Joey stopped walking as she rounded the corner, her heart clenching in her chest at the sight of Pacey’s profile. He was sitting in one of the chairs out by the dock, huddled against the cold November night air in his worn brown jacket. Swallowing hard, she walked tentatively toward him. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He didn’t look over at her, just kept his gaze focused on the dock. “How was work?”

“Long. Boring. But the tips were good.” Joey sat on the edge of the chair next to him, tugging her short skirt down to cover her chilled legs. “Have you…been here long?”

“Long enough.” He shrugged along with his response. “Is there somewhere we can go that’s warmer? Or did you just want to go change into something less…”

“Freezing?” Joey giggled nervously. “We could go inside. There are guests, but we could go in my room. Bessie’s been pretty fanatical about giving me my privacy lately.”

“I don’t know that your room would be the best place, Jo.”

“Afraid you can’t resist me?” The comment slipped out before she could stop it and the hot rush of embarrassment warmed her body. “I guess…I guess that was sort of uncalled for.”

“Yeah,” Pacey got out of his chair and stood, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. “And not an issue. So let’s go inside and talk.”

“Okay.” She took his hand, letting his larger one envelop hers. A different kind of warmth flooded through her, although the icy chill of worry managed to mingle with the residual heat. “There’s a lot…”

“Shh.” Pacey shook his head and walked past her, trying not to notice the sharp hurt in her eyes. “Not right now, Jo. Let’s go inside and then we can hash it all out. There’s a lot that needs to be said, and I don’t want to get started and then have to put everything on pause while we walk through the dining room.”

She nodded and followed him the rest of the way in an uncomfortable silence.

He hates me. That’s all I can think as we walk toward the house. It’s not a rational thought, since he’s been sitting out here for who knows how long waiting for me, waiting to talk to me, but it’s still the one that fills me.

Touching him is like heaven. Especially since I’m scared that this will be the last opportunity I have to do it. What if he leaves me? What if I never get to touch him again, kiss him again, be with him again? Pacey makes me feel like no one ever has. He makes me want to do things I’ve never done, and I’m not just talking about sex.

And I’ve blown it. I can read him so well after our time together, and I know that he’s not going to be able to get past what I said and what he thinks I meant. And, to be honest, there’s no way that I can convince him that I didn’t mean what it sounded like. Because there’s no way to take those words back and denying them only makes everything worse.

But I have to try. And I have to hope he’ll believe me.

Joey closed the door to her bedroom, giving Bessie a glare before she did so. Her sister’s curious gaze did little to hide the hope in her eyes, and Joey couldn’t bear to see it. Couldn’t managed to let herself hope, to believe, like Bessie did, that everything might work out right. Instead she leaned back against the door, watching as Pacey sat at her desk, slowly turning his chair to face her.

“So,” she asked quietly, “where do we start?”

“You’re the one who said we needed to talk, Joey.” He met her eyes, holding her gaze as she moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. “And I don’t think it would do either of us any good to pretend that we don’t know what we need to talk about.”

“I don’t want to have sex with Dawson.”

He smiled thinly and shook his head. “No? You just need him to know that I didn’t corrupt you during our summer of no sin? You just needed him to know that you were still the same pure, virginal girl of his dreams that you were when you left?”

“No.”

“And when did you impart this information to him, Jo? While you two were talking on the boat and I was waiting on the beach, cooling my heels? Or was if after I left?” She looked down at her hands, not willing to meet his knowing look. “I see. So, while I was sitting on True Love hoping that you’d give enough of a damn to come after me, you were having a heart to heart with Dawson over the state of our sexual relationship.”

“I came after you.”

“No, Joey. I came after him.” Pacey stood up, his hands clenched at his sides. “You tried so hard to make me think that we had nothing to do with him, that he was just a ghost story, a bad memory in the back of my mind, the personification of my own fears. And you’re good, Joey. I’ll admit it, because you almost had me convinced. I mean it, I almost believed you. Until yesterday, I hadn’t thought about Dawson’s influence on our relationship in weeks.”

“Dawson isn’t an influence…”

“Bullshit.” He slammed his fist down onto her desk, halting her sentence. “You’ve always imagined your first time with him, you’ve been in love with him for so long that he’s like a part of you, he’s been such an important part of your life you can’t imagine making a decision without thinking about how it will affect him.” He shook his head, anger and hurt in his blue eyes. “Well you know what, Jo? You don’t have to worry anymore. Because I’m not going to ask you to make a decision that might adversely affect our friend, Mr. Leery. In fact, I’ll do even better than that.”

“Pacey, don’t.” Tears filled Joey’s eyes as she stood, taking a step toward him. She reached out to grab his arm, and he jerked back, unwilling to let her touch him.

“I’ll make a decision that should make Dawson very happy.”

“Please, Pacey…”

“I can’t do it, Jo.” He walked over to the door, avoiding her carefully, ignoring her pain. “I can’t be second best, and I can’t be…I can’t be the guy you’re with because you’re not with Dawson. And more than anything else, I can’t hold you or kiss you or, God help me, love you when all I’m thinking about is how much you’d rather be doing all those things with him.”

“That’s not the case. I swear it, Pacey.” She reached out for him, grabbing his hand. “I love you. I want you.” She nodded vigorously, bringing his hand to her breast and resting it on top of the soft mound, rubbing his palm over her hardening nipple. “I only want you.”

He closed his eyes, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry, Joey.” He pulled his hand slowly from her breast, turning to face the door.

“But…but I love you.”

He turned back to her quickly, capturing her face in his hands and kissing her, his lips brushing hers in soft longing for too short a time before he let her go and stumbled to the door. “I love you, too.”

Kissing her was not what I had planned. My plan had been loosely based around indignant rage and overwhelming jealousy. Instead, I kissed her.

And I’m pretty sure I just severed my relationship with the woman I sacrificed everything to be with. There’s nothing quite like a sacrifice made in vain, is there?

I don’t even know that I’m doing the right thing. Should the right thing feel like this? Like I’m leaving the most important part of me behind? In my mind, even in my heart, I feel like this is what I have to do. I just wish it didn’t hurt this bad.

And I wish I knew what to do now.

Pacey pushed open the door of the house he and Gretchen shared and froze. “Oh.”

Dawson looked up from the book he was leafing through, his expression conveying his discomfort. “Hey.”

“Yeah.” Pacey gave him a nod and walking into the kitchen.

“I’m just waiting for Gretchen. There was an accident at the restaurant and I told her I’d give her a ride home so she could change. And a ride back. When she was done.”

Pacey grabbed a soda from the fridge and opened it, not looking at Dawson. “Great.”

“Otherwise, I wouldn’t…”

“Yeah. I got it.” Turning, Pacey brushed past him and moved over to sink onto the sofa, turning on the TV. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“She should be done any minute.”

Pacey set his drink down and gave Dawson a hard look. “Dawson, I don’t care why you’re here. Especially tonight. Hell, for all it matters to me, you could be nailing my sister on a regular basis.”

“No wonder you won Joey over with your romantic charms.”

Pacey’s hand tightened around the soda can and he forced himself to calm down before he picked it up. “Is that what you tell everyone? That Joey succumbed to my romantic charms? Because the way Joey tells it, I figured you’d just be reminding everyone that you let her go, all the while insisting that she’d find her way back to you, but she had to be free to discover on her own that you were right. And then you set her free.” Sarcasm laced Pacey’s tone. “And I appreciate it, man.”

“You should. She wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t.” Dawson glanced in the direction of Gretchen’s room before looking back at Pacey. “How did you know all that?”

“Joey told me. She tells me everything.” Taking a long drink, Pacey turned his gaze back to the TV. “You see, I mastered that ever so difficult trick of being her boyfriend and her best friend all at once. Something I guess you just couldn’t get the hang of.”

“She tells you everything?”

“Everything.” Pacey nailed him with an angry look. “She told me about your heartfelt scene on the dock, and she told me that she informed you of our choice to remain celibate on our sea-going voyage. See, she trusts me, Dawson. We trust each other. It’s quite the new thing in relationships.” The words burned in Pacey’s throat, tinged with unshed tears. “You’ll have to give it a try sometime…whenever you find a new soulmate.”

Dawson smirked at Pacey and nodded. “Tell Gretchen I’ll be out in the car, would you?”

“My pleasure.” He waited until the door closed behind Dawson before he bent his head, unable to maintain his composure any longer. It hadn’t given him any pleasure to tell off Dawson or to hurt him, especially since his mind kept reminding him that he’d quite possibly just told Joey’s next boyfriend exactly what it might take to make her happy.

“Pacey? Where’s Dawson?”

“He’s out in the car.”

“What did you say to him?”

Pacey looked up at Gretchen, almost laughing at the concern in her voice. “I just thanked him for sending Joey my way, Gretch. Thanked him for setting her free.”

I can’t do anything but sit here and stare out the window. The air still smells like him, and I want to gulp it down. I feel like I’ve lost something precious…something more than our relationship. I mean, I know that everything seems better when you don’t have it, but this never looked better than what I had with him.

I love him.

And I don’t know what to do with it. I mean, with Dawson and Jack I could let it all fade into friendship. I had no fears that I wouldn’t have something with them after all was said and done. But with Pacey…where do we go? Do we go back to that place we used to be and pretend that we hate each other? Did I ever hate him or was this all lying beneath the surface?

Are we friends now? We were friends before he kissed me, before I kissed him back? He was there for me when I needed him most. At least, that’s what I thought at the time. But now is when I need him most and it’s over.

How am I supposed to do this? How did he become so important? How did I let him get so far under my skin? How…how could I have ever doubted that I was ready?

Joey turned as her bedroom door opened, the faint hope in her eyes fading as she realized it was her sister. “Hey Bess.”

Bessie walked in, shutting the door behind her before sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m guessing from the fact that I’m on your bed instead of Pacey that it didn’t go so well?”

“You could say that. I mean, I guess ending what has been the best relationship of my life would rate a not going well.” Joey ran her finger over the edge of her desk, refusing to look at her sister. “I’m so stupid. I’m supposed to be so smart, but I’m so stupid!”

“You’re not stupid, Joey. You’re confused, you’re young and you’re emotional. In other words, you’re a teenager.” Bessie smiled in her sister’s direction. “And I assure you that it’s not the end of the world. I mean, you thought after the thing with Dad that you’d never reconcile with Dawson, but…”

“This isn’t about Dawson. This has nothing to do with Dawson.” Joey turned, angry at the tears that coursed down her cheeks. “Dawson is the last thing on my mind right now. Pacey left me, Bessie. It’s over. Done. Everything I ever wanted in a relationship and it’s gone!”

“Joey,” Bessie moved over and wrapped her arm around Joey’s shoulder’s. “Things will get better. You’ll talk to Pacey and work this all out.”

“And say what? What do I say to make him think that I’m not thinking about Dawson?” Joey shrugged off Bessie’s embrace and buried her head in her hands. “I can’t even do what I want to do…what I’ve wanted to do all along.”

“What’s that, Jo?”

“Make love to him,” her words were a quiet whisper. “All three months on that boat, I wanted to. I mean, I knew that I wouldn’t because we were learning about each other. I was falling in love with him, without Capeside holding me back.”

“And when you got back to town?”

“I was scared. Because I wasn’t as different as I hoped I’d be. I was still the same Joey Potter when it all came down to it, you know? I still needed to see Dawson, make things right with him. I still needed him to validate my existence. I thought I’d gotten past it. I thought that Pacey loving me was enough, but it didn’t seem to be.”

“Is that why you were scared about sleeping with him? Because you were afraid it would change you?”

“No. Because I was afraid it wouldn’t. What if he and I made love, Bessie, and afterwards I still needed to see Dawson and make sure I was the kind of girl he wanted me to be? Not because I love him, but because I’m so used to needing him?”

“Joey, Dawson has been an important part of your life for over ten years. You guys were inseparable for almost a decade. No one, not even Pacey, expects you to discard him from your life. And no one expects you not to have feelings for him. You just have to decide what those feelings are. And whether they’re more important to you than the feelings you have for Pacey.”

“Pacey thinks they’re more important.” Joey sighed and shook her head. “And that’s all that matters.”

I wonder where Eve is right now.

Sort of a strange thought, I know. But instead of watching TV I’ve been mulling over the evolution of my relationship with Joey, and I’m starting to wonder if I hooked up with Eve and got her to give me a blow-job basically in front of Joey, if that would lead to Joey crawling through my window and attempting to seduce me. Or does shit like that only happen for Dawson?

I hadn’t even given any thought to the fact that after a summer of pretty much despising the guy, she was willing to give it all up to him to save him from the evil clutches of the new town skank. But now I can’t seem to get the thought of out my head.

I think I should be amused by how fucking twisted fate is. I mean, Dawson turned down Joey’s offer for a night of sin, prompting me to make my way across the creek, which in turn led to me falling in love with Joey. And when it came back around to sex…she still wanted Dawson.

I wonder if there’s a listing for random whores in the phone book.

What pisses me off the most is that I still want her. I’m lying here thinking how angry I am, how hurt I am, how betrayed I feel and the foremost thought on my brain is how much I wish she would walk through that door right now and beg me to forgive her, beg me to fuck her.

Not that Joey would ever do that. And not that it would mean anything if she did…if we did. But I guess it’s a strange sort of comforting that, even though everything’s over between us, I’ll still spend my nights and mornings beating off to thoughts of Joey Potter.

Joey stopped at her locker and slowly twisted the combination. It had been three days and she missed him. She missed his stupid jokes and soft touches, missed everything. Pressing her forehead against the cool metal, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Meditation, Potter?”

Oh. She missed his voice. “You pray to a porcelain god, Pacey. I pray to a metal one.”

“They don’t allow prayer in schools, you know.” He raised an eyebrow as she pulled back and opened her locker. “They say it corrupts the youth of today.”

“You already did that for me. In fifth grade, I think.” She tried to hide her smile, all the while wondering why he was talking to her and how she could keep the conversation going. “What brings you to my side of the hallway?”

“I’m having a little trouble in one of my classes. Think you could give me a hand?”

“Sure. At lunch?”

“That’d be great. I’m glad that…” He sighed hard. “Can we be friends, Jo?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged and looked at him over her shoulder. “I’m willing to give it a try. Although why I bother with you when I know you’re just after one thing…”

“And what one thing is that?” His voice was soft and deep, laced with either sadness or desire.

“My brain.”

“Oh yeah. That’s right. Your immense knowledge of iambic pentameter and rhymed couplets.”

She linked her arm through his and started walking. “You always say the nastiest things, Pacey.”

He stopped and disengaged their arms. “Let’s…let’s just give friends a try first, okay, Jo? I don’t know that I’m up to the banter quite yet.”

“This is how we were friends, Pacey. Admittedly sometimes it was with more venom, but it was always like this.”

“Why does it feel so much like being in love then?”

“Maybe we were just fooling ourselves before?”

“About being in love?”

“No, Pacey.” She shook her head and nodded to the door on her right, indicating her next class. “About being friends.”