Every Word Was A Piece Of My Heart
Part 7 - How Come The WOrld Won't Stop
Karen H.

It doesn’t feel the same to be in this house. In these rooms.

And it never will feel the same, that’s something that I learned when mom died. Being in our house...it was different.

It’s the same here...

I cast my gaze over objects in this house...he’s never going to see again.

The family photos strewn around the living room. His mother sitting at the table, eating lunch. Stopping occasionally to feed Lily. His friends coming to visit him.

The little things that we sometimes take for granted.

And of course there are the more important landmark occasions.

Lily taking her first steps, saying her first words. Finishing his first year of college, getting his big Hollywood break. His sister starting school.

Seeing the lives your friends end up with, finding out if you were right about how everything would work out.

Marriages, births and deaths...the endless cycles of life.

There was a whole world out there that was undiscovered. A man with so much potential...it’ll never be seen by anyone who didn’t know him.

They never had that privilege.

As I sit watching Gale feed Lily the back door opens.

For one moment, the breath catches in my throat, the way that it has done every other time someone is about to enter this house.

In that one moment my brain processes a thousand thoughts, could it be him? Has he come home? Was it all a mistake?

These are only a few of them.

It always turns out to be the same. It’s not Dawson, it’s either Jen or Jack, Andie or Pacey, Audrey or Grams or Bessie.

This time it’s Jen and Pacey.

He hasn’t come home.

Jen walks towards Gale, and as she does so she glances in my direction but she doesn’t make eye contact.

Pacey walks towards me, giving me a small smile. "Hey." He says as he nears the sofa. "I need to tell you something."

He doesn’t sit down, instead he gestures towards the hallway.

I stand and follow him, noticing him glance back towards the kitchen. I turn and follow his line of vision, to see Jen turning away from us.

Once we’re in the hallway he puts his hands in his pockets and says, "Ah, Gale asked me to do something earlier and I wanted to tell you...before I went."

I don’t reply and just look at him expectantly.

"Okay, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just gonna say it." He pauses for a moment. "They still need someone to identify Dawson’s body...Gale can’t..."

"Give me a minute to I get my coat and I’ll come with you." I tell him as I turn away from him.

He touches my arm stopping me. "Joey, no...that’s not why I’m telling you this. I just wanted you to know that I was going to..."

"Pacey...I have to, don’t you see? I still can’t totally accept it, that he’s...if I don’t see it with my own eyes."

"It’s not the way that you should remember him, Joey." Pacey tell me, his voice almost a whisper. We’re both silent for a moment and then he continues. "If you do this...it’s gonna be the first image you see whenever you think of him. I can’t allow that and it’s not what Dawson would want either." He finishes as Andie enters the house, signaling to Pacey that she’s ready to go.

I know that he’s right. If things were different and it was the other way around, I wouldn’t want Dawson to see me like that.

To see me as a lifeless corpse.

"Gale knew that she couldn’t ask you." He tells me. "Just think of how things were the last time you saw him. Think of the good times."

"I can’t." I whisper.

Pacey looks at me puzzled, as does Andie and they both exchange a quick glance.

"Why not?" Andie asks.

I just shake my head. "I can’t...I...I can’t think about it." I tell them as the tears start to fall.

Andie walks over to me and puts an arm around me as she guides me to the sofa. "Joey..."

"I can’t...I just...can’t."

She nods her head. "If you don’t want to talk about it..." Andie starts and I just nod my head as Audrey comes into the room followed by Pacey.

Audrey comes over to the sofa and sits with me, her arm around my shoulder as I feel the tears well up in my eyes.

I manage a quick glance towards the kitchen and it’s empty. I’m glad that Gale isn’t seeing me like this is all I can think about as Audrey starts to whisper soothing words to me.