They were almost done. Joey grabbed the test to read the last question. Usually, these things got more outrageous as they went along. Considering that they'd already answered a myriad of questions, from relatives to farm animals, the last one should be a doozy.
"Okay, number one hundred --," Joey began, and then she froze. Jen leaned forward. Okay, this should be interesting. Joey was clearly uncomfortable.
Joey took a deep breath, and then read the question in a fast monotone. "Have you ever been in love? If so, how many times, give yourself a point of purity for each time." She nearly dropped the magazine, she threw it down so fast. She looked miserable.
Jen felt pretty miserable herself. Answering questions about her wicked past had been kind of fun. She hadn't expected to have her emotions brought into play.
Shakily, she marked "2" on her answer sheet. Once for Billy. It might have been one of the biggest mistakes of her life, but she had loved him. And once for Dawson.
She looked over at Dawson. She wished she could figure out how to fix the monumental mess she had made of her life. Joey and Dawson were apart now, though there were obviously still a lot of feelings there. Jen had made it perfectly clear to Dawson that she was there for him, that her door was always open to him. He had made it equally clear that he wasn't interested. But that had been before Joey tossed him over. Before he was alone. Jen was so damn tired of being alone, wasn't Dawson?
Any attempt at meaningful eye contact with Dawson was useless, however. His eyes were locked on Joey with an intensity that seemed to burn. Jen noted that Joey was caught in that gaze, like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming car. She couldn't look away. Dawson continued to stare at Joey, his heart in his eyes.
"Okay, let's score 'em up," Andie said cheerfully, breaking the moment. "Everybody ready?"
Hastily, Joey scribbled something on her answer sheet, threw it on the table, and ran out of the room. A second later, Dawson did the same, and followed her.
Jen felt her cheeks burn. Always running after poor little Joey. Some things never changed.
Jen quickly totaled up her answer sheet. 69. Wasn't that just too ironic?
Andie seemed nonplussed that Dawson and Joey had deserted them. "Well, we can just grade their tests for them. I'll take Joey's. Does someone want to total Dawson's?"
Jen's head shot up. Dawson's answer sheet? "I'll do it," she offered, trying to sound casual. She noticed the sardonic look Pacey threw at her. He had this buffoon image, but he rarely missed anything. She looked back at him, trying to appear guileless.
Andie, still oblivious, easily handed over Dawson's answer sheet.
Jen immediately looked down for the million-dollar question - "Have you ever had sex?" In Dawson's easy scrawl, there was an "N". So he and Joey hadn't gone that far. She felt oddly relieved.
She didn't really remember the question numbers, but it didn't seem as if Dawson and Joey had done anything too outrageous. Of course, they had only been dating for a little while. Jen totaled up the score. By question 99, Dawson was up to 84.
"Don't forget, a point of purity for each one in question 100," Andie reminded them. "So if they answered yes, their score goes up, not down."
Oh yeah, the love question. Jen looked down at Dawson's answer.
One.
He'd scribbled the number "1", big and black, just before he'd chased out of the room after Joey.
One.
As much as Jen would have liked to pretend to herself that she was that one, she knew she wasn't. She remembered the night she'd interrupted Dawson and Joey on their first date. "It seems a little sad, really, that I was the girl whose sole purpose was to allow you figure out who you were really in love with," she'd snapped at him. He'd told her not to think of it like that, but he'd never denied it. And here was the reason why.
"After all, he's only in love with one of us," Joey had once said to her. And Joey had been right.
One.
Jen felt sick to her stomach. She happened to notice that Pacey looked even worse than she felt. He was staring at Andie with this brooding expression, like he expected his whole world to come crashing down any second. He and Andie made a cute couple, Jen thought. She seemed a little… flighty, but Pacey really seemed to come alive when she was around. The way Dawson came alive when Joey was around. The way no one in the world seemed to feel when Jen was around.
One.
It suddenly dawned on Jen that someone else here besides her had secrets that could be revealed with this purity test - clearly, Andie didn't know about Pacey and Tamara. Jen didn't actually know for a fact whether or not it was true. But she had a pretty good hunch. "I can never lie to you," Dawson had said. "I told you that before. Just do me a favor. Pretend you never asked me that question."
"Done?" Andie asked, holding her hand out. Jen handed over her and Dawson's tests without a word. She gave Pacey a sympathetic look, but he didn't notice.
Andie was rattling off the scores. "And the totals are as follows: Chris clocked in with the least pure score of 66%," -- well, well, well. Wasn't that interesting? Someone less pure than the infamous Jen Lindley -- "Jen is a close second with 69%," -- Chris gave Jen a look that was almost, but not quite, a leer -- "Joey and Dawson bring us up the scale with a matching level of 85%," -- wasn't that just too goddamn cute? - "And I round us up with a 92%." Gee. Big surprise there, Jen thought.
Andie looked down at the numbers she had just read. "Wait a minute…
we're missing one here."
Later
"Meet me in the Jacuzzi?" Chris asked Jen, giving her a meaningful look.
Jen hesitated. She wasn't sure she was really in the mood to fend off Chris' amorous advances.
'So don't fend him off,' a little voice in her head whispered.
What the hell. She was agreeing to go in a Jacuzzi, not marry the guy. Besides, some of the others would probably be there.
"Sure," she agreed. "I'll go find a suit."
He raised an eyebrow. "If you insist."
She shot him a look. "Yes. I do. Insist, that is."
For a second she thought he was going to kiss her, then he turned and walked away. "See you out there," he called over his shoulder.
She started up the stairs, wondering where the others were. Andie had run off in tears after Pacey's big secret had come out. Pacey had gone after her, and they were still out there. Joey was holed up somewhere studying, Jen supposed. She'd never come back after the purity test. Dawson had come back, looking tired and frustrated. Jen guessed his conversation with Joey hadn't gone well.
Dawson. Joey. "They're like brother and sister. I mean, Dawson even told me so himself. He doesn't ever think of her sexually," she'd insisted to Abby, knowing full well that it wasn't true anymore, if it ever really had been.
One.
She kept seeing that in her head, that number "1" at the bottom of his sheet. He hadn't even had to think about it. Hadn't gone through his usual process of painful self-examination. Had instantly known that he'd only been in love once, and exactly with whom.
One.
She was about to go into the guest room where Chris said the extra bathing suits were kept, but she paused when she saw Joey sitting on the couch, studying. She didn't think she was up to talking to the love of Dawson's life at the moment. The ONE love of his life.
She looked out of the window, and saw she was overlooking the pool. Dawson and Chris were having a conversation. Now, there was an unlikely pair for a heart-to-heart. At further inspection, it looked like a very heated conversation. Jen cracked the window to see if she could hear them..
"It's not going to happen," she heard Dawson insist forcefully. What wasn't going to happen?
"We'll see," Chris answered smugly.
"You know, Chris, Jen is in this really weird vulnerable state right now. Don't take advantage of her."
What the hell? Chris and Dawson were talking about her, she realized. Specifically, about whether or not Chris was going to sleep with her!
Who the hell made Dawson Leery in charge of who I sleep with, Jen thought angrily. That self-righteous little choir boy! Just because he didn't want her, was she supposed to sit around pining after him indefinitely? The way Joey had? Of course, for Joey, it had ultimately paid off. Once Jen was out of the way.
One.
"Relax," Chris was saying to Dawson in an easy, confident tone. "We won't do anything she's not looking forward to."
Dawson echoed Chris' previous statement. "We'll see."
So, Chris might not be the most innocent guy in the world. Jen wasn't the most innocent girl, either. And she had to admit, she liked the way Chris looked at her. Like she was worth pursuing. Like she was beautiful. Like she was really THERE. For so long now, with Joey, and Dawson, and even Pacey, Jen felt like they didn't even really see her anymore.
So he liked sex. So what? And he was certainly cute enough.
Chris was still taunting Dawson. "Ah, if it's proof you need, you see that light up there in the guest house? When that light's off, that means I'm inside with Jen - lowering both our purity levels. And you? You'll be out here, alone."
Jen closed the window quietly, noting Dawson's glum expression.
It didn't sound half-bad to her. What was wrong with being with Chris? He seemed like a really nice guy, under that "love and leave 'em" reputation that Dawson had warned her about. She'd feel close to someone. She might even feel loved.
And Dawson? He'd be alone. He'd get to feel what that was like for once.
One.
It was time to stop kidding herself. She wasn't the great lost love of Dawson Leery's life. She never had been, and she probably never would be. So it was time to stop acting like she was.
Her words to Abby came back to her: "I left New York because I couldn't handle being the bad girl anymore, but, I tell you, if being the bad girl means not walking around in a perpetual state of loneliness and depression, then bad girl it is."
Jen went into the guestroom to pick out a bathing suit. She knew exactly what she was going to do.
