Dawson is- most people who don't know him would say- as straight as they come. And senior year away from home promises to be a big year for him: no parents in sight, a whole new set of friends, he just seems to have it all. Not to mention that all t...
where maisie-rae is controversial and dawson is defensive
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"So... Serenity Willstrop, uh?" Maisie-Rae chitters, trying to keep up with Dawson's pace.
He sighs deeply, trying to ignore her, but her squeaky sardonic voice is haunting him all the way down the hallway and she doesn't seem any close to giving up on whatever she's out to discover.
Even the agreeable Maisie-Rae is, all of a sudden, not so agreeable anymore. There exists another side to her, one that Dawson didn't quite get the chance to witness before, but, even now, in the very presence of it, he feels nothing.
There's just so much you can take before losing hope in people entirely and Dawson knows that very well, courtesy of his disillusioning childhood. And he knows there's precious little else left to keep two people together when you look at someone with empty eyes and an arid heart.
That's how he got used to looking at the world, with cowardly indifference, washing his hands of the untuned souls of others, keeping a safe distance so nothing could touch him.
Only something did, and he can never forgive himself for letting that happen.
"Are you gonna kiss her just to try, too?" she scoffs, bringing him back to reality. "Maybe you already have."
Dawson rolls his eyes so hard, he goes blind for a second. He knows she's acting like this because of what he did. She's spitting her vile poison like a snake he sicked on himself.
He shouldn't have kissed her. He had no business kissing her. Didn't like it, wouldn't do it again. And the worst part of it all is that he hoped she would save him. As he free-fell into the arms of his murderous doubts, of his intricate misbeliefs, he hoped she would catch him. And he clung to that hope with both of his hands but wound up dragging her down, too, and he thought she could save him, but she couldn't. No one could.
He's on his own, plummeting at full speed into the unreachable.
"You're not gonna say anything?" she taunts him like a restless kid, tugging at his sleeve.
"What do you want from me, Maisie-Rae?"
"I just want you to be honest with yourself," she declares, "You owe yourself the truth."
Dawson stops in his tracks and furrows his eyebrows in confusion. "The truth?"
Maisie-Rae stares at him hopelessly. "Your truth, Dawson."
"You know everything, why don't you figure it out?" he snarls.
"I don't know everything," she scowls, crossing her arms to her chest defensively.
"Tough luck."
He's walking again, marching in huge leaps towards his dorm. The accelerated heartbeat is constricting his throat, and breathing gets just a little bit harder every passing second.
