Author: Kate
Rating: PG
Pairing: D/J
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'Life is not a movie. Everyone lies. The good guys lose. And love doesn't always conquer all. Your friends let you down. Your lovers cheat on you. Life isn't fair, no one ever said it would be, but isn't everyone entitled to just one day when things go your way? You would think... '
Joey put her pen down and closed her diary in deep contemplation. All she wanted was one day, just one day, where everything went her way. She couldn't ever remember having a day like that before. She looked back on the past fifteen years of her life. To say the least, they hadn't been easy. But, there had always been a bright spot in her life, Dawson. Even if he didn't return her feelings for him, it was OK. At least she had his friendship. And that was enough for her. She put her diary on the night stand and turned the light off. It was ten O' clock and she was exhausted. It didn't take long for her to become lost in a deep slumber.
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"Joey, get up! Get up! School starts in ten minutes!" Joey woke up to Bessie's screaming voice.
'Perfect' she thought. 'Just perfect. A wonderful beginning to a new day.'
After she got dressed, Joey jumped in the car and Bessie drove her to school. Luckily her first period was her slack class, Spanish. Unfortunately, she had to sit next to Pacey. The teacher, Senora Gonzalez, quickly explained to her to assignment after she walked in late. Pacey had picked her to be her partner, and they had to write sentences that best described each other using the words that they had learned that year. 'This day just gets better and better, ' Joey thought as she sat down.
"Hey Pacey, I've already thought of some sentences that describe you."
"I didn't know that Senora Gonzalez taught us how to say stud muffin already." Pacey joked.
"Oh, she hasn't. But, she has taught us feo (ugly), gordo (fat), and estupido (stupid)."
Pacey looked at her with confusion on his face, "What does that mean?"
Joey just rolled her eyes and they got to work.
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When the bell rang for second period, Joey picked up her book bag only to find that the zipper had broken. So when she stood up all of the contents of her book bag fell out. Pacey just looked at her and started to laugh like a drunken hyena. Joey looked at him with her usual "Bite me" face. Pacey shut-up.
She quickly picked up her things and found some safety pins to reattach her book bag with. Luckily, her locker was just outside of her first period, so she threw all of her extra books and things that she didn't need into it and ran to her second period. Second period History, she sighed. "My favorite class," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She took her seat in the front row as the late bell rang.
"As you all know, today is your unit test." Mr. Maclean, her teacher began. Joey felt her face go pale. 'No,' she thought. 'I completely forgot about the test.'
Mr. Maclean continued, "And since I know that this unit was a lot harder then the rest, I decided to give you all a break. It's going to be one of my very rare open-book tests."
The class cheered and Joey felt her heart rise from the bottom of her chest. She unclasped the safety pins on her broken book bag and dug for her history book. She suddenly felt her heart drop again. When she was putting her things into her locker, she must have accidentally put her history book in there too.
One hour later, Joey reluctantly placed her test in Mr. Maclean's hands. She was sure she failed.
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Joey wandered into the cafeteria after a very stressful morning looking for Dawson to make it all better. Her eyes scanned the small room and she couldn't find him anywhere. Pacey walked up behind her and said, "If your looking for Dawson, then your out of luck. He's home sick."
"Great, so now I have to sit with you?" Joey said sounding disgusted.
"Sorry, Jo. You see that girl standing over there?"
Joey looked in the direction that Pacey was pointing to and saw a girl wave. "Yea." Joey replied confused.
"Well, she just couldn't resist the ole Witter charm. She asked me to sit with her today."
"My God, why?" Joey laughed.
"Thanks, Jo. But, at least I'm not sitting alone." Pacey walked away.
Joey knew that Pacey was right. She walked into the courtyard outside the lunchroom and sat on a bench. She pulled out her history book that she had retrieved from her locker after second period to work on some extra credit, she figured she needed it. Joey got to work thankful that at least she had something to do.
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After lunch, Joey slowly found her way to fourth period. She usually had this class with Dawson, so it was tolerable. She walked into the classroom to an unbearable funk. "What is that smell?" Joey asked Ms. Root, her biology teacher.
"Did you forget Josephine? Today we're dissecting fetal pigs."
Joey sat down in her seat looking sick and disgusted. Dawson promised that he would do all of the work on this project. That was the deal they had made. She dissected the cow eye, he dissected the pig. It seemed that her day just couldn't get any worse.
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After Joey had finished dissecting and recording the information she had found, she was excused to the bathroom. Since the bell was scheduled to ring in the next two minutes, she took her all of her things with her. She walked into the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water. Joey figured that was probably the one of the most wretched things she had ever done for a grade. Just looking at that poor, little, animal that never even had a chance to live made her want to throw-up. Not to mention the way it looked. It had been sitting in chemicals and fluids for months, its skin was soggy and cold.
When the bell rang, she sauntered down the steps to her locker. She fished for her book, found it, and walked across the school to the library. She had study hall fifth period, and hated it. All the jocks and cheerleaders were in that class. She walked through the doors just as the bell rang.
"Joey, detention." The librarian said as Joey put her bag on the table.
"But, Mrs. Tringle, I was here on time!" Joey protested.
"You were in the library, yes, but not in your seat. You know the rules. Three tardies then detention. And if I do recall correctly, this is your third tardy in the past few days. So you either stop arguing with me, or you get Saturday school. Its up to you."
Joey sighed, she knew that Mrs. Tringle was wrong. Her only tardies were from that morning and just now. But, Joey let it slide, she was an old woman and made mistakes often. Besides, Joey didn't feel like arguing. So, she got out all of her homework and got it all finished right before the bell rang. She stood up and walked to math class, 'maybe' she thought, 'just maybe, nothing will go wrong this period...'
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Joey made it through 6th period with only a pop quiz and the promise of a very challenging test the next day. Since she refused to ride the bus with all the immature freshmen, she walked home. Half an hour later, she arrived home to a very frantic Bessie.
"Jo, I'm so glad your here! The cash register broke at the Ice House. It won't open, and the dinner crowd will be arriving in about two hours. I have to get over there as soon as possible to see what I can do, and hopefully get someone down there tonight."
"Let me guess." Joey began as Bessie practically threw Alex into her arms, "I get to take care of your kid. Great." She finished sarcastically.
Joey took Alex into the house and got a snack. She had thankfully finished her Spanish project and extra-credit assignment for History in study hall, so all she had to do was study for math. So, she sat down, found something to entertain Alex and opened her math book.
Two hours later, she figured she had studied enough and started dinner for her and Alex. As she was taking the easy mac out of the microwave, the phone rang ... which made a very peaceful baby start to wail, again.
"Hello?" Joey said clearly agitated.
"Hey Jo. I'm sorry, am I calling at a bad time?"
She was relived to here the voice that she had missed so much that day. "Hey," she said showing her happiness to hear from him. "No, no. I'm just incredibly stressed out. I've had about the worst day imaginable, and now I'm stuck at home to feed Satan."
"Aw, the joys of baby-sitting! Well, Why don't I come over and help?"
"Oh, Dawson, that would be great. But, aren't you sick?"
"No. But, I faked it today." He sounded like he was proud of himself.
"Why?" Joey asked slightly amused. Dawson wasn't usually the type to lie to get out of school.
"I had a huge project due today in History that I didn't finish."
"Dawson!" Joey laughed. "You devil, you!" She smiled. "Well, if you've finished the project, then I'd love for you to come over."
"Alright, I'll be over in about ten minutes."
"K, see you then."
"Bye, Joey."
She smiled for what seemed to be the first time that day. Maybe things were looking up. Maybe her day could get bet- She didn't get to finish her thoughts. Alex had pushed over the bowl that held their dinner.
'Or, maybe not.'
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"I come bearing gifts!" Dawson yelled as he walked through the front door to the Potter home. Joey followed Dawson's voice and found him carrying a brown bag.
"What is that?" She questioned gesturing to the bag.
"I thought you'd like this a little better than whatever you were micro-waving when I called. It's Chinese takeout. I ordered it just before I called you. And there's a sandwich my mom made in here for Alex."
"Thank you so much, Dawson. I don't think you know how much this means to me. Alex knocked over the macaroni I was making," she pointed to the neglected mess on the floor. "and all I want to do is take hot shower and forget about this day." She sighed.
"Well, why don't you? I'd love to spend some quality time with my favorite two year old. I'll feed him and put the Chinese food in the oven to keep in warm. You go take your shower."
Joey smiled a very thankful smile and threw her arms around Dawson before turning to the bathroom to take some much needed alone time.
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Dawson fed Alex without much struggle. Alex had always loved to have Dawson around. Whenever he was crying, all it took to make him quiet was to see Dawson. Joey called him her secret weapon.
After dinner, Dawson sat Alex in front of the TV for some cartoons while he cleaned up the kitchen. After he finished cleaning up the mess he had made, he decided to clean the living room since he could still hear the shower running.
An hour later, Joey walked out of the bathroom refreshed. It was rare she had that much undisturbed time to herself anymore. She looked at Dawson who was sitting on the floor next to Alex working on a puzzle with him.
She didn't want to disturb them, but she was getting hungry. "You ready to eat?"
Dawson looked up and smiled. "Sure. Did you have a nice shower?"
"Yes, It was so relaxing. But I'm getting hungry now."
"Me, too." He got up and followed Joey to the kitchen.
While Joey and Dawson were getting their dinners together, Bessie walked in the door.
"Hey, Bess. Did everything go OK at the Ice House?" Joey asked.
"Yes, thank God. We called someone to come and fix the cash register and they got there in less then ten minutes, fixed the stupid, old, piece of crap, and didn't charge anything. He said it was easy to fix and wouldn't feel right about taking my money. So, who was I to protest? I just gave him a free dinner, and raked in a bunch of money from the dinner crowd."
"That's great. We were just going to eat. Dawson fed Alex while I took a shower. He's watching TV right now."
"Dawson, you got him to eat and sit still for longer then three minutes?" Bessie said amazed.
"Yea." Dawson said rather sheepishly.
"I always knew there was something I liked about you!" Bessie exclaimed, happy that she didn't have to wrestle with a two year old that night. "Since you two seemed to have accomplished a lot tonight, why don't you take your food and have a picnic? I'll put Alex to sleep and find something to eat myself." She smiled.
"Bessie, that would be great, " Joey hugged her sister and helped Dawson get everything together into a basket. When they walked outside, she asked, "Where would you like to eat?"
"How about my Dad's speed boat. He actually let me drive it over here. We could take it out up the creek and eat there."
"That would be great."
So, they gathered everything into the boat and drove it to a remote place up the shore that hardly anyone knew about. It was beautiful there. There was Spanish Moss hanging down from the trees and beautiful flowers that made Joey forget she was in Capeside, and not on some remote tropical island. The sun was setting just over the shore line and Joey wished that Dawson would realize just how romantic it all was and kiss her. She sighed, she knew none of that would ever happen. Dawson would never look at her the way she looked at him. But, she figured she would live, and opened the picnic basket.
They ate in silence until Dawson asked, "Is your day getting any better?"
She looked at him and smiled. "Of course it is. This is great. It's just what I needed after a day like today."
"Well then I'm glad. I'm sorry you have such a horrible day, what happened?"
"Do you remember that deal we made in biology? The one where I dissect the cow eye, you dissect the pig?" Joey said trying to make him feel bad for making her do all the disgusting work earlier that day.
Dawson tried to stifle a laugh at the look on Joey's face. He had forgotten that today they had to deal with the fetal pigs. He knew Joey hated to dissect, and was sorry she had to all by herself. But, just imagining her cut open the pig and try to find out if it was male or female sent him into fits of laughter.
"Hey! I wouldn't be laughing if I were you! Tomorrow, we have to open the digestive system."
But, he didn't stop laughing. In fact it only got worse. So she started to tickle him, trying to get back at him. Big mistake. Dawson was bigger, and much stronger then her and could win a tickle fight with her any day. He pinned her down and tickled her until she yelled, "I give! I give!"
Dawson, suddenly aware of just how close the two were, started to get uncomfortable. Underneath him, he could tell Joey was squirming a little too. He started to get up, but he caught her eye and couldn't look away from her. It seemed that gravity was pulling them closer and closer together. He looked deep into her eyes for consent, and when he saw it, he kissed her. His lips glided softly over hers. He pulled her even closer to him by wrapping his arms around her. Joey ran her fingers through his hair and reveled in his taste, committing it to memory. Neither knew how long they stayed like that. Was it only minutes, hours? They didn't care.
Finally, Joey pulled away, sure that Dawson would be freaking out asking what was going to happen to their forever complicated friendship. But, he didn't. He simply smiled at her and helped her up. They cleaned up the mess they had made eating, often glancing at each other and smiling shy smiles. When it was time to head back home, Dawson asked Joey if she'd like to drive the boat back.
"Dawson, you know I don't know how to drive this thing." She protested.
"That's why I'm going to teach you." He smiled mischievously.
"Dawson Leery!" She feigned surprise. "Are you just trying to trick me into being closer to you?"
"Who me?" Dawson looked around playing along with Joey. "Never." He assured her.
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It took the took the two much longer to get home then it should have. They would stop the boat occasionally to share some heated kisses. But, neither minded when they returned to Joey's house well after dark.
"Joey, why don't we go out to dinner tomorrow? It'll be Movie Night anyway, so afterward you can come to my house and we can watch some movies."
She responded with a kiss. This was most definitely a day she would never forget.
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