It's all over but the crying

It is a rare day indeed that Blair finds herself alone during lunch, her minions dispatched to do some evil deed or another. With a yogurt in hand, she is flipping through the most recent issue of Vogue, its glossy models oblivious of the breezy day, when shocked whispers nearby disturb her reverie. Impertinent freshman, no doubt, she thinks, redoubling her attention to the magazine, but, then, she hears a name that she cannot let go.

"Oh my God, look, it's Chuck Bass!"

"Are you on crack? How could it be Chuck Bass?" comes the retort. "No one has even seen him in, well, forever."

"Well, yeah, but I'm totally serious. He's standing right over there -- "

And Blair looks, wrenching her head upward and finding the courtyard entrance, though she cannot think of a person she would rather see less because, the last time their paths crossed, she, thoroughly spent of her patience, dismissed him with a bouquet at his feet. Today, his coat hangs loosely about him, the ends of his striped scarf uneven as he surveys the idle gossip and mercurial fashions through narrowed eyes. Blair wonders if he recognizes it anymore, this prep school, handsomely purchased, that was meant to mark the beginning of an unimpeded ascent through life, yet she is aware -- and she knows that he is aware -- that an uncertain, deadening gravity cloaks him now.

He is not a man, for Chuck will never quite learn to comport himself that manner, but he bears a man's burden and finds his shoulders too narrow, too frail for the task. He is consumed by it, a silent erosion of all that he once was, and, as his gaze settles upon her, Blair knows that there is nothing left for her there.

So she inclines her head, a bare and perfunctory acknowledgement of his presence. For an instant, she wonders if something in him has softened. Then he turns, walks away, and contemplation is little comfort to the discarded.