Chapter 1: I had a dream
I always dreamed of going to Yale, and spending my formative years surrounded by smart and confident people like me. Well I dreamed of that anyways. Instead of living in a beautiful townhouse in New Haven that my dad would live in with me I got this; a stinky dorm room at NYU. The least of all colleges I would ever want to attend. But it had one upside though; I would never have to worry of not finding my way here because I grew up here, in New York City.
College was something I had been talking about since I was a little 6-year old girl, living in a 5th Avenue penthouse and happy to be surrounded by her loving and caring family and her maid. When my dad came back from his trip from Connecticut he had brought me a Yale-sweater. I sweater I treasured so much that I wore it down until there were holes in it. It was the only peace of clothing I have ever worn more than once in my life. 'Till today I had never even thought of throwing away that sweater. I have thrown away Hervé Leger, Oscar de la Renta, Chanel, Anna Sui and countless others down the trash but this one sweater, this peaceful sweater that illuminated self-confidence and that represented my dream more than anything, I could not throw away. It held memories, ones that I could never forget, even if I wanted to.
And as the last of the summer sun shined through the leaves that were becoming brown, red and yellow –the colors of autumn- I knew, the time had come for me to move my Philippe Starck chaise longue from my bedroom to my new home. My new home; it felt like the beginning of the end. The end of my life. And it was here…
My very dysfunctional family which included my mother, Cyrus, my father, his boyfriend Roman and my loving maid Dorota, all came to help me move things into my dorm. I had asked for a single dorm room and had gotten one. Although it was harder than I had thought, apparently the Waldorf-name isn't that popular around there. When I was finally settled in my place, complete with my original Andy Warhol artwork stuck to my wall, I came to rest on the right side of my single bed –which to me, seemed to be an old bunk bed-. My parents had only just left, but I missed them already. They meant everything to me. We may have had our differences at times but none of those arguments could make me stop loving them. In times of need, I could always fall back on my family. And in those times I had come to realize how fortunate I really was, I had a family to rely on when others –my closest friends- did not. Nate grew up surrounded by forced smiles and conversations. Serena became her partying self because her mother was always jet setting with a new man every other 3 months. Chuck grew up with a deceased mother and a father who could care less about his wellbeing. My parents may not love me together, but they love me in their own –sometimes weird- way. I was truly fortunate and I was grateful for that.
I lain down on my bed and put my head to rest on my pink, silk pillow. I took out my HTC TytN II and started typing a new message to my best friend This sukz, only countless seconds later my phone buzzed on top of my stomach. I look and saw her reply I by nxt wk, xoxo S by the shortness of her message I was almost absolutely sure she was talking to a Yale frat boy. I could have bothered her more but I decided to let it go. I sat up straight and walked towards the door, I closed it. In just a few minutes I had traded my moving-outfit for my new back-to-school-outfit. Walking into the corridors felt unnatural to me and I had never felt so exposed in my life; everyone was looking at me. The band geeks, the indie British boys, the movie-maker type, the BoHo girls, etc. Everyone. I passed the toilets and jumped inside. Quickly checking if I didn't have any streaks of cherry chopstick on my face or any ripped items of clothing. I saw that everything was fine. It was all perfectly fine. Then why were they all looking at me like I landed from outer space? As I went over everyone who was staring at me, it hit me; I wasn't like them. To them I was indeed an extraterrestrial. So different of what they were faced with everyday that they'd look at me as if I weren't a human being.
I could clearly see now that money wasn't going to buy me their gratitude or respect. I left the ladies room and entered the now, fully stacked auditorium. A man, mid-30s was standing in front of the somewhat 600 students. He looked kind of odd but seemed fairly nice. I could see a scar on his left eyebrow, it looked as if he had been scratched by a cat of some kind. He spoke "Welcome class of 2013, we are all very happy to have you here at NYU; New York University. Some of you will learn more about themselves, some will invent many scientific things; some will do great things, and all of you will fall in love" I gulped, there was no way I would ever fall in love with anyone here. At the rate things were going they'd be lucky enough that I would even talk to them.
It seemed as if Mr. Scar had read my mind; "You'll fall in love, but love does not necessarily mean for someone you want to have children with. Someone once said that the strongest love of all is the one that is never returned. Any ideas who said that?" I repeated the words in my head and frowned, I had heard of that quote but I couldn't match it to the author. Before I could even think about it more deeply someone raised his hand. "Yes, Sir in the grey shirt on the front row?"
A low, deep but familiar voice spoke; "Henry David Thoreau" As soon as he said it I knew it too. It was like ESP or something, he spoke and I thought. "Very nice, Mr.?" Scar asked. The dark haired buy in the front row answered; "Humphrey, Dan Humphrey" Figures, the only guy in the entirety of the 600 students gathered here who would know Henry David Thoreau had to be Dan Humphrey. For those of you who don't know Daniel Humphrey; he had –over the course of High School- developed some weird crush on my best friend Serena, I always told her not to engage but she did anyways. Well turns out to be that he wasn't of her likings anyway. His only interest was books; reading them, writing them and discussing them. And Serena liked drinking, drinking and drinking once more. They were bound to end into a fiasco anyways so I helped things a long a little bit. I got Serena drunk so that Dan would take her off her pedestal and go back to his lowlife, Brooklyn self. Well anyways, they broke things off after her mother and his father got married, fortunately…
Scar cut my thought loose as he continued on lecturing; "Well he was right, you can fall in love with a house but does that house love you back? You can love your job but that doesn't mean it loves you back. All I'm trying to say is create something for yourself that only you can love, something that is only yours. For some it will be a home, for others a family. Who knows what it'll be? But one thing I do know, is that whatever that thing is, we can help you find it. Here at NYU. Please give yourself a big applause!" the entire auditorium came to life, all of use were clapping our hands in unison. Before he left the room he yelled through the noise; "Enjoy your college experience!" and with that Scar was gone.
For days after that I felt a hole in my heart, 'to enjoy your college experience' how do you do that? At least at this college? I was sure that Serena would be having tons of fun by then. She would be partying with all those gorgeous aristocrats who studied Law and Medicine and I was stuck there at NYU with the dreadlocked guy sitting next to me who kept eyeing me in a pervert way. Disgusted, I stuck out my tongue and took a sip from my double latté I had just gone to get at Starbucks. I was in the school library. I just had to get out of my dorm. Even though I didn't have to worry about any slutty roommates bringing 'home' guys at an indecent hour, I didn't like my room. It was full with all my stuff from home but yet it looked so empty. So I went to the library to go read a book. I was never the type of girl who'd be going to the library to lend books but in those circumstances I had to. The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, I had the original in my own personal library at the Château my dad owned in Lyon but I had forgotten to bring it along to college when I had spent the summer there. As I was getting in deeper and deeper into the book I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was a fairly large but yet soft hand. And it dug into my petite shoulder. It hurt but felt good at the same time. That is until I found out who it was that was placing his fingers on my pure skin.
"Blair, I didn't know you went here" he said. I didn't have the littlest shrine of need in my body to reply to him so I didn't. "Alright, don't talk to me then. Can I sit here?" he whispered on. Again I didn't have to answer, but the need to give him a sarcastic and unwanted answer trumped the desire not to speak to him at all; "I can't stop you now can I?" He just nodded and sat down next to me. He put the 6 books he had picked out on the table and picked up the first one. "Are you gonna read them all?" I asked, still whispering, kind of intrigued by the fact that he was reading a book and had 5 more waiting on his platter of literary food. He answered; "What's it to you?" he whispered, keeping his eyes locked to the book as if I were no point of interest to him at all. He was intriguing a second before but at that moment I had completely lost the last piece of interest toward him. I picked up my book and started a new chapter. He lifted his gaze from his book and looked over at mine. "Whew, Hemingway, good stuff" he remarked. I had to give him this; he knew his books. "I know, I wouldn't read anything less than good" I whispered in reply, he chuckled. I wondered why he was; "What?" he stopped chuckling and now just smiled and dug back into his book. "Seriously, what?" I asked, getting more curious by the second. He never replied. He just took his books and left. There was something weird about Dan Humphrey. On the one hand I could shoot him but on the other hand he drew me in. He somehow had me lingering for more. He had gotten under my skin. I caught myself to have stopped reading, so I decided to put the book away and to just go back to my dorm to change and maybe go to bed early tonight.
Several hours had passed; it was now 2.17AM and I hadn't closed an eye ever since my encounter with Dan in the library. He had me in his grip and I didn't like it. But at the same time I did. Dan Humphrey was now in my head. And damn it, I was screwed.
