Serena's POV.
She wonders is she's seen anything quite so broken. And she tries to remember how many times this has happened, and tries to predict how many times it will happen. Her best friend—two words which have irrevocably changed her life—is never quiet going about this. It's always loud, quavering sobs, expensive things being thrown, shattering, and it's so raw, raw, raw.
She always looks a damned broken doll when she cries, and it's unfair because she's so stupidly perfect and picturesque, and even more so when she's been carelessly left in pieces. There is no justice in the world.
She believes there are three stages to her friend's breakdowns—she's inherited more from her mother than she believes. First, there's anger. She lashes out at everyone and everything, never so much as to utter a name, and for all Serena knows, her best friend could hate her so very much right now. Typical. Common. Like every other melodramatic teenager in the city. Today, her rants have a central theme: how dare they.
She counts herself as safe, but this is the infamous temper, so she isn't so sure.
She has no idea, but her friend is shrieking something along the lines of: how dare they scorn her, how dare they abandon her, how dare she betray her, how dare he be so hypocritical, how dare he kick her away.
She wouldn't really understand, anyway. After all, she's practically been trained by now to offer sympathy and support in the most distracted way. But it doesn't really matter right now. So broken, broken, broken.
The start of stage two is indicated by hysterical sobs that don't quiet. She's used to this by now, but every time the world seems to crash down yet again, and she finds herself right beside her best friend. It's strange, really. She tries to hush and hold, and does anything to tell her it will be okay, even though she has no idea what the hell she's saying and knows her best friend understands it's all lies in the first place.
Somehow, she finds she has ended up crying alongside her best friend, and she decides she hates the word crying too. Because it makes everything sound so pitiful and helpless, and really, crying people aren't like that. They're vicious, and ready to break the next thing that gets in their way.
She is struck by the fact that everything she knows is so insignificant, and so fleeting and trivial and she can't recall what exactly her friend is crying about, but it's so real to both of them that she can't help but laugh at how pathetic they are.
Laughter.
Crying together is not understanding. People cry for all the same reasons. Laughing together is understanding.
Soon all there is is echo-y hoarse laughter, four empty Kleenex boxes (pretty floral box design included) and mascara stains. There may be a hundred, or a thousand more important world issues, but she throws an awkward arm around her best friend and everything is resolved.
Now they're on shaky ground, as the words begin. She's calculated—two extra boxes of tissues. Maybe three. In case she starts blubbering again. These are the only moments Serena is thankful for brutal honesty—two words which have irrevocably changed her life. She hears it all whole and untouched: "…consider yourself dethroned…" (and yet she still finds reality for a moment and raises an eyebrow at this clichéd line), "…then you can weather the storm alone…" (she cringes, guilty—but she's here now, right?), "…then you'll understand me when I say I don't want anything to do with you again…" (she pauses, wondering, and realizes after a beat, annoyed, who this line belongs to). Her friend stops, and Serena wonders why she hasn't run to the one person who hasn't wronged her, insulted her, or added to the list of quotes she's just listened to. Oh, the irony.
"…rode hard and put away wet…"
And the stages start again.
She is disgusted, empathetic, and wishes for that particular someone to be murdered. Her friend has probably cried herself to sleep before, dramatic as always, but Serena's sure it's never been on the floor in what still resembles a clean, pressed school uniform.
The night is still young, and she's lost her grip on reality. She's angry. Beyond angry. There's loathing. Hatred. Does he know he's left her so broken, broken, broken? And yet so unfairly perfect? If her friend ever wanted her life to resemble a damned fairytale, she'd realize the only time she looked perfect and silent-era was when she cried. Nevertheless, she doesn't care. Her best friend is not someone worthless to be thrown away.
Granted, she could've waited until her words were lighter, her mind rational, but she's so angry, angry, that this cannot wait. If she'd waited, her mother would've asked her to be sympathetic—his mother had passed away (she always wondered why newspapers even listed obituaries) earlier in the day. If she'd waited, she wouldn't have ignored the silence on the other side of the door. If she'd waited, she would have hastily read the "my condolences" scrawled on a note addressed to him. But she has never been patient.
Her sentences haven't run together in fury for so long, and her words haven't been as biting, and she's pressed all the right buttons this time. Her best friend, sleeping peacefully now (albeit destined to wake up in the morning in a sticky cotton dress shirt with a fitted blazer thrown over her) would've been proud.
She knows she's lost something about reality because he's been quiet all this time, and she notices it's 3AM, when no sane, sober, sensible person should be awake.
For someone who's always had endless things to say to bring someone closer, he's pushing her away now. Surprising. She always thought she looked vaguely like the stick-figures in Vogue when she was angry.
"You've said enough—" He pauses for a moment, contemplating something she can't quite discern. "—slut." Ah. That's what it was. An atrocious personality that couldn't realize what to say at the right moment. "Get out."
And suddenly she discovers she's furious again.
"You had no right to say anything to her—you're a…" What is he to her? An accomplicewillingworkermastermindreliablejerk? She'd given up trying to categorize their relationship, or lack thereof, a long time ago.
"I had every right."
"She wasn't yours to begin with."
"Never was. Never was his, either. He's always had an eye for girls like you."
"This has nothing to do with him." Was she losing ground? Not particularly. If anything, she simply wanted the floorboards beneath this despicable person to give way and allow him to fall a good twenty-three stories. End up back at the bar, come to think of it.
"It has everything to do with him. Why does she—"
She takes a chance and jumps at the hesitant sentence. "Why does she always go back to him? Are you insane? Plain stupid? Trying to ignore what's in front of you? She. Loves. Him. Understood?" And in those sentences, she's enunciated clearly just exactly what he is.
She doesn't consider why he's saying what he's saying, and she couldn't really care less. It'd take too much of an effort to piece together, anyway.
"You mean, been an arranged marriage partner for him? I suppose it wasn't him who abandoned her. I suppose it was someone else you were—"
"And you're any better? You said you were like me, but—"
"But what? You ran away?"
"You were her last choice. That's the difference."
"Would you think he'd like to know that now? Especially since you've involved yourself with some random—"
"You ruined her."
For a minute, he's unsure. She doesn't know what to make of this. So she waits. For once. He's impatient too, she realizes. But he's going to be disappointed; she doesn't know what point she wants to make.
"I tried, okay? She deserved it."
"You never think of anyone else."
He wants to protest and say, au contraire, it's she who never cares about anyone else. Her blatant remark earlier in the evening highlights this. But that would be out of character. Living in the immediate present is much better. So he gives her a look that seems to be trying to tell her she's the most ignorant person ever to step through room 4076, and tries not to throw something at her and throw her out the door. Or window.
"This only happens when I consider someone else. Understood?" It's a strange mimic. He doesn't give her more than a moment to respond. She tries silence.
"This only happens when I think of someone else. Understand? I wouldn't have lost a friend if I'd never cared—I'm not like you, I can't just fix everything with a smile and a laugh." He doesn't quite understand why he's just said that, but now that he has, he might as well throw everything else in her face too. She may as well get used to it. She'll legally be his sister in a matter of weeks.
"I'd never have lost a father if…"
"..But he's…"
"He may as well be dead, yes. Listen, Serena. Because you think you have every right to yell at me, and it may be fine, but you understand nothing. I would never have lost a …sanity if I'd never cared, okay? You can say you don't understand what we had, if she'll ever admit we ever had anything at all, but I cared, okay? And you wonder why I'm like this. I have reasons, and you don't."
She is ready to be self-righteous again, because she feels nothing she's done can compare to just exactly what he's done. By sheer demographic, if necessary. But he's quicker.
"Do you understand now? Do you realize now? Do you get that you're just some stupid little girl who thinks everything in the world is against her? (he neglects to mention that he's just a stupid little boy who thinks everything in the world is against him—unlike her, he's started to accept that he's stupid) I wouldn't have lost a mother if…"
And she doesn't hear the end of this rant because he has a hand over his mouth and his head of the counter. She doesn't know if she's shocked, satisfied, confused, saddened, or guilty, because she's never seen him so silent.
She doesn't really remember why she wants to see him hurt, but she thinks it has something to do with the sobbing brunette she fixed with a smile and laugh earlier in the evening.
"Your mother.." Confusion is evident in her voice, and she realizes she's never really thought about it.
He knows that if he opens his mouth to make a sound, it's all over (he thinks that this is karma reminding him that given the past ten years of his lifestyle, he's screwed forever). Somehow, he can't help but not care.
"She's gone. Dead. Six feet under. Pushing up daisies. Whatever the hell you want to call it. And he won't have a damned funeral because he says the wedding's more important. She was married to him for fifteen years. Fifteen years."
She doesn't want to hear this. Doesn't want to be here anymore. Doesn't care about him. Wants him to suffer for everything he's ever done, because she's remembered her purpose here. She didn't know this. Doesn't want to know this. Doesn't want to see this.
"And all he does is send a note to tell me? Tells me she'll have a private ceremony halfway across the continent because he wouldn't want your mother taking a look at the woman she'll be repla—"
She needs to bring him back. Quickly. Back so she can go back to hating him and not feeling guilty. Back so she can yell some more awful things and leave.
"She was my mother, for god's sake."
He's always been stubborn, but she knows he's gone now. He's turning away, trying to stay still, silent, like himself. She's wondering just how much effort it takes not to bolt for the nearest door.
"Go. Away. Make this easier for the both of us." Amazingly, he still remembers she's here, and who he's talking to. He remembers vaguely that she's the best friend of someone important. He recalls through the mess-of-a-mind-on-shaking-shoulders that he wouldn't live this down and she'd be in an extraordinarily awkward situation.
"Please." It's not a nice, thoughtful, polite afterthought, but a plainly veiled promise of death and destruction when he's feeling like himself again.
She doesn't move.
Simply can't.
He may be stubborn, but he's up against things he can't fight. An image at a certain debutante ball, a disapproving glare from a certain billionaire who happens to be his father, a look of disgust and rage from what was a certain best friend, a certain heartless note that tells him of his mother's passing, a certain indifferent invitation to a wedding, a certain string of words from a certain person who's now sleeping peacefully—"Whatever we had, it's over."
She may be ignorant when it comes to a thousand other things, but she knows he's finally crying because one of his hands is clenching the countertop in a way she thinks will make it crack, the other hand is covering his mouth, and his shoulders are shaking.
She hates the word crying because it makes everything sound so pitiful and helpless, and really, crying people aren't like that. They're vicious, and ready to break the next thing that gets in their way. But he's not like most crying people. Unfortunately.
He's defeated. Gone.
She's never seen anything quite so broken.She doesn't know if this has ever happened, and guesses it will not be happening again. Her step-brother—a word which has irrevocably changed her life—is almost silent going about this.
For someone who always has endless things to say to bring someone closer, he's pushing her away now.
For a minute, she wants to repeat the evening and tell him that everything will be fine and repeat all of her lies from her best friend's breakdown, but she's reminded of everything he's ever done.
She finds she cares about her best friend, but doesn't care about him. Because he's left so many others like this that it's his turn. She doesn't realize that the same could be said of another brunette she saw earlier in the evening.
She remembers this when she's in the hotel lobby.
He realizes she's gone the next morning when he finds he's accomplished the feat of falling asleep on a barstool.
She leaves, and figures that if those two are hurt, then the last one who's suffered should be Nate.
When she arrives at the ungodly hour, she's told he's out with a friend. It crosses her mind that this is simply not fair.
It is not fair that he is fine, while they are not. It is not fair that while everything engulfs them, he is out having fun. It is not fair that they are going to remember this day forever, and he'll forget it in a matter of months.
She decides she should think about it all. She comes to a conclusion. She's been considering everything behind the unlikely pair, and begins to comprehend that they've always mirrored each other.
When they were young, and were upset by the most trivial things (not that the 'trivial' part has changed), she threw a fit about the broken slides at the playground, and he yelled about the closed park where they used to play tag. First one, then the other.
He wasn't himself for a month after his mother left. She wasn't herself for thirty-one days after her father ran off. First one, then the other.
And today, she'd turned into a wreck. She should've expected he'd spiral downward soon afterwards, but she hadn't expected it all in one night. First one, then the other.
She thinks he knows this pattern too, but he hadn't expected it so soon either.
When she catches a glimpse of a certain blond boy in high spirits, the image of two crying brunettes comes to mind.
She hates that word.
But in the midst of it, she understands suddenly why they'd always been a perfect match.
A/N: Hm. The characters aren't particularly in character, I realize. Ah well. I needed to create a somewhat-logical reason for him to be so upset. Criticism, please. :)