Come September
Part 1
Karen H.

Have you ever had the one thing that you hold dear, above all else, above even your own life pulled . . . no torn away from you. Yet it’s still there, it isn’t completely gone. Although you wonder if the pain could be any more intense if it was gone forever, never to return.

Here I am, Dawson Leery, twenty one years of age, king of all things analytical and I don’t have any of the answers. At least not to the questions that I really need answers for.

What do you do when someone you love thinks that things are one way, when everyone else knows that they are another. That that’s not how things are anymore. That that’s not the way things have been for some time. She used to love him and now she’s the person she used to be. She used to love me but that’s not who she is now. Am I even making sense?? Maybe it would make more sense to you if I started to explain things better. Because one thing that I am good at is telling stories. I’ll start out by letting you know that it doesn’t have a happy ending, why else would I be telling you this?? Well at twenty one can I really call it an ending?? Maybe it’s more of an unhappy middle. Maybe it isn’t even over yet. Maybe we’ve still to reach the end, maybe it’ll play out for years. Anyway lets go back to the day that everything changed.”

FLASHBACK - 5 MONTHS EARLIER.

Scene: - Capeside Memorial Hospital. Internal corridor.

NURSE: “She’s awake now and can have a few visitors.”
BESSIE: “Thanks.” She then surveyed the people around her, deciding who should go in with her. There was Andie who had just stopped crying now that she knew Joey was okay. Jen who looked relieved more than anything else. And Dawson, who just sat dazed looking at the door to Joey’s hospital room. There was no Pacey and no Jack, they where both away on a camping trip. “Dawson?” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you come in with me??”
DAWSON: “I’d really like to see her!”
BESSIE: “Come on then, just remember we have to give her some comfort.”
DAWSON: “I know.”
Dawson and Bessie entered the room and saw Joey lying facing the window. Bessie approached the bed, while Dawson stood near the door.
BESSIE: “Joey are you awake?”
Joey turned to face Bessie.
JOEY: “Mmhm.”
BESSIE: “How are you??”
JOEY: “A little sore.”
Dawson started to approach the bed.
DAWSON: “You gave us quite a scare, we thought that we’d lost you for a minute.”
JOEY: “Where’s Pacey??”
DAWSON: “Ah, he’s on a camping trip with Jack.”
JOEY: “Oh. I don’t remember him mentioning it.”
BESSIE: “I think that it was a spur of the moment thing. Listen Joey, there’s something that we have to tell you. We have some bad news.”
Dawson sat beside her on the bed and took her hand.
DAWSON (his eyes watering) : “You lost the baby Joey. I’m so sorry.”
JOEY: “What? How?”
DAWSON: “The car accident. There was nothing that they could do.”
JOEY: “I thought that it had just been a false alarm.” Her eyes start to water. “Does Pacey know?? Does he know that I’m here??“
BESSIE: “No, but he’s due back tomorrow. Listen I’m going to go and leave you two alone for a minute, okay?”
Then she leaves.
JOEY: “Dawson, why do bad things keep happening to us?”
DAWSON: “I don’t know Joey.”
JOEY: “Things where just starting to get better for us.”
DAWSON: “I know.”
JOEY: “And now this.”
Dawson wraps his arms around her.
DAWSON: “We’ll get through this Joey. We’ll get through this together.”
JOEY: “I don’t think that you understand Dawson. I’ve lost our baby.” She pushes him away. “Pacey is going to be so upset.”
DAWSON: “What??”
JOEY: “I said Pacey’s going to be upset about the baby.”
DAWSON: “What does this have to do with Pacey?”
JOEY: “He was the baby’s father. I know that you still find it hard to take that I’m with him, but I thought that you’d be supportive.”

Scene: - The hospital corridor.

Jen and Bessie are talking outside Joey’s room. The next minute Dawson comes running out of the room, he passes Bessie and Jen and then down the corridor out of the hospital.
JEN: “Hey Dawson . . .” To Bessie: “I’ll go after him.”
BESSIE: “I’ll go see Joey.”

DAWSON VOICE OVER: “Have you ever had that moment, that feeling in your life that everything you ever truly loved was being pulled away from you?? And that the person you loved didn’t even realise it?? Didn’t even know that you where hurting??”

Scene: - Outside the hospital.

Jen walks out of the hospital entrance and sees Dawson under a tree with his head in his hands.
JEN: “Dawson . . .?”
She kneels down beside him and puts her arms around him.

Scene: - Joey’s hospital room.

BESSIE (entering the room) : “Hey Joey, what’s wrong with Dawson?”
JOEY (Shrugs her shoulders) : “I don’t know. He just can’t handle the way things are at the moment. I’ve tried getting him to understand about Pacey . . . but . . .”
BESSIE (confused) : “What about Pacey??”
Andie walks into the room.
ANDIE: “Bessie here’s your coffee. Hey Joey.”
JOEY (looks at Andie puzzled) : “Hey, when did you get back from Italy?”

Scene: - Outside the hospital. Dawson and Jen.

DAWSON: “She said that she knows I still find it hard to accept how things are. That Pacey was the baby’s dad. I thought that she was finally happy. I mean was she with him while she was with me?”
JEN: “I don’t know.”
DAWSON: “We where planning our future together. We hadn’t told anyone yet but we where going to get married once the baby was born.”

Scene: - Joey’s hospital room.

BESSIE: “What was that Joey??”
JOEY: “I said when did Andie get back from Italy?”
ANDIE: “I’ve been back for ages.”
JOEY: “How come I haven’t seen you then??”
Andie and Bessie look at each other confused.
BESSIE: “I’m just going to speak to the doctor for a minute.”
JOEY: “Okay.”

DAWSON VOICE OVER: “For the past five months I have had to live like the past two years of my life didn’t happen. Like it didn’t mean anything to anyone but me. In a sense I’ve lost the woman I love all over again, and I’ve lost our unborn child. The only thing is she doesn’t know that it was mine. She doesn’t know that we where back together. She still thinks that she’s with Pacey and that we’re still in high school. And the thing that really kills me is that I can’t tell her anything.”