just close enough to touch
jenny humphrey
+ others

—

trigger warnings for rape (vi) and internalised lesphobia (mainly in iii).

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Unreachable (an adjective): unable to reach or get, unlikely chances of having, far-fetched.

i.

Fingers wrapped clumsily around a pencil, flat palm pressed against the paper with force. Curve of a limb, a squiggly line that represents an arm. Her tongue edging out of the corner of her mouth, eyes crossed almost inwards in concentration. Strokes of the pencil outlining a long dress. Swaps the standard 2B for the pink. Pointy lines making shoes, sticking out from the dress.

It's with her from birth, a natural born instinct; predators know how to hunt their prey, a thirst born with them from when they're young, taught to them by their parents. Jenny knows how to scribble clothes onto blank pieces of paper and turn them into art, honed over the years through practice.

ii.

Asher, Nate, Damien - she chases unreachable boys because she doesn't want one.

Her thumb stroking Damien's bare chest, her lips quivering. Sweet sixteen and she's never going to love a boy.

iii.

London becomes home to her in a way that New York never was; she was a lost girl then, misguided as she wandered through the halls of Constance and fought for the approval of girls who she owes nothing to. Losing herself to becoming what she thought she was: a broken girl who could only be loved if she was on top. Layers of armour sewn into dresses she can't afford. Losing sight of who she really was: a broken girl who just wanted to be loved.

In London she finds that love. Rufus calls her, mending a relationship she broke because she felt she didn't deserve, because she thought she deserved more and she deserved less. Juxtaposition had always been her go-to in her drawings, it's no wonder it translated over into her personal life. Jenny finds it's easier to have a family that lives miles away than three-steps away.

Dan tells her it's difficult growing up. Lets her know it must have been difficult for her growing up in a world that had seemed stable until it started to fracture and she bites her tongue and doesn't tell him that when Alison moved to Hudson and she started at Constance and their lives starting going 'round in turn-tables, a vast difference from the steady pace of normalcy they'd grown up in, that she'd been dealing with other things, too. Like how her heart pounded in her chest every time a girl smiled at her, how she ached to touch Blair Waldorf's skin, just once, to know what it felt like. Or how she spent long hours flicking through Victoria Secret magazines to stare at the models clad in lingerie, her eyes transfixed on their bodies. How at Blair's party when Isobel and Kati kissed, she wished it had been her that had been dared to kiss a girl; she could imagine how soft their lips would feel against her own, sugary-sweet lip-gloss sliding into her mouth.

How through this journey of frightening self-discovery, she shut it all down. Buried it deep inside of herself. Ignored it until it went away. Hormonal feelings of self discovery, she'd brushed it off as when she caught onto her own lingering stares and fluttering chest. It meant nothing. All girls went through this (except all girls don't go through this, not all girls ache to touch another girl, to hold-hands with another girl as they walk down the street. these are things that belong to girls that love other girls) but she was young then and there was slim representation of girls like her. It was a forbidden topic, girls made-out at parties for the attention of boys but they never dared hold-hands together. It wasn't until later she'd learned how innocent and sweet it could be, how everyone exploited it as something sexual when it was the most pure thing in the world. It's in London that she finds that out.

It's in London that Brianna Errington grabs her hand after seeing Taylor Swift in concert, intertwining their fingers together as they walk back to the flat they share with two other roommates. It's in London that same night that her heart flutters under her chest, beat, beat, beat and she feels her body light up as if magic has overtaken control of her. It's there that Brianna looks at her with eyes that sparkle, a sweet, shy grin and this is all so new and exciting and wonderful and innocent—for so long Jenny had pushed her thoughts and feelings away because they were dirty and sexual and wrong, nobody ever taught her how it was the opposite of all of that; how none of it was dirty or wrong or - okay, it's sexual when Brianna kisses her a week later, hand sliding up her shirt in the middle of watching a movie, but it's not the sexualisation played on T.V.

iv.

Tell me about yourself, one teacher asks her first day in Hudson. The whole class stares at her.

Jenny doesn't know what she's supposed to say:

"One time I ran away from home because I wanted to start up my own fashion line with my best friend, Agnes, who was a model but she betrayed me and burnt all my hard work up in front of me. All I had were my clothes, my art, everything else in my life was gone."

Or, "I once stole from girls I went to school with because I owed them money and my family didn't have the same, ridiculous income as they had at that point in my life, and I didn't want them to know I was less-wealthy than them because they'd all judge me and hate me so I stole from them."

Or maybe this would be a better first day story, "I once sold drugs with my drug-dealing boyfriend, Damien, for fun. I don't know why I did it. Maybe I wanted his approval or maybe I just wanted to be someone other than myself, show everyone that I wasn't a little kid anymore. I blackmailed and schemed and sent a photo into Gossip Girl of my brother and step-sister in bed together so I could have her boyfriend for myself."

Her experiences in life are the only things that seem to sum her up anymore: emotional teenage girl wreck. Isn't that what someone had said to her. Unloved by all.

"I'm Jenny," She opts for instead, giving a slight wave to the class. It reminds her of her early-Brooklyn self, naive and fifteen and not yet torn apart by the world. Her appearance is different from that girl, her eyes still heavy with mascara and eyeliner and black eyeshadow and she's taller and her clothes are almost always consistently in black, gone are the pastels of her youth, but she's still that girl. Soft and sweet and silly and strong. "I'm from Brooklyn, in New York and I have a total soft-spot for pop music."

It feels easier to breathe after that.

v.

Blair talks to her once while she's in London, shortly after she runs away from her wedding. Her number lights up across her screen and Jenny wonders why she still has it, why Blair's never changed her number ("Order. Routine. Blair likes rules and routine; she hates change." Dan had told her once when she asked years later why Blair's number hardly ever changed).

She hesitates in answering it. Brianna has one leg thrown over hers and a calculus book open on her lap, her hair messily falling out of a bun and a pen stuck in her mouth. Blair was the first girl she ever had a crush on, something real and substantial, something other than fleeting thoughts on how girls were attractive; it's why Jenny wanted her approval so much, wanted to be like her. She mistook attraction for a desire to be her. And then Blair showed her true colours, the serpent that lives beneath the ivory skin of silk.

Eric told her that Dan has a crush on her, or did. Jenny doesn't talk to Eric as much as she used to, it saddens her sometimes but it's also more refreshing for when they do talk; it makes her appreciate him more and their friendship. Jenny wonders if Dan's still got that crush on Blair, if he's dying inside while she's getting married. Jenny doesn't care. Blair's...Blair's a lot; she's cold and sharp and cuts like a jaggard knife, leaving uneven scars that will never heal.

Without thinking, she picks up and presses the phone to her ear. Absentmindedly, she remembers that today Blair's marrying a Prince. Off to become a real life Princess, where she can boss people around because it's in the job title.

"Hi, Jenny. I know I'm the last person you want to hear from and I don't particularly want to be talking to you but..." Blair trails off, there's rustling in the background and Jenny bitterly wonders if she's at her wedding reception, calling to rub in her face that she didn't get an invite; not that Jenny wants one, God, no. But everyone she knows is there, dancing and smiling and happy—remember when you tried to be the downfall of their happiness? A little voice in the back of her head whispers.

"I need to get this out, okay? Especially now...now that I'm friends with your brother and..., I'm sorry." Blair wooshes out, it's probably very difficult for Blair to say. "I'm sorry that I treated you so badly in the past and that I ruined your interview last year. It was wrong. You're..." Blair sighs, "Okay, I don't like you. At all. But you didn't deserve the way I treated you. Okay, now let's never speak of this again." Blair hangs up the phone so suddenly that Jenny is sure she imagined the whole conversation in her head. She stares down at her phone in shock, unsure of how to feel about the whole situation.

"Who was that?" Brianna murmurs, looking up from her book.

Jenny raises an eyebrow, "Blair Waldorf."

Brianna gasps in shock, knowing the whole story, more than anyone else knows. "Wow." Brianna says lightly, "What on earth did she want?"

vi.

He tells her she can stay. But there are strings attached to every offer of kindness. His eyes roll over to face her and she feels the word sleazy on her tongue. He pushes Bourbon towards her and she reluctantly - and greedily - picks it up, always a girl of juxtaposition; of overlapping thoughts that don't match up. Her mind is fuzzy from the events of today, from the distress and the burning of her skin is from the anger and the hurt and the sadness sweeping through her.

Jenny wonders if he hates her, too. Somehow that seems like the ultimate low; the good guys can loathe her but when the bad guys start turning on her...Her thoughts are cut off by another drink being pushed towards her. It stings her tongue and she might be a drug-dealer and she might have been drugged, once, but she's never been smashed before; drunkenly tumbling all over the place. It's never been her thing. The taste of alcohol puts her off and while the oblivion is nice, it's almost always never comforting in the way everyone makes it out to be.

It happens slowly, she thinks. Maybe. Jenny's not sure, she's too tired from everything that's happened. Vulnerable in a way she doesn't like people to see her: broken and torn and tired. She's just so tired. It's like she's been on a never-ending roller coaster all day, up and down, around and around. It never stops and her grip never loosens from the safety bar, she feels every loop and every turn, and her stomach rolls uneasily.

He kisses her. Or, maybe she kisses him. But she's almost certain he kisses her. If alcohol doesn't comfort her, maybe sex will do it for her. If he's kissing her, and his tongue feels hot and heavy and gross in her mouth, then he can't hate her; that's one person, at least. If she goes along with it, if she does this, maybe it'll make her feel something. Anything. Maybe it won't, but at least he won't kick her out.

It's uncomfortable, sitting there on that couch, his hands fumbling on her shoulders. Her back is curved at an awkward angle and his hands feel weird on her skin and the kiss is gross, too sloppy and messy and she always thought Chuck was supposed to be good at this - she doesn't want to think what this is because she wanted it to be special and now she's going to do...it...with a boy she hates, because she's lonely and scared and tired. His kiss reminds her of the Kiss on the Lips party, how it felt to be pushed against that round dome, her throat not working and her screams not heard. His hands pinning her arms down. Telling her that this is what grown-ups do, this is what happens at parties.

Jenny doesn't kiss him back, not really; she lets him take the lead, leading her to his bedroom, to his bed and she wonders why she feels emptier than she did before. Like her whole body has been completely hollowed out.

It's over quickly. He rolls onto his side, away from her, ignoring her and she wants to cry; not because he's ignoring her, maybe a little from that because it makes her feel more worthless than she's ever felt in her entire life. This is Chuck Bass, the lowest of the low, gross and slimy and someone she used to wake up in the middle of the night because of his face in her dreams. This is Chuck Bass, deeming her nothing more than a worthless lay; a one-night stand because he's bored. Because he knows she has nowhere else to go.

She wants to cry because it hurts and she never wanted to have her first-time with someone be like this. Because she feels disgusting and used and...Blair bursts through the room, not the bedroom, and Chuck stumbles out and Jenny is left with this: everyone against her and vomit rising in her throat.

vii.

Brianna and her break up after two years together. It hurts like she's lost a limb, like a piece of her has been ripped off and thrown to the dogs. Brie won't stop crying, sobbing hysterically in their small flat. Her suitcases sitting around her.

Jenny sits on the bed, trying her best not to cry, too.

"I love you." Brianna sobs, loud and messy; movies always make this look pretty, the sobbing part. It's never an ugly mess. Brianna's got mascara smudged against her left cheek and her whole face is screwed up. But she still looks beautiful. Not the broken kind of beautiful that poems romanticise, but the kind of beautiful that Jenny wants to see every morning for the rest of her life.

"I love you," Jenny whispers back, moving from the bed to the floor to wrap her arms around Brianna as tight as she can. Her head resting in the crook of her neck, lips pressing down on her pulse point. "Maybe one-day, when the timing is right..." Jenny trails off, letting the hope dangle between them. Hope is dangerous. It's fulfilling and wonderful, easing all the worries until it doesn't come true.

It doesn't happen because they're not on love, quite the opposite; they're the couple that hangs on to each other, disgusting in love other people complain. Hands always touching some part of the other persons body at all times, smiling at each other like they know a secret others don't, giggling in the back of the movie theatre with interlocked hands and resting each others heads on each others shoulders. Brianna and Jenny break up because Brianna was offered a job in New York. Of all the places in the world...Jenny would follow Brianna anywhere, across the Atlantic but she won't follow her to New York; not yet, not when she's not ready to go back, and she's not going to stop Brianna from going, either.

"I was going to ask you to marry me." Brianna whispers. Until today Jenny hadn't known how many times her heart could completely shatter. "I was going to buy a ring - modest but pretty, diamonds, expensive -" Jenny grins at that, wiping a tear from Brie's cheek. It's a running joke, how money doesn't matter between them but they still try to buy the most expensive thing. "I was going to propose at the Big Ben." Brianna hiccups and Jenny thinks she would have said yes, would have squealed and cried and wrapped her arms around Brie's neck and kissed her so fiercely, so passionately, she'd forget every bad kiss she's ever had. "Because it's where we first said I love you."

Jenny remembers: Brianna, grinning, phone in her hands. Smile, Jen! Jenny, pouting on purpose, the smile slipping through despite her better wishes. It was cold, freezing cold, chilled to the bone. Two months into the best two months of her entire life. Come ooooon, Brie had whined, stomping her foot. But grinning. It was a feeling she can't explain - never has been able to - that washed over her in that moment, a feeling she'll remember and search for for the rest of her life. It felt like everything was at peace, that all her explosive teenage years and desperation for approval and to be liked, that all her scheming and running away, was in the past, behind her. That the person she was doesn't make her the person she is; that all that pain led her to this. She'd have come to this point eventually, sans pain and heartbreak, but she's here. In this moment. A scarf thrown around her neck and trying to warm her hands up, her girlfriend grinning at her with a camera in her hands. The Big Ben ticking away in the background of this moment. Jenny, please? Brianna asked, and it was in that moment, looking up from the ground to look over at Brianna that she knew she was in love. It felt thrilling and magical and more exciting than anything in the world, more exciting that when she worked at Eleanor Waldorf's company for the Summer, more exciting than when she and Agnes staged their own fashion show, more exciting than anything.

"Brie," Jenny said softly as she walked towards her, settling her hands on her waist. Brianna whined, dropping the camera down from her face, letting it hang around her wrist. She looked into Brianna's eyes, warm and loving and the same eyes she wanted to wake up to every morning. "I love you."

The only thing better than Brianna's eyes? Brianna's smile - mega-watt, grinning, blinding. It was intoxicating, a smile you could get drunk on for days. Brianna brushed her fingers across Jenny's cheek, pressed her nose against her nose. "I love you, too, Jen." Then leaned in and slowly, softly, pressed her lips against Jenny's.

Jenny gets thrown back into the present quickly, Brianna moving away from her embrace. "We could still try the long-distance thing." Brianna says as she gets up, brushes her skirt down. Looks around at her suitcases, at the half-packed away room. Jenny doesn't know if she can stay in this apartment anymore after Brianna leaves; she's been looking at ads in the paper for somewhere else, but she also doesn't know if she can leave it.

"Brie," Jenny says softly, wondering how she got to be the voice of reason when that's always been Brianna. "You're going to meet wonderful people in New York and I don't want you to not go out with a girl because you've got a girl waiting for you in London, someone selfish enough that they don't want to move with you. You deserve better."

"Jenny," Brianna says, astonished, outraged. "You're not selfish for not coming with me. I never expected you to come with me, anywhere. Especially New York - I know how difficult that would be for you." Brianna says fiercely, moving forwards so she can cup Jenny's face in her hands. "Also, I probably won't meet anybody, I'm gonna be too hung up on you." Brie bops her nose with her nose before moving in for a kiss.

"Well, just in case." Jenny murmurs against her lips.

viii.

In May she meets Alyssa Norberry, six-foot-tall, chain-smoking model who might just be the most optimistic, bubbly person Jenny has ever met.

"Let's start a business!" Alyssa grins, grabbing Jenny's hands and tugging her over towards the bar. The club they're in is crowded, so full that you're bumping into someone every time you try to move. The music is loud and fast and not three minutes earlier was Alyssa grinding against her in time to the beat.

It's a bad idea but Jenny has four shots in her system and she's been toying with the idea of starting her on fashion label ever since Brianna left. It's a bad idea to do it with a model, they're unpredictable, unreliable and she's been burned in that area before. But she says yes against her better judgement, signing her name in blood at the bottom of a contract.

ix.

Agnes had been a wild-card from the start, an enigma that had drawn Jenny in. There was something about her that was electric, something that reeled Jenny in. It was the thought of a friend at first, someone glamorous and exciting that wasn't a stuck up bitch. Someone daring and rebellious who's lead Jenny could follow. It was daunting the prospect of getting in trouble, thrilling, too; she remembers being in a club, still remembers the way the lights felt across her skin, the music filling up the air until there was no outside world. And there was Agnes.

Her hair shining in the light, glossy and silky looking. Her eyes mysterious and teasing, this is a game, a challenge, this is fun, her eyes whispered. Swapping clothes in a tight bathroom, brushing up against each other as they shifted out of tops and dresses. Jenny's eyes adverted from Agnes's figure lounging against the sink as Jenny finished tugging her dress off and passed it to Agnes without looking up from the ground.

"Shy?" Agnes had teased as she stepped into the dress. It felt like she was coming alive that night, her insecurities and worries slowly unraveling as Agnes grabbed her hand and dragged her onto the dance floor. Everyone around them, loving them. Her blood was buzzing. Agnes was this beacon of light in the midst of her confusion and hard-work and Eleanor's constant let-downs of her.

It was the first time she'd truly let go of herself, it was the first time someone had truly believed in her. It came crashing down violently in the end, all good things do.

It was Agnes who promised her a future, let her have hope for her dream, executed half of it and then let the rest of it burn; metaphorically and not-so-metaphorically. It seems like a blur to an older Jenny, who remembers a shaggy haircut and torn clothes and her heart crying for home, sitting down on her suitcase and sobbing into her hands. Her chest heaving and hurting, the only thing she had left gone; Agnes had vanished, had burned her dresses, broken her trust. Jenny, determined still to make it, her heart still bursting with fiery energy; she wasn't going to go home with her head hung low and defeated. Rufus would tell her I told you so, with those disappointed and disapproving eyes and that would hurt the worst of all.

It didn't feel much different being by herself than it had when she'd been at home, her life has been a constant plague of loneliness since she started social-climbing, since Dan hooked up with Serena and scored himself a first-row seat of the lives he despised. Traitor, Jenny thinks as she trudges through the park near their house. He judged her for wanting to be apart of it all and then hopped on the band-wagon himself. It feels less comforting being by herself than it had when she knew people were around, it was scarier.

Her eyes lingered on her building as she passed by it, wondering if it was too dangerous to be even going past it. Dan or Rufus or Nate could walk out at any minute, but she walks past anyway. Head bent, hands in pockets, eyes glued to the brick-building that had been her home since forever.

It took her a long time to forgive Agnes - for her burning of her clothes, for the breaking of their friendship - but it took her even a longer time to forgive her for drugging her. Her too-high heels stumbling, her vision blurry and Agnes, laughing, got what you deserve, bitch.

x.

Happy endings are hard to come by. Unreachable fantasies.

But Jenny thinks she might have found hers.

authors note: my little bb lesbian jenny [heart emoji] the most under-appreciated and unfairly hated character along with vanessa. my presh little baby. i don't know if this fic does her justice but it's so rare to find positive jenny fic, especially positive jenny fic that doesn't have her with a boy. since my reading has gone from bi baby little J to lesbian baby little J (the most painstakingly accurate sexuality headcanon for her! going after unreachable boys! her crushes on blair and serena in the show and books, respectively! everything about her!) it means there will be zero carter/jenny fics from me from now on. i might add more to this but my inspo. ran out a bit.