I hope this first chapter makes sense... It will definitely be continued. I will do my best, but uodates will rely heavily on my school load and reviews from readers! hehe
All inspiration from the Gossip Girl TV series. Claire, and all other unrecognisables are mine. Everythign else belongs to The CW and GG.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Henshaw
request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter
Claire Rosemarie
to
Mr. Nathaniel Fitzwilliam Archibald
At St. Patrick's Cathedral, 5th Avenue
On Saturday, twenty-first June
Two thousand and sixteen
At 2:30 o'clock
And afterwards at
Tavern on the Green, Central Park.
R.S.V.P
213-555-8137
Her mother's blonde hair glows through the crowd of people. A guiding light. Serena takes a deep breath and turns a full circle, taking in the world around her. The airport was buzzing with people. Coming and going, seeing and doing. She wants to run away, to get on the next departing plane and leave this place. Again. But instead she walks in the direction of her mother, who was waiting, with patient expectation on her face. She wonders how much she had missed she was away. And she wonders how much she'd have to catch up to.
"Serena!"
She lifts her head, and sees her mother grinning widely. She walks straight into her open arms, reassuring warmth engulfs her, as she smiles. It feels faint and foreign on her face, even though there had been no lack of smiling while she had been away. This was a different sort of happiness.
"Hey mom."
Lily takes over pushing the trolley - saying nothing about her one lonely suitcase, when she had left with 3- and guides her to the nearest exit. Their steps fall in time, a soothing harmony, amongst the bustle of the crowded terminal.
"I'm so glad your home." She says when they reach the car. Not a limo, she notes and wonders what exactly her mother has been up to. But still, the driver steps out to get her bag and open her door and she remembers how for an entire year, she drove a truck.
He unlocks the door and walks inside, tossing his keys on the table in the hall. He still finds it strange, coming home to an empty apartment. After living so long at home, and then with roommates during college, he's not used to such peace, such quiet. It's the perfect place for a writer. None of which explains why he so often gets writer's block.
He leaves his paper bags on the kitchen counter, telling himself he'll unpack them later. He wouldn't, he knew, but this was one of the perks of living alone. He falls onto the couch with a sigh, turned on the TV and flicks through his wad of mail. It was unusually large, each with an address printed on it, one he still couldn't believe was his.
The last envelope was different, with a border of golden swirls, addressed to a Mr. Daniel J. Humphrey. For a moment he couldn't remember who that was. It took him a minute for his eyes to focus on the curly writing, inviting him to something he had no wish to attend. It would mean going back to people he never truly knew, to a place he never belonged to. He tossed the beautifully designed card, along with its envelope on to the couch and got up for a beer. He falls in front of the TV again, a minute later and watches the weather channel, wondering when, exactly, he became 'Lonely Boy' again.
He takes a shower while she gets a cup of coffee from the kitchen. Its empty and she thanks herself, like she does every morning, for not giving in to her mother's insistence of a maid. She misses Doretta, though it took her a while to realise that the hired help was more of a best friend.
She's been busy these days, being Blair Waldorf, because it's the job of a lifetime. And surprisingly enough she doesn't mind an empty apartment. The company of her cat and on occasional nights, Him, is plenty, she's come to realise. She likes herself more when she's alone, when she can wear expensive lounge clothes and watch old movies, eating ice cream out of the tub. She hasn't surrendered to the bathroom once since she moved out of home.
The doorman delivers her mail and she thanks him, with a genuine smile on her face. She flicks through the pile, noting bills she now pays herself, though still without any difficulty, drops her mother's postcard from Spain on the table and stops at the envelope so beautifully emblazoned that it could not be anything else.
By the time he comes into the living room, shirt unbuttoned but otherwise dressed, she has recovered enough to hold it up in front of his face.
"Were you going to tell me?" She stares at him, fury bubbling up again. More due to being caught off guard than anything else. She had spent years distancing herself away from the drama she was born into, and she wasn't sure she was ready to face it again. Everyone would be there, everyone would be judges. And she, for once, didn't want to be in the competition.
He looks at her, "I told him not to invite you." And his words cut her in ways she cannot recognise. There is no doubt, not anymore, that she will go. After all, she does, once again, have something to prove.
She finds her words just in time to hear the click of her door shutting behind him.
Dan answers his phone, only to hold it away to protect his ears from the squeal. One person, at least is happy about the invitation. He presses the speakerphone button and listens to his sister talk cute wedding outfits while he makes something constituting dinner for himself. Though she's in her last year of college, sometimes he's not so sure she ever left Constance Billiard's.
"Dan... Dan?" Jenny's voice brought him back to his kitchen, where the pasta was nearly overcooked.
"I'm here – hey have you talked to dad lately?"
She giggled, "Nice change of topic."
He rolled his eyes. Sometimes, he misses living together as a family, her stealing his privacy away from him, and their dad trying to be the cool one. Sure, mingling with Upper East Side was painful, but it made going home so much more desirable. How was it, then, that his new home was exactly in the middle of the place he had been trying to run away from?
"When are you gonna have us over for dinner?" he heard his sister grin through the phone, her ulterior motives spilling out through the receiver.
"When I unpack all the boxes." He moved to drain the cooked pasta.
"Da-an...You moved in 8 months ago!"
Exactly.
"Home Sweet Home!" Lily exclaims as she opens the door, Serena nods in agreement, although she's not sure she recognises the place. The furniture is new, the walls a different colour and she's sure the painting in the hallway is merely a print.
"So, what do you want to do? Dinner? We can go out? Invite some of your friends..." Lily trailed off as she went into the living room.
She looked around; she just wanted to stay in the confined walls of this strange place. She wasn't hungry, for food or company.
"Actually, I'm kind of tired." She says, and it's only a half lie, she had been flying for 16 hours, after all.
Lily returns with a sympathetic smile, "I expected that. It's getting late anyway, you should rest and we'll catch up tomorrow."
She picked up her suitcase and moved towards her room, hoping that that, at least, had not changed too much.
"Wait, before you go. This came in the mail this morning." Lily handed her a white and gold envelope. She took it cautiously from her hand. It was a beautiful envelope, though that did not make her want to open it. She had learnt that any mail sent to her mother's apartment was usually not desirable news.
She took it into her room, where the walls were the same colour as before, thankfully. She sat on her bed and fingered the dainty paper before ripping it open, leaving her name indecipherable on scraps of paper.
She stared at the invitation, drawing her back to her past. This was exactly the reason she didn't want to come back, and exactly the reason she did. She was torn between what ruined her life, and what made it.
Her mother, it seemed, had spent the year mastering the art of perfect timing, as she knocked on the door lightly.
"Serena, are you okay?"
It was such an open ended question, and she replied the only way she could think of.
"I – I will be."
And she hoped to God she wasn't lying.
TBC
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