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It’s a bright mid-May early afternoon when Pacifica knocks on the door to the Mystery Shack. Sunny, not a cloud in the sky, a gentle breeze. She hopes it is either Mabel or Dipper who answers instead of their great uncle, or the repairman named Soos. She taps her foot against the porch floor as she waits for the door to swing open. Antsy and excited, Pacifica can barely hold herself together. Her news doesn’t deserve to be shared via text message. It’s face-to-face news.
Before she can knock a second time, the door flies open. “Umm, hey, Paz,” Dipper greets groggily. As he rubs his eyes, Pacifica scans his current state. It’s nearly one-thirty in the afternoon, and judging by his tartan-patterned boxers and toothpaste-stained t-shirt, Dipper probably woke up no more than fifteen minutes before, if not with Pacifica’s knocking. She stifles the urge to roll her eyes. After nearly ten years of being friends with the Pines twins, Pacifica shouldn’t be surprised at Dipper’s habit of sleeping in well past noon (Pacifica wakes up at eight o’clock A.M. sharp every day; nine o’clock is the latest she can sleep without feeling like a vegetable). Besides, she’s seen him in more compromising situations.
Dipper finishes rubbing his eyes and squints at her. “Are we supposed to be doing something today?” He eyes widen. “Oh no. Did I forget something?”
“No,” she assures. “Is Mabel here, too? I have something to share with the both of you.”
“I think I remember her saying something about doing morning errands, and I haven’t seen her since I woke up…so no…”
“That’s okay. I can tell you now and her later. But I have to tell someone or else I’m going to explode,” Pacifica brushes past the gangly dork and takes a seat in the living room.
“Do you want anything to drink?” Dipper offers, but she declines. Seconds later, he appears in the living room and plops himself on the carpet in front of the armchair. He’s curious; Pacifica notices it in his expression—a raised eyebrow, his mouth contoured into a piqued squiggle.
She clears her throat and looks at him directly. “I’ve been offered a summer internship at the Phoenix location of my dad’s company,” she beams. “Paid and everything.”
“Oh,” Dipper responds unenthusiastically. This catches Pacifica by surprise. “What about your internship here with the nonprofit? Are you going to leave it to go to Phoenix for the summer?”
Pacifica shrugs, but a smile still plasters itself on her mouth. “I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet. But still—Dipper, this is an amazing opportunity and I just wanted to tell you because there’s the chance that I might leave.”
Dipper’s eyes move to the carpet. “Um…okay.”
Pacifica’s smile reverts itself. He’s not congratulating her. He can at least congratulate her. She folds her arms across her chest. She’s known Dipper long enough to recognize when he’s holding back an argument. “If you have something to say, then say it.” Admittedly, though, she isn’t sure she wants to hear whatever it is Dipper Pines has to share.
Dipper glances up at her and runs a broad hand through his uncombed hair. “Are you sure that’s something you want to do?”
The blonde glowers. “What do you mean?” Dippers knows it’s her goal to turn around the Northwest name and company. She presses her lips together so as to prevent herself from making any further accusations, even if it appears Dipper is making his own.
“Well, think about it, Paz,” Dipper starts. “Your dad offered you a position in Phoenix even though there’s an office here in Gravity Falls, and he’s never once offered to help you before.”
“I wouldn’t have taken his help before—”
“So why would you now?”
Pacifica opens her mouth in retaliation, but no words escape.
“If anything, it kind of sounds like your dad is just getting rid of you for the summer.”
“Hey!” Pacifica exclaims. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”
It’s supposed to come off as sarcasm, but Dipper decides to do it anyways. “Okay, fine. Yes, it’s a good opportunity, but at what cost? Your coworkers won’t see it as that. They’ll just think you’re the boss’s daughter who doesn’t really care about anything going on—”
“You don’t think I can do it.”
Dipper hold out his index finger. “That’s not what I’m saying. Let me finish.”
“Be my guest,” Pacifica grumbles, leaning her back against the armchair.
“They’re just going to think it’s a major case of nepotism, and you don’t have to work hard because you have your dad as a crutch. You’re gonna constantly be trying to prove yourself to them—”
“I already do that,” Pacifica interjects, her temper not willing to remain idle as she receives this unexpected chiding. “Hell, I’ve been doing that. I spent all of high school trying to prove to Columbia that I’m not just a name, and I spend every day trying to convince myself that I’m not like the rest of my family.” Dipper is about to take over, but she shuts him down as she stands. “Screw you, Pines. I thought you’d be supportive—“
Dipper jumps to his own feet, sprouting up to his usual six-feet-and-three-inches. Even in her tallest heels, Pacifica only reaches his shoulders.
“It’s not that I’m not supportive, and I know you’re working your ass off all the time, but—”
“But what?” Pacifica barks. Dipper might tower over her, but she’s always been the more intimidating one.
“You really like the nonprofit. You’ve been telling me for the past two summers how much you like it. And you just keep doing better and better each year. Why would you just leave them for your family’s company?”
Pacifica takes a step back. “I’ve told you how I want to reorganize that hot mess.”
“So why do you have to go to Phoenix to do it?”
She can’t answer him right away. This is a great opportunity, and yet Dipper’s words hold some truth. Doesn’t mean she wants to hear or admit it.
“I didn’t come here for a lecture,” she marches towards the door. “I get enough of those at home and during the school year.”
She hears Dipper exhale heavily behind her. “I’m not—”
“You’re such an asshole, Pines,” Pacifica vents. “An ignorant, prideful asshole. You’re too busy wrapped up in what happens in this stupid town, you don’t realize that we’re growing up.”
Before she can listen to Dipper’s own retort, she exits out the Mystery Shack and slams the door behind her, mumbling profanities underneath her breath.
It’s early evening now, and Pacifica sits at a booth in Greasy’s Diner, sipping a vanilla double thick milkshake. Retail therapy only lasts for a few hours until her feet grow exhausted and she’s itching for something sweet to eat.
Pacifica is no stranger to arguing with Dipper, but those arguments are mostly in jest. This argument, however, was definitely not a joke. She sips away her milkshake as she attempts to process the fiery exchange. She can’t really place any of it. Dipper’s concerns were just—but couldn’t he just be happy for her? Pacifica is at a loss about it all, searching for explanations concerning Dipper’s lack of enthusiasm, and why she had taken it so poorly. She also goes back and forth on this paid internship her father offered her. Nepotism aside, it is an opportunity for her to experience the company’s inner-workings, especially if she intends to restructure it when the mantel is passed on to her. But it does feel like her dad just wants her gone for the summer—not that it makes any sense because for the past several summers, her parents were indifferent to her presence. She chose to go to a New England boarding school for high school because without the Pines twins, there isn’t much Gravity Falls has to offer Pacifica. And she spent those four years to attain straight A’s, and high standardized test scores, and a whole slew of extracurricular activities from student government to joining the field hockey team to volunteering twice a month at the local soup kitchens and local libraries. Good grades and extracurriculars, however, were more than her college application boosters—they were her means of keeping busy until summer arrived. Her semesters at Columbia are in similar vein. Summer in Gravity Falls is the highlight of Pacifica’s years. And during those summers, she still keeps busy, hardly interacting with her parents. So although this internship would advance her position in the company, she can’t separate it from Dipper’s words. Pacifica would always be prove herself as more than just the boss’s daughter. With the nonprofit she’s worked at for the past two summers, she’s just someone who wants to do good in the world.
So why do Dipper’s words sting?
When her milkshake is finished, Pacifica’s phone rings. When she sees it’s Dipper, she considers ignoring it before giving in to hear what he has to say. “Yeah?” she mumbles after accepting the call.
“Hey, where are you?”
“Greasy’s.”
A noise from the other end erupts in her ear; she assumes it is Dipper snorting. “You at Greasy’s? You hate going there unless Mabel and I drag you for midnight pancakes and barbeque.”
Pacifica doesn’t respond, and Dipper seems to pick up on this. “Well I’m just calling to let you know that Mabel came back to the Mystery Shack a while ago and she’s anxious to hang out. I myself was at the bookstore, and figured I could pick you up.”
“You’re driving?”
“No, I’m walking.”
The conversation is stiff and wooden between the both of them, with Dipper pretending they didn’t argue just hours previously.
“Yeah, sure,” she comments.
“Hey, Paz?”
“Mmmhmm?”
“I-I’m sorry about earlier. You do have my support, regardless of what you do.”
Pacifica repositions the bottom of her phone so when she huffs, the exhale doesn’t blow into the receiver and creates a flurry of static for Dipper to hear. A part of her wants to end the conversation because, quite frankly, the milkshake didn’t replace all the sourness inside of her. Except she can’t stay mad at Dipper forever because he is Dipper. She has him to thank for her managing to gain some control over her life. He’s only worried for her, she knows that.
So instead of issuing a farewell and ending the call, Pacifica musters up the courage to apologize for her own behavior. “I’m sorry I said those shitty things to you,” she says, earnestly and guiltily. “I don’t believe them.” She never did, but sometimes, no matter how hard she tries, Pacifica is a born Northwest—emotions run high and cause her to act before thinking.
Pacifica imagines Dipper’s face softening at her verbalized regret, maybe even a tiny upwards quiver of his lips. His hesitancy before responding leaves Pacifica worried. He might’ve apologized, but maybe he isn’t ready to accept hers. “You’re going to do great no matter what you do,” Dipper finally replies. His voice is deep and sincere; Mabel calls it his “Serious Talk Voice,” although Pacifica prefers to think of it as his normal voice. She smiles and takes his words as forgiveness.
“I think you were right,” she confesses, thought it surprises even herself to admit it. The words simply flow out of her mouth at their own volition. She pauses, and, for the first time, reaches her decision regarding her father’s opportunity. “I think I’m gonna stay.”
“Good,” Dipper asserts on the other line, “because I didn’t want you to leave.” The tone is blunt and almost smug, but knowing Dipper, he doesn’t mean to be arrogant during a moment like this.
Even though he can’t see it, Pacifica presses her lips into a line and crinkles her nose. She doesn’t want to leave, either, and his heartfelt words resonate in Pacifica’s mind—and chest—but can’t let him off that easy. “Then why didn’t you just say that?” she interrogates, half-flippantly but also more-than-half- genuinely curious. If he were standing in front of her, she would lightly punch him in the forearm, but the question lingers on. Why hadn’t Dipper said so?
“Because every time I’m face to face with you, I want to strangle you!” Dipper retorts. He jokes, Pacifica recognizes, even though she detects the slim chance that he is not entirely kidding. She listens on as Dipper rambles. It’s classic Dipper: no filter or end goal as he speaks, sentence after sentence, most likely digging himself into a deeper hole until someone calls him out on it. “And then I miss you when I go away. And I miss you, and I call you on the phone, and I get the person I want to talk to.”
Pacifica can interpret what that means in many different ways, but she has no idea with which one to begin. On the surface, it sounds like a jab at her. On second thought, it could be Dipper’s self-deprecation shining through again. “That’s not true,” she argues, but she doesn’t know quite what she is arguing against.
“Yeah, well I don’t know what it is but when I’m standing in front of you, I bring out something terrible,” Dipper continues on. Pacifica bites her lower lip, wondering what Dipper implies and where he is taking this burst. Does Dipper think she brings out the worst in him? If anything, the Pines twins bring out the best in Pacifica. Where would she be today if they hadn’t visited Gravity Falls during that first summer? Would she still be under her parents’ thumbs and bell, unwilling to fight for herself? Probably, if they managed to survive the axe ghost’s curse—which would be highly unlikely considering she knew nothing of how ghosts operate until Dipper showed her his journal.
But Dipper keeps speaking. “I think about how you came into my life, and how you drove Mabel, and me, crazy.” His voice is rather wistful now, slower and assured in comparison to his rushed and panicky stream-of-consciousness tone from just seconds before. All Pacifica can do is listen and speculate what Dipper is going to say next.
“And now I don’t even know what to do with myself because all I want to do is be with you.”
Wait—that isn’t what she expected to hear.
“What?” Pacifica blurts. “What’d you just say?” Maybe what he means isn’t exactly what he says. That happens, right? Dipper probably means he just wants to spend the summer with him and Mabel, not…whatever else it can mean.
“I want…to be…with you,” Dipper repeats emphatically. Pacifica’s heart rides on a rollercoaster, going up and up and up, anticipating a drop any second now.
Dipper resumes from a minor pause. “I’m in love with you.”
There’s that drop—a swift plummet into her stomach, so deep that, for a split second, Pacifica doesn’t understand how she is still alive.
“What?” she repeats from before—abrupt and utterly, totally, completely perplexed. Shock doesn’t even scratch the surface.
Dipper waits another second or two before responding. “I love you, Paz.”
Somehow, Pacifica’s heart releases even further into her gut. “Oh my God. That’s what I thought you said.” It’s the only comment she can make without taking any thought into the matter. “I…I...I don’t know what to say,” is another one, her stomach somersaulting endlessly. She is now incredibly aware of her body and her surroundings. Her scalp itches. The smell of grease is overwhelmingly pungent. The tips of her ears and her cheeks burn. The clang of a fork to the ground rings like a bomb. Her feet are trapped in an elevated strappy cage. The arm holding her phone is now sore from remaining in the same position. “I feel like I can’t breathe,” she comments, more to herself than to Dipper. Once again, she moves her phone’s receiver out of the way so she can exhale and inhale so as to gain her composure.
What can she say now? Dipper poured his heart to her through the telephone, and Pacifica twirls of lock of her blonde tresses around her index finger. It’s a habit she developed while in high school. When her mind thinks excessively, her non-dominant hand occupies itself with curling a particular piece of her hair. “I mean, I don’t even think about you.” It’s the first phrase that pops into her mind, and thus her mouth. She imagines Dipper sulking at these words because she herself frowns at them. For him, they aren’t the words he really wants to hear (though, he would accept them). For her, they just aren’t true.
“I mean, I do, all the time,” she clarifies, quickly moving into a Dipper-esque mind-to-mouth thinking process, “because you’re there—” Piedmont, California, and whenever she needs him, “and you’re here—”Gravity Falls, Oregon, but also in her heart, which she indicates with her hand despite Dipper being unable to see her gesture, “…and you make everything okay.” He does. If she ever needs consoling or support, Dipper is an avid listener who holds her and gives her amazing on-the-spot pep talks. Pacifica’s mind rewinds back to the click of a flashlight in a dark, secluded room, and Dipper giving her the courage to stand up for herself. “You always do, no matter what.”
She’s trying to let him down easily, but as the words escape her mouth, they sound more like a confession. In all her years of knowing and hanging out with Dipper and Mabel, she never once entertained the thought of her and Dipper romantically together. Except that is a lie on its own because she’s thought of it so many times, but usually in passing, like a What if Dipper and I dated? Haha don’t kid yourself, Paz. And Pacifica hasn’t even factored in Mabel’s light teasing. Dipper’s never shown any interest in her before. Based on his old crush on the Corduroy girl and his sophomore year girlfriend, Dipper usually gravitated towards more tomboyish girls, which never bothered Pacifica. And her two previous two boyfriends were of the New England prep persuasion. Not awful relationships, but not astounding ones, either. During those relationships—Dipper’s and hers’—Dipper remained her best friend. Not even being five hundred or three-thousand miles apart during the academic years changed that. Have these feelings always been inside Dipper even when he or she were in relationships? Why hadn’t he spoken up when they were both single at the same time before? If it were to happen, it would’ve happened already.
Except it’s happening right now, isn’t it?
Pacifica can’t think of Dipper in that light. But she does anyways, she always has. From the moment she first hugged him so many years ago to now, on the phone with him while she sits in Greasy’s, she denied and denied and denied, but not anymore. Dipper Pines—whose opinion she values greatly, whom she cares for wholeheartedly, who frustrates her, teases her, listens to her, helps her, holds her—loves her.
As she recollects every memory she shares with Dipper, Pacifica is left with the one question that matters most.
Does she love him?
“I mean, I must be because you’re always right,” she thinks aloud. Dipper is always right—annoyingly so. Pacifica’s eyes dampen at the waterline, and the corners of her lips reach her cheeks. “I can’t believe this,” she mumbles through the revelation. “I think I’m in love with you, too. I really do.” Her heart soars and her head grows lightheaded, her mind finally calm with just one thought running circles around her brain. I love Dipper Pines, and Dipper Pines loves me! Pacifica laughs gingerly and exasperatedly, if that is humanly possible. She wipes away an escaped tear, then realizes Dipper hasn’t responded to her own admission. “Dipper?” she asks the phone. She checks the screen to see if maybe the call dropped by accident. Dipper Pines reads at the top, the call timer still increasing second by second. “Are you there?” She waits briefly. “Dipper?”
In the corner of her eye, Pacifica catches the sight of a tall figure standing the parking lot of Greasy’s Diner. Without a second thought, Pacifica clamors to her feet and abandons her phone at the booth so she can rush outside. The click of her heels against the wooden floorboards stop at the top of the stairs leading into the diner. She stares at Dipper, who stands in the gravel parking lot, now wearing a pair of trousers, a blue t-shirt, and his pine tree hat. Yards apart, their eyes lock together. Pacifica’s heart pounds and pounds and pounds, practically numbing her senses. She slowly descends down the stairs so she stands at the foot of the stairs now, but her unwavering stare never leaves Dipper’s.
“What were you saying?” Dipper pivots himself at the center of an empty front parking space.
Pacifica gulps and holds her chin high. “I love you,” she enunciates—solid and confident.
She sees Dipper stride towards her, a goofy grin growing with each step, and she mirrors him. They meet at the curb of the sidewalk. Even though Pacifica wears her heels and stands at the top of the curb while Dipper plants his feet at the base, Dipper still has to lean down when he kisses her. With Pacifica’s hand weaving itself through his brown hair, the other tightly pressed against the nape of his neck, she pulls him even closer because she’s waited years for this. It’s not a perfect kiss because they’re not used to each other in this manner—two different rhythms, just as they’ve always been, and somehow they match up in the end. Dipper tastes like an oily meat lover’s pizza and gravy fries, and he probably thinks she tastes like vanilla ice cream, but Pacifica ignores the flavor. She focuses on the sensation, and the boy, and the happiness brimming inside of her.