~*~*~*~*~*~
I'm cold but I can't feel, help me
Oh I'm walking but I got nowhere to go
Somebody help me
I'm looking for solutions
I'm so tired of living
Just for the, the fuck of it
Why, why, why, why, why, why
What do you want from me
When you've taken all I had
What can I give to you
I can't even help myself
Here's what I'm gonna do
Take some time out just for me
And find serenity
I'm looking for solutions
I'm so tired of living
Just for the, the fuck of it
Why, why, why, why, why, why
Searching for solutions
Lately I think I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
Lately I think I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
I'm so tired of living
Just for the, the fuck of it
Why, why, why, why, why, why
Why? -- Monifah
~*~*~*~*~*~
I took a deep breath. I probably could've taken a better deep breath three weeks ago before I started smoking. Of course, that didn't stop me from standing there and lighting another cigarette.
I could smell the salt water drifting up to my nose, as I looked out at the different colored lights dancing across the water. This room is costing Pacey -- or should I say Pacey's Dad -- two hundred dollars a night, easily. We're in a casino near the beach, and the room is just gorgeous.
He's downstairs gambling and, no doubt, drinking. Pacey probably has the best fake ID I've ever seen. I should've expected it, I suppose. He asked me to go with him, but I didn't much feel like being around people right now. I do hope that he's going to come back soon, though.
As if I'd ushered it up through voodoo, he chose that exact moment to walk through the door. He smiled at me, as he laid a pile of cash on the table. I walked inside the room, and examined the money. "Did you win this?"
He nodded. "Five hundred dollars from the slots," he said proudly. "If I believe what the old guy beside me said, I've hit a hot streak."
I smiled at him. "That's a lot of money," I said, not really sure what else to say. "Guess you know how to quit when you're ahead."
He shook his head. "Not really. I came to see if you would come down with me."
"I don't know, Pace," I said.
"Come on, Jo. We came here to have fun, remember? You can't stay cooped up in the room the whole time."
I took a deep drag from my cigarette, and looked back at him. His green eyes seemed to dance, and it was the first time they hadn't looked dead to me. "Okay," I agreed, smashing the cigarette into an ashtray. "But just for a little while."
He grabbed my hand, and we walked to the elevator in relative silence. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, and sometimes I feel like it's an losing battle to even try. He has a mystery about him that's very enchanting.
We were in the elevator alone, as I was staring at my feet. I looked up, and locked into his eyes. He pulled my hand toward his lips, and laid a gentle kiss on my knuckle. "I'm glad that you're here with me," he said, letting my arm rest, but not letting my hand go.
My eyes fell to our two interconnected hands, probably a physical sign of out two interconnected pain-filled souls. "I'm glad that I'm here," I said simply.
When the elevator doors opened waves of chatter and ringing bells washed over me. There were people crowded all through the large room cheering their victories, mourning their loses. The place looked . . . alive. I realized we probably picked the perfect place to come.
Pacey maneuvered us both across the colorful carpet, and he stopped to look at me. "What do you want to do?"
I sucked on my bottom lip as I looked around. There was so much going on, I didn't really know where to start. "You won that money at the slots?" I asked. He nodded. "Let's start there."
Pacey and I sat down at two machines, and I grew tired of it after a few pulls of the handle. There was really no skill to the slot machine, it was purely the luck of the draw, and knowing my luck, it was smart to stop while I was ahead.
"Easy to get tired of, huh?" he asked me, after I'd been staring at the machine for a while. "Let's find something else," he offered.
He grabbed my hand again, as we walked around, looking at the different things, the different people. "You up for Blackjack?" he asked.
"Blackjack?" I asked. "I think I can handle that." Then he smiled at me. I don't know what it was, but that made me happy.
I slinked up on a stool at a low-end Blackjack table, and Pacey stood behind me. He threw a handful of chips in front me, and said, "Play."
I turned my head to speak, and I could feel his breath on my cheek. It was soft, and had the faint smell of alcohol on it. "I may need your help with this," I said. "I've never been very good at it."
"Well, me either," he said. "I'm not practical enough. Too much of a risk taker."
"We'll have to do our best then," I said, turning back to the table. I smiled at the dealer, figuring a little flirting wouldn't hurt.
Pacey watched over my shoulder as I got dealt in to the game. Amazingly enough, I had blackjack--a black king and the ace of hearts. "I think our luck may be changing, Miss Potter," he whispered in my ear.
And for the first time, I thought maybe it was.
~*~*~*~*~*~
An hour and a half later I was still burning up the blackjack table. An old man named George was sitting to my right. George was a retired naval officer, who gave up on playing, and continued to watch me go head-to-head with Marty, the dealer.
Marty was a college student, who was very charismatic. He wasn't a bad blackjack dealer, but something about me tonight seemed unstoppable.
Pacey still stood behind me, his hands rested gently on my hips, pressed close to me. He would whisper advice or accolade into my ear as I played.
And the smile on my face was real. I was having a good time, and there was nothing there making me feel guilty about it. I didn't have to think about Dawson or my dad or my life. To them, I was someone different. I was young, and there with my boyfriend on a romantic getaway. And they didn't have to know any different. I could sit there close to Pacey, play blackjack, and drink without worrying about anything but the next hand.
A seven of clubs laid face-up on the table, and sneaking a peek at my face-down card, I found a Jack of hearts. "Stay," Pacey said in my ear softly.
"Hit me," I said to Marty.
Pacey laughed softly. "I thought I was the risk-taker of the two of us."
"Maybe I'm ready to take a risk or two," I said in return. Marty laid down the four of hearts, and I had twenty-one. After Marty busted his hand, I turned back to Pacey and smiled.
"Looks like it paid off," he said to me.
"We should probably stop now," I said. He nodded, and after bidding Marty and George goodnight, we headed back to the room.
I sat on the bed, occasionally taking a drag from my cigarette, and looked around the room. It was much different now, compared to the gaming floor. The colors were toned down, there wasn't thick smoke in the air, it was quiet. Between Pacey's luck at the slots and my run at the blackjack table, we'd done rather well. Personally, I hoped it was enough to pay for this little excursion. I didn't want Pacey getting in trouble with his dad.
Then, I decided to call Bessie. I dialed the phone, but after she answered, I knew I didn't want to tell her the truth. "I'm hanging out with Pacey," I told her. "I probably won't be around much for the next few days, so don't worry."
"Okay," she said. "Just keep it toned down, Joey, okay?"
"Sure, Bes," I told her, before saying goodbye. It was a lie of omission, but I'm sure that wouldn't matter if she found out about it.
"She okay with you being here?" Pacey asked, walking out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.
"She's okay with me being with you," I said. "I didn't exactly tell her about the spur-of-the-moment trip to Atlantic City and fake IDs."
He laughed. "You can have the bathroom, if you want it."
"Thanks," I said, taking my night clothes and my toothbrush to the bathroom.
I wasn't exactly sure what to think about while I was in the shower. The quiet seemed like the perfect opportunity for all my problems to come flooding back. I felt like I needed Pacey again. He had a way of comforting me, a way of making me forget. Actually a way of making me feel not so alone.
I quickly slid into my clothes, and then swung the door open. He sat on the bed, his back to me. I saw he was talking on the phone.
"How come you never have time to talk to me?" he asked. "Nothing is more important to me than talking to you," he said, his voice turning cold. "The one thing I've realized since you left is that my whole life is wrapped up in you, and the least you can do is talk to me on the phone for ten lousy minutes."
My heart broke as I stood there. I knew that he was talking to Andie. I knew that Pacey was missing her, but I had no idea she was rejecting him. From one side of the conversation, something inside me seemed to know that she was working on cutting him out of her life.
"No," he said, his voice remaining distant. "I understand if you've got other stuff going on. I'll just leave you alone for a while." He paused again, listening to her. "I'm sure that is what's best, Andie. Look, I'll talk to you when I talk to you." Then he threw the telephone receiver in frustration.
"You okay?" I asked cautiously.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm fine." I watched as he walked out onto the balcony.
Logically, I know that I should just let him be, but instinctually every fiber of my being was telling me to go out there to him. Because even when I would pretend I wanted to be alone, all I really needed was someone to comfort me.
I stepped out there with him, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he turned to me. The pain had returned to his eyes. He fell into my arms, and I held him tight. I ran a hand along his back softly, like my mother used to when I was small and woke up in the middle of the night with a bad dream. "It's going to be okay," I whispered, even though I didn't believe it myself.
We stood there together for what seemed like forever. He wasn't crying--that just wasn't a Pacey Witter thing to do, but I imagine he was as close to it as he ever got when there was someone else around.
There was nothing I could really say. All I could do was hold him, and hope that the pain would go away.
~*~*~*~*~*~
He smiled gently at me, pushing a strand of hair away from my face. We laid together close on the king sized bed, and we were quiet and still for a long time. I thought the gesture was a sign he might be ready to talk about it. "You want to tell me what's wrong?" I asked.
He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. "She's pushing me away," he said. "It was one thing when she was down the street, but now . . . there's nothing I can do, but let it happen."
"Pace . . ." I began, knowing I'd have to choose my words carefully. "Do you ever wonder if it might be best that way?"
"Every second of the day," he whispered, gently twining a strand of my hair around his finger. "Sometimes I think that Andie brought storms into my life. She and her family had all these problems, and she seemed to want me to be . . . good, and smart, and all those things I'm not. But I still loved her."
"You are those things, Pacey," I said quietly. "You didn't need her to realize that, and you don't need her to make your judgements for you." Check yourself, Joey, I told myself. Now just was not the time for me to talk about my distaste for Andie.
"So you see it too?" he asked. "She sort of . . . made me something else." He laughed nervously. "I thought I was imagining things."
"I don't want to say anything bad about Andie, Pace."
"I know. I just think that in the search for myself, I got really lost."
I laughed. "I think the same thing, and I don't think that I could've said it any better." I sighed. "The whole thing with Dawson was just . . . crazy and scary. It's sort of strange investing everything you have into wanting something, and when you get it, you begin to lose faith. I mean, it's part of being human, right? Setting goals? When I got Dawson, I felt like I didn't have anything else to look forward to."
"That's so crazy, Jo," he said. "You have so much to look forward to. So much potential to realize."
"I guess that's the thing that's really the same about us. You don't feel like anything without Andie, and I feel like I'll be nothing with Dawson. It's sort of a no win situation."
"I never thought it was about art," he said, out of the blue.
"I was scared, and confused, and looking for anything that wasn't stamped with Dawson," I said, trying desperately to explain. It was difficult, though. Some of my feelings I just cannot seem to word.
"How did Dawson become the bad guy? I mean, before the thing with your dad."
"I don't know. I think that part of my mind thought he would never realize it, never catch on. I could blame him then. But I got him. That's scary, Pacey," I said.
He sighed. "It's like when I got my first A. It turned my whole world upside down."
I smiled. "Attained goal, uncharted territory. Scary as hell. No matter who you're with, they just don't understand."
"So why do we understand?" he asked. It seemed like a valid question, but I wasn't sure how to answer it.
"Because we're both just fighting to be who we want to be, and we know what it's like to be held back. We're not really in the position to judge each other," I said.
He seemed to be breathing, meditating over what we were saying. "What am I going to do, Jo?" he asked.
I reached out to stroke his cheek. "I can't tell you what to do, Pace. Maybe we should just try to forget for a while. Personally, worrying about it has done nothing for me," I tried to smile.
"The night's not wasted, you know," he said. "We should go out--a walk on the boardwalk or something."
"Let's go," I said. I didn't want to lay there and rehash anything else about Capeside. The main purpose of this had been to get away, and I wanted to try to start to forget.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Pacey and I walked leisurely along the boardwalk hand in hand. We looked at the hotels and casinos and shops, and joked lightheartedly.
Pacey bought two candied apples, and we sat down on a bench near the ocean. "Leave it to you to pick the messiest thing you could find," I joked, taking a bite from the apple.
"I thought it would take me back to childhood," he said. "You know, the summer carnivals when we were little, that sort of thing."
"It sort of does," I said, smiling. "It's sort of strange how a smell or a sound can take you to a completely different place."
"Yeah," he said, seeming to go entirely to another place. I decided then to let him think. The last think I wanted to do was invade his thoughts. I looked out at the ocean, marveling at how dark it was. The day had seemed to extend on forever. It's hard to believe it hadn't been fourteen hours since Pacey and I had awaken on the beach.
I carelessly tossed the apple core and stick into the trash can next to me. I'm not sure what happened to Pacey's, but he still was staring out at the ocean. I briskly rubbed my upper arms. There was a chill out near the water, and I had come out in a sleeveless shirt.
Before I realized it, he pulled me close, and wrapped his arms around me. I relaxed against him, as I listened to a man a few feet away who was playing a saxophone for spare change. "Better?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I was just a little chilly."
"You're sticky," he said, wiping at my mouth.
"No thanks to you," I joked. Things were quiet as we sat there blocking out the rest of the world.
"Can I ask you a question, Pace?" I said softly.
"Sure," he said.
"Am I supposed to miss Dawson?"
"Do you?"
"That's immaterial to the question I'm asking you," I said.
"If you do miss him, then you should. If you don't, then you shouldn't," Pacey said.
"Stop being diplomatic, Pacey," I told him.
"It's okay to miss him, Joey. No matter what's happened," he said softly.
I didn't say anything then. He was probably right. As long as I was feeling them, my feelings were justified. It seemed like I had all the time in the world to figure out how I felt about Dawson.
"Let's go back," I told him.
He didn't argue, as we walked back to the hotel, once again hand-in-hand. Neither of us were better off than we were yesterday. The only difference now is that we were together.
~*~*~*~*~*~