God was cruel to make you
torture me with dreams that can't come true
but that's OK
the devil's fare
he set you free
left me without a prayer
don't turn around
out of sight
is out of mind
I've been out of my mind
since you left me behind
I close my eyes
what do I find?
if only out of sight were out of mind

you're always there

She could close her eyes, and she could open her eyes, but she preferred not to bother with the opening part. It wasn't like she was changing the view. Besides, the light was starting to make her eyes hurt. Reaching upwards, she gripped the headboard of the bed, and stretched out until her back cracked and she sighed. Then she rolled over facedown, and stayed that way.

He was in her head, behind her eyes, seeing what she saw. And what she saw was him, just before he looked into her and told her that she didn't understand.

Didn't understand.

She turned her face into the sun, blinding herself, and kicked the covers petulantly off to the side.

Didn't understand.

Then her alarm clock shrilled harshly beside her bed, and she smacked it with a viciousness that surprised her. School. Who cared about school? Who was at school for her to go to?

Didn't understand.

Then Grams burst through the door in a disturbingly enthusiastic human tornado, drawing the curtains back to their full extension and swinging to face the bed. "School, Jennifer."

Instinctively, she burrowed deeper, pulling the covers right over her head and hiding her aching eyes in the crook of her arm. "In a minute."

"Now, dear. You'll be late."

"Then I'll be late," she said irritably. "It's not like it even matters."

"It matters to me, Jennifer."

"Stop calling me that!" she shrieked, jumping out of bed and wheeling to face her startled grandmother. "Stop inserting the word 'Jennifer' into every sentence. Stop calling me 'dear' when you talk to me. Stop acting like you actually have any right to know my name."

Her only answer was a shocked look.

"I know you don't like me. Maybe you love me, but you don't like me, and that's a different thing, isn't it? You can love a person you can't stand to be in the same room as. You can love a person whose touch makes you cringe. You love me because I'm your family and you have to love me, but you don't like me. It's different."

"How, Jen - " She cut herself off. "How?"

"Because you have to like me for me. But you can love me for anything."

For several minutes, their glances shifted awkwardly.

"But I do love you," said Grams, so quietly Jen almost wasn't sure that she had heard it.

"But you don't like me, do you?" she shot back, lifting her eyes to meet her grandmother's. Finally, she looked away, and down to the ground. But all she said was, "I thought so", and headed to the bathroom to change.

One last look at the house as she slammed the front door showed her only her grandmother, standing in her grandfather's window.

His eyes assaulted her as soon as she stepped in the door, and she froze in her tracks. But he was only walking past her with Dawson. One brief, chilling glare, and he went on his way. "...left afterwards..." she heard him say.

And she walked on to her locker alone, and hauled out her battered books. She walked into her first class alone, and sat down in the back, feeling secure. Nobody behind to study her. Nobody behind to see her eyes fixed on the back of his head.

Nobody came over to talk to her in the minutes before the class began. Nobody even gave her a smile or a friendly glance. Dawson and Pacey came in together, both late, insolently slouching into seats several places in front of her. She sighed, and fixed her gaze on a tree outside the window, barely reddening with the first glow of fall. She shivered.

His head whipped around once, and he stared back at her with open hostility for a few seconds. She wanted to cry. Her friends were gone, both of them, because the only way she could get close to someone was to date them. She didn't understand friendship. It was purer than romantic love, stronger, longer-lasting. It could survive betrayal and anger and hurt better than anything else. It was forever.

Moving quickly, she pulled a sheet of paper loose from her books and uncapped a pen.

Joey, You're not here. I don't know what's happening where you are. I don't know why I'm trying do this. I don't know what "this" is that I'm trying to do. But I have nobody to run to, and that includes you. I had Dawson, and I lost him. I had Pacey, and I lost him too. I never had you. Maybe that's why I don't have to be afraid of losing you. Besides, you're a thousand miles away or more. Even your venom loses punch on paper. I'm afraid to go on alone here. The system has rejected me; I have a past. I wish I had a future, but my life is a blind alley. I can't be hurt any more than I have been. My parents rejected me because they couldn't deal with me, and the ice I'm skating on with Grams is so thin that it'll melt if I breathe on it. I rejected Dawson, he rejected me, I rejected him again, and now he's rejecting me. I'm beginning to feel I have the word stamped on my forehead. I made a stupid mistake with Pacey, a friend I was beginning to think I could trust, and now he can barely bring himself to look my way. Why do I push so hard for "love"? A meaningless word. All it's brought me is loss. And I still can't doubt that what I've felt of it is real; I'm so desperately afraid that this is real love. A reluctant force, a repellent one. All it gives you is a masochistic tendency to hurt and be hurt.

I could never teach myself not to feel. I had to have Billy tell me he loved me all the time, so that I could feel the little thrill of happiness and pain. I couldn't stand to be numb to the world. I liked to feel it when I kicked the wall or pricked my finger. I am an infatuation junkie. I wanted love, and I did what I thought was striving to get it. And when I realized that I could find it anywhere, if I really wanted, I didn't want it any more. It frightened me to watch people hurt themselves over and over again in the name of love. Neither love nor like are feelings that come on demand, but at least like is honest. Love likes to hide itself in doublespeak and tension, even jealousy and hatred. Love is a liar. What else can I tell you? Will you care? You don't like me or love me, and that's a safe feeling to me right now.

She looked up as the teacher flashed her a sharp look, and scribbled Jen on the battered page. Then she caught his eye again as he turned back to look at her once more, and her fingers crumpled the paper in her hand in one quick spasmodic movement. As she stood up to leave, she tossed it casually into the trash.

I can drink
until I'm dumb
I can talk and talk
until my tongue gets numb
I can dance till my feet are raw
but you're always there
just like you were before
don't turn around now
don't turn around

A hand fell roughly onto her shoulder as she sat there, moodily stirring her untouched food, and she looked up into Dawson's face. "Mind if I sit down?" he said gruffly.

She nodded faintly, and he fell into a chair.

"Pacey told me," he said.

Anger was rising again. "Told you what?" she demanded.

"About you and him."

"There is no me and Pacey," she said, getting up to go. "What you've heard is undoubtedly his own warped version of events. I wouldn't trust it, if I were you."

"I trust my friends," he said, in a low voice.

"You trust your instincts," she said sharply. "There's a difference. It's easy to mislead yourself."

"He said he loves you," he said, looking at the table.

She shifted her books so that they were against her chest, between herself and Dawson. "That isn't a word that I have very much faith in right now."

"You have to understand," he said quietly. "He's trying not to hurt you."

"If he loves me, then he can't help but to hurt me," she said flatly. "It's part of the package deal."

"Why are you being to hard on everyone?" he said then, sucking in his breath.

Sharply, she said, "I can't help it." Her eyes were holding him in his seat, and she was enjoying the power. "People hurt me. I hurt back. Love hurts, remember? Is that too cheesy even for you? Or is it just too painfully true?"

"Look, I'm not trying to fight about it, Jen," he said forcefully. "I just wanted to tell you what he told me. He doesn't know I'm doing this. He's kind of sorry that he hasn't talked to you. He told me he misses you."

"He's missed his chance," she said, turning on her heel.

"Chance at what?" he said scornfully. "Jennifer Lindley, I do not believe you. No wonder you're sitting her all alone if this is how you react when someone comes to you who really is trying to help you. No wonder Pacey is so miserable about what's happened. You're being too harsh on him, and me, and even yourself, hard as it is for me to accept that right now. You're forgetting that yours are not the only problems in the world. Get over it, Jen! Get ahold of yourself and think of someone else for a change."

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you even know what happened?" she said incredulously.

"Do you?" he countered.

She closed her eyes, remembering the long moments without the burden of thought; just feeling, and a body free to do exactly what it wanted. Warmth and seeking desire combined. No worries for the future, no thoughts of the past. Simplicity.

She opened her eyes. "He told me I didn't understand," she said bitterly. "Now do you know what happened?"

"No. I don't," he said, subdued. "I don't think I'll ever understand what it is, but I had to try. For his sake, anyway."

She remained standing, looking at him. "She'll come back, Dawson."

"I hope so," he said, sounding defeated. "I never realized..."

"Who does?" she said hopelessly. "The gift of hindsight was a definite mistake."

He smiled at her again for the first time in so long, and she wanted to cry. "Please try, Jen," he said tenderly. "Nothing is beyond repair. Nothing has to be a certain way."

She sighed. "I know. Free will. No destiny. Cosmic accidents. Life's a mystery."

"I think I'd replace 'mystery' with 'mistake'." He stood up. "I'll talk to you soon."

"Really?" she said, smiling.

He met her eyes. "I promise."

The school building was empty when she finally made her way out of the main door, slamming her locker shut so hard that the sound reverberated through the silent school like a gunshot. Pausing in the doorway, she pondered her options. Not home to Grams'. Not to Dawson's; besides, it was too obviously a delay of going home for her tastes. Not to his house. No place to go but the ruins.

Then he appeared from around the corner, breathless and evidently angry. Roughly, he pushed her back against the wall and kissed her forcefully, crushing her backwards until her chest was constricted almost painfully. His hands were heavy on her waist and in her hair. And she frightened herself by responding with equal force, pulling him closer so that she could lose herself in the feeling of submission to his strength, outdated and chauvinistic though it was.

This was so much less complicated. This was the reason she had been in trouble in New York. This was wrong, and raw, and powerful. She was lost.

Then he pulled away abruptly, letting her drop away like a stone. He stared at her as though she was what everyone assumed she was. A look that went with her reputation. A look he'd never used before.

"Do you understand now, Jen?"

She looked back at him, and slowly shook her head.

"Do you understand now? Huh?" he said, in a harsher voice than he'd ever used before. "Do you understand?"

She sank down to the ground against the wall as she watched him walk away, leaving her alone.

out of sight
is out of mind
I've been out of my mind
since you left me behind
I close my eyes
what do I find?
if only out of sight
if only out of sight were out of mind
you're always there