"This is the book I never read These are the words I never said This is the path I'll never tread These are the dreams I'll dream instead."
- Annie Lennox
When he was eight years old, Nathaniel Archibald had thought that he had everything he could ever want right in the palms of his tiny hands. His family was still intact, and the Archibald name meant nothing if not immense wealth. His father had assured him then, that his future was bright, and that nothing could ever stop him from getting what he wanted. Nate of course, had believed him.
His father was everything he wanted to be, and Nate was sure that when he did finally grow up, he would be exactly like the man who had raised him. Back then, he had never taken for granted his foundations, accepting with grace his golden looks, money, and responsibility. He had even gone so far as to talking to Blair Waldorf, the girl his parents kept insisting he play with.
Nate of course, had not wanted to, but he realized soon enough that Blair was nothing if not persistent. With her curly brown hair always getting into his face while they played, Nate remembered wishing that she would just go away and leave him alone. He was tired of playing with pink Barbie dolls and instead felt that it would be so much more fun to play on the jungle gym with a certain bubbly blonde.
It wasn't just when he was eight that Nate found he felt this way.
Time changed them of course, and it wasn't long before Nate found himself fully immersed in the elite world he had grown up observing. He was the guy to be, and for the life of him Nate could find no reason as to why. He took it in stride, just like he did with everything, and when everyone expected him to date Blair, he did.
She was beautiful now, and Nate found himself starting to like this girl who had always been by him. She loved him, and he would have been lying to say that it didn't flatter him. In the corner of his mind however, Nate couldn't help but feel guilty for feeling that he didn't want her half as much as she wanted him.
He stopped listening to his parents when he got to high school. Nate had been born with a proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, and had never before questioned it. He questioned it now. He found himself living each day as if it were a dream. He couldn't remember conversations on account of his frequent highs, and he couldn't help but wish that his treasured trust fund life would disappear.
Nate stopped appreciating the acknowledging looks he got when he was passed in the hallways, and he stopped appreciating Blair. He'd lost count of how many times they had broke it off, only to get back together the next day. She loved him too much, and he just didn't know any other way.
When he finally did break out of the mold his parents had caste for him, Nate found himself unintentionally hurting the one person who had always stood by him. Those moments with Serena felt so right to him, primarily because they were not scripted into the play known as his life. To be honest, he hadn't even thought of how much his actions would hurt Blair, he hadn't thought about what she had wanted in a very long time.
She had eventually found out about it, and surprisingly, Nate found himself feeling regret rather than relief when she stared at him through her teary eyes. It wasn't until she had really threatened to leave his life forever that Nate realized just how much he had been missing. In his life, there had only been two things that had remained constant: Blair, and her love for him. Now, he had neither, and Nate found himself feeling even more desperate and lost than before.
So of course, he had gone back to her, this time determined to make it work, to show her that she really did mean something to him. Because for once, she did. For the first time, Nate couldn't sleep because he was thinking of seeing her the next day. He couldn't quite breathe right when his arms were around her. Most of all, he knew that he loved her, just as much as she had always loved him.
He hadn't realized then that she had already betrayed him, with his best friend. Of course, he was in no position to throw stones, but his pride and jealousy got the better of him. If Blair had done something like this before, he would have forgiven her, maybe he wouldn't have even cared. But now, he could not get the image of her with someone else out of his head.
He hated her for what she had done to him, and he hated himself more for making her do it. And for once in his life, Nate found that despite his money, looks, and charm, he could not piece together his life to be what it once was.
When he was eight years old, Nathaniel Archibald had thought that he had everything he could ever want right in the palms of his tiny hands. It was when he was seventeen however, that he realized that all he had ever wanted had slipped right out from his hands, before he had even known it was gone.