Pacey and Andie, dancing. Pacey gives Dawson and Joey the stink-eye, then looks away; the camera pans back to Dawson and Joey. Joey starts to look pissed and says, "Can I ask a brazen but obvious question?" "Brazen"? I take a stroll over to the post office to express-mail a copy of the dictionary to Wilmington, NC, and when I get back, Dawson says, "Yeah, of course." Joey asks why he brought her to the prom: "Was it just so you could throw jabs at Pacey?" Dawson denies this, saying he didn't even know Pacey would come, but Joey demands, "You don't think I get the subtext of every one of those looks you keep throwing his way? I mean, Dawson, you might as well get on the PA and scream, 'She's mine, Pacey, ha! I win.'" Zing! And yet, you went with him anyway, Joey, and you've continued to dance with him, so whatever.

Dawson extends his nostrils, sending everyone else on the dance floor tumbling ass-over-tip into the seating area, and snips, "Actually, that's not what I'm thinking." "Then what are you thinking?" Joey asks, and Dawson priggishly says he's thinking that Pacey has no right to show up at Dawson's mother's restaurant to a prom that Dawson organized, and he wants to know what Pacey's trying to accomplish. Joey says that, given the spirit of the anti-prom, Dawson has no right to exclude anyone; Dawson nonsensically says that he isn't excluding Pacey, he just hasn't "said a word to him." Joey sneers that that hasn't stopped Dawson from "parading" her around all night "like [she's] some sort of a prize," and while I agree with her, I must again point out that she's submitted herself to it, so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for her. Dawson again denies doing any such thing, saying that Joey's his date and he's dancing with her: "It's not my fault [Pacey] keeps staring at us." Joey grumbles that no, it's not Dawson's fault, it's not anybody's fault, "it's just happening, and who cares what it's doing to me," and she glares at him, and yet again I have to call that off-sides -- I'm not defending Dawson, mind, but Joey's woe-is-me routine has gotten almost as tiresome as Dawson's ludicrous self-absorption. Dawson suggests that they start over: "It's just Dawson and Joey, at the prom, having a good time, okay?" Joey starts to submit, then throws a glance at Pacey before saying, "I need a breather," and leaving Stalker, Texas Ranger alone on the dance floor to shake it off.