Fireworks Part II

Dawson leaned out the window hoping to see Joey walking up to his house. All that he could see though was the moon reflecting off the creek, and a vacant area where Joey’s boat would have been, SHOULD have been tonight. It was Saturday. Their movie night and for the first time in eight years Joey wasn’t over here. He had been right. Romance had ruined their friendship and now all he was left with was an empty cushion next to his. “I’m such a moron,” Dawson muttered to himself.
“You got that right.”
Dawson turned around to see Joey climbing into his room. He smiled even though things were tense , extremely tense, between them now.
“Joey! I didn’t think you were coming over.”
Joey sat down on the bed quietly and picked up the remote flipping through channels aimlessly. “Well I wasn’t going to, and then I realized that it was stupid not too. We’ve always bragged that we have this great friendship and can talk about anything. Well Dawson this is our test. Can we?”
“I want to Jo. I really do.”
Joey sighed and curled her feet up under her body. She looked very small and lonely. “Okay well where do we start? When did things get so out of control?”
Dawson walked over and sat next to Joey on the bed. “The first thing I do Joey is apologize. I had no right to fight with Pacey.”
“I’m sorry too. The whole thing with Pacey started out as a scam to get you back. . . Pacey’s idea though.”
Dawson laughed at Joey’s quick denial of the evil ploy. Then his face grew serious as he thought of something else. “Did it end up being a scam? Do you have feelings for him?”
Joey stood up and walked across the room. “I don’t know. I think so, but I also have feelings for you. And I feel so confused because if I love you then why am I attracted to Pacey? Does that mean I don’t love you or does that mean you can love two people at the same time? Next thing you know I’ll be in love with Jen.” By the time she finished, tears were streaming down her face.
“I don’t think that would happen... the Jen thing I mean. She’s not really your type”
Joey laughed and felt better.
“I guess its impossible to be romantic with friends and still keep the friendship.”
Joey shook her head. “I don’t think it was the friendship that ruined our relationship Dawson. It was us. We’re so scared of each other that we deliberately cause problems so we can safely back away and remain at a safe distance.”
“Then how do we fix that? How can we become more than friends Joey?”
Joey looked at Dawson and smiled wiping away her tears. “We don’t that’s how Dawson. I don’t think that we should hook up right now.”
“You don’t?”
“No because too much is unresolved. You’re just getting off a relationship with Jen and I’m unsure of my feelings for Pacey. If we get together I want us to have a chance to survive.”
Dawson walked over to where Joey was. “Okay then we’ll be friends for now. And we’ll ALWAYS be friends.”
“Heck if we can make through this then we can make through anything.”
“One more question though. Are you going to continue dating Pacey?”
“I think so. I need to know if what I’m feeling is real. I hope that doesn’t ruin your friendship with Pacey because if it will then I won’t date either of you. I won’t wreck anymore friendships.”
“No I’ll be okay. I won’t like it but hey it adds a good plot twist to my story.”
“You’re writing a story about my screwed up love life?”
Dawson shook his head in disbelief that she could think a thing. “ No of course not Joey gosh what kind of scoundrel do you think I am? ..... I’m writing it on all our lives.”
Joey stood there for a moment debating on whether to laugh or hit him. Finally she said, “Then I should definitely ask Jen out. Much more controversy.”
And for the first time in a long time Dawson and Joey laughed as friends like they used to.

Pacey walked into the Icehouse to meet Joey. She had called him and asked him to meet her at three. It was ten to three now and she was still waiting tables so she motioned that it would be a few minutes. He sat down at one of the outside benches and relished in his favorite pastime, People watching. In the sleepy town of Capeside, excitement was rare and danger was nonexistent. Pacey loved to watch common day folks walk down the street and imagine them as British spies ready to blow up the school which held secret FBI documents. There was also the common story of the beautiful girl who fell madly in love with the dashing young hero who just happened to be named Pacey. He looked across the street and found himself staring into the eyes of a girl that looked EXACTLY like Joey. He shook his head. It had to be an illusion but when he raised his eyes up again he saw that his eyes were not playing tricks and the beautiful girl that stood before him looked like Joey. She smiled and walked down the street. Pacey couldn’t help watching her as she walked past him and down the town.
“Checking out other girls already, huh? Your such a bad boyfriend Pacey.”
Pacey turned around and saw the real Joey standing with a smirk that nobody not even the Joey look alike could copy. “I was not checking her out Jo. I promise. She looked exactly like you and it was so weird that I couldn’t help staring and I .... wait did you say boyfriend?”
Joey nodded.
“Does that mean what I think it means?”
Joey reached out and took hold of Pacey’s hand. “I don't know where this is going to go but I can’t deny that I have strong feelings for you that aren’t going to go away by themselves, so we better find out what they are.”
Pacey but his arms around Joey and placed his hands on the small of her back. Joey leaned into him and just felt the warmth of his presence.
“What about Dawson, Jo?”
“I talked to him, and we agreed that it was best if we stayed friends.” Joey decided to leave some of the details out since Pacey didn’t really need to know everything. “I do want you to make up with Dawson. That’s my one condition on our relationship ..that and that you kiss me right now.”
Pacey smiled and leaned down. “Its a tough job but someone has to do it.” He softly kissed her lips with a fire that burned through his soul.

Jen was angrily stuffing articles of clothing into her suitcase. She was so mad and hurt, but mostly with herself. She had known that Dawson had feelings for Joey, and she still tried to cling to him. The whole idea to get back together had been a ploy to keep them apart. And why? She wanted to be friends with Joey, and she wanted Dawson to be happy, but seeing them together had driven a hole through her heart so deep that it hurt to breathe. The truth was she still liked Dawson and seeing him with another girl had hurt. Now though she was alone and humiliated. “Not a good combo,” she muttered to herself. She closed the first suitcase and turned around to grab the second one when she saw Dawson coming into the room.
“Hey your Grandmother let me in.”
“Well I didn’t think you broke in.. although that would be one more thing you broke this weekend.”
Dawson shook his head and sat down on the chair beside the window. “Okay so you’re still mad.”
“I think I have a right to be Dawson. You pretended to love me when all along you had feelings for Joey. You broke my heart.”
“Oh please Jen. You broke up with me remember?”
“That didn’t mean I didn’t care about you anymore. I just needed to be alone for awhile.”
“Okay then why did you want to get back together?”
Jen crossed over to the bed and began to fill the suitcase. Dawson walked over and spun her around. “You knew that me and Joey had something going on and you did it to keep us apart. You may think that you actions were sneaky Jen but it was apparent what you were doing.”
“Okay so I did. Sue me. But Dawson how do you think I felt seeing you with someone else?” Jen yelled the last few sentences and then collapsed on the bed in tears.
“I know and I’m sorry Jen. I never ever meant to hurt you and for that I am truly sorry. My actions toward your feelings were completely selfish.”
“I just didn’t want to let go.”
“Its hard for me too. I have to be honest, I love Joey, but you were my first girlfriend and my first kiss and the first girl I ever romantically cared about. You will always have a special place in my heart. Its just not a romantic place anymore.”
“Thanks that makes me feel better, and you’ll always be special to me too Dawson.” The two embraced on Jen’s bed in a hug that wasn’t a promise of the future or a remembrance of the past but symbol of a friendship that began between Dawson and Jen.
“Hey Jen where are you going?”
Jen looked at the suitcases and laughed. “I don’t know. I hadn’t figured that out yet.”

“You know you want to. Come on it’ll be fun and I promise you’ll enjoy it.” Pacey pleaded to Joey. “If you love me then you’ll do it.”
The couple was sitting on Pacey’s bed that night discussing their evening activities.
“I will not do it Pacey. There is no way that I am going to see Killers of the Dead part 6 with you. Its disgusting and gruesome and I will have no part in the destruction of society and out intelligence level.”
Pacey groaned and flew back on the bed in despair. “Then how am I going to see it. I’ve been dying to see it for weeks.”
“Well why don’t you go and see it with Dawson. It’ll be a chance for you guys to patch things up and check to make sure everything’s okay.”
“We talked this afternoon Jo.”
“I know but you still need time to adjust back into normal status.”
“What are you going to do?”
Joey grinned and a sly seductive expression emerged from her face.
“Well I was thinking of crashing the football party and having a wild orgy with the entire starting offense.”
Pacey, startled at first, tackled Joey pinning her arms behind her back and tickling her until she squealed for mercy. He kissed her on the lips lightly and then sat up. “What are you going to do then?”
“Believe it or not I was going to ask Jen if she wanted to do something. I mean we have something in common now, we both got our hearts broken by Dawson.”
Joey started laughing but stopped when she realized that she was laughing alone. Pacey had grown quiet and a serious expression had overcome his face. “Jo are you only dating me to get over Dawson?” Rattled by his bluntness, Joey became defensive. “How could you even think that Pacey. Is that the kind of relationship that you want?”
“No I want one where the girl actually cares for me and isn’t using me to get rid of her unwanted desires for an unattainable guy.”
“Unattainable? I could have dated Dawson if I wanted to, but I chose you although right now I’m not sure why.”
Pacey looked up sheepishly. “Did we just have our first fight as a couple.”
“I think so”
“Wow our first fight. We’ll have to remember this day. Its a special one.”
Joey laughed and the anger was forgotten. “You do something with Dawson, and I’ll do something with Jen and then tomorrow we’ll do something together.”
“Okay its a deal. Now that we’ve had our first fight I think we should have our first make up.” He leaned in a kissed Joey passionately on the lips.
“Well Jo I think we’ve found something to do tomorrow.”
“Oh really what?”
“Fight!”
“Fight?”
“Yeah then we get to make up.” He smiled and continued making out.....oops I mean up.

Joey walked down to the dock where Jen was sitting with her feet hanging off into the water. “Hey”
Jen looked up a smiled a small smile. “Hey”
“Listen I just wanted to say that I hope this doesn’t place us back at square one in our friendship. It took us forever to get this far and I really want to be friends with you Jen.”
Jen smiled a real smile this time. “Its okay Joey. I’m not mad.”
Joey smiled and the two sat in silence for awhile just watching the sun set and thankful for the rare moment of tranquillity. Finally Joey spoke. “So the guys are going to see Killers of the Dead part 6 tonight.”
“You’re kidding me. That movie has no plot what so ever. Why would the go see it?”
“Its got blood, guts, blood, violence, and more blood.”
“You see Joey that’s the difference between girls and guys. We focus more on real issues. We aren’t distracted by silly stuff like that.”
“I totally agree. So you want to do something tonight?”
“Sure we could see a movie. The new Ethan Hawke movie came out.”
“Cool what’s it about?”
“Who cares Jo. It has Ethan Hawke in it.”
Laughing the two girls started out toward the movie theater.

Already at the movie theater, Pacey and Dawson were about to go into their movie. They were buying refreshments. Dawson bought a small drink and a small popcorn. Pacey walked up to order. “Can I have a large Coke, an extra large popcorn, a box of M&M’s, and plate of nachos.”
“Good grief man. Are you going to eat all of that?”
“Of course. Watching dead people die again always makes me hungry. In part 5 I ate like twice this much.”
Pacey and Dawson laughed and picked up Pacey’s food.
“You know Pace, I’m really glad that we’re still friends.”
“Me too dude”
“I don’t want to risk it for anything.”
“You’re not going to give me a hug now or anything are you?”
Dawson punched Pacey lightly on the shoulder which sent Pacey teetering on the brink of spilling all his food. Dawson laughed as Pacey danced around trying to save all of his treasures. He looked over at Pacey’s shoulder and saw something that he didn’t believe. He grabbed Pacey’s shoulder and spun him around. The food fell from Pacey’s hands and spilled all over the floor.
“Man what are you doing? My food is destroyed now. Well maybe I can save the M&M’s and the popcorn but the Nachos are ... “
“Forget the food Pacey. Look at that girl over there.”
“Dawson this is a different side to you. I like this. A girl chasing . . “
“No look at the girl. Doesn’t she look like Joey.”
Pacey looked and gasped. “That’s the same girl I saw yesterday that I thought was Joey at first.”
The girl saw them watching her and started to approach them. When she was close enough she held out her hand and shook each off their hands. Dawson felt an electric current pass through his body as this angel touched him. Finally she spoke in a soft voice. “Hi I’m Allison. Do you guys happen to know a Josephine Potter?”
“Umm yeah she’s like our best friend. When did you meet her?”
“I’ve never spoken to her before.”
Pacey looked confused as he attempted to make sense of the whole thing. “Then how do you know her?”
“She’s my sister.”

Will Joey’s sister change anything in Capeside? Oh come on you know she will the question is what will she change? Sibling Rivalry Part 1 coming soon

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