SOS by Glory, Girl Writer.pdf - Dawson's Creek Fandom Wiki

She closed her eyes again, and listened as the wind moved the branches of a tree
outside the open window. When the silence settled over the room again, she became
aware that she could hear the sound of her own heartbeat pulsing in her ear, pressed to
his chest. She listened to it for a minute, steady and reassuring, and then realized that
she could hear his, too, only a little more distantly, alternating with her own. His, mine,
his, mine, she chanted inside her head. She took a deep breath, and as she exhaled,
she started to think about how many mornings she might wake up like this. Let's see.
We're nineteen. With luck, we've got at least fifty years. What's fifty times three hundred
sixty-five? Three hundred times fifty is half of three hundred times one hundred, so
that's half of, what, thirty thousand? So that's fifteen thousand, and then sixty-five times
fifty is . . . three thousand and something . . . that's eighteen thousand times, on the low
end, not even counting leap year, and who knows what the medical advances could be
by then? We could live to be a hundred. What's eighty times three hundred sixty-five?
She flattened her palm against his stomach and smiled.
He shifted underneath her. "Hey, there, Jo."
She didn't move. "Good morning."
"What have you been doing while I was lying here comatose?" He reached behind his
head and propped himself up with another pillow. She finally lifted herself up on one
hand and wriggled up to put her head on his shoulder.
"Believe it or not," she said, breathing in the scent of his skin, "I've been doing math."
***
It was one of life's little cruelties, Dawson thought as he waited for Pete to bring his sister
downstairs, that people always believed that the best time to meet someone was at your
lowest point. He had never felt less appealing, and yet here he was, waiting to meet a
girl who, while he might actually like her very much, would probably turn up her nose at
the stench of sad-sack stagnation that he was fairly sure he emitted at a level detectable
for miles. Somehow, he'd felt unsettled and unsure of himself for a number of months,
and he was about ready to put a stop to it. Nevertheless, it didn't feel like a blind date
was exactly the answer. It was at least a minor stroke of luck that he had come by with
his parents' wedding gift for Andie and found Pete having a late breakfast, because this
at least meant that he could meet the sister in a setting other than a formal party. All the
suits and ties and the champagne and the music . . . it was too much pressure. Better to
meet her here, without the tie. He would have plenty of time to embarrass himself later.
"Let me run upstairs and wake her up, and I'll bring her down to say hello," Pete had
said. At Dawson's dubious expression, Pete had just rolled his eyes. "Oh, pipe down,
Sylvia Plath. It's just 'hello.'"
So now, he was waiting in the living room, feeling like something between a condemned
man awaiting his final Lobster Newburg and a recurring boyfriend on "Father Knows
Best." He glanced around the room uncomfortably, and then heard footsteps on the
stairs. He stood up and turned around. It took a minute to figure out who she was, it
was so out of context. On the other hand, though, it seemed like a bit of poetic justice.
He was being punished, he realized, for thinking that his weekend was incapable of
deteriorating any further. "M -- Megan," he stammered. She was wearing a white T-shirt