Everywhere I Look
4/27/01
by WitterWoman

Setting: Right before the start of Joey's Sophomore year of college.

Summary: On a visit back home at the end of the summer - Joey's nocturnal habits lead her to some very startling realizations about herself - and about her feelings for Pacey once she stumbles into his new life.

Background: I wrote this before the end of S4 so I was still hopeful that Pacey would dump Joey on her ungrateful ass for the multitude of sins she committed against him in their relationship. But - no dice. So assume that the break-up that leads to this fic is one that Pacey initiates - but only because of all the crap we watched her pull on the show.

Title: "Something I Can Never Have" by Nine Inch Nails (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989). This album got me through quite a bit of dark/early twenties/romantic despair. So it fit nicely with the angst I plunged Joey into. Very pretty song - very disturbing lyrics - they are at the end so you can read into the title.

Dedication: This is for everyone on MBTV who was eager for some "ManSlutPacey" action!

Thanks to my P3 who gave me phenomenal feedback on this one, Eponine, and all the wonderful folks who read my stuff and kindly send me such encouraging reviews.

These drives all over town that last all night long – they have no purpose.  Every morning my sister asks me where I went, what I did, what is the point of driving all night.  My only answer is that I don’t have one.  I don’t tell her that I like the peacefulness of being alone.  I like finding all the corners and spaces that I grew up with and observing them again without the interference of daylight, noise, or other people.

I suppose if I really dug deep down I would also say that I eventually hope to run into him.  That the paths that take me past the docks, or the police station, or the house by the water he lived in the year we were together, are taken in the hidden hopes that he will eventually reveal himself at one of them.

And if he did – what would I do?  That is a question I don’t dare to explore.  Don’t even allow myself to think about.  It has been a full year – a year and a few months since the awful break-up, the terrible hurt and sadness that to this day I still carry, although now in smaller, more manageable pieces.  I haven’t seen him, spoken to him, emailed him although I am pretty sure the urge to do at least one of those things has crossed my mind every single day since.

He didn’t want me anymore.  Couldn’t forgive me.  Couldn’t forget all that I had put him through and what I demanded from him with so little given in return.  And I respected that – I had to because he was right.  I knew as soon as it happened everything that I had done to cause it to end that way.  And it has taken all this time to learn how to live with that knowledge and try to keep going.

None of that stops me from missing him.  From wondering what he is doing, how he is handling still being here after we all left him behind.  From time to time my sister tells me something she heard about him, but it’s never enough.  Despite the distractions of school, and new friends, and even the occasional date – some part of me still loves him.  The same part of me that hasn’t healed from losing him.

As I wait for the light to change I look around the intersection I’m at.  There’s a dimly lit bar off to my right which seems pretty busy for a Tuesday night.  On my left is a parking lot that blocks the view to a tiny strip of beach.  In the thick August air the breeze rolling off the water is warmer than usual.  As it brushes over my face I hear a noise and turn to follow it to the bar.

The door has swung open and as it closes the noises inside drop back down.  Neon beer signs garishly reflect off the cars as a couple makes their way towards a truck.  The girl is laughing loudly – her head thrown back as the guy’s arm wraps around her waist, pulling her closer to him so he can whisper in her ear.

My fingers tighten around the steering wheel as I see him.  Even in the darkness I recognize him.  I don’t need to see his face to know him from his height, the familiar almost strut as he walks, the sensual way which he touches this woman.  As he helps her into the passenger seat I am transfixed.  Thoughts race through my mind starting with the desperation of “I want to talk to him” and ending with the undeniably jealous edge of “who the hell is she??”

Before they can leave the parking lot I lurch forward and find myself pulling around to the other side of the bar, out of view of the road.  As I try to coax my heart back from where it has jumped into my throat, they pass by me and I do what clearly any ex-girlfriend who obviously still carries a torch for the one who got away would do: I follow them.

***************

He lives at the same place.  The Beach House of No Adult Supervision we used to call it.  I spent more time here than my own house senior year.  It practically was my home – my home with him.  I park out of sight and just watch as they head into the house – lights come on and I see movement at the windows.  I know I absolutely cannot do what I am about to do – but I also know for certain that I am going to do it anyway.

I crouch down hidden by the tall beach grasses and tell myself that I am just going to get a glimpse of him in the light, and then I am going to go.  I am a peeping tom, a spy, a stalker.  Watching people who for all intents and purposes – are strangers.  His brother or father could come along at any minute and arrest me for this.  Somehow the thought of such absolute humiliation does not move me from my spot.

He doesn’t know the woman.  That much I can tell.  Or at least he doesn’t know her well enough to have had her over before.  She walks around the living room picking things up and looking at them as if it is the first time she’s ever seen them.  I feel a surge of ownership as if she has no right handling these things that belong to him - that may have belonged to us.

That sensation is quickly replaced by the almost violent realization that this stranger has more of a right to be in his house than I do.  She was invited, asked, allowed inside.  I am the bitter ex lurking outside who probably would not be welcomed in past the porch.  This is exactly what I need to make me get out of here.  And I even start to rise – until he comes over to her and just like at the bar I can’t make myself look away.

I haven’t laid eyes on him in so long.  Old pictures don’t do justice to the man he’s become.  He looks fuller now, broader shoulders, muscular in ways he wasn’t before.  The boy has become a man.  I actually hear an exclamation float out of me into the night air.  He was always good looking, but now he’s just – gorgeous, sexy, mature and desirable in ways I’ve tried not to remember.

In his hands he holds two small glasses.  He gives one to her and they share a grin before doing the shot.  Tilting his back to let the liquid slide down, I almost believe I can see the muscles of his neck flex under the surface of his skin.  I can’t possibly see that, I’m too far – I must be working from memory.  I shiver but I hardly think it is the nighttime breeze that is causing this reaction.

She puts her glass down and wanders away from him slightly, picking something else up to examine closely.  He watches her for a moment and then I definitely see his tongue dart along his lips, much like a cat does before he goes in for the kill.  He follows her and deftly slides his arms around her waist as she instinctively leans back against him.

That move.  His move.  To this day if anyone ever tries to hold me like that I momentarily go blank and have to remember to call them by the right name.  And then I pull away.  I always pull away.  Only he can hold me that way, only he does it right.  As she stands there in his arms I am flooded with memories of a hundred different times when I was in her position – on the boat, at my locker, on Christmas eve, in this very house.  Each time capturing a moment, a breath, a feeling that is still so tangible that I close my eyes to separate myself from her.

When I open them again his left hand is resting against her stomach – casually stroking it in a way that is not casual at all but very specific to fulfilling his goal.  She is practically purring like a kitten, any of her attempts at playing-hard-to-get apparently forgotten as she enjoys his ministrations.  His other hand holds on to hers and brings it up to his mouth.  In between nuzzling at her neck and kissing along her shoulder – he softly tastes her fingers.  Each one a slow tease of what he is capable of.  A promise of what he will do.

I am startled by the tears that run down my face.  I don’t know what causes it – the renewed pain of losing him, the part of me that misses him, the fact that my entire body is now screaming with jealousy and desire and I can’t control it.  Or maybe it is the fact that I am out here at all, watching what I shouldn’t be, wanting what I can’t have, feeling every single regret that has put me out here like this – while inside a stranger experiences everything I was selfish enough to ruin.

The tears distort my vision and I wipe them away in time to see him pull back from her, drag his strong fingers over her until they are connected only by a single touch.  She turns immediately, not wanting to lose contact for even a second.  He says something and she eagerly lunges towards him but he backs away some more, making her wait – punishing her for her attempts to be the one in control a few minutes ago.

Their body language reveals what I already suspected – they don’t know each other.  They met maybe only hours earlier – strangers coming together over the charged atmosphere of music, smoke, heat, and alcohol.  An invitation extended in the dark, an encounter that promises no more than one night of mutually beneficial satisfaction for both parties.  A merging that has no strings, no consequences, no room for hurt feelings or broken hearts.

I’ve seen it before – it happens at school all the time.  This sort of attraction in which the people don’t know each other well enough to be truly intimate with one another, but every physical interaction says that soon they will.  I’ve never done it – never felt it enough to make it worth trying.  He’s the only one I’ve ever wanted in a way that is so consuming that I would forget everything I know in order to have him.  And I’ve known him nearly all my life.  Just how long I felt that way is up for debate – for chrissakes I can feel it right now.

He leads her to the couch and as she sinks down into it all I can still see of her is the top of her head.  Her hair splayed out over the back of the cushion.  He stands in front of her and now I can see her hands – sliding up the legs of his jeans and seductively pulling at the button and zipper.  He doesn’t stop her but just smiles with traces of hunger dancing all over his face.  Before she can finish he leans forward causing her hands to fall to his sides.

As he leans down to kiss her I completely lose myself in the memory of the first time he ever kissed me.  It was desperate, demanding, eager for me to understand the depth of his feelings and give him some sign of mine.  And I remember the last time I kissed him – anxious, hopeful, pleading for another chance.  Wanting him to know how much I loved him and couldn’t lose him.  Was either one successful?  I walked away from his and he from mine.  But between those two were thousands of others – some loaded with meanings and feelings that could only be conveyed so intimately.  Others were by-products of the moment, gestures between a couple that are shared with no one but one another.

What kind of kiss is he giving her?  Is it different when he doesn’t love her? Doesn’t know her the same way he knew me?  I know the feel of his mouth against mine and the way he instinctually knows that every sense should be involved when you kiss: learning the taste of your partner and breathing in their unique scent. Your bodies and hands touching, searching, caressing.  Watching for the moments when their eyes flutter open or their skin begins turning pink with desire.  The sounds of your pleasure expressed in moans, and gasps, and soft pleas to not stop.

He is involved in every moment when he kisses and I want to be the one sharing it with him now.  Not her who can’t possibly understand how amazing he is, how overwhelming his passion can be.  She has only known him for a few hours and doesn’t know what his heart is capable of or how intensely he can love you with it.  I know that, I know all of it.  I know it as if it is somehow written across my actual soul.  In places only he can find on me.  Places I will let only him.

Places he no longer wants to know.

I feel like I have actually set myself up for the worst form of torture: I have followed him here and faced what has been at the back of my mind since we broke up – that I am not over him, I may never get over him.  And I love him as much as if he had just walked away from me yesterday.  But right now as I watch him travel along her neck, hands digging through her hair and cupping her face – I know that he isn’t mine.  He’s hers.  And tomorrow maybe he’ll even be someone else’s.  But what I had with him, what he gave me is gone.  Cold, dead, buried under a layer of lies and disappointments and painful betrayals.

He disappears from my sight.  A hand holding her head steady is all that I can see of him.  Her face is turned slightly towards me and there is nothing but rapture on her face.  In that instant I hate her – I hate her and envy her and empathize with her all in one, crazed, powerful mixture.  His hand slides down as her head tilts back and as she shifts I hear her cry out.  She cries his name and it echoes in my head as if I had called it myself.

I know where he’s gone.  I know what he’s doing to her.  I know what she’s feeling.  And I know I suddenly feel like I am going to lose my mind.

Jumping up I run blindly towards the beach trying to get as far away as fast as possible.  I don’t even make it to the water before I collapse on my knees and between gasps for air and giant sobs – I bend over and actually get sick.

***************

I don’t know if I slept.  I think I did.  I think I slept so lightly that you think you’re awake.  All I know is I’m up at the sounds of gulls overhead and an ocean lapping close to my feet.

I sit up and attempt to brush some of the sand off myself and enjoy a blissful moment of ignorance before I remember exactly where I am and how I ended up here.  Glancing over my shoulder I see the beach house nestled quietly in the early light.

Its stillness is broken as the door slides open and the woman steps out.  Her clothes are mussed and look tawdry in the light of day, compared to their sexy allure of the night before.  Her hair is messy and despite this and my intense loathing of her last night, she is actually very pretty.  Maybe a little older than us but the light of day reveals her to be a normal woman who was smart enough to take what was offered to her.

A cab pulls up by the driveway and she hurries out to it.  The car door shuts behind her and as she leans forward to give the driver directions – it is the last glimpse I ever have of her.  I can't help but wonder what his was.

He is going to be up soon and leaving for work.  Going out and noticing the familiar blue pick-up truck parked down the street.  He’ll gaze at it and maybe walk towards it, squinting to see if there is anyone in it he recognizes – someone he doesn’t want to see.  Or maybe someone he does.

I stand up and try to shake the stiffness out of my body.  Crashing on the beach is not as exciting as it would seem.  I start to detour down the beach so I won’t come up in front of his house.  He may already be up, he may have called the cab for her.  Somehow I don’t think so.  Somehow I think he is the type to drive the one-night stands home the morning after.

Despite my path I find myself in front of the house again.  At the steps.  On the porch.  At the door.  She left it unlocked and it slides open easily in my hand.  I am breaking more laws, more trusts as I quietly enter the living room and close the door behind me.

I don’t know what I am doing here.  What I want from this particular invasion into his life.  But since I first saw him again last night each step has found me doing things I never imagined I was capable of – following a car down darkened streets, spying on a couple engaged in private interactions, entering a house uninvited as the occupant sleeps unaware of his intruder.

When I reach the doorway to his bedroom I know why I did it all: for him.  To see him.  Talk to him.  Maybe even touch him, no matter how brief and unnecessary.  It is why I came back here at the end of the summer and why I roam the streets all night in an old beat-up truck.  Every day since we’ve been apart has driven me to this moment.  This encounter with him.

He sleeps soundly like always.  The sheet is draped over his hips and his bare chest moves gently with his breath.  His skin is tan and looks warm to the touch.  His body is at once totally recognizable and eerily unfamiliar.  There is definition where there didn’t used to be.  Sinewy muscle pulled tight against the bones and thick calluses visible on his hands.  His hair is grown out to where it just starts to get wavy and a days worth of dark stubble shadows his face.

I stare in amazement at him.  He is beautiful and exquisite and I can clearly recall how he wakes up – the drowsy look in his eyes and the way he runs his hands through his hair and back over his face – as if he is trying to force himself to be alert.  Yet I flinch and step back into the living room the moment he actually moves, hiding from view as he throws an arm over his head in his sleep.

Suddenly all the adrenaline that brought me to this point dissipates.  The urgency that I’ve been coasting on all night dries up instantly as my need to have contact with him again is overwhelmed by my fear of what could actually happen if we did.

Now I’m back at the door.  On the porch.  At the steps.  In my truck.  The clock on my radio says 5:36AM.  The engine turns over and I shoot past his house in a roar of exhaust and gas fumes.

Just like always I have run from him.  Only this time he doesn’t know it.  This time he doesn’t have to be a witness to my cowardice and my complete inability to be someone worthy of all he has to offer.  He has no idea how grateful he should be that I didn’t walk over to his bed and climb into it – profess to him all I did last night and all I am so terribly sorry for.

So now the hidden purpose for my nighttime drives has been fulfilled.  Too bad I don’t think that will put any sort of stop to them.  Unfortunate that I will find myself driving through this intersection with the seedy bar on the right and hidden ocean on the left for the rest of my nights in Capeside.  A handful of nights where he may stumble out with a strange woman on his arm – and run right into the woman who can’t let him go.

***************

Something I Can Never Have – Nine Inch Nails

I still recall the taste of your tears / echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears / my favorite dreams of you still wash ashore / scraping through my head ’till I don't want to sleep anymore

You make this all go away / you make this all go away / I’m down to just one thing / and I’m starting to scare myself / you make this all go away / you make this all go away / I just want something / I just want something I can never have

You always were the one to show me how / back then I couldn’t do the things that I can do now / this thing is slowly taking me apart / grey would be the color if I had a heart / come on tell me

You make this all go away / you make this all go away / I’m down to just one thing / and I’m starting to scare myself / you make this all go away / you make this all go away / I just want something / I just want something I can never have

In this place it seems like such a shame / though it all looks different now / I know it’s still the same / everywhere I look you’re all I see / just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be / come on tell me

You make this all go away / you make this all go away / I’m down to just one thing / and I’m starting to scare myself / you make this all go away / you make it all go away / I just want something / I just want something I can never have / I just want something I can never have

***************

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