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

"California would be a good place," Pacey said.
Dawson gave one nervous cough and plunged in. "California. Okay. Well, I took Joey
to California with me, and I knew she wasn't really happy at first, but I really believed that
she would be okay once we got out there, you know? Somehow she'd get in the sun,
and she'd sort of perk up."
Pacey nodded slowly. "Like a plant."
Dawson shook his head and smiled ruefully. "I walked into that one, I guess." He
fidgeted and looked at the ground. "Look, I was wrong to ask her to come with me to
California. I knew -- I mean, I didn't consciously know, but I knew on the inside, I think --
that everything with her dad had her so crazy that she wasn't exactly going to make the
best possible decisions on a day-to-day basis. Just the fact that she wasn't going to go
to school . . . it was crazy, you know?" Dawson searched Pacey's face for a sign, but
there seemed to be nothing yet. "And I think," he continued, nodding slowly, "that I also
knew that she wanted to be back here with you."
Pacey looked at Dawson quizzically. "Then how could you put her on that plane with
you, Dawson?"
"I put her on the plane because . . . " He glanced over his shoulder at Joey, who was
inside dancing with Jack. She suddenly seemed incredibly far away, unrecognizable to
him in her red dress and heels, so impossibly happy. "I put her on the plane because I
hoped I was wrong, I guess. And because it seemed like it was so right that it couldn't
possibly be as wrong as the signs all suggested it was."
"I thought you just didn't see those signs," Pacey said, staring out into the dark.
"I saw them." Dawson laughed. "I ignored them, but I saw them. I sort of hoped that by
making it my full-time job to prove they were false, I might actually make it happen."
"That's the part I've never understood." Pacey turned a little to face Dawson, leaning
against an iron railing at the patio's edge. "Why you thought you could change how she
felt."
Dawson put his hands in his pockets and scraped the patio stones with his toe. Finally,
he looked up at Pacey. "Give me a minute. I'm trying to think of something that sounds
better than 'unbridled arrogance and a twisted notion of the nobility of unending
pursuit.'" This, to his great relief, made Pacey chuckle. "I think," Dawson went on, "that
everybody has always understood that Joey relied on me and my family for a lot, you
know, because of how crazy everything was at her house when she was a kid. But I'm
not sure they ever really get how much I relied on her, and how much it threw me when
she walked away from me."
Now, he had Pacey's attention. "Go on."
"In one fell swoop," Dawson said, gesturing broadly, "you and Joey made me obsolete in
each other's lives. She didn't need me as the boyfriend, because she had you. You