It was unsurprising that they had so much in common. For years now, they had been making asides and references that everyone either ignored or minimally understood. Only Dan and Blair ever got each other's layer of meta conversation. Everyone in the Non-Judging Breakfast Club glossed over whatever double entendre was intended. Serena would tilt her head to the side with her five million watt smile whenever her best friend and ex-boyfriend traded zingers—cleverness was a moot point in the presence of something so magnetic. Blair actually appreciates the quick jokes, the lightning fast way his mind works, but would always soberly pronounce to herself the inferiority of his station. It was all very Pride and Prejudice, but a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. And since Humphrey had no fortune or the taste to acknowledge his lack of standing, she enjoyed the banter but had no resistance to the idea that she was destined to for bigger and Basser things.
Her mind always chugged along this expected itinerary of her life and her train did not make pit stops for romantic boys-cum-men who had loyalty and tenacity like a bulldog. She witness it first hand when her magnetic friend, on a particular bad streak of luck, woke up drugged and amnesiac in a hotel room in a nasty part of Queens that even the immigrants had abandoned. Serena just happened to be the love of Dan's life, and despite not knowing anything about what she was like before they started their epic wrong-side of the tracks romance, Dan was fierce when he defended Serena.
"Drugs and a cheap motel doesn't sound like Serena." His hands were fisted in balls, deep inside his pockets.
" Sometimes, I forget how recent of an addition you are, Humphrey." Blair smiled sadly at Dan. "You met her as a girl coming home, trying to start over. I wish it wasn't true but, it sounds a lot like the Serena I used to know."
Blair watched as the judgment of those who knew better took over the Serena-in-rehab decision. A part of her flickered—maybe it was wrong to send her luminous friend to jail, Serena deserved an explanation before she was sent away to a high priced rehab center for derelict debutants. Lilly, Serena's mother, look resigned once the TV blared out the details of Serena's 911 phone call. Serena, her brave vivacious friend, sounded so confused in her recording.
"Here's a crazy suggestion, why don't we ask Serena?"
Again, with the undying loyalty of bulldog, Blair thought. Dan looked angry, his eyes snapped furiously from Lilly back to Rufus, his father and Serena's stepfather.
"You can't be serious, to admit her against her will is wrong. And if you do that you won't be able to take it back." He was seething now in his righteous anger. Blair rolled her eyes, when will Humphrey not get off on being righteous?
"But what if we don't and it happens again?" Blair heard herself speak. Even though part of her was uncertain, she wanted the safest path for Serena, a well-lit, medicated path away from the sleazy motels and fun pills. "I'm sorry but I'm scared for her. It would be different if she's never acted out like this, but she has!"
Serena was like a golden fury when she found out that almost everyone, excluding her ever-present white knight ex boyfriend, put her behind a gilded cage. She had made mistakes this year, that was certain-Colin the professor, almost breaking up Nate and Dan's friendship- but she didn't run away and disappear from her problems the way she had. Didn't redemption mean anything anymore?
When Jenny, loyal ex-boyfriend's sister, finally confessed, Blair was overwhelmed with the guilt in her chest. She had sent her best friend to UES prison, just so that she could quell her conscience. And she knew, that on some level, she sent Serena away because Blair just didn't know what to do with her. After all the progress Serena seemingly made this year, this retread was like a slap in the face and Blair did not want to be the one picking up the pieces. Sure it was selfish, but it was also self preservation. One does not stay in the eye of the Serena storm for long.
But it was all wrong. Serena, of all people, shouldn't be locked away like a mental Razpunzel. In her cab on the way over to Dan's loft, she wondered at how Dan held on to his sincerity and optimism in the face of so many opposing facts. "He's fucking naïve." She thought to herself with superiority. That wasn't entirely true. His naivety might have been Serena' s only hope in a time when no one believed in her. She grimaced. "Humpty, I guess even you can't be wrong all the time."
Next chapter: Blair and Dan go to Cornwall.
