating was Jen, who besides still feeling severely self-loathing over what had happened with Henry, had begun to see Chris as maybe not a friend, but someone that she could see herself giving in a go with, when it came to dating him. As if that revelation wasn't enough, Henry had flat out refused to talk to her, when she'd tried to apologize to him over the phone. Something, that Abby couldn't really blame him for, all things considered.

"What are you going to say to him, when you see him?" Abby asked Jen, who'd busted into the bathroom for an emergency pee, while Abby was still getting her hair right and putting on her make-up for the day.

"Which of them? The jerk, who I feel like a complete dunce now for ever having considered dating, or the poor angel, whose heart I tore to pieces?" Jen deadpanned in reply, before flushing the toilet and pulling her pajama bottoms back up.

"Both".

"The first one, I won't say a single word to, ever again!"

"I'm right there with you, as far as not wanting to talk to Chris again, but what if you have to do a school assignment with him? It isn't unthinkable, after all" Abby reasoned, as she gave herself one last look in the mirror and decided that she was pleased with the result of her "labor".

"I'll flat out refuse, simple as that! Not that I want to put too much hope into the empathy of the teachers at our school, but if I explain it to them, I'm sure they'll understand why and let me off the hook. As for the other, all I can do is beg for his forgiveness and I'm still debating with myself, if I'm willing to sink that low".

"You'll know when you see him. I'm absolutely sure of it" Abby tried to reassure Jen, who still looked unsure, though.

"Maybe Chris was right that all I do is break the hearts of every poor sap, who tries to fix the mess that is me with their love. I mean, think about it. I come here and I instantly do it to Dawson, probably screwing up his mind so much, that I share some of the blame, when it comes to him cheating on Mary-Beth".

"That's just ridiculous, Jen! You broke it off with Dawson, because you knew that you weren't right for one another, were on two different playing fields and when you did it, it was a sensible, well-thought-out decision. The reason why he cheated with Hannah is because he was thinking with his dick instead of his brain, end of story! Well, that and being around Mary-Beth was about as interesting as watching paint drying, but it can never, ever have been your fault!" Abby unequivocally stated, which did manage to get a small smile out of Jen, who almost hadn't smiled at all for well over a day.

"Okay, let's move on to the next one on the list, then. I played with your heart too, remember? That still weighs on my conscience, you know?"

"I'm long past being over that, Jen. Sure, it kind of sucked when you let me go weeks without knowing anything and having a head full of thoughts that I couldn't control and ... come to think of it, you were a total bitch, weren't you?" Abby said, but in a way where Jen knew that she didn't really mean it.

"Again, I'm so sorry. The more I've thought about it, the more I want to just do everything differently, from how I handled that whole situation. You were undergoing this life changing thing and ..."

"I still would have been in denial about who I am, if it hadn't been for you, remember that part? If it wasn't for that moment between us, I wouldn't have a girlfriend that I'm crazy about and most importantly, I was never at peace with being who I was before, because I was constantly lying to myself. You forced me to be honest with myself and that's one of the biggest gifts, you could ever give to someone. I'll love you for it until the day I die" Abby explained to Jen, whose smile had kept growing wider with every word that had been said.

"What's your excuse for me then, when it comes to falling for my friend's boyfriend?"

"Hormones running wild and Pacey being an extremely likable guy by nature, not to mention that he is admittedly sort of a hunk, objectively speaking. Plus, you never actually considered making a move on him, did you?" she asked Jen, who shook her head.

"No, not even close to it! I could never do that to Joey!" Jen replied.

"Do you know what that makes you? It makes you the kind of friend, you know that you can trust with all of your heart. Those aren't easy to come by and not just me, but all of your other friends know that we're blessed to have a friend like you. Ask Joey if she blames you for it now or has ever blamed you for it for a second and she'll tell you the same kind of stuff, I'm telling you here" she told Jen, whose demeanor had changed completely over the last minute, from self-hating and defeated to being much more like her usual self. A fact that Abby thoroughly enjoyed the knowledge of being a huge factor in.

"Thanks, Abby. I needed to hear that" Jen told her honestly, sending a wave of personal satisfaction flying through Abby's innards.

"You're more than welcome" she'd just told Jen, when they heard Grams' footsteps approaching them.

"Look at you two, bonding like you were sisters!" Grams smilingly told them and got a pair of smiles in return.

"I'm sure that we must have known each other in at least one previous life too!" Jen quipped, knowing very well that in conflicted with Grams' Christian beliefs to believe in reincarnation. Except for when it comes to that one guy, of course.

"That's where I remembered you from! We met in Greece during the Spartan wars! Those were some crazy times, huh? With that whole wooden horse thing and the soldiers coming out of it, to take that city" Abby played along with the joke, that even Grams, who rarely laughed, couldn't help chuckling at.

"Then again, you could be a bad influence on one another too!" Grams dryly joked. "Mitch just knocked on the door to tell me that he's starting work early today, so you two can catch a ride with him and Dawson to school, if you get a move on" Grams informed them, and as if those were magic words, it got both Abby and Jen moving instantly to quickly get ready for school.

When Nikki had started at Capeside High, she figured that as far as her seeing anything that she hadn't seen before at all of those other schools, she'd gone to, the chances were slim to none. Some schools have their, to any outsider looking in on it, somewhat strange traditions and she'd seen a few of those, including at one of her more rural elementary schools where "The Coming of the Pigs" was an annual event, that was hyped like it was the second coming and in reality turned out to just be an excuse for the little kids to play with some adorable piglets for a few hours, instead of being bored inside of a classroom. Capeside High however, was not that kind of school and with her dad in charge of it now, it was a by the books kind of school, where rules were to be followed and no one was allowed to question the authorities, whether they supported their decisions or not.

As she found out though, pretty much from the moment that she stepped through the doors that morning (after what had been a completely uneventful weekend for herself, that she'd mostly spent reading through the script to "Barefoot in the Park" over and over again, each time coming up with some new idea, that she kept meticulous notes of) as far the students went, the positions of power within the school hierarchy were far more fragile. Out in the rest of the town, stuff had been going on that had especially the female part of the student population being split into three groups, whereas nearly all of the guys just looked like they thought it was funny as hell that Belinda McGovern had fallen so hard from grace, now that she'd (from what the grapevine said) been indefinitely suspended and surely didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of keeping her position as head cheerleader. It even seemed to her like among Chris' buddies, there wasn't much sympathy for him, and she saw for herself how one of his (now probably former) teammates from the football team had to be talked out of going looking for Chris, so he could beat the living crap out of him.

To around fifty-five to sixty percent of the girls however, in her own very rough estimation, it was a case of "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead", which she actually heard a small group of girls singing in unison, while they were literally dancing in celebration together! Then you had a group of ten to fifteen percent, mostly made up those who were only part of the popular crowd thanks to having constantly kissed Belinda's butt, and were worried about losing that popularity, from how Jen explained it to her. A few of them were speaking out in support for Belinda, but most of them just tried to stay quiet and not draw any unneeded attention to themselves.

Many of them though, looked secretly relieved and were probably just afraid to say it out loud and have their friends turn on them, like they'd seen it done before when Belinda saw herself mad at one of them and decided to cast someone out on a whim, just like she'd done to Abby's girlfriend Melissa, from what Nikki could understand. Again, going by what Jen explained to her. As for Nikki herself, she'd overheard a few slightly racist remarks from the girl, who had to be the most disliked at her own school that she'd ever seen or heard of anyone being, but had otherwise avoided her and they hadn't spoken a single word to one another, so she couldn't say that she hated her, which put her in with the final quarter or so of the girls, who had little to no opinion on it either way.

One thing that did cheer her up a lot, however, was seeing how instantly and incredibly relieved it had made Abby, Melissa and Jen that they wouldn't have to fear anymore, if it was someone who was actually dangerous and out to physically harm them. As they saw it, thankfully, it had just been a spoiled sixteen-year-old girl with a dumb grudge, but no real bad intentions, except than to make herself feel a little better at someone else's expense, and a rather harmless jock with a bruised ego, who didn't like one bit being turned down for another guy.

Her dad had, in light of the events and to make a few things clear to every single one of the students, called an extra school assembly that morning, where she sat in between Pacey and Abby as she watched her dad speaking to them through a microphone.

"Good morning, students. This is, it's safe to say, an unusual day here at Capeside High and I want to use this opportunity to teach the rest you what will happen, if you choose to do anything like what Chris Wolfe and Belinda McGovern, who have both been suspended from this school indefinitely for the time being, have confessed to the police to having done" her dad began, before spending the next five minutes first laying out what this means for the two culprits and that along with the punishment from the law, they'll have to deal with, this could and probably would have an effect on their chances to get their dream jobs many years from then, once any prospective employer finds out about what they'd done. After this, he began talking about what a hate crime is and since she'd heard more or less the exact same speech from him at the last pair of schools, he'd worked at and she'd attended, this was around the time where she started to zone out a bit.

"Damn, Pacey looks good today! Maybe, he did something new with his hair?" she thought to herself in a fleeting moment, when their arms rubbed up against one another, as he switched position in his chair a little, sending thoughts back to how he'd been the star of one of her erotic dreams a few days before. Not that it meant that she had a crush on him or anything like that, just that she could appreciate him for undoubtedly being a huge catch, when it came to guys their age. Or at least, this was what she kept telling herself, since she didn't think in a million years that he would dump a girlfriend, that he was clearly as madly in love with, as she was with him, meaning that having feelings for him would be irrational of her and therefore, best left forgotten about.

After all, the one and only time where she'd done anything irrational when it came to her personal life, it had royally blown up in her face and nearly landed her in in a South Carolina Juvenile Detention Center, like the one where her ill-fated ex-boyfriend Jerome was currently serving his sentence. If it hadn't been for her well-off dad getting her a great, but also extremely expensive lawyer, who was a complete contrast to the close to useless public defender that Jerome had to settle for, she figured that she most likely would have been sent away too and wouldn't be in a place that was nearly as pleasant to live in as Capeside was. If Jerome wasn't already out thanks to good behavior, but she had a gut feeling that with his temper issues, he was probably getting into fights close to, if not on a daily basis.

"Sorry. One of my ass-cheeks was falling sleep" Pacey whispered to her, almost making her smile to herself at the worst possible moment, in her case.

"It happens" she quickly whispered back to him, not wanting to call any attention to herself and get a stern look from her dad, that would have to be discussed later in private.

As her dad kept going on and on about stuff, she'd heard him talking about countless times before, she found herself daydreaming back to the first time, she'd met the two years older Jerome and his "Young Denzel-like" looks, combined with a way of sweet-talking her, like she'd never remotely tried it before, had her feeling like she was the most special thing in his life. Even when one of his exes had shown up at their house, to warn her that he was bad news and would only get her into a world of trouble, all of that went in through one ear and out the other, when he did his thing on her to make her melt like soft butter on a burning hot frying pan. At that time, her dad had allowed her to have far more freedom, than he did now and little by little, she'd become sucked into a "Live Fast, Die Young" world, where everyone did drugs every day and committing crimes was as natural as brushing your teeth, or going to bed at night. Not that Jerome had even had a bed of his own, ever since he'd run away from home at thirteen and from his abusive dad, who'd been beating his son for the smallest things, until that son finally had enough and found a new family, who would take him in and treat him as one of their own. As long as he played by their rules and did as he was told.

This also meant that there was always a couch for him to sleep on somewhere, but as she'd come to find out the hard way, that loyalty only stretches so far, when you've been busted with fifty grams of Cocaine, trying to evade arrest and carrying an unregistered handgun and everyone else involved is busy trying to save their own asses, first and foremost. Hell, she couldn't even claim to have been better than them, since she'd been the crown witness in the case against him, like it had been part of her plea agreement with the state that she had to, or there would be no deal. Had she hated having to do it: Absolutely, and she hated it for every second that she had to be inside of that courtroom. Did she feel sorry for Jerome: Somewhat, since he'd had a horrible life that excused some of his misdeeds and it no doubt explained a lot, when it came to how his life had turned out, still at the same time, she hoped that it could be the wake-up call, he so badly needed. The judge in his case had clearly thought so too, seeing as he'd agreed to let him go on trial as a minor and not an adult, which could have sent him away for much longer than the two years, he got.

As for still being in love with him, that part of her life was instantly dead and buried, from the second the police showed her on a videotape of his interrogation, how he'd tried to pin the crimes on her and pretend that he was just an innocent victim, who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and nothing else. If he was ready to throw her under the bus, then she figured to hell with him and that was how she'd mostly thought of him in the close to a year and a half that had passed by, since she'd last seen him, on that day where she bore witness against him in front of a judge.

If she ever was to see him again, highly unlikely as it was, she would ignore him if she at all could, but if she had to say something to him, it would be to ironically tell him thanks for hardening her heart, and making her all the surer that she was better off single, than with someone who's going nowhere in life and is too blinded from reality to see it. Not that she had much choice on the matter, with a dad who it felt like was watching her every move like a hawk, to make sure that she never screwed up her life that badly again under his watch.

To Dawson, aside from the joy of it for once not being a school day, that just flowed into one with most of the rest of them, it was a school day that was ninety-nine percent spent fantasizing about what would happen, when Eve was to come over to his parents' house that evening, for an evening with absolutely no parental supervision. With his parents getting suspicious enough, that they now made him keep the door to his room open whenever she came over, it was a rare chance for them to do more than just the kissing, they'd had to stick to so far. His dad had removed "Joey's Ladder" that went up to his bedroom window as well, now that it hadn't been used by the one it was unofficially named after in ages, and probably just to make sure that his naughty friend with benefits wasn't sneaking in that way, without his folks knowing about it.

Joey rarely coming over to visit didn't bother him as much either, as it did when Pacey and Joey had just started dating and he would gaze over at the window in hope, every time there was the slightest noise coming from outside. Instead, he'd found Mary-Beth to take her place and now Eve, who was like a hot "Spare Joey" that only wanted to make out with him and wanted him to leave the long conversations about philosophies on life to his friends. That part of his and Joey's lives, where they were almost joined at the hip, was over and now, where he'd come to accept it, he could also see the positives in it. After all, he could never tell Joey about what he was doing with a girl like Eve, not even Jen who would surely end up telling Joey somehow, someway.

"What time is that girl with the three-letter, biblical name coming over?" Pacey slyly asked him, as they were walking to their last class of the day, which appropriately for the question was social studies.

"Half past nine and my parents won't be home from the theatre until twelve, at the earliest" he answered Pacey, who smiled knowingly to himself.

"You know what that means is in the air, don't you?"

"I don't know how much longer; I can keep holding it off with her. Or how much longer that I want to" he found himself saying in an entirely unintentional way, where it sounded far worse than it was.

"Do you know what I think it is, and you can't take it the wrong way, if I tell you?" Pacey asked him, like only his oldest friend could and with the face of a lovable scoundrel, you couldn't say no to.

"I promise that I won't" he solemnly swore.

"Somewhere in the back of your mind, you're still hoping that Joey will be your first. If it can't be her, then you want it to be Jen, who was the one that woke you up to the entire idea, that there are other girls in the world, who aren't named Joey Potter. You can't have Joey for obvious reasons and if you do it with Jen's half-sister, you know deep down that's every chance of getting it on with Jen gone, once Eve is sure to tell her about it" Pacey explained and as Dawson had to admit, was making some decent points.

"It's a nice theory, but it doesn't count in one extremely important factor!"

"That she's sculpted by the Gods themselves, very sweet, if not a little overly boy-crazy, and you get as horny as a hound dog, every time you even think about her touching your junk?"

"That would be it!" Dawson dryly joked, just before they arrived at the classroom door.

After a class that had gone by in a haze of hormonal thoughts, he was on his way out, when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Dawson, wait up!" he heard Joey say and slowed down, so she could catch up to him.

"What a day, huh?" he asked her, getting a crooked smile in return.

"This one will be felt for a long time to come! What are you doing tonight?" she asked him, and it suddenly occurred to him how long it had been, since she'd last asked him that question.

"I'm ... eh ... not really doing anything" he lied and instantly regretted it.

"I ran into your mom, and she told me that you'll be home alone tonight. Do you know when the last time was that we hung out together, just the two of us?" she asked and when he thought back, he honestly couldn't remember it.

"It was the weekend after Thanksgiving, as in nine months ago" she reminded him. "I miss those long talks that we used to have about our lives, don't you?"

"Sure, I do. Don't you have those with Pacey?" he asked her, and it made her smile to herself.

"We try, but it tends to end in smooching pretty quickly, whenever we're alone together!" she confessed to him, making him smile along with her. "Come on, just for old times' sake!"

"It ... ehm ..." was all that would come out of his mouth, unfortunately.

"It's settled, then! Tell you what, I'm sure that we still have one of Bodie's lasagnas in the freezer, so why don't I bring that over and we'll split it between us?" she asked him and even worse, was sounding like she was really looking forward to it now.

"Sure, I guess" was all that he could think of saying, as he wondered how to get out of this mess, he'd just put himself in. He did think of one thing to say though, on the fly, that could be a life raft for him. "You can come over early, if you want. Six o'clock or something like that?"

"I want to get home pretty early too, so that sounds perfect. I have to catch up on my sleep. All of the stress of us moving has been keeping me up lately" she told him, making him laugh to himself.

"Why?" he had to ask, and now she laughed along with him, for how ridiculous she was being.

"I haven't tried it, since I was a little kid, okay? If I don't feel at home in our new house, then what?"

"You ask your dad, if you can live with him at the B&B and he'll be delighted to have you there. Joey, you're worrying over nothing!" he assured her, as she smiled to herself.

If he could only get Joey out of the house, before Eve came over, he would be in the clear.

Most of Jen's schooldays went roughly like this: The first two hours, she more or less managed to keep her enthusiasm and her mind on her classes. Hour three to four, she began to go into a gradual decline in interest for her classes, leading to early stages of daydreaming and if her stomach had begun complaining, looking forward to whatever was awaiting her in the cafeteria for lunch. Those two long hours after lunch though, when the dopamine would set in and begin to make her drowsy, was where she really began to zone out and she'd gone through so many non-school related topics to think about during those long hours, that she'd debated some of them to death in her head, with her favorites being "Who's the most and least attractive guy/girl in school", "Who's the most boring teacher at their school", as well as debating topics like "What do people see in that whole Eurodance genre?" and "Who's the worst actor, Van Damme or Seagal?" to no end with herself, while she allowed the hours to flow by in somewhat of a haze. The final classes would then be when she really got disenfranchised from reality, while she fought a brave fight to appear like she was listening to her teachers and in truth, had already mentally checked out long ago. Of course, there were some classes here and there, that she found somewhat interesting (with history and social studies being her favorite subjects) but as a general rule, she'd already learned to set her expectations low, when it came to anything exciting or too out of the usual taking place.

This day however, had been a hoot since she got to Capeside's own learning factory, mostly because there was a completely different kind of mood around the place, like they were finally free again, after years of oppression! Granted, that was overdoing it a little and most of the fuss surrounding Chris and Belinda's suspensions had died down by lunchtime, but it really felt to her like the school had passed some kind of invisible corner, when it came to what is acceptable and what isn't.

"How much do you guys think that Belinda would hate it to know, that her huge drama is already considered yesterday's news after less than a day?" Melissa asked her and Abby, as they were leaving the school after a day, that had been like nothing, they ever could have expected.

"Twelve on a one to ten scale!" Abby quipped with a hint of truth to it, no doubt. "Then again, I can't think of a more fitting punishment for her than being completely forgotten about!"

"Belinda who?" Jen jokingly agreed with her friends, and although she hadn't expected there to be more surprises coming that school day, one more was still to come that she hadn't seen coming.

Standing right there on the street outside of the school, was Chris, holding up a clearly homemade sign with the words "I'm Sorry" written on it in large letters. He wasn't looking too comfortable in this situation either from the stares that he got from his peers, but from what she could tell, he really did look like he meant it and for once, was being serious about something in his life.

"Does he deserve our pity? After all, he is a teenage boy and was probably thinking with something that wasn't his brain?" Abby asked and mused at the same time, as they took in the sight of how pathetic Chris was looking standing there in softly falling rain that only must have piled on the misery for him.

"I just want to move on from this and pretend that it never happened. If you two think that we should forgive him, I'll try to do the same" Melissa chimed in with, leaving the final decision to Jen herself.

"Let's see how much he's willing to grovel first!" Jen suggested, to the acceptance of her friends, before they walked over to a relieved looking Chris, that they were willing to hear him out, at least.

"Girls, I'm so sorry. It was all Belinda's idea, I swear!" he exasperatedly tried to tell the three girls, who were trying to play it cool, while pretending that they hated his guts.

"Why should we believe you, Chris?" Jen asked him. "One minute, you're pretending to be my friend and the next, you're writing death threats on the hood of my grandmother's car!"

"I am your friend, Jen. I'm also a guy however, and when Belinda started doing her thing on me ... the girl is a total bitch, but she gives fantastic head, okay? That's the only reason why I was with her!" Chris tried defending himself with, even if only got him headshakes and eyerolls from the girls, he was selling his defense to.

"TMI, Chris! Anyway, that has to be the worst excuse of all time!" Melissa scolded him, no doubt making him feel around five inches tall at this particular moment.

"I know! Look, I have absolutely nothing against you lesbians! I love that your kind exists, and I always picture myself with more than one girl, when I'm ... you know? Actually, there's usually around three or four of them there and they aren't just doing stuff to me, if you know what I'm saying" Chris confessed to them, and like a chain reaction that started with Abby and made it all the way around to all three of them, they soon found themselves laughing and not caring that their little talk was drawing stares, while the one they were laughing at was just relieved, that it didn't look like they hated him or anything like that.

"If that's your own personal version of showing tolerance, it's better than nothing, I guess!" Abby stated, with a nod along from Melissa to match.

"I would certainly never dream of hurting someone, just because they turned me down, Jen. It probably isn't a surprise to you, but it wasn't the first time, I'd tried it" Chris said, this time addressing Jen directly. "I'm a lover, not a fighter".

"That's kind of the impression that I got of you too" she shortly replied, getting a small smile out of Chris.

"Tell your grandmother that she can send me the bill for the repairs, and I'll gladly pay for it. I hope that we didn't freak her out too much".

"She's tougher than she looks. I'll tell her" she told Chris, who looked pleased.

"Thanks. I should get home, where more of my mom's punishment waits for me. I can give you girls a ride though, if you'll let me" he offered, but when Jen saw a certain someone out of the corner of her eye, she knew that she had to turn him down.

"I'll respectfully pass. There's someone that I need to talk to" she told the rest of their group, before walking towards Henry with her heart beating faster than a marathon runner's, after a good couple of hours of stretching their body to the max.

"Hi, Henry" she started with, although all it got her was ignored by him, at least to begin with.

"Okay, so I thoroughly deserve that! No arguments there from me!" she told Henry, who while he was trying to walk away from her, was also deliberately walking slow enough that she could easily keep up with him.

"Listen, I'm really sorry that I got all tongue-tied, but it doesn't mean that I'm ashamed of what we did. If I was, then why have I been daydreaming myself back to when you were kissing me, every chance that I get?" she tried her luck with and this time, it got Henry to stop walking and listen to her, at the least.

"You have?" he shyly asked her after a few seconds of them staring one another deeply in the eyes.

"Have you?" she asked him back, like him saying the right thing in response was the most important thing in the world to her.

"I can't stop myself from it. Look, Jen ..."

"Before you say anything, I just need to tell you one more thing. Look, I've never had any kind of luck, when it comes to love. My whole romantic history is a who's who of guys that I had crushes on and didn't like me back or guys, who I hooked up with looking for love and companionship, only to find out that all they wanted me for was sex and nothing else. You want to know something else? I'm so sick and tired of it being that way, that you wouldn't believe it!" she "confessed" to Henry, who looked sympathetic with her, like few other boys his age would have been with her in this situation.

"I guess, I can understand why" he very dryly joked.

"Basically, what I'm trying to tell you is that if we were to start dating, you'll have to accept a lot of things about me. Like me being truly awful at dealing with it, whenever someone puts me on the spot unexpectedly, like it happened a few days ago. I'm not perfect, far from it, in fact" she explained to Henry, who by now looked like he'd all but forgiven her entirely.

"You always will be in my eyes" he answered her sweetly, with those innocent eyes of his feeling like they were staring a hole into her very soul.

"Trust me, if there's one thing that I have in abundance, it's my little flaws here and there! If you can get past them though, there's a, in her own opinion not all that bad of a girl, who's totally crazy about you, hidden underneath them" she told him, in the most romantic way she could think of. Which must have worked too, considering the size of the wide grin that it put on her crush's mug.

"Does this mean that I get to take you on a date this weekend? Like, a real date?" Henry cutely asked her and now, it was her whose smile was so wide that it was putting Jack Nicholson's version of the Joker, from the first of the Tim Burton Batman movies, to pure and utter shame!

"Maybe, this will answer that question for you" she flirtingly answered, before proceeding to do what she'd wanted to do the most, ever since the last time that she had tried it.

As for who was watching them, she couldn't have cared less!

After a day that was anything but it at school, Nikki actually found herself enjoying the normalness of her home, where there was rarely anything unpredictable that happened and her post-school activities that day were roughly the same, as they were every weekday. Come home, get herself a small snack from the fridge, to tidy her over before dinner came a few hours later, before she'd zone out to MTV for half an hour or so and it became time to do her homework. She was just getting her books out and bopping along to a song by one of the newest girl all-vocal bands, named Destiny's Child, that seemed rather run of the mill to her compared to En Vogue, her favorite girl band, although she had to admit that their lead singer (some girl named Beyonce, from what she'd heard) had something to her that made Nikki think to herself that she could end up having a hit or two of her own someday, when the phone rang and she rushed to get it.

"Green residence" she answered it, using the most generic term out there, in case it was someone from the school or the schoolboard, who was calling to talk to her dad.

"Nikki, is that you?" she heard a voice on the other end say. After a moment or two to realize who it was on the other end, she couldn't help breaking out in a small smile.

"In the flesh, Shaniqua" she replied to what had probably been the best friend that she'd made, prior to her and her dad moving to their current home. "Are you still rocking it hard down in South Carolina?"

"It depends on how you look at it, I guess" Shaniqua answered her, probably with the same small shrug of the shoulders that Nikki knew usually accompanied it, whenever anyone asked her that question. "What's it like where you are?"

"As "Small-Townish" as it gets, but I can't say that I wasn't expecting it to be!" she bluntly answered Shaniqua, whom she heard let out a small giggle on the other end of the line. "How did you get our phone number?"

"I asked your dad's ex and she told me which school he was the principal at now, so I looked it up on-line and called their office, after I knew that he'd probably gone home for the day. People up there really aren't shy about giving someone's phone number away to just about anyone, who asks for it, are they?"

"They have a tendency to trust people blindly up here, believe it or not. Did you just call to chit-chat, or ..."

"Jerome got out of juvie a few days ago and he wants to talk to you. I told him that I have zero clue where you are or how to get in touch with you, but he seems pretty set on it. If you ask me, it sounded like he sincerely wants to apologize for how he screwed everything up between you two" Shaniqua informed her, sending waves of formerly felt romantic feelings rushing through Nikki's body again. "I didn't tell him anything, I swear, but if I can find out where you are that easily, so can he, if his mind is set on it. You can consider this your fair warning".

"You don't think that he's out for revenge against me, do you?" she worriedly asked Shaniqua, seeing as the thought had passed her mind a handful of times, especially in the days after Jerome's sentencing.

"It didn't seem that way to me, from how he sounded".

"How exactly did he sound?"

"Like he's truly ashamed of how it all went down, when he was arrested and tried to pin it all on you. Is your dad still reminding you of it on a daily basis?"

"Every chance that he gets to!" Nikki stated to Shaniqua, whom she could hear laughing on the other end.

"Why doesn't that surprise me? Anyway, I should go, since this phone call is probably costing my parents a small fortune. Take care, okay? Even if we don't see one another every day anymore, you're still my friend and I still care what happens to you".

"The same to you. I'd tell you to say hi to my other old friends down there, but everything considered ..."

"You secret is perfectly safe with me, don't worry" Shaniqua reassured her, before hanging up.

After that little talk, Nikki found it nearly impossible to concentrate on her homework and soon gave up on it, in favor of watching some more MTV that went in one ear and out the other, while her mind was preoccupied with thinking about more important stuff. She couldn't tell her dad about it either, seeing as he'd probably attempt to get a restraining order against Jerome, the first chance he got to and considering her own past with him, would she even want to see him again or hear out his apologies?

Honestly, she was entirely sure either way.

If there was one thing that Dawson wasn't afraid to admit, it was that he'd been missing his one-on-one time with the girl, who until the year before had been the only representative for her gender in his personal life, if we don't count his mom into the equation. How many hours of their childhood that they'd spent up his room, watching movies and talking about every little aspect of their lives hundreds of times over, he had no count on, but the simple fact was that when he thought back to those days, Joey had been an integral part of his life for most of it. Therefore, he was soaking this chance up for all that it was worth and their activities for the evening were almost like a salute to those simpler days of the past, with them watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and having Bodie's lasagna for dinner, a callback to Joey's 11th b-day, when she'd stuffed herself with so much of it, that she barely had the energy left to open her presents afterwards. Of course, they were older and thankfully wiser now, but it still felt nice to pretend like they were back in a time before her hooking up with Pacey had led to his oldest pal taking the place in her life, that he once held onto like it was his only life raft, in the raging seas known as adolescence.

"How does it make any sort of sense that if Indiana Jones and his girlfriend close their eyes, they don't get melted by the ghosts, like the Nazis do?" Joey confusedly asked him, as the movie was coming to an end, posting a question that many movie-watchers had no doubt asked themselves over the years.

"It's because ... you see ... I can't come close to explaining it either! Maybe, George Lucas or Steven Spielberg can, but I'm drawing a complete blank here!" he fumblingly answered Joey, who let out a cute little laugh at his answer. One thing that he couldn't deny enjoying the sight of was how much happier that Joey generally was now, compared to her pre-Pacey days, when a lame joke like that would just have gotten a scowl or a roll of the eyes from her.

"Does this mean that you're willing to admit that even your hero Spielberg isn't perfect?" she asked him, with a small twinkle in her eyes to add to it.

"It comes more from having found out that perfection is unattainable, if you want to get philosophical on the subject. Even if something, like a movie or a person, is perfect in one person's eyes, it will never be in everyone's eyes and just how it is" he replied to Joey, who nodded along in agreement, as he spoke.

"Like Pacey, for example" she began, bringing up perhaps their hometown's best example of such a case. "Through my, probably far too much in love with him, rose-tinted glasses, his little faults here and there don't mean the slightest thing, but if you ask his teachers at school, it's a very different story!"

"You are willing to admit though, that he isn't perfect?" he asked back, although it only drew a smile from Joey's lips.

"We're talking about Pacey, and I am still a realist to the bone, after all!" she fired back and now it was himself, who couldn't help letting out a small chuckle. "He tries his hardest to keep me happy though, so I give him a pass on most of it. What about yourself and the romance front, anything going on there?"

"Not all that much, I'm afraid. There is this one girl that I kind of like ..."

"Who?" Joey asked, interrupting him.

"She's one of the girls, who works down at the new video store. I doubt it, if you know her. We've watched a couple of movies together" he told her, in his best attempt to keep Eve's name out of the conversation.

"That's a good start. Do you think that it could lead to more between you two?" Joey asked him, sounding like she was legitimately interested in his romantic escapades.

"I hope so. She's ... something else, let me put it that way!" he confessed, before shooting another glance at his clock radio, which told him that it wouldn't be more than half an hour at the most, before his "second date" of the evening would be arriving for an evening that if it went like hoped it would, would end with him losing his innocence to the sexiest teenage girl, he'd ever set his eyes on before.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. Anyway, I should be getting home soon. My bed is calling out to me, like you wouldn't believe" Joey "confessed" and less than five minutes after the credits had started rolling on the first movie in the Indiana Jones series, she was out of the door and on her way home.

This was perfect too, seeing as it gave him time to fix himself up to look his finest, prior to the object of his affections coming over, to hopefully give him the erotic experience of a lifetime. Twenty minutes later, almost on the second, there was a knock at his parents' door and like a child, who thinks they're opening the door for Santa Claus himself, he rushed to see who it was, not that he couldn't easily guess it.

"Joey! Ehm, I wasn't expecting to see you back here tonight!" he told Joey, who was looking as annoyed with herself, as he was feeling the call of wild crying out for another girl, who would be there soon.

"I must have dropped my keys here. Can I come in and look for them?" she asked him, and seeing as it was such a small thing to ask for, he couldn't find it in his heart to say no to her.

As bad luck goes though, of course this just had to be the exact same time, as Eve came walking up his parents' porch, looking all kinds of tempting in her cut-off shorts and skimpy Minnie Mouse t-shirt. As the two girls made eye contact, he could swear that his heart missed at least one beat and probably more, when push comes to shove.

"I'm not into the idea of having threesomes, if that's what you think!" Eve told him off, making him feel around two inches tall at that particular moment. Luckily for him however, her remark only made Joey laugh out loud, which brought a certain earthiness to the situation, that was desperately needed.

"Eve is your secret flirt? Why didn't you just tell me?" Joey bright-eyed asked him, making him feel slightly foolish for not just having done so.

"We're sort of more than just flirting. It's more of a ... what do you call it ..." he began explaining, before Eve took it onto herself to do it for him.

"Friends with benefits is the proper term" Eve butted in with, in a very matter of fact kind of way. "Of course, if he's ashamed of telling his friends about me, that could quickly change!"

"I'm not, I swear! You wanted to keep it secret too, remember?" he said to Eve, who shook her head at his claims.

"When did I ever say anything to imply that to you, Dawson? Here I thought that we were in the beginning of something, but if we aren't ..." Eve began saying, before Joey felt the need to throw her two cents in, just for the hell of it or so it seemed.

"Allow me to be the mediator here! Dawson, do you want Eve to be your girlfriend?" she bluntly asked Dawson, who (in spite of feeling a little like he was being ganged up on here) was glad that she'd decided to help him out this way.

"Of course, I do. She's pretty amazing, when you get to know her" he admitted, and from the sweet smile on Eve's beautiful kisser, he could tell that it wasn't the worst thing to ever come out of his mouth.

"Eve, do you want Dawson to be your boyfriend?" Joey asked, this time addressing Eve and not him.

"On one condition. That he tells his friends about me" Eve answered, laying down a law that he could live with.

"In that case, I hereby pronounce you two boyfriend and girlfriend! You may kiss, while I go inside to look for my keys and then, I'll be out of your hair!" Joey said, sounding like the most unconventional minister of all time, before leaving them to themselves and whatever their hormone driven minds could come up with for the rest of the evening.

Did Dawson go all the way with Eve on this evening, you might ask? Well, only almost, but as far as giving him plenty of material for the old "Spank Bank", she all but filled up that cup before midnight hit and it became time for her to head back to her dad's house again.

END OF CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE