Healed All Wrong
dan.
Dan knows why people keep their eyes closed when they kiss.
It's because if he keeps them closed for long enough, his hands could be tangled up in blond hair, not brown. If he keeps hi s eyes closed for long enough, he can pretend that blue eyes will be staring at him when he opens them.
They're blue, (but they're the wrong shade). And framed by chocolate curls, not the blonde strands he knows he's always wanted.
He sits in the booth of a coffee shop in Brooklyn, his ghostly girlfriend sitting across from him, and the real one kissing him in between taking orders.
Casually glancing at the door, he sees a flash of long, blonde hair pass along with a smaller brunette. His heart beats faster and faster until the pair is clearly in sight. He looks down at his plate (just to look away, just in case), but sees a 50,000 watch sitting on it and an excited squeal resonating throughout the café.
Quickly standing up, he motioned that he was leaving to her. He still hadn't called her his girlfriend yet. It was assumed. But it was all so wrong.
Girlfriends should be new and exciting and breathtaking and a little bit uncomfortable and sexual tension and everything that being a teenager is. Girlfriends shouldn't be old and broken in and simply convenient and hearts belonging to other people.
He thinks that Vanessa is the only one who can't see that, her happiness blinding his obvious heartbreak (and bandaging it, keeping the wound from bleeding all over everyone.)
(He doesn't know that she has a tear in the top left-hand corner of her heart where Nate and his blue eyes and his college application essays used to live. But he's filled up most of it already, and pretty soon it'll fade to a scar.)
She nodded in acknowledgement, and he practically races out of the door before something (another memory of her) attacks him. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he slowly walks home, taking the scenic route to avoid more attacks.
"There's a scenic route in Brooklyn?" A giggle and smile follows.
He shakes his head, nearly cringing at the accuracy of the voice and statement. She's inescapable, unforgettable, extraordinary, and he broke up with her.
He feels the band-aid being ripped off and the wound burst open. He allows himself the luxury of pure, selfish, pain and self-loathing (thank God he's by himself). For a second, it's all there and he thinks he won't be able to handle standing for another minute. His breath becomes shaky, his heartbeat goes
crazy, and his voice is caught in his throat. Slowly, the tides of pain start to turn, and he can focus on things other than his shattered heart (it used to take days to recover from one of these). He stands up and continues walking, determined to keep moving. He tells himself that the wound will heal, even if it means it heals wrong and crooked and stapled together crudely.
He sees Jenny's guilty look when he gets home, and hears the sound of her phone snap quickly shut behind her. His eyes narrow, but he doesn't really want to know what the text says. Still, he doesn't give up (because he tells everyone he's fine, so why should this affect him?) and eventually Jenny hands over the innocent pink phone.
A sound comes out of his throat, something sad and pitiful and so…unlike Dan. He attempts to pass it off as a throat clear, and ignores his little sister's sympathetic stare. The staples come out of his freshly bandaged heart…again. He would smash the phone but it's his sister's. He does it anyways. She's been wanting a new one.
The satisfying crunch of the hardware isn't nearly enough to erase the picture of Nate and Se-, her, burning into his retinas. He ignores his sister's horrified gasp (he's been ignoring her a lot lately) and storms into his room.
He sits on his bed and puts his head between his knees to stop the room from spinning. He wonders if his dad felt like this when Lily van der Woodsen left him and married 1…2…3…4 other guys. He stuffs his face into his pillow (because then he won't be able to tell if he's crying). When he sits back up, he flips the pillow over and reads something. He's not actually reading, but he tries and that's good enough for him. He forcefully shoves the two pieces of his heart together again, hoping that they'll simply stick, tired of torn up stitches and swears he's done hurting over her.
Still, when Vanessa kisses him later that night, he's surprised to feel curls in his hands and eyes two shades too light greet him when his eyes open. Then comes the familiar feel of fresh pain, served hot.
I might do a companion piece/second chapter that's Serena's point of view. But that's only if there's a high demand for it and I feel like I could write it well. Plea se please please REVIEW!
