Chapter Text
***
Steal my heart and hold my tongue
I feel my time, my time has come
Let me in, unlock the door
I've never felt this way before
***
She’s been associating storms with him for as long as she can remember. The beginning of this correlation dates back to the day she first encountered him.
There was a storm waging its way through the Cape on the very first day of first grade. Her mom had insisted that morning as she zipped up Joey’s windbreaker and brushed the hair out of her eyes that this was nothing like Hurricane Gloria from a few years ago; merely a heavy rain. “If there is a storm to worry about, let me be the one to worry about it. You go to school, have a great day, and make yourself some nice friends, okay?” were her parting words as she coaxed her inside her classroom at Capeside Elementary.
Ms. Miller was friendly enough. Her recollection of her teacher is hazy now, but she remembers the educator wore a welcoming smile and Declan framed square eyeglasses. She gestured toward an unoccupied desk, and Joey quietly made her way there with her head lowered and hair obscuring her vision. She settled in as she waited for class to commence. Known for her strong-willed nature mixed with underlying anxiety, Joey was a unique child. Despite being outspoken, she was introverted and struggled to make friends.
There was, however, Dawson. That was the boy whom she had met through her parents. His parents were regulars at the Icehouse and became fast friends with her own. The Leerys resided on the opposite side of the creek, and their home served as a haven; spacious and brimming with endless opportunities for leisure, adventure, and refreshments. It was unlike anything she had experienced at her own house.
She was dismayed when Dawson was not assigned the same schoolteacher as her this year. He had reassured her the night before that maybe they would have better luck being together next year for second grade, right before he told her he’d find her at lunch and they could play on the jungle gym at recess.
The downpour made recess outside out of the question, much to the chagrin of the overstimulated six-year-olds. Nearby, the other children were coloring or playing with blocks and other miscellaneous toys in the corner, but she stayed seated in her chair, trying to concentrate on her Choose Your Own Adventure book. The thunder continuously rumbled outside in close range, reverberating off the walls. An audible crack of lightning followed by another loud clap of thunder made Joey quiver in her chair.
The boy seated beside her at his desk took notice. He momentarily halted dragging his Hot Wheels muscle car across the wooden surface long enough to address her. “You’re kind of jumpy.”
Bristling at his words, she lifted her head to study him, her brows drawn together.
“It’s okay,” he amiably responded with a nonchalant shrug, accompanied by the familiar smirk that she would come to know by heart. He hooked a thumb in the direction of the rain-soaked window. “God just bowled a strike, that’s all.”
With that, his teasing didn’t sting as much. It brought a small smile to her face and eased any feelings of embarrassment. Then he asked her if she wanted to play Connect Four. He let her have the black checkers, and he may have grumbled slightly when she won two of their three games.
Not exactly how she’d envisioned meeting her prince.
His eyes were steel blue that day, and she was wildly fascinated when they appeared green later that week. That was the only remarkable thing about Pacey at that time. Chestnut tousles adorned his head, curling at his almost too-big ears. His angular jaw held two cherub cheeks, ruddy from running through the hall. A corner of his mouth revealed leftover strawberry jelly. She hypothesizes that either his mother or one of his sisters offered to help him prepare for his first day of school. This can be inferred from his neatly tucked-in plaid shirt, except for a lone shirttail hanging limply at the front. However, after he faced teasing for this mishap, Pacey opted for more casual shirts such as his Ninja Turtles tee for the remainder of the year. Then he reached an age when he stopped giving a shit what people thought and wore the loudly-patterned Hawaiian bowling shirts – untucked, of course – as if to make a point.
The subsequent storm Joey associates with him is the tempest of their youth – their combative, verbal sparring that can be attributed to their tug-of-war over Dawson’s time and focus, coupled with their frequent annoyance with one another. Joey found Pacey to be disruptive, impulsive, and aggravating. Pacey accused her of being an uptight, maddening know-it-all who would benefit from loosening up and stop being such a scaredy cat. Trading barbs came as naturally to them as breathing, but despite how much they irritated or confused each other, the camaraderie was there; the friendship apparent. For as many times as they got on each other’s nerves over the years, they also made each other laugh. Pacey derived much pleasure from trying to elicit a guffaw out of her during assemblies. For every pencil poke or ponytail tug, splitting cookies or picking each other for their team in kickball wasn’t far behind. They were consistent and reliable figures in each other’s lives; a source of support and dependability. Maybe it was because they were loyal friends they felt this freedom to be so brutally honest with one another without fear of abandonment or any other lasting repercussions.
Another storm arose during their teenage years when the occasional tension between them evolved into a different and more intense form of tension entirely as they developed romantic feelings for each other at the age of sixteen. It seemed impossible, yet it tore through every barrier that Joey had erected in her steadfast resolve to resist her heart’s longing. This boy, who embodied the phrase “bull in a China shop,” was disruptive, impulsive, and aggravating. He was all of those things, but he possessed qualities that ran much deeper. He was thoughtful, and tender, and he faithfully listened. Surprisingly, the same characteristics that once annoyed her helped her to become a better person. By simply being his unapologetic self, Pacey inspired her to embrace boldness, seek adventure, fear nothing, and unleash her inner wild child.
Next came the storm that claimed his boat, followed by the storm that ultimately ended their relationship.
And now this one.
Joey secured every door and window and sought higher ground, but it didn’t matter. All along she’d been trapped in the eye of the hurricane and she hadn’t realized it. Now there was no evacuating from the truth of it.
--
July
The flickering of the faulty light in the motel bathroom emits a crackling hum, synchronizing with her rapid heartbeat. With urgency, she pulls back her hair and hastily lifts the toilet seat as she is overcome by convulsions of bile and the emotional weight of her series of bad decisions last night.
Joey, known for her brilliant mind, has just done the stupidest thing imaginable. She went and told the one and only Pacey Witter that she’s in love with him.
The words were right there burning her heart, and now the tequila burns her throat as it – along with fragments of the memory – resurfaces.
Well done, Joey. Bravo. Truly. A brilliant move.
Fuck.
Now what?
She needs to wrap her head around how this even happened. Not the love part. Of that, she is all too aware, even when she’s smashed. It’s the whole ‘how did I confess my undying love to him’ situation she needs to dissect. How did she get into this conundrum where she actually told him that?
She flushes the contents of her stomach, seating herself upright as she collapses into the wall behind her. Weakly, she reaches for a square of toilet paper to wipe her mouth, her eyes unable to look away from the purplish hue blooming across her knuckles. The overwhelming shame that engulfs her comes to a halt.
No. You know what? This is his fault. If he hadn’t been such a stubborn ass, been all up in my space this summer, and had just gone to California, none of this would’ve had to happen.
Yes. Blame Pacey. That was the answer. Let the record show that he’s to blame for her stupidity.
The origin of this story – this blunder – can be traced back to a familiar place: a balmy evening spent sitting on a dock. It was an innocent enough location; nothing from the evening would indicate ominous weather.
What was it she read about chaos theory in her geoscience class? Somewhere a butterfly flaps its wings, and it triggers a tornado someplace else?
There was always a calm before the storm.