It all feels like a dream. Last year when you chose me over Dawson, and this year when I was with you, but you were never really with me. I snapped at Prom, and there isn’t a day that I don’t regret it. But all I said was the truth, and that I can’t regret. I just couldn’t lie anymore, and I couldn’t let you continue to lie to me. For so long I’d just been the sidekick. I’d watched the Joey Potter and Dawson Leery saga unfold and all of a sudden, I’d somehow become apart of it. I was the wedge. I was the unexpected plot twist. I made myself believe that I was really the one, when what I’d known all along was the truth. You could never be mine.
That night in the ski lodge I thought all of my dreams had come true. Finally, I really had the girl. I wasn’t Ducky anymore. You loved me…not Dawson, me. Then I woke up beside you and witnessed that incredible look of regret wash over you face and I knew. I knew it was Dawson you’d wanted to be with. Not me. I’d just been fooling myself.
That day on the side of the road when I kissed you for the first time, I had felt a surge of will. The will to finally show you how I felt. To make you see. It seems like so long ago now.
The thing that I never told you was what that little impromptu journey with Doug was all about. We never went camping; we never went fishing, like I’d told you. Instead we went to a specialist’s hospital in Boston. A hospital that specialises in acute lymphatic leukaemia.
I’d been diagnosed right after my little drinking spree with Drue when you were in New York with Jen, and for some reason I just couldn’t muster the strength to tell you about it. I was supposed to be strong. I was supposed to be your hero. I didn’t want you to know that I was sick that I am sick. I was no longer your saviour Joey; I needed you to save me. If only I’d told you then, instead of now.
I keep wondering why this had to happen to me. I pray that it’s not true and I beg God for forgiveness for all the pain I put you through in the hopes he’ll render me well again. I know I took my insecurities out on you, and for that I’m truly sorry. How can a man look at himself in the mirror when he knows what’s happening to him, what’s growing inside of him.
At the same time, I wonder if things could be any different. If you loved me and not Dawson, if you were here to help me through this, would I live? Lying here in the hospital now, in so much pain it hurts to breathe, it’s hard to believe it could. But I need that hope. I need to feel that the love I have for you is somehow stronger than this disease. But how can it be when it couldn’t even survive him?
I wonder what you’ll be like when I’m gone. Will you remember that summer on True Love fondly? Will you think of me and smile? Or will you only remember the end, and the way in which it ended? Will you even care?
My only wish is that you continue to stay the same. To be the same Joey Potter that I’ve always known and have always and will always love. You have so much in you to live for Jo. You’re so talented and so incredibly beautiful and I know that one day you will make some lucky guy very, very happy. For as long as my soul exits in this or any plain of existence, I will be eternally proud of you. You have so much to offer the world and I can only hope you take every opportunity that is thrown at you and that you live and love the best you can. The best I know you can.
Every moment I think of you I wish to the high heavens that they could give me one last chance to see you and to say good-bye. But I can’t even move. I can’t even find the strength to open my eyes. I’m saving all of my strength for what I’m about to do.
I don’t know why god put me in this position. I don’t know what I did to deserve it…on second thought; maybe there are one hundred reasons why I deserve it. You used to say to me that life is a cycle and one must die to live again. You used to imagine your mum living as an angel, watching over you. I hope you can find it in yourself to wish me there someday.
The doctors say I’ll be here for a few weeks yet. They say it as though it is a good thing. I’m lying in a darkened room thinking about you and Dawson together again. Thinking about how horrible I was to try and come between that and blaming myself for what’s become of me. I blame myself for having no one left but Doug to come in and read to me every day. I blame myself for the excruciating pain that ebbs it’s way around my body day and night, never subsiding. How is living like this good?
I refuse to waste away until there’s nothing left. I just won’t do it.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
“You think or you know?”
“I know. I’ve known it since the moment you kissed me and maybe even before that…”
Before I leave you Joey, there’s just one thing I want you to know. I love you. Just looking at your beautiful face makes me feel good inside and I’m so appreciative of the time we had together. I wouldn’t change it for anything. I hope you feel the same way.
Doug is leaving the room now to get himself some coffee. I force my eyes open and gaze at the ceiling, willing myself to go through with my plan. Turning my head in the direction of the machine helping me breathe, I take one last big gulp of air and rip it out of me. My last thoughts are of the world and how beautiful it can be with you by my side.