The Park Bench

It was a worn green bench in the middle of a park. A bench that had witnessed much from passionate embraces to messy, angry break ups; from the warmth of a family gathering to the innocent play of children; or the awkwardness of a first meeting; the joy of a reunion; and the melancholy of the last goodbye. On this gray November morning with the drizzle of rain pattering down upon the earth, the bench was not alone but had company in the form of a young college student.

Joey Potter sat on the park bench one hand holding an umbrella. Her head was bent and she was reading a book that rested on her lap – some prescribed academic text. The words were just black ink on paper for she could not absorb any of the author’s thoughts; it was too dry and utterly boring. Still, with a sigh of resignation, she attempted to persevere.

“Good book?” a voice interrupted Joey just as she resumed her reading.

“Absolutely fascinating,” came her reply, dripping with sarcasm.

“Where’s all that enthusiasm for learning, Potter?”

“All that time spent with you, I was sure to pick up some bad habits.”

“Bad habits! I’ll have you know that many a persons have told me that I, Pacey Witter, am the human embodiment of perfection.”

“Pacey, even when I was madly in love with you and wearing rose colored glasses so thick that I was beyond blind, even I didn’t reach such depths of delusion.”

“So maybe I’m not perfect,” he conceded, “But my flaws are adorable, endearing and perfect?”

She slammed her textbook shut and shook her head in surrender, “Whatever helps you get through the day.”

“So what were you reading or rather trying to read?”

“Just some book that Professor Wilder is forcing us to read. It’s meant to broaden our horizons; make us think and look at things from a new perspective.”

“Have you ever tried standing on the top of your desks? It comes highly recommended by this great teacher I know called John Keating. Great guy. I learnt so much from him.”

“Pacey!” Joey rolled her eyes as she packed her book into her bag. “That’s from Dead Poet’s Society.”

“Never underestimate the power and wisdom that comes from movies,” scolded Pacey. “After all those years of being Dawson’s best friend, have you learnt nothing?” Her face fell and Pacey reprimanded himself for his careless words. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“But it isn’t.” His voice was filled with the certainty of knowledge; years of tenuous friendship, three months on a boat and an almost a year as her boyfriend had taught Pacey Witter some of the secrets of Josephine Potter.

“I-I think he blames me for Mitch’s death.”

“C’mon Jo, I think you’re just misreading it. Dawson just needs some time alone.”

“No, it’s more than that and you know it.”

“It’s not your fault.” He made a move to sit down.

Her hand reached out to stop him. “Don’t Pacey!” Quizzically he looked at her, wondering if it was now her turn to push him away; to stop him from being there for her. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that part of the bench is wet. You’ll get your clothes wet if you sit down.”

“Potter, if you haven’t already noticed I’m already wet.” He gestured up and down at his clothes and waving his empty hands in her face. “See no umbrella. I didn’t come prepared unlike some people.”

“And here I thought you always came prepared.”

Pacey raised his eyebrows and shot Joey a lavish grin, “Only for some things, Potter.”

“By the way how is Melanie?”

“She’s fine although we’re not really seeing each other anymore. However she and my sex life is beside the point. We were talking about you and Dawson, remember?”

Joey made a face and scowled at him, “Don’t you know a change of topic when it hits you in the face?”

“No, it was too subtle that I must have missed it. So back to you and Dawson,” queried Pacey as he sat down, next to her, on the wet, green park bench.

“You do realize that what you just said was absurd.”

“Duly noted, now back to you and Dawson.”

“Were you always this persistent?”

“I believe it was a quality you found rather endearing when we were in the early stages of our courtship.”

Joey scowled once more at Pacey, sticking out her tongue. The scowl changed into a frown when she noticed the rain falling with a plip-plop over him; his clothes threatening to go from damp to wet to soaking. She switched her umbrella from her left to right hand and squished closer to his side. “If we keep this umbrella between the two of us, hopefully we can prevent you from becoming ridiculously wet.”

“Thank you. Here, let me hold it.” He took the umbrella from her right hand and placed it in his right. “Now back to Dawson…”

She stared out at the scene before her, avoiding his gaze. The grass looked lush and long. One or two people jogged in laps around the park oblivious to the rain. There were several business people suited in black carrying large, imposing black umbrellas, walking briskly along the gravel path. “It hurts, Pacey. It hurts that he’s shutting me out. I feel so lost as to what to say to him or how to act. I can’t seem to help him especially now when he needs me, you, us, the most. Worse yet, he doesn’t want me to help him.”

“Jo…”

“It hurts when people you love shut you out, Pacey.”

He stared at his hands for several minutes, fascinated by the lines on his palm, before looking up into her sad brown eyes. “I’m sorry about that. Last year…”

Tightly, so tightly, she closed her eyes and hugged her bag. “I know, Pacey.”

“You and Dawson have this whole soul mate thing going, Joey.”

“Some mystical connection that draws us together and makes us one?”

“He knows you. He knows you best.” Pacey pointed out.

“Maybe but he’s also Dawson. There are things about me, things that happened to me, important things, which he doesn’t always understand. Pacey, you on the other hand, you understood me even when we were so called nemeses. I’m not really trying to compare you and Dawson, it’s just that he’s always lived this perfect life…”

Pacey completed Joey’s thought, “The golden boy.”

“Exactly.”

“Remember how we used to vie for his attention? You’d always win, of course, but only because you were prettier.”

“Flattery will get you no where, Witter.” Joey smiled; her eyes revealing that she still appreciated the complimented. “You know, it was like being around Dawson we could bathe in his good luck; the normalcy in his life that was severely lacking in ours.”

“And…” Pacey let out a small laugh, “Look how normal his life turned out to be. Look how normal all our lives turned out to be. I say we blame Capeside for our screwed up, soap operatic lives. Do you think we can sue someone?”

“We could always try. I hear you know this girl whose studying law…”

“I suppose I could always ask Mel for a favor. After all she was unfortunate enough to have to spend three months, virtually alone, with my screwed up self.”

“Shouldn’t Melaine be the one receiving some form of compensation then?”

“Potter, are you suggesting that three months alone with me is torture?”

“Speaking from my own experience,” Joey teased, “I’d have to say a big YES to that question.”

“Ah, I understand. All that sexual frustration that was locked up; torture due to self-imposed abstinence.”

“And here I thought you weren’t the same sex-crazed boy of my childhood and adolescence.” Joey paused, her face melancholic as she drifted into the memories of the past. “Everything feels like it’s changing; too fast and too quickly, and definitely not for the better. Sometimes I wonder how much we can take.”

“We? I presume you mean you and Dawson.”

“No…” Her voice seemed soft as it drifted off into the distance. “Not just me and Dawson but all three of us. There seems to be so much distance, a whole world apart. I remember summers when the three of us would spend almost every single day together. The two of us would fight and Dawson was the intermediary. Mr. Leery would take us water skiing or the two of you camping. Or we’d have those barbecues and watch Mr. Leery cook the meat to perfection while we sat on the front porch sipping Mrs. Leery’s fresh lemonade.”

“He was like our second father,” Pacey reminisced.

“And he’s gone now.” The tears didn’t come; the world was already crying the tears that Joey could not shed. “And on top of that I feel like I’m losing Dawson, like we’re one step from being over. I’m trying to be strong and give Dawson the space and distance he needs while still being there for him but I can’t help feeling that it’s only increasing the gap between us. And I’m not sure if we’re even really friends anymore; if he wants me as his friend.”

“Joey, you once told me that best friends…”

She shot him a look, a knowing look. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it too. Don’t tell me that you haven’t felt the loss of Dawson’s friendship yourself.”

“I have. But ever since the end of Junior year, I’ve kind of resigned myself to the knowledge that whatever Dawson and I were we would never be that again.”

“And that’s my fault…”

“Geez, Joey.” Pacey dramatically rolled his eyes. “Not everything is about you.”

“Jerk,” she snapped as she lightly hit him on the chest.

“It’s not your fault. And just for the record, I don’t regret anything, Jo. Except how we ended.”

“They could have been better,” she agreed. “Hey, it looks like it stopped raining.”

Cautiously Pacey slipped a hand out from under the protected cover of the umbrella, “Hmmm…it hasn’t completely stop. Just a slight drizzle now.”

“I missed you.” She twisted her body so that they were face to face. “This summer I missed you. I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy and I knew it was for the best but that didn’t stop me from missing you. It was lonely. There were times when something would happen – something small and not really that significant in the grand scheme of things – and I would have the biggest urge to share them with you but you weren’t there. I think Lily and Alex had to endure the brunt of my babble along with Jen.”

“Well it makes sense that you turned to Lily and Alex. After all, the three of us should have an equivalent IQ."

“Funny, I always thought Lily and Alex were smarter than that,” she joked before turning serious. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Pacey. You have always been and will always be one of the most intelligent, talented persons I know.”

“Don’t give up on Dawson yet, Joey.”

“I’m not giving up. I’m just letting things progress naturally. Maybe we’re just not meant to be the friends we once were.”

“Jo-ey.”

“Sometimes some things aren’t meant to be, no matter how much we might want them.”

“Is it me or are we getting more profound in our old age?”

“Actually, I’d say we’re relying more heavily on clichés and recycled material.”

Pacey smirked. “I was always one for liberal borrowing.”

“You mean plagiarism.”

“But liberal borrowing has a much nicer ring to it,” protested Pacey.

“So what part of the script are we at?”

“Don’t ask me,” he shrugged, “I’m not the writer, producer or director. I’m just the actor, remember?”

“A very talented actor if Barefoot in the Park was anything to go by.”

“Oh shucks, you flatter me.”

“Dork,” muttered Joey as she got up from the bench. “It’s stopped raining and I’m thinking this might be a good place to end the scene.”

Pacey stood up as well, shaking the umbrella before closing it and handing it to Joey. “But what happens next?”

“We go our own ways with our separate lives, meeting every now and then as old friends to rehash the past.”

“Sounds like a feasible plan, Potter. And I’m sure that Worthington is full of potential Mr. Darcy’s all waiting to woo and court you.”

“Mr. Darcy’s?”

“You know, tall, dark and handsome and full of pride?”

“Sounds like you’re describing yourself, Pace.”

His chest puffed and Pacey beamed. “It is me, isn’t it?”

“On second thoughts,” Joey grinned evilly, “You have nothing on Colin Firth. Now there was a man.”

“You’re comparing me to that old, pompous British actor?!?”

She licked her lips and her eyes grew dreamy, “There’s just something about his accent. Not to mention the way Colin Firth looks when he’s wet.”

“Well I’m wet too!” protested Pacey, indignant about the competition. He twirled around and did a little fashion show for Joey as he displayed his damp clothes that clung to his body.

Making a pretense of scrutinizing like a judge in a beauty pageant, Joey clucked her tongue before handing out her verdict. “Passable, I suppose.”

“That’s not what you said when we were in bed together!”

“Rose colored glasses, remember? Besides, you still don’t have that British accent. Anyway, I’ll see you next week?”

“Same time, same place,” confirmed Pacey.

They headed off in separate directions; Pacey to the left of the bench and Joey to the right. The green bench watching the two departing figures, knowing next week they would meet again. For now it was content to watch Joey dash off to class; her bag hanging from her right shoulder and her left hand carrying the now closed umbrella. Meanwhile Pacey strolled down the gravel path still muttering and grumbling about Colin Firth and acquiring a British accent.