I don't know why, but I love 3x17 - probably because it inspires me. Probably because no matter how many times I watch it, I know the worst thing Chuck ever did was to be Chuck, which meant Blair would always love him. You don't have a choice in a love like theirs.
Enjoy.

Lay Me Down

I am estranged from you.

I am estranged from you in every way imaginable.

I walk up the aisle with canapés and full glasses instead of guests; this was supposed to be our wedding someday. You never said it, but you meant it. You were too young to say it. I was too young to take that walk, but I would've walked it for you.

I know you see me, sense me, scent me standing here. I know your thoughts are ricocheting between the last time you saw me – maybe a coat, maybe a sleeve, maybe laughing with someone who wasn't you – and the last time it was okay to see me, the last time you saw me beside you. The last time we woke up happy. The last time we were friends in bed, when you laid me out and lay down beside me and just my skin was acceptable to you.

The last time I felt warm.

The last time I felt warm to you.

The last time I was more than a face in a photograph in your head, because you weren't even allowed to focus on my true face anymore. You hemmed yourself in, gave yourself rules. You reminded yourself not to send cards on my birthday.

I know.

(I hope).

I know you see me standing here. I wore a red dress tonight, but I didn't mean to catch your eye. I only meant to have a glass of champagne and an asparagus spear, to go home empty.

I slapped you across the left cheek, I remember. You burned, and I did it. You deserved it, but that was the last time I touched you. That was the last time you felt warm to me, not cold like the flute in my hand, sloshing with ice, alcohol. I grip it tightly like a security blanket, and the cold burns too. Everything itches, my clothes, my skin. Everything burns.

We have to say hello.

We have to. Everyone expects us to.

Surely there are better ways.

There are better ways, you suggest, conveniently coming towards me only when the music is too loud for conversation. I am in red and you are in black and there are a dozen more brightly dressed people around us, so no one will look; so I won't look. I didn't imagine you so tall, but it makes things easier. I can lay my head on your chest, it's playing slow enough for that. I can look back down the aisle of food and drink, not up at you.

This is our first dance.

We aren't old enough for it.

Your hand is in my hair, teasing. It's wrong and I want it. I want it there longer than the duration of the melody which is just now swelling, sweet. When it dies, so do we. I go back to my champagne and my asparagus spear. You go back to the pretty girl in blue, the one who looks as if she might be jealous. You have become somebody's someone, I suppose, and I have become somebody worth being jealous of.

Will you placate her tonight, and tell her I was no one?

(An old friend).

(An ex).

(A former acquaintance).

But when we break apart, and I go to splash cold water on my face, you're standing behind me, eating up the mirror.

"Hello, Blair."

Slap, slap, slap: my hand on the edge of the sink.

Your hand is in my hair, teasing.

This will be the last time I felt warm to you, when the end has ended, when you write your name along my spine with your fingertip. When you've kissed me and your mouth is swollen, when your perfect collar is in disarray.

The last time we were friends in bed is still the last time.

We came against the wall for want of something better.

You followed me here for want of something better.

Slap, slap, slap: your hand against the woodwork when everything is over.

I am estranged from you in every way imaginable, and I go home empty and go to bed friendless, and just my skin isn't acceptable to me.

'I never thought that the worst thing you'd do would be to me.'

I never thought the worst thing would be love without ceasing.

Fin.