She opened her eyes and realized, with a start:
I haven't thought about him all day.

Of course, this negated everything.  She sighed.  Perhaps one day she wouldn't even remember his name, but as of now, he was tatooed in her mind like a brand.  And it still stung, as if it hadn't happened three years ago, before she graduated law school, got married and moved to Ireland.

She stretched her legs leisurely and shaded her eyes.  Sometimes she forgot how far away from home she was now-that tiny town in Massachusetts where she had met and fallen in love with him.  Here, sitting poolside with a strong drink in her hand, she couldn't even fathom the ocean that separated them.

But on days when the ocean breeze of her memory seemed to reach her nostrils, she felt it in her bones.  It was a quick chill of loneliness that made her grit her teeth so as not to cry.

"Joey, where did you leave the suntan lotion?"

Her husband's blond head poked out of the kitchen door.  She cleared her throat.  "On the bed, I think."

He disappeared.  She thought about her husband for a moment.  He was her first love, but certainly not her last.  His steadiness was comforting to her, sometimes almost to the point of boredom.  They had grown up together, dated briefly in high school and eventually gone their separate ways.  But Stanford Law had brought her close to where he was earning his film school degree, and after she finished law school, they began dating again.

Fresh off a broken heart, she thought ironically.  Funny how that always seems to bring me back to Dawson Leery.

Did she regret it?  Yes, sometimes.  When she realized that everything she was with Dawson she also was without him.  When she couldn't sleep and just wanted to touch him again, but she knew he was thousands of miles away.

When it dawned on her, all at once, that she had let go of the love of her life.

"Pacey Witter," she whispered aloud.

"And here's your table for two."  Pacey smiled at the well-dressed couple as he seated them.  "Beautiful night, isn't it?"

The man nodded.  "Great table tonight, Mr. Witter," he said in his musical Irish accent.  "Thanks much."

"Oh, anything for loyal customers, you know that!"  Another smile.  He left the pair to look over their menus while he went out the side door.  It definitely felt like time for a break.  He took out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling frantically, and looked out at the water.

God forbid I should smell the sea, he thought.  Too many memories.  Too much baggage.

He had come to Ireland because it symbolized his distant rather than his recent past.  Maybe here, he thought, he could understand his ancestors-their desires, their struggle.  And thus he could understand his own purpose.

All he'd found was the same damn ocean, except this time he was on the other side of it.

As he smoked his Marlboro Red, he remembered the first time he'd left her, after high school.  They all had a lot of growing up to do then.  He'd taken off because he couldn't handle her ambition combined with his lack of it, and at that moment, running seemed easier than talking.  But when he showed up busing tables in a café she frequented in Boston, they couldn't ignore the feelings that still lingered.  A one night stand became a relationship, and they moved in together.

He had always been determined to go wherever she went, and when she was accepted at Stanford for law school, he was happy to tag along.  The work was better there anyway, and he even took some classes.  Everything was okay.

But she couldn't stand California, couldn't wait to get out of law school.  All she wanted was to go back to Massachusetts, open up her own practice and forget the damn state ever existed.

He balked.  The East Coast seemed so cruel and fast-paced then, and his job was finally paying well.  They argued, tempers flared, and she left one night while he was asleep.  He never got to show her the ring.

Three years later, with no money and a plane ticket, he'd taken off for Ireland.  The ticket was one-way.

Some nights, when it was so quiet even his breathing seemed noisy, he swore he could hear her calling his name.  He would wake up clawing at invisible demons, wishing he could see her again in more than just fractured memory.

Pacey exhaled smoke and stubbed out his cigarette with the toe of his wing-tipped shoe.  Another long night spent alone.  He brushed invisible lint off his suit and went back inside.  His replacement went back to waiting tables, and he smiled eagerly at a prim-looking woman and her neatly dressed date.  "Table for two?"

"That one looks nice," Dawson said, pointing to the restaurant perched above a cliff looking over the sea.  "Want to give it a try?"

"Mmm-hmm," Joey murmured distractedly.  She was reading a guide book about the Irish coast.  Dawson had insisted they take their anniversary vacation on the coast, despite the fact that it was October and quite chilly.  Joey didn't care that much.  She was still going to think about Pacey, whether she could see the ocean or not.

Dawson pulled the car over to the side of the road and unlocked the doors.  Joey reluctantly set down the book and looked out at the restaurant.  It was quite dramatic.  She smiled.  It reminded her of that place in North Carolina with the reefs-she and Pacey had been sailing for two weeks when they had reached it.  He had kissed her forehead before saying, "I can safely say that there is nowhere in the world I would rather be at this moment."

"Jo?" Dawson's anxious voice broke through her thoughts.   "Are you okay?"

"Fine.  I'm fine."  She gave him a weak smile and pushed open her door.  She struggled to stand in her tight dress and high heels, dizzy from the drive and the memories.

They walked up to the large wooden door.  The place resembled a house that had been converted into a restaurant.  It was unusually ornate and grand.  Dawson let Joey through the door first.  The outside quiet contrasted with the merry Celtic music and excited voices inside.

Joey's eyes were on the ground, focused on a broken sandal strap that was threatening to send her tumbling, so she did not see the maitre'd before he spoke.

"Will it just be the two of you, then?" he asked.

At first she was struck by the fact that the voice belonged to an American-you found them most often in Dublin, where they lived, not on the coast.  Then she was struck by its familiarity.  She looked up to see the owner of the voice, and was surprised to find herself looking into the hazel-green eyes she only saw in her dreams.

The moment was broken by her husband's surprised, "Well, I'll be damned.  It's Pacey Witter."

"Dawson," Pacey said slowly.  "I don't know what to say."

Joey was still standing in shocked silence, and all she could think was, If I move forward I'll trip and fall on top of him and never want to let go.

He tried to smile, but it was clearly a strain.  His eyes, more blue than ever, flashed back and forth between them as he tried to understand their connection.  And then it dawned on him, so clearly.

I let her go, he thought.  I let her go and she went and married the bastard.

He felt like the world was crashing down around him.  He could only say, very quietly, "Jo...it's been awhile."

To him, Dawson had disappeared, a superfluous detail that he could ignore until it became necessary to confront reality again.  She finally seemed to see him, and she said, "How are you, Pacey?"

"Um..." he trailed off.  Lonely?  Heart-broken?  Missing you?  None of those answers seemed appropriate at the moment, somehow.  "I'm alright.  How long have you guys been in Ireland?"

"Two years," Dawson answered.  "In Dublin.  We moved here after we got married."

The irony of it didn't seem possible to him.  He moved to get away from her and he moved to where she was already?  Where she probably moved to get away from him.

Caught up in her grey eyes, he was surprised to hear her whisper, "Well, stranger things have happened."

 Joey hugged her knees to her chest.  “Well, stranger things have happened.”

 Pacey sat down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.  “Than what, Potter?”

 “Than us,” Joey said.

 “Well, of course.”  Pacey smiled.  “Some people would even say we were predictable.”

 She raised an eyebrow at him.  “Is that so?”

 “Fight as much as you and I, Potter, and people tend to think we like each other.  Sort of the kindergarten philosophy.”

 “Glad to know we’re so advanced.  You and I are, what, 26?” she asked, smiling.

 “Well, we’re a little young for our age, then.”

 They sat in silence for a moment before Joey said, “Do you ever think about marriage, Pace?”

 Pacey’s eyes widened.  “You mean for you and I, Potter?”

 “No, no, just in general,” Joey said general.  “Like where do you want to get married?”

 “Ireland,” Pacey said, instantly.

 “Well, that’s definitive,” Joey said, surprised.  “Why Ireland?”

 “My grandparents got married there, and from all accounts they were happy together.”  Pacey shrugged.  “I met them once and they seemed so…in love, I guess.  At eighty, you know?  My parents were never like that.  So I guess I thought maybe Ireland has some luck for us Witters.”

 Joey thought it was interesting how Pacey had thought so deeply about this.  And had he picked out his bride, too?  Or just the location?

 But, she knew, he had not.  The fear in his voice when she had mentioned marriage…Us?  Married?  After living together for almost six years?  God forbid.

 Joey rested her chin on her hand and held back a sigh.  Ireland, she thought bitterly.  Fat chance.

 Pacey, in typical Witter fashion, only truly stalled for a moment before he clicked back into gear, seated them by the window, passed them off on another waiter and went outside for another cigarette.

 It was eight o’clock in the evening…he was on for three more hours.  He felt as if his smile was going to crack and fall of his face.  Joey Leery, huh?  Or maybe just Potter, still.  Probably too proud to change it.

 It amused him, somehow, that he had been with Joey nearly three times as long as they had been married.  But all that meant nothing now…except maybe if it meant something to Joey.

 But how can it mean something to her, still, he thought bitterly, when she’s married to another man?

 The doorbell rung, short, long.  Pacey padded to the door, rubbing his eyes.  What time is it, eleven?  He hadn’t gotten off until one the night before, and didn’t fall asleep until three.  At least.  Too much on his mind.

 He unbolted both locks and opened the door.

 Joey Potter-Leery stood before him, wearing tight black jeans and a fitted green sweater.  Her expression was one of pained nothingness, like she wanted to be uninvolved but couldn’t be.  “Pacey, I’m sorry I woke you up.  I just wanted to…”

 “Didn’t get your digs in last night, hmm?” he interrupted.  “Dawson slips me this card with his number and tells me to call sometime and we’ll get together…he doesn’t know, does he?”

 Joey was speechless, and that was enough of an answer for him.  Of course Dawson didn’t know.  He probably thought Joey was celibate for nine years or something.  Joey doesn’t talk about things like that…things that hurt.

 “I want to really know how you’re doing, because I’m…” Joey sighed.  “I’m awful.  I’m doing awful.”

 Pacey wanted to feel something, but he was caught up so completely in his anger.  “I’m not so well myself,” he said stiffly.

 “I wanted to explain about Dawson and I.  It’s…a facade, the marriage thing.  We don’t even sleep together and…he asked me what I wanted and I said Ireland, and when his first film did well the studio offered to let him shoot his next one here…but they would only pay my expenses if I was his wife.  And…I have no money.  I’ve got a law degree and $100,000 in debts, but no money, and I wanted to come here.  So I said yes.”  Joey paused for breath.  “But Dawson…he thought it was for real, and it seems too cruel to just tell him I’m using him.  Because I value him as a friend and I can’t…” she sighed.  “I can’t just let him go.”

 He knew she was lying to him and he didn’t care.  Why Ireland?  Why Dawson?  Because he has money?  Ridiculous.  Joey Potter didn’t prostitute herself.  She had too much pride and…self-control, maybe?  Self-possession?

 “Joey, I don’t care, okay?  You don’t have to explain your life to me.  You broke up with me.”  Pacey was turning a ring over in his palm.  It was a ring he always wore on his pinkie, with a silver casing and a small diamond inset.

 “Is that a…?” Joey asked, gesturing towards the ring.

 “Wedding ring?  Yes, actually, it’s yours.  Or it was supposed to be.  Want it?”  He held it out to her.

 He noticed she wore no rings, and her fingers were stained with paint and charcoal.  Perhaps Joey the artist was back.

 She took the ring.  “You were going to give this to me?” she asked.

 Pacey nodded.  “Yes.  I was going to propose, but you…you left.”

 Joey sighed.  “Do you hate me, Pace?”

 The tremble in her voice got to him.  He was shaking, but only slightly.  “Hate you?  No.  You broke my heart, but I don’t hate you.”

 “But you could never love me again,” Joey said.

 “Why do you ask me these things?  God, Joey.”  Pacey took her shoulder and nudged her inside, closing the door behind them.  Not a hallway conversation.  “In college, I loved you more than life itself.”  He caught her eyes and was saddened at the deadness of them.  “I still love you more than life, but Jo…” he sighed.  “I love life a lot less now.”

 She tried to smile through her tears as she maneuvered out of the apartment building parking lot.  After all, somehow fate had brought her and Pacey together again.   When they had both fled, they had fled to the same place.

 But while Joey was still caught up in chasing the past, Pacey had stopped running.  He was bitter, a 30-year old chain-smoking maitre’d who was saving for only one thing-his plane ticket home.

 Joey realized with a start that she had never told Pacey about the pregnancy scare in high school.  She also hadn’t told him about her actual pregnancy-shortly before she’d left she’d found out.  But it was too hard to think about, and so she’d run away.  Maybe hoping the baby would just disappear, too.  After two months of quiet torment, she lost the baby at a clinic.  She never told anyone, even Dawson.

 Now, she wished her baby had lived.  Then she could have presented Pacey with something material.  Here, Pace, she could have said.  I may not have your heart anymore, but I still have something of yours.

 Pacey awoke to the shrill ring of the phone at 3 am that morning.  He was tempted to let it ring, but then he was reminded that very early morning calls were usually important, and not usually in a good sense.

 “Yes?” he said into the phone.

 “Pacey Witter?” a brusque, business-like voice said.

 “Yes, that’s me.”

 “Are you a friend of Dawson Leery?”

 Pacey blinked.  “Well…yes, I suppose you could call me that.”

 The voice was not deterred.  “A Mrs. Josephine Potter asked me to contact you.  There’s been an accident, and she would like you to come to the O’Hara Memorial Hospital straightaway.”

 “Is she alright?” Pacey asked anxiously.

 “Yes, she’s fine.  It’s Mr. Leery who’s not so well.  He got into a car accident last night and is pretty bad off.  Call yourself a car and come right away.”

 The phone line went dead.

 It was chilly in the hospital hallway, and it smelled dreadfully sterilized and antiseptic.  Pacey wrapped his arms around himself and waited.

 Just when he thought he couldn’t sit any longer, Joey emerged from the room, her dark hair swaying from side to side like a thick curtain.  Even in a state of complete distress, Joey Potter was still breath-takingly beautiful.

 “Pacey!” she took his hand.  “You came!  Thank you so much.”  She sat beside him, still holding his hand.  “It looks bad.  He’s in a coma and they don’t know if…”

 She couldn’t finish, but he understood.  So Dawson might be dying.  What horrified him was the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but pity.  He was sorry Dawson had been in an accident, but he wasn’t grieving.

 “I hope…I hope he’s okay, Jo.  I’m not sure what I can do.”

 “Just stay here with me.  Please?”  Joey looked at him, eyes wide, and his mind became instant jelly.

 He was hers.

 The train shuddered and spurred into motion, making Pacey lurch forward in his seat.  He sighed.  After arriving in Dublin during his first days in Ireland and spending a week aimlessly walking its streets, he had promised himself he wouldn’t come back.  But here he was, back on the way to its dirty, people-clogged streets.

 Dawson Leery had died the morning after his accident.  Joey had been holding his hand when the machine leveled off.  Attempts to revive him did nothing.

 The papers had a field day.  “Young director cut off in his prime, killed in a car accident…” and who was that dashing man on the arm of his wife?  Pacey didn’t feel so dashing…mostly just dead, inside.  He felt nothing.  Joey cried quietly in his arms, and all Pacey could feel was restlessness.  When he had imagined Joey in his dreams, she was always this highly successful lawyer, ambitious and professional and beautiful.  He had never imagined her as Dawson’s docile trophy wife, doing nothing but looking pretty and performing even for her own husband.  Now, she seemed more lost than ever, confused and grief-stricken and guilt-ridden.   “Pace,” she had said on day shortly after the funeral, “How will I ever know if he drove off that road on purpose?”

 But Pacey knew Dawson hadn’t caught on.  He had died, like he had lived, oblivious.  The man had been happy.  Maybe, for an instant, when he had swerved to avoid that driver, he’d felt fear.  But Dawson Leery was far from suicidal.

 Pacey watched the greenery whiz by outside of his window.  Already, he missed the sea.  Despite all the memories he had with Joey on the water, he still associated it with calm and well-being.  The tragedies of the past could not sully it for him, at least not too badly.

 The train pulled to a halt at the station, and the conductor’s gravelly voice croaked, “Dublin.  Last stop.  Mind the gap.”

 Pacey hefted his large bag onto his shoulders effortlessly.  He waited patiently as people filed off the train, thinking any less time spent in Dublin was alright by him.  Until he stepped off the train, it wasn’t real yet.

 The door closed behind him, loudly.  The platform bustled with people, and he searched blindly for a familiar face.  Maybe she had gotten the message in time.  Maybe she had come…

 Sure enough, Joey Potter stood a bit of a ways down the platform, waving frantically.  He walked slowly to meet her, not particularly wanting to face this situation.

 Her eyes were bright and expecting, and he noticed that she looked happier than she had in weeks.  “Hi, Jo,” he said slowly.

 “Pacey.”  She stood on tip-toe to hug him tightly.  “I didn’t think you would come.  I know you don’t like the city, and I just figured…”

 “I haven’t come to stay, Jo,” he interrupted.  “I’m leaving tomorrow, for Boston.  I’m going home.  To Capeside.”

 He didn’t mention that he hoped, for once, that she would follow him.

Epilogue

 Pacey sat at his laptop, typing lazily.  Ah, the wonder of e-mail.  So instant.  It made it seem as if distances were inconsequential.

 Joey,

 he had written,

 Things are shaping up nicely here….just registered for classes at BU.  Better late than never, right?  As you know all too well, waiting tables gets old pretty fast, and I think I’m finally ready to take college seriously.

 How are you?  You sounded very homesick in your last email…perhaps it is time for you to come home, too?  I know Bessie and Bodie would love to see you…I think they miss you something awful.  As for my family, even they would like to have me back in Capeside.  I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder.  I think Boston really is the place for me right now…in Capeside there’s too many memories, and the place has Dawson’s face stamped all over it.

 Come visit, will you, Jo?  I miss you, and Boston, with all its crazy bustle, will never be as entertaining as it was with you in it.  I love you.

Yours,
Pacey

He pressed the send button without re-reading it, and closed his laptop.  Almost immediately, the doorbell rang.  Wrong pizza delivery, maybe?  The kids in 2C thought it was pretty funny to prank call Domino’s.  He peered through the peephole and didn’t see anyone.  He unlocked it and pushed it open.

There stood Joey Potter.

She was surrounded by luggage and looked exhausted.  “Pacey,” was all she could manage.

“Jo!” He looked her up and down.  “Jesus, have you come to stay?”

She looked at him longingly, and he read it all in her eyes.   “I just thought…” she trailed off unneccesarily.
 
“It’s okay.  Come in, come in!”  He beckoned her inside and began taking in her baggage.  He had no idea how he would fit it all inside his tiny studio…or where she would sleep…

“Long flight?” he asked.

She nodded.  “It’s hard to fly back…alone…”

He understood.  “Yeah, I know.”

He looked at her and wondered if they had a chance.  Maybe.  Right now he just wanted to rebuild her, their lives, their friendship.

“I love you, Pacey,” she said suddenly.

He smiled.  “I love you too, Jo.”

Her smile, while beautiful, was still tinged with sadness.  It was the smile of a woman who had her life torn apart in moments and still, months later, was picking up the pieces.

“It’ll be okay.  Everything’s going to be okay,” he told her, remembering how over a decade ago, they had embraced and she held him while he almost cried.

He smiled, kissed her forehead gently, and took her hand.  The hand that he noticed now wore his ring.