Disclaimer: Nothing is mine and I do it all for entertainment.
A short one-shot, in five acts. For a better experience I recommend for you to listen to the following songs. They are, you may state, the soundtrack of this particular story:
1. The Build Up - Kings of Convenience ft. Feist
2. Remember the Day - Sibylle Baier
That is about it. Enjoy!
I.
He finds the letter in the top of his desk. Next to the notes for his next book which he thinks really is going nowhere even when his agent insists it will be more successful than Inside. He finds it next to the cactus that represents the only plant that has been able to survive under his care. The realization that she has broken in – again, without making a noise, without waking him up, frustrates him. And not because she has been at his home without his permission, he really doesn't care anymore. He is frustrated because once again, she has the lead on him.
She always does.
He puts the letter aside as much as he can. He makes coffee, black; because he is so obviously a writer and he might as well live up to the stereotype. He checks his e-mail to see if there is anything new from Alessandra, but there is nothing. He even calls his dad. He takes his time. Just when he feels like he is ready to read her letter. He opens the envelope and unfolds the paper.
It smells like her. Like roses and hopes and lives that could have been.
Have you ever loved a piece of poetry so much that you think you might die? I know I may sound dramatic but if anyone can understand, it is you. You are a writer after all. Dan, I really need to tell you about this poem I read: Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. It… every time I read it I am overcome by violent waves of emotion. It is a much known poem, I know, but you should really take your time to savor it while reading it next time.
I want you to think of me when you read it. I think of you. I wish I could be with you and you would read it to me, out loud. Or better, whispered it to me. Anything will do. I wish we could be as before. I wish many things.
"But we loved with a love that was more than love." Next time you read it, you will love it as much as I do. I'm sure.
Dan knows the poem by heart now. It has always reminded him of Blair. And the fact that it reminds her of him, well – he doesn't know what to do with that. So he doesn't think about it.
II.
The next letter, pseudo-letter, note, whatever; arrives four weeks later. Not at the loft, but at his work office. He has taken a desk job since she left. He needed the stability desperately and didn't care where it came from. He doesn't know how she found out.
He reads this one while he is heating a burrito during his lunch break. A co-worker tries in vain to start a conversation, he is gone now. They tried to be friendly, his co-workers. And usually he is friendly as well. But time passed and they learned that he draws an imaginary line between them and him. They learned that he makes a clear separation between professional and private. They know is nothing against them how he just wants them to be colleagues but not friends; he is a very reserve person. They understand it, they just don't know why.
You know, there is something important I need to tell you. I have been going around the idea in my past letters but I feel I need to be direct for once. I miss you. But most importantly, I wish I could forget you. You are almost my every thought. I wish I didn't get jealous of all the girls you are sleeping with, I wish I didn't but I do. I wish I could stop thinking about you, when I read, when I work, when I sleep; you are even in my dreams!
My days are spent forgetting you. I wish you wouldn't consume me like this, but you do and I don't know what to do about it.
This one smells of her as well. They always do.
There must be a certain kind o beauty in the irony of the situation. Damn her! Damn her! She is the one that haunts him and still has the audacity to say that he is the one that causes her so much trouble. Dan loses his temper, really looses it for the first time since a long time. A while later he comes back to himself. When he is already back at the loft. While he is seated in the couch that has been witness of so many things, he gives up. He packs his back in record time and he goes away. He just leaves.
"I'm going away to fall out of love" If Blair can do it, so can him.
III.
He chooses Bruges, a city in Belgium. He chooses it because he was never good at handling destinies. He uses some of his royalties money from Inside to buy himself a tiny flat, just the basics. He feels like he should go to practically the middle of nowhere (he knows he is exaggerating) in order to forget about Blair.
Directionless now, he decides to explore the city. He walks and walks and explores every inch of its streets, of its canals. He explores it enough so that it becomes as familiar as New York. He basks in the city's history. It's medieval heritage. He wonders what it would be like to live in a feudal society. He visits constantly the Groening Museum but he starts to wonder what would be Blair's opinion on its art, so he stops.
He is not a strong believer but he visits St. Salvator's Cathedral often and he even finds his favorite spot in the city (a bench in the city's béguinage). And he begins to love it. He begins to love Bruges. The beautiful streets and the passion for literature. The elegance and the subtlety. The balance between a Nordic rigor and a Latin savoir-vivre. The freedom he feels.
Here, in the narrow hallways and the wide canals, Dan feels like Blair's hold on him is a little bit less tight than it has ever been before.
IV.
I can see it why you love it here, Dan. It wouldn't be my first choice, but I can see it; why it is yours. It makes me sad here, almost nostalgic. Like time hasn't passed. The truth is this city seems haunted. Is that why you love it so much? Why do you love it so much? Because it feels like nothing can change the city or because it seems filled by ghosts?
He finds this one in the kitchen table, after he gets back from another walk. It has been months since he received the last one. He reads it probably about ten times in the last five minutes before he places it back on the table. He looks at it even longer.
It is something between the clock in the wall and the air that hits the window that overwhelms Dan with realization. Lifting the paper from the wooden table once more, he smells it.
This one doesn't smell like her. And yet, and yet…
"No, Blair." he says, taking a deep breath and breaking the silence of the flat, "I don't love Bruges because it feels like nothing can change in it or because it is filled by ghosts. I love it so much because it reminds me of you."
Only silence responds him but Dan doesn't hesitate. This note doesn't smell like her, yet, her perfume fills his home like nothing has ever. She is here, he knows. So close he can almost taste her. His heart is beating fast, the veins on his arm rising tick and dangerous as his fists clench; his flesh is paralyzed. He is petrified.
"I am not filled by ghosts." The response comes finally. So quietly that he is surprised he could hear her. Then, then she steps around the doorframe of his bedroom and the world just stops. His world just stops. They gaze at each other for what seems like a long time. Neither one cares. Dan cannot react, he cannot do anything. He hasn't seen here in so long.
"You…" Dan begins but doesn't know how to continue.
"Me…" She smiles. She feels a bit cold because she wraps herself into the rose wool cardigan she is wearing.
"Where have you been?" He manages to ask eventually. She tucks one of her brown curls behind her ear. "Where have you been, B?"
He doesn't know why he calls her the way Serena once used to call her, but he does. It feels very intimate, he notices.
She shrugs slightly. "Here and there. Mostly around you, you must have noticed."
"I know. I know and I've been looking but..." she interrupts him with a dry laugh and a shake of her head. Her curls bouncing behind her.
"Nobody has really been looking."
They stay silence once more.
"Why does Bruges reminds you of me?" she asks.
"It's like you, just like you." Dan begins, "It is beautiful and cold and never really changes. It has secrets and it is complicated and it defies the passage of time, the passage of anything. And people love it." Dan finishes, "People love it so much. People build homes in here, people become ghosts in here. People get lost in here."
"I never asked anyone to get lost in me." Blair snaps suddenly and Dan has an easy retort.
"Neither did Bruges."
Blair looks at him defiantly. He thinks he probably went a little bit far but then he notices a hint of a laugh in the corner of her mouth. A spark of humor in her eyes.
"You know," she remarks and her tone sounds pretty casual, "I have been called many things and have been compared to a lot of things before, but never a city." She stays silent for a moment, thinking. And then she adds, in a somewhat surprised tone, "I kind of like it."
"What are you looking for, Blair?" Dan begins with a sigh, "I have been waiting for you for five years. Why have you come here? Why now?"
"I couldn't do it anymore" she murmurs, their gazes meet. "I have missed you so much. I try running away but it never works. I have to be near you."
"So you came here." Dan states.
"So I came here." She agrees with him.
"We can't keep going on like this." Dan says, "I'm as lost as you are."
Finally, she breaks the connection and looks away. Dan watches as her gaze wanders around his house, pauses for a bit on his little desk, on the postcards he was planning on sending to his family. She takes a seat next to him in the kitchen table. He can't stop looking at her, he is afraid she might disappear.
"You are staring." She smiles and meets his gaze once more. He just shrugs because that's about it. Dan can really see himself, tall and brooding, in her brown eyes.
"I miss you," he says eventually, he needs to state that. "I miss you so much I feel I am going insane."
"I miss you so much I know I have gone insane." She answers.
"So what now?" he asks hesitantly, afraid of the answer.
Blair doesn't reply instantly. She takes her time, brow furrowed as she ponders the question. Dan waits patiently, as he always has to do when it comes to Blair.
"I really don't know." She answers finally. "What I know is we are two people, and so like anyone, we could be together. But for how long? If we are two ordinary people, how long will our love last?"
Blair is making questions for which Dan doesn't have the answer.
"Eternal love doesn't exist. Not even in books." Blair continues, "So loving means for a finite time. There will be no miracle for us; we are no different to anyone else."
Dan avoids her gaze for a really long time. Afraid of what the reflection in her eyes may show him. At last he looks up again.
"We could try just… being." Dan suggests. "We could just live her and keep being and see what happens."
Blair looks at him hard. He cannot think of a better alternative so he hopes she accepts it.
She just shrugs and calmly says, "Okay."
V.
I woke up next to you and I was sure I was still dreaming. You look possibly angelic while asleep. Don't worry, Dan. I will be back soon. I just needed to walk and clear my head. I need to fall in love with this city as much as you have. In the mean time I ask you this: why do you love me? I love you because you are you. Plain and simple. But I want a more complex answer!
When he wakes up and finds the note in the pillow next to his, his heart fails him for a moment. Then he reads it and he can breathe properly again. It is probably one of the shortest notes she has left him but it is definitely his favorite. She has always been more expressive and eloquent with a pen. If they could live another life, he is sure she will be the writer in that one.
Why does he love her?
It is a combination of so many things. Her beauty, her mysteriousness, her sense of humor, her intelligence. Words in the English language, and in any language really, fail him. They are not enough. Yet, he is sure of something. He plans to spend the rest of his life answering that question.
Just being.
I love Annabel Lee, it was the first poem I fell in love with, back in middle school; I simply had to use it. If you noticed, I also shamelessly stole some dialogue from a film I love which is called "La Belle Personne" (Eternal love doesn't exist...) I have always loved that piece of dialogue and I wanted to incorporate it because, yes, like almost anything these days, it reminds me of dair. I'm obsessed, its shameful.
If you read Blair, I still have not begun to write the next chapter but I will begin soon. I just hope it doesn't take to long this time. Until next time.
Goobye, dairlings.