Day 1

Wyatt Richter liked to drive too fast. Sometimes he would just floor his black Ford GT40 down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago and just dare anyone to stop him or anything to get in his way. It was his way of escaping, from people, from expectations, or from whatever was dogging him. At the moment it was his father, the arrogant sonofabitch who had driven his mother to suicide after he left her for some model a third of his age, hell his new step mother was younger than he was, yet he was still his father and he had to respect that, even if he was constantly ruling from on high in the Kansas City headquarters of Richter Real-estate Investment. While sending his son to work out of the damned Chicago office because he couldn't stand to look at him and see Wyatt's mother in his face. In short Wyatt Richter was a mess, a Six-foot Four Dirty-blonde haired, just like his mother, blue eyed, just like his father, mess.

Serena Van Der Woodsen liked to drink too much. Sometimes she would grab a bottle of tequila and finish it just to see how fast she could drink it, and how fast it could make her forget. Forget the pain in her chest, like someone had cut her heart out, and the pain in her back that was a different pain like someone had just stuck a knife into her and kept twisting it until she broke. It was her escape, from people, from the betrayal and dull ache of heartbreak. At the moment it was her best friend and her step brother, except he was the one she never wanted to be her step brother, she had begged not to be at one point. He had told her he would always be there for her and that they would get one more shot to make things work, but when she said she was ready for that shot, that she would always love him, he stood there dumbstruck and neither said nor did anything, instead she later found out he loved her best friend, the girl who she loved like a sister. She tried to make it work but after a while it hurt too much, so she begged her step-brother, the one she preferred to be pseudo related too, to give her a job and send her somewhere far away from New York. So he did, he sent her to work in the Bass Industries office in Chicago, but it still hurt so she was sitting here in a bar in the windy city drinking away her past. In short Serena Van Der Woodsen was a mess, a Five-foot Ten platinum-blonde, like her mother whom she never wanted to end up like, blue eyed, again like her mother whom despite all her trying she was ending up like, heartbroken and sent away, mess.

Wyatt looked up from the dash of his vintage sports car as he idled it at a stoplight along Michigan Avenue, he saw a bar, he figured it was as good of a spot as any to carry out his yearly ritual so he pulled the rumbling car into a parking garage and walked back to the bar. He paused before reaching out to the door as the guilt started to hit him, if I had been at home instead of out drinking I might have been able to stop it, after reigning in his emotions he pulled back the portal and walked up to the bar and ordered himself what he had been ordering for the last 3 years.

"I'll have a double Johnnie Walker Blue neat please, and leave me the bottle"

"sir you do realize that is a $300 bottle of scotch right?" responded the flustered barkeep

"does it look like I give a shit buddy?" Wyatt shot back

To his right someone he had not previously noticed let out a child-like giggle

"you got a problem with my drink order hon? " a very irritated Wyatt directed at the mystery blonde

"oh, no just seems like if you're going to drink something that strong why bother going top-shelf the cheap shit works just as well for what you're looking for" she managed to mumble out while still staring down at her own drink

"What does it fucking matter to you? Who are you to say you know what I'm looking for?" This woman was starting to get on his nerves, shoulda chose a different damn bar he thought.

"Because I have a feeling we're looking for the same thing" she looked up now revealing a pair of very blue iris's surrounded by very red eyes.

"What makes you think that? Looks like you've been filling up your glass as much with tears as with alcohol, me? I don't drink to bring up emotions I drink to get them to go the fuck away" he retorted while sloshing back the remains of his first glass

She turned back to her glass and finished the remains of her tequila and ordered the bottle brought over before turning back to Wyatt

"Funny, because I started the same way, it always ends this way, it did in New York and it does it this city too. Nothing ever makes it go away"

A heavy silence fell over the pair as they continued to drink to forget, to numb, to anything that would make their pains go away. After a while Wyatt thought to himself, maybe she's right maybe it never does get better. As he turned to tell the blonde she may actually be right about that he realized she was gone, all that was left was a plate of limes and an empty bottle of bargain tequila.