Pacey gets off the phone with Doug; Gretchen did stay there the night before. He asks Dawson, "Problem solved?" and Dawson says yes, and he tells Pacey to tell Gretchen he stopped by, but then changes his mind and says not to tell her; Dawson will just "see if she calls." Pacey eyes Dawson, then offers to intercede with Gretchen on Dawson's behalf if they had a fight. Dawson sighs that they didn't have a fight: "I just think she's seen the light. But, uh, thanks." He slumps out. Pacey sighs himself, then turns around to see Joey staring at him all worried. "I'll be right back," he tells her. "Great," Joey smiles fakely. Pacey leaves. Joey rolls her eyes and looks nervous. Shut up, Joey.

Poetry reading. Jack gives Jen shit about Tom not coming, and how Tom isn't there and "never was gonna be" there, and Jen snaps that okay, Jack wins. Jack wants to leave. "You know, would it kill you to sit and listen to some poetry?" Jen hisses. Jack pretends to think that over before saying, "Yeah. Yeah, it would." Hee hee! Jen rolls her eyes and starts to get up, but no sooner have their butts left couch orbit when Jen looks up to see Tom Frost. "You saved me a seat," Tom snarks. Heh. Jen and Jack pretend that they were just moving over to let Tom sit down, and Tom settles onto the couch and shoots Jen a friendly look; Jen shoots an about-to-start-giggling-hysterically look back. The reading begins, and we pan over to Jack, who has a truly hilarious expression of annoyed boredom on his face. He glares at Jen, who smiles sweetly back at him.

A café somewhere. Dawson, whose head as a unit is the exact same shape as a forty-watt lightbulb right now, reads the paper. Drue joins him uninvited, saying that "these places can be so lonely." Dawson waxes all Hemingway-in-Paris with, "That's one of the attractions," and Drue asks if he's still mad about the poll prank, and Dawson snorts that he has bigger things to worry about. Drue says he can't unfix the poll, because letting Joey and Pacey win as class couple is "too boring -- where's the conflict? Where's the drama?" Dawson smugs that there's not supposed to be any, and Drue informs him that attitudes like that "keep high-school yearbooks mired in mediocrity." That's an excellent point, actually, but it's one covered with far more skill by My So-Called Life. Dawson isn't impressed either, making a self-righteous comment about the truth. Drue responds with a non-pithy gem about how the truth is "somewhat lacking in the fun department," and Dawson asks levelly, "And you don't care who gets hurt?" Drue says that Dawson's denials only prove his point more, and Dawson didn't know that Drue had a point, so Drue needles him about "this whole 'friend' dance you guys do, as if you were actually over each other," and how it makes them "the far more compelling couple." Whatever, Drue -- why do you even care? Heaven knows nobody else does. Dawson gets up, makes a snarky comment, makes a veiled threat to avenge himself, and leaves. What. EVER.