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Disclaimer: Dawson, Joey, Pacey and Jen all belong to Kevin Williamson, the WB network and Columbia-Tristar television. I am not connected with the show and I am not making any money off the show or this fanfic. Author’s note: This is the third in a series so to understand what’s going on you should read, ‘Through the Woods’ and ‘Clouds Passed’ first. I also should have mentioned in my first few fanfics that thoughts are in italics and from now on, flashbacks will be in smaller typing. I hope you like it! Dawson was surprised. He could see both his friends sprawled across his roof. He thanked God that one of his friends wasn’t lying shattered on the ground. He ran up his bedroom ladder and up onto the roof. Jen followed a few seconds behind him. Joey was kneeling on the roof cradling Pacey’s head in her arms. Pacey was unconscious. Joey turned her head to face the open-mouthed Jen and Dawson. Her face was white and strands of her hair had been blown across it and stuck to the tears on her cheeks. ‘Is he....I mean......what the hell happened Jo?’ Dawson ran his fingers through his floppy hair, bewildered. ‘Pacey...he was going to jump....so I punched him,’ she sounded shocked. Dawson and Jen ran to Pacey’s side. He was out cold. ‘Geez, you must have hit him hard,’ Jen said. ‘I...I didn’t want him to kill himself.’ Dawson looked at her strangely. ‘You said you loved him, Jo.’ Joey glanced down at Pacey and said quietly: ‘It’s cold, we should take him inside.’ ******* When Pacey opened his eyes the room was in darkness. He was still very confused. He felt suffocated. Ohmigod! They’ve buried me alive! The horror he felt nearly made him start to thrash about frantically, then he saw Dawson sitting by the window looking out onto the creek. He was lying on Dawson’s bed. Dawson had his back to him and didn’t realize that Pacey was awake. Pacey stayed still, hardly moving. He knew now that he was in Dawson’s room. And he was alive. Maybe he hadn’t jumped after all. He closed his eyelids slowly, trying to recapture the haze that was that evening. He was on the edge of the roof. Joey was also on the roof screaming at him. He couldn’t make out her words. Dawson and Jen were on the ground, their round, white upturned faces were miles away. Pacey looked down at his feet and everything began to spin. Two round, white discs began to dance in front of his eyes. Joey flashed past him a couple of times in the way a tree would flash past a train window. She seemed to be floating towards him. Below him, two gaping black holes formed in the white discs. Then there was darkness, like someone had snuffed out the stars. Suddenly Joey was upon him. Pacey was delirious. He had been tricked. The white discs were distracting him so that Joey could sneak up on him. But it wasn’t Joey at all before him. It was a tall wind whipped figure whose hair lashed across her face. Pacey knew that she wanted to bring him back, wanted to make him confront the reality of the world that conspired against him. There was only one way he could escape . He looked down at the ground but it was fragmented and distorted, as though shielded by a sheet of cracked glass. The girl on the roof screamed. She knew he was going to jump. Suddenly Pacey felt an impact, a sharp pain that hit him in his left eye. Then he veered over onto the roof, away from the ground, and hit it with a thump. Pacey opened his eyes. They were stinging from the memory. He touched his left cheek with his hand. The skin across his cheek bone and around his eye was tender and grazed. Joey had punched him. She had stopped him from jumping off the roof. Then he remembered. Joey had told him that she loved him. Pacey sat up sharply, gasping for breath. Joey loves me!
Dawson turned round in his chair to look at Pacey. Suddenly Pacey felt scared and intimidated by his friend. He tried to search Dawson’s eyes, tried to see what was going on in Dawson’s head. But Dawson remained indifferent. He looked into Pacey’s desperate eyes and Pacey felt like a child. He felt deeply ashamed. The silence was unbearable but neither spoke. Neither wanted to be the first to cross the great abyss that had formed between them. ******* Jen lay in her bed looking up at the ceiling. She was exhausted. It’s ironic really, she thought. I came to Capeside to leave behind all the messed up people in New York but now, look at my friends here. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I do this to people. Before I came, Dawson had a perfect, fairy tale existence. Pacey had a laugh and all the hate and nasty comments aimed at him found him intangible. Joey was in love with Dawson and content just being near him every day. But now all that has changed. They have all changed. Or maybe I have changed. Maybe my perception of people has changed. I can see past myself now and I can understand those around me better. I liked it here before, before everyone showed me their true colors.
******* Dawson’s eyes were accustomed to the dark and he could see Pacey clearly. Pacey was sitting on Dawson’s bed, leaning back on his hands. He looked like a startled rabbit caught in a car’s headlights. Dawson’s stare was powerful. He studied Pacey’s face carefully. I don’t even know him anymore.
Pacey trembled under Dawson’s gaze. All the Speilburg paraphernalia in Dawson’s room seemed to be crowding in on him. It was not the little dolls and statuettes that scared Pacey. They were only six inches high. It was the immense, crooked blue shadows they cast that stretched out towards him. Pacey felt like only a shadow of a person so he was small in a giants world. He could not stretch himself out in a such a sinister way. He was inferior. Dawson could sense Pacey’s fear so he turned away form his friend and faced the window again. The hard line of his jaw was broken as he rested his chin in his hands. Immediately, Pacey felt more relaxed. Then Dawson spoke. His words were barely more than a whisper. ‘Why did you do it Pacey? Don’t you think Joey has enough problems right now without having to save you from leaping off buildings?’ Pacey swallowed. He wished Dawson was looking at him again so that he could see that it was his friend that was talking at him. The words seemed estranged from Dawson’s lips. Some emotion began to creep into Dawson’s voice. ‘I mean, did you think I didn’t care Pacey? Did you think no one would care if you were dead? How could you be so selfish as to just kill yourself in front of us? Just leave us with nothing but pain. I thought...I thought you were stronger than that.’ Dawson’s voice was quavering slightly now. ‘Your life isn’t your own anymore Pacey. You’ve given part of it away to me, to Jen and to Joey, to your family and all your other friends. And we’ve given parts of our lives to you. That’s what friendship is all about, Pacey. It is about sharing the most important thing in the world. Life. If you died, you would be taking everything we’ve shared away from us. How could you do that to us Pacey? Why don’t you care anymore?’ Pacey felt numb. There were no answers to Dawson’s questions. They were locked inside of him and he couldn’t let them go. He was too afraid of being hurt. And now he had hurt his own friends so much that he didn’t know how he could repair the damage. He sank back on the bed helplessly. How could he live when each second was killing him inside? He squeezed his eyes shut and thought to himself, living is dying.
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