So I wrote this for the July Challenge of 2004, back when I was waiting to hear whether or not I'd passed a set of exams (which I did) and waiting to see if this was the summer when I'd feel all grown up (it wasn't). I guess like for many people who study for far too long, the year doesn't end in December but some time in the summer, when classes are out and you can put all your ringbinders and sensible pens away, then a new one begins with the Autumn term, my resolutions always being along the lines of keeping neater notes and resolving not to absent myself from lectures because of a burning need to watch Diagnosis Murder.
Which I only did once.
But anyway, for some reason, in the middle of this summer, I was feeling in a festive mood, and so wrote out this piece, my third I think (out of my long list of four), inspired by my musings on the very long list of things that at the age of 23, I thought I ought to have known already. And around this time I was listening to Somewhere Only We Know on repeat, hence my shameless theft of the line in mid flow of the story...
A time of reflection, of new beginnings, of resolutions, and the soon to be forgotten or artfully ignored renewal of gym memberships. Most people seize a few moments to reflect on what they've achieved over the past twelve months, or what they hope to achieve for the next twelve, but for the moment, I'm preoccupied by a much more important question:
Does anyone know all the words to 'Auld Lang Syne'?
Does anyone even know what a 'lang syne' is anyhow nevermind just how old it is? At this moment, I feel that I ought to know; what's the point, otherwise of having a fancy education, if it doesn't allow you to toss out random bits of trivia every now and then? No one really cares if you can reel off theories and interpretations relating to the modern classics of American Literature, or that you could catalogue all authors of the 20th century who have been influenced one way or another by Dickens. No, you're not really smart unless you possess truly useless knowledge, the type that you read off of cereal boxes, or the little card of answers that you sneak a look at when you're cheating at Trivial Pursuit.
Which means that Pacey, the Master of Useless Information, is infinitely smarter than me.
But then he'd say that he knew that anyway.
But then Pacey knows a lot of things.
Pacey knows when I'm really pissed off, and when I'm just kidding. Pacey knows when I'm drunk, sometimes even before I know myself. Pacey knows how sensitive I can be about my freakishly long finger-toes. He knows how to run a restaurant, he knows how to be a good boss, he knows how to be a good lover, a good friend, he knows that sometimes there's just no point in running, which is why he's perfectly happy in Capeside, because he realized way before I did, that you can be perfectly happy in most places, if you put your mind to it.
Pacey knows how much I miss Jen, how much we all miss Jen, and how sometimes it hurts just to be around Amy, because even though she's still just little, every now and then, she gives a certain kind of smile, and for a second it's like Jen's there, and then in next second, I remember that she isn't, and with every such second, it's like losing her all over again. Pacey knows that whatever life may be, it doesn't promise to be fair, but that you just have to live it anyway, because what else can you do?
Pacey knows.
He knows that I always read magazines back to front. He knows that whenever I buy something from a store, I always have to take the one behind the object that's on display. He knows that whenever I read a book, I always skip ahead to find out if I'll like the ending, and then hate myself for cheating. Pacey knows that whenever I'm asked what I think of James Joyce's Ulysses, I always nod sagely and mutter something about it being beyond description, when the truth of the matter is that I haven't read it, because every time I try to read it, I fall asleep. Pacey and I both know that I can't dance or sing, but I've been told that whenever I have a bit too much to drink, I take to the dancefloor, apparently under the delusion that I'm the lost member of Destiny's Child. Thankfully I have no recollection whatsoever of any of those times. He knows that I have a sharp temper, I can be judgmental, overly cynical and I have a tendency of saying the exact opposite to what I mean during moments of extreme importance.
Pacey knows all that.
But he loves me anyway.
I'm not sure though, if he knows the words to 'Auld Lang Syne'.
He definitely doesn't know how amazing he is. And I don't think he'll ever know that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, because I figure that every once in a while, it's my turn to watch him sleep. He'll never know that my biggest fear isn't really spiders, or clowns or the threat of a New Kids on the Block reunion. No, my biggest fear is that one morning he'll wake up and realize that I don't quite deserve him, because whether he knows this or not, it's true.
I take a deep breath, the cold chill of the December night burning through my lungs. Five minutes and counting until December becomes January. I've never quite understood the whole mindless excitement about the New Year, as if on January 1st, all the mistakes you've made the previous year somehow erase themselves, and you really can start things over with a clean slate. Now that would be something to get excited about. I can hear fireworks going off somewhere in the distance, and if I were to open my eyes, I'm sure I'd be able to see the distant pinpricks of light to go along with the noise, but for the moment, I just want to stand here with my eyes closed, out in his backyard, listening to the boom of faraway fireworks and the thudding of my heart.
Tonight, I'm going to ask Pacey a question.
In a few moments, I'm going to open my eyes, walk back into that party, find him, pull him aside to a quiet place, "so why don't we go, somewhere only we know" just like the song says, and then I'll ask him a question. The question of all questions.
All I need is my nerve. And perhaps a time machine just so that I can un-ask the question if things don't go according to plan.
Not that I have a plan, as such. Because I'm really going to ask him this time, unlike all the other times, when I've had to pretend that all I wanted was for him to pass the remote, or take out the trash, or pick me up some ice-cream on the way back from the store. Nope, I'm really going to ask him this time, and the enormity of what I'm about to do means that the concept of coherent thought is but a distant memory, like snap bracelets and Care Bears.
Although Care Bears were always kind of creepy, now that I think about them.
Although why I'm thinking about them, I don't know.
Pacey doesn't know that I'm about to ask him the question.
He doesn't know that right now, I'm outside, steeling myself, because like I said, all I have is my nerve, and a poem.
This poem keeps circling and swooping through my mind. It was the dedication to a manuscript that I edited once. I usually skip the dedication because they almost seem too personal, too private, like I'm reading someone else's letters, but this time, for some reason, my eyes had strayed to the page to see this poem, a simple poem in French, which fortunately my high school grasp of the language was enough for. I can't remember how long I'd sat there, my eyes and mind fixed on this poem, physically unable to turn the page, just thinking to myself, how did you know, how did you know?
What I'd meant was how did this person that I'd never met, never would meet, know just exactly how to describe what I felt, how I loved, how I still love Pacey.
Je t'aime
(I love you)
The back door swings open and for a moment, a blast of music spills out into the yard as some guy sings about a love taking its toll and too many goodbyes. My eyes blink open to see Pacey standing there, smiling at me, a slightly quizzical expression on his face. He jumps the few steps leading from the porch, and brandishes a bag of potato chips and a bottle of champagne.
"If Josephine won't come to the party, well then the party must come to Josephine," he grins, settling down on the last step, and beckoning me over to join him. "Are you OK?" he asks as I sit down, pausing for a moment in his attempts to uncork the bottle.
Je t'aime trop
(I love you too much)
I nod, not trusting myself to speak for the moment, choosing instead to fumble at my sweater, trying to do up my buttons to ward against the harsh cold, but my fingers are clumsy because of the cold. He watches me for a second, before letting out a ghost of a laugh under his breath, leaning forward to quickly do the buttons up, his hands seeming to linger for a second on the last one, before he draws away again, his teeth worrying his bottom lip slightly. He meets my gaze for a second, opens his mouth to say something, then shakes his head almost imperceptibly, before smiling to himself. "Other than a desire to catch hypothermia, is there a reason for you being out here?"
"I saw Dawson edging towards the karaoke machine," I say wryly, creasing my face in mock horror. "I tried to stop him, but he seemed determined to wow us all with his own rendition of A Groovy Kind of Love so...I decided to make a run for it."
He laughs again under his breath; the sound makes shivers run up and down my spine and I realize again (because this is something that I realize about ten times each day) that I could listen to that laugh for the rest of my life. "So you just ran off to leave me and my eardrums to be assaulted by Dawson and his crimes against humanity? Have you ever heard of the expression 'leave no man behind'?
"Have you ever heard of the expression 'every man for himself?" I tease, although my eyes are serious, my eyes are telling him that I'd take him with me everywhere if I could. In fact in some ways, I think I already do.
But of course, Pacey knows that.
Je t'aime trop pour te le dire
(I love you too much to tell you)
"Selfishness," Pacey says with mock gravity, "is a terrible thing."
"You know what we never got to do this year?" I say abruptly, words just spilling out of me because I know that in a few short minutes, it's going to be a new year, and I have to ask him the question soon, the question to end all questions, and I feel as if my heart is in my throat, and as much as I want these minutes to pass, I want them to slow down, because these last few minutes are the last minutes I'll have with Pacey where everything is the same. Because whatever comes next, whatever he says, whatever I say after the question, things will never be as they are now, in this very moment.
That's one thing I know.
Je t'aime trop pour te le dire et cependant pas assez
(I love you too much to tell you and yet not enough)
"We never got to go camping like we said we were going to. It doesn't really matter, I mean, there's plenty of time for all that, and it's not like I'm into all that communing with nature stuff anyway, I was just thinking that it was funny - not 'funny' in the amusing sense but funny peculiar, like, oh, isn't it funny how in the movies, when the hero has been captured by the bad guy, instead of just killing him straightaway, he tells him his entire fiendish plan, and then designs this elaborate trap from which the hero's bound to escape at the last moment. I mean, you have to wonder; don't these villains ever watch TV?"
I finally force myself to stop talking because really, I was on a roll there, but I can tell from the way that he's looking at me, that he's slightly confused. Unsurprisingly. From our cancelled camping holiday to the Number One Mistake of Imaginary TV Villains; not one of my smoother segues. But somehow he knows something, because he doesn't tease me like he usually would. He just smiles again, one of those half smiles where I'm not quite sure what he's thinking. 'Wait there,' he murmurs, standing up and disappearing inside for a second, another brief blare of music spilling into the night.
I wrap my arms around my knees and take another deep breath. Almost midnight. I know that tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after, that for the rest of my life even, I'm going to recall every single thing about this moment. The bottle of champagne that's lying on its side in the grass, the crumpled packet of potato chips, the distant humming noise of all the people inside, at the party, the way the stars look tonight, like someone's taken a pot of paint, the color of diamonds, and just splashed flecks of it across a midnight black canvas.
Maybe a new year can be about new beginnings.
Pacey dashes back outside, carrying a red and blue plaid blanket, which looks suspiciously like my blanket, the blanket he'd said he couldn't find. Just when I'm about to point this out, he drops the blanket over my head, the thick material muffling my yelp of indignation. A second later, there's a brief flash of the light that's streaming through the kitchen door, when Pacey raises the blanket and joins me underneath the dark, scratchy material.
"What are you doing?" I ask conversationally.
"It's a makeshift tent," he whispers, as if it makes perfect sense. Which of course to Pacey, it does. "So we're spending the last few minutes of this year camping. Now, I know it's not much, but-"
"It is," I cut in, my voice sounding distant, foreign to my own ears. I can barely see Pacey's face through the gloom of the 'tent', but it doesn't matter, I've looked at it so often, traced its contours with my fingers so many times, that it's as if I'm looking at him in the plain light of day.
Je t'aime trop pour te le dire et cependant pas assez pour te le cacher
(I love you too much to tell you and yet not enough to hide it from you)
"It's more than enough. It's always been more than enough," I whisper, drawing in closer to him. Time to ask the question. Sometimes I think Pacey wonders if I love him the way he loves me. And I know that because of all the things I've done, all the mistakes that we've made, mere words might not ever be enough to convince him of it.
Maybe this question will give him the answer.
It occurs to me that maybe I should have a ring. But there's no time for that now. All I have is my nerve. And a poem. And my heart. My heart and his, which is bigger than I ever thought it was possible for anyone's to be. He deserves to hear me talk for hours and hours about how wonderful he is, he deserves some witty yet romantic declaration from me so that we have a 'story' to tell our friends and family, and of all the ways I'd imagined myself doing this, being swathed under a makeshift tent wasn't one of them, but this is real life and so my tongue is slow and unwieldy, and all that falls from my lips is a muddled whisper "Marry me?"
There's a terrible silence, and for a moment, I'm not sure whether I actually spoke out loud or not. Should I repeat the question? I mean, are you allowed to do that? And he's still silent, and I'm thinking that the time machine would come in handy right around now, because it feels like my chest is in a vice, my cheeks are flaming, and I'm glad it's dark under here, because he doesn't need to see that my eyes are welling up, because with this silence, he's saying no.
I love you too much to tell you and yet not enough to hide it from you
Although I'm sure that he can't see me properly, his hands still sneak up to my face, his thumbs gently traveling over my eyelids which flutter closed at his touch, and he eases away the tears. He takes a deep, shaky breath and his forehead rests against mine. I can feel the warmth of his mouth just inches away from mine and even though I'm telling myself to get up, to go inside, to get away from this horrible moment, I'm frozen, because there's a part of me that still needs these last few minutes. He shudders slightly, goes to say something, but it comes out in a strangled sound. My hands rise up to travel over his face and his cheeks are wet too. I want to tell him that it's OK, that things can go back to how they were before, but my mouth remains closed, because that would be a lie; I can't unsay it now, I can't pretend.
He tries to speak again, and I have to lean in closer so that I can hear him.
"About damn time, Potter," he laughs weakly, cupping my face in his hands. "About damn time."
But I still can't speak, because just like that, my heart is in my throat again, because I've got his answer, and he has mine, and I can hear people shouting and singing but then all that fades into the background as Pacey kisses me, as we go from one year into the next.
So maybe this is a year of new beginnings.
But then he probably knew that already.
Which I only did once.
But anyway, for some reason, in the middle of this summer, I was feeling in a festive mood, and so wrote out this piece, my third I think (out of my long list of four), inspired by my musings on the very long list of things that at the age of 23, I thought I ought to have known already. And around this time I was listening to Somewhere Only We Know on repeat, hence my shameless theft of the line in mid flow of the story...
~ ~ ~
A time of reflection, of new beginnings, of resolutions, and the soon to be forgotten or artfully ignored renewal of gym memberships. Most people seize a few moments to reflect on what they've achieved over the past twelve months, or what they hope to achieve for the next twelve, but for the moment, I'm preoccupied by a much more important question:
Does anyone know all the words to 'Auld Lang Syne'?
Does anyone even know what a 'lang syne' is anyhow nevermind just how old it is? At this moment, I feel that I ought to know; what's the point, otherwise of having a fancy education, if it doesn't allow you to toss out random bits of trivia every now and then? No one really cares if you can reel off theories and interpretations relating to the modern classics of American Literature, or that you could catalogue all authors of the 20th century who have been influenced one way or another by Dickens. No, you're not really smart unless you possess truly useless knowledge, the type that you read off of cereal boxes, or the little card of answers that you sneak a look at when you're cheating at Trivial Pursuit.
Which means that Pacey, the Master of Useless Information, is infinitely smarter than me.
But then he'd say that he knew that anyway.
But then Pacey knows a lot of things.
Pacey knows when I'm really pissed off, and when I'm just kidding. Pacey knows when I'm drunk, sometimes even before I know myself. Pacey knows how sensitive I can be about my freakishly long finger-toes. He knows how to run a restaurant, he knows how to be a good boss, he knows how to be a good lover, a good friend, he knows that sometimes there's just no point in running, which is why he's perfectly happy in Capeside, because he realized way before I did, that you can be perfectly happy in most places, if you put your mind to it.
Pacey knows how much I miss Jen, how much we all miss Jen, and how sometimes it hurts just to be around Amy, because even though she's still just little, every now and then, she gives a certain kind of smile, and for a second it's like Jen's there, and then in next second, I remember that she isn't, and with every such second, it's like losing her all over again. Pacey knows that whatever life may be, it doesn't promise to be fair, but that you just have to live it anyway, because what else can you do?
Pacey knows.
He knows that I always read magazines back to front. He knows that whenever I buy something from a store, I always have to take the one behind the object that's on display. He knows that whenever I read a book, I always skip ahead to find out if I'll like the ending, and then hate myself for cheating. Pacey knows that whenever I'm asked what I think of James Joyce's Ulysses, I always nod sagely and mutter something about it being beyond description, when the truth of the matter is that I haven't read it, because every time I try to read it, I fall asleep. Pacey and I both know that I can't dance or sing, but I've been told that whenever I have a bit too much to drink, I take to the dancefloor, apparently under the delusion that I'm the lost member of Destiny's Child. Thankfully I have no recollection whatsoever of any of those times. He knows that I have a sharp temper, I can be judgmental, overly cynical and I have a tendency of saying the exact opposite to what I mean during moments of extreme importance.
Pacey knows all that.
But he loves me anyway.
I'm not sure though, if he knows the words to 'Auld Lang Syne'.
He definitely doesn't know how amazing he is. And I don't think he'll ever know that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, because I figure that every once in a while, it's my turn to watch him sleep. He'll never know that my biggest fear isn't really spiders, or clowns or the threat of a New Kids on the Block reunion. No, my biggest fear is that one morning he'll wake up and realize that I don't quite deserve him, because whether he knows this or not, it's true.
I take a deep breath, the cold chill of the December night burning through my lungs. Five minutes and counting until December becomes January. I've never quite understood the whole mindless excitement about the New Year, as if on January 1st, all the mistakes you've made the previous year somehow erase themselves, and you really can start things over with a clean slate. Now that would be something to get excited about. I can hear fireworks going off somewhere in the distance, and if I were to open my eyes, I'm sure I'd be able to see the distant pinpricks of light to go along with the noise, but for the moment, I just want to stand here with my eyes closed, out in his backyard, listening to the boom of faraway fireworks and the thudding of my heart.
Tonight, I'm going to ask Pacey a question.
In a few moments, I'm going to open my eyes, walk back into that party, find him, pull him aside to a quiet place, "so why don't we go, somewhere only we know" just like the song says, and then I'll ask him a question. The question of all questions.
All I need is my nerve. And perhaps a time machine just so that I can un-ask the question if things don't go according to plan.
Not that I have a plan, as such. Because I'm really going to ask him this time, unlike all the other times, when I've had to pretend that all I wanted was for him to pass the remote, or take out the trash, or pick me up some ice-cream on the way back from the store. Nope, I'm really going to ask him this time, and the enormity of what I'm about to do means that the concept of coherent thought is but a distant memory, like snap bracelets and Care Bears.
Although Care Bears were always kind of creepy, now that I think about them.
Although why I'm thinking about them, I don't know.
Pacey doesn't know that I'm about to ask him the question.
He doesn't know that right now, I'm outside, steeling myself, because like I said, all I have is my nerve, and a poem.
This poem keeps circling and swooping through my mind. It was the dedication to a manuscript that I edited once. I usually skip the dedication because they almost seem too personal, too private, like I'm reading someone else's letters, but this time, for some reason, my eyes had strayed to the page to see this poem, a simple poem in French, which fortunately my high school grasp of the language was enough for. I can't remember how long I'd sat there, my eyes and mind fixed on this poem, physically unable to turn the page, just thinking to myself, how did you know, how did you know?
What I'd meant was how did this person that I'd never met, never would meet, know just exactly how to describe what I felt, how I loved, how I still love Pacey.
Je t'aime
(I love you)
The back door swings open and for a moment, a blast of music spills out into the yard as some guy sings about a love taking its toll and too many goodbyes. My eyes blink open to see Pacey standing there, smiling at me, a slightly quizzical expression on his face. He jumps the few steps leading from the porch, and brandishes a bag of potato chips and a bottle of champagne.
"If Josephine won't come to the party, well then the party must come to Josephine," he grins, settling down on the last step, and beckoning me over to join him. "Are you OK?" he asks as I sit down, pausing for a moment in his attempts to uncork the bottle.
Je t'aime trop
(I love you too much)
I nod, not trusting myself to speak for the moment, choosing instead to fumble at my sweater, trying to do up my buttons to ward against the harsh cold, but my fingers are clumsy because of the cold. He watches me for a second, before letting out a ghost of a laugh under his breath, leaning forward to quickly do the buttons up, his hands seeming to linger for a second on the last one, before he draws away again, his teeth worrying his bottom lip slightly. He meets my gaze for a second, opens his mouth to say something, then shakes his head almost imperceptibly, before smiling to himself. "Other than a desire to catch hypothermia, is there a reason for you being out here?"
"I saw Dawson edging towards the karaoke machine," I say wryly, creasing my face in mock horror. "I tried to stop him, but he seemed determined to wow us all with his own rendition of A Groovy Kind of Love so...I decided to make a run for it."
He laughs again under his breath; the sound makes shivers run up and down my spine and I realize again (because this is something that I realize about ten times each day) that I could listen to that laugh for the rest of my life. "So you just ran off to leave me and my eardrums to be assaulted by Dawson and his crimes against humanity? Have you ever heard of the expression 'leave no man behind'?
"Have you ever heard of the expression 'every man for himself?" I tease, although my eyes are serious, my eyes are telling him that I'd take him with me everywhere if I could. In fact in some ways, I think I already do.
But of course, Pacey knows that.
Je t'aime trop pour te le dire
(I love you too much to tell you)
"Selfishness," Pacey says with mock gravity, "is a terrible thing."
"You know what we never got to do this year?" I say abruptly, words just spilling out of me because I know that in a few short minutes, it's going to be a new year, and I have to ask him the question soon, the question to end all questions, and I feel as if my heart is in my throat, and as much as I want these minutes to pass, I want them to slow down, because these last few minutes are the last minutes I'll have with Pacey where everything is the same. Because whatever comes next, whatever he says, whatever I say after the question, things will never be as they are now, in this very moment.
That's one thing I know.
Je t'aime trop pour te le dire et cependant pas assez
(I love you too much to tell you and yet not enough)
"We never got to go camping like we said we were going to. It doesn't really matter, I mean, there's plenty of time for all that, and it's not like I'm into all that communing with nature stuff anyway, I was just thinking that it was funny - not 'funny' in the amusing sense but funny peculiar, like, oh, isn't it funny how in the movies, when the hero has been captured by the bad guy, instead of just killing him straightaway, he tells him his entire fiendish plan, and then designs this elaborate trap from which the hero's bound to escape at the last moment. I mean, you have to wonder; don't these villains ever watch TV?"
I finally force myself to stop talking because really, I was on a roll there, but I can tell from the way that he's looking at me, that he's slightly confused. Unsurprisingly. From our cancelled camping holiday to the Number One Mistake of Imaginary TV Villains; not one of my smoother segues. But somehow he knows something, because he doesn't tease me like he usually would. He just smiles again, one of those half smiles where I'm not quite sure what he's thinking. 'Wait there,' he murmurs, standing up and disappearing inside for a second, another brief blare of music spilling into the night.
I wrap my arms around my knees and take another deep breath. Almost midnight. I know that tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after, that for the rest of my life even, I'm going to recall every single thing about this moment. The bottle of champagne that's lying on its side in the grass, the crumpled packet of potato chips, the distant humming noise of all the people inside, at the party, the way the stars look tonight, like someone's taken a pot of paint, the color of diamonds, and just splashed flecks of it across a midnight black canvas.
Maybe a new year can be about new beginnings.
Pacey dashes back outside, carrying a red and blue plaid blanket, which looks suspiciously like my blanket, the blanket he'd said he couldn't find. Just when I'm about to point this out, he drops the blanket over my head, the thick material muffling my yelp of indignation. A second later, there's a brief flash of the light that's streaming through the kitchen door, when Pacey raises the blanket and joins me underneath the dark, scratchy material.
"What are you doing?" I ask conversationally.
"It's a makeshift tent," he whispers, as if it makes perfect sense. Which of course to Pacey, it does. "So we're spending the last few minutes of this year camping. Now, I know it's not much, but-"
"It is," I cut in, my voice sounding distant, foreign to my own ears. I can barely see Pacey's face through the gloom of the 'tent', but it doesn't matter, I've looked at it so often, traced its contours with my fingers so many times, that it's as if I'm looking at him in the plain light of day.
Je t'aime trop pour te le dire et cependant pas assez pour te le cacher
(I love you too much to tell you and yet not enough to hide it from you)
"It's more than enough. It's always been more than enough," I whisper, drawing in closer to him. Time to ask the question. Sometimes I think Pacey wonders if I love him the way he loves me. And I know that because of all the things I've done, all the mistakes that we've made, mere words might not ever be enough to convince him of it.
Maybe this question will give him the answer.
It occurs to me that maybe I should have a ring. But there's no time for that now. All I have is my nerve. And a poem. And my heart. My heart and his, which is bigger than I ever thought it was possible for anyone's to be. He deserves to hear me talk for hours and hours about how wonderful he is, he deserves some witty yet romantic declaration from me so that we have a 'story' to tell our friends and family, and of all the ways I'd imagined myself doing this, being swathed under a makeshift tent wasn't one of them, but this is real life and so my tongue is slow and unwieldy, and all that falls from my lips is a muddled whisper "Marry me?"
There's a terrible silence, and for a moment, I'm not sure whether I actually spoke out loud or not. Should I repeat the question? I mean, are you allowed to do that? And he's still silent, and I'm thinking that the time machine would come in handy right around now, because it feels like my chest is in a vice, my cheeks are flaming, and I'm glad it's dark under here, because he doesn't need to see that my eyes are welling up, because with this silence, he's saying no.
I love you too much to tell you and yet not enough to hide it from you
Although I'm sure that he can't see me properly, his hands still sneak up to my face, his thumbs gently traveling over my eyelids which flutter closed at his touch, and he eases away the tears. He takes a deep, shaky breath and his forehead rests against mine. I can feel the warmth of his mouth just inches away from mine and even though I'm telling myself to get up, to go inside, to get away from this horrible moment, I'm frozen, because there's a part of me that still needs these last few minutes. He shudders slightly, goes to say something, but it comes out in a strangled sound. My hands rise up to travel over his face and his cheeks are wet too. I want to tell him that it's OK, that things can go back to how they were before, but my mouth remains closed, because that would be a lie; I can't unsay it now, I can't pretend.
He tries to speak again, and I have to lean in closer so that I can hear him.
"About damn time, Potter," he laughs weakly, cupping my face in his hands. "About damn time."
But I still can't speak, because just like that, my heart is in my throat again, because I've got his answer, and he has mine, and I can hear people shouting and singing but then all that fades into the background as Pacey kisses me, as we go from one year into the next.
So maybe this is a year of new beginnings.
But then he probably knew that already.
and this: