Wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, Joey looked up. Finding Pacey hovering over her, offering a rather large brightly coloured round paper package to her, she just glared at him.
"Go away."
"Now where would the fun in that be?"
Pacey grinned, sitting down on the dock beside her, placing the package carefully beside him; she snorted and looked away.
"Besides, it's your birthday and really who sits on the end of a dock and cries on their birthday, i mean really that's just sad."
"Sometimes I think, you talk just to make sounds."
Pacey nodded, deciding making fun of her was not what she needed right now.
"What did he do this time?"
"Nothing."
Joey shrugged her shoulders, taking a deep breath thinking about the unwrapped present her best friend had given early that day, that now sat rejected beside her. Just the thought made more tears appear, silently.
"Joey, it's me you're talking too here."
Joey almost laughed, looking right at him.
"That's precisely why I'm not going to tell you."
"Try me."
Joey frowned at him but he just waited patiently.
"Promise you won't laugh?"
"I can't promise you that."
"Fine then i won't tell you, you would think i was being silly anyway."
Joey let more tears fall as she turned away from him, bring her knees up to her chest she hugged them tightly.
Reaching over he touched her shoulder lightly, making her look at him again, regret colouring his features.
"I could never think anything you were crying over was silly."
Joey's lips turned up into a half smile, drawing her knees down again.
"I'd been looking forward to my birthday for months, especially for what Dawson might get me. I mean he's my best friend, you know."
She waved her hands round, the way she always did when she was trying to explain something. Pacey followed their movement with his eyes, fascinated.
"I dropped hits basically everywhere telling him what i wanted and still he didn't get what i wanted."
Pacey nodded, looking past her to what lay beside her.
"Is that it?"
Glancing at the present beside her, she nodded sadly.
"Yeah."
Picking it up, she passed it across to him.
"I don't see what's so bad about a pair of binoculars really, they can be pretty cool."
Pacey looked them over, lifting them to his eyes to look through them, before handing them back to her, where she put them back down beside her again.
"Not when you wanted a bird."
"Oh, i see."
"Yep, he thought i could use them to go bird watching."
Pacey laughed then, picturing Joey's face fall, in his mind, the exact moment when she had opening her present from Dawson, his eager face, light up like a Christmas tree.
Joey glared at him, hitting the back of his head with her hand.
"Oh."
Pacey stopped laughing rubbing the back of his head.
"I knew you would laugh, i don't know why i told you."
"I wasn't laughing to you, Potter. I was just picturing Dawson's face when you opened his present up."
"Oh, so what did you get me?"
Joey eyed the package beside, curious to what it was.
"I don't think you deserve it, you hit me."
"I didn't mean it, besides it's my birthday. I only turn 10 once."
"It's not a bird, okay."
Pacey slowly picked it up, carefully passing it across to her.
"I don't care."
She grinned from ear to ear, ripping the paper away, to reveal a glass fish bowl. Empty apart from the pebbles, water and the little fish house.
"Pacey I hate to tell you this and i don't know what you were going for, but an empty fish bowl is a pretty pointless gift to give."
Joey frowned looking the bowl over, before looking at his still grinning face.
"Then i guess this would come in handy then."
Pacey reached behind himself, revealing a goldfish swimming around in water tied up in a bag, like the ones you win at the carnival.
"Pacey."
Joey squealed, reaching for the fish. He chuckled watching her carefully let the goldfish free in the water.
"So you like?"
"No, i love it."
Joey grinned, never taking her eyes off her new pet.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, besides your mother wouldn't let me get you a bird."
