Weakness is a sin.
It shouldn't exist, not inside of her.
She is a beautiful girl with a beautiful disposition. Her eyes, so bright, like a sun shines in each iris, screaming of laughter, fury, glory. Her lips, moist and cherry, the inside of a bloodied strawberry, curled into a rainbow of a smile. Her face, glowing as she danced down the steps of the Met, yogurt and fruit cup in hand, Jimmy Choos clacking sharply.
She is beauty, she is strength, she is Blair.
But Blair is dead.
Blair falls now, the steps mock her and move beneath her, tripping her and her food falls, her yogurt falls, she falls, she bleeds, her hands hit the surface- hard.
When she raises her hands, her palms, the neat lines that trimmed it, are marred with crisscrosses. Her palms are disfigured with lines that weren't there before. She fell and she fell hard and she changed her fate, did she? She hurt herself. She changed herself. Did her lifeline break?
Or did just she?
Blair wakes from her dream and shudders. She raises her palms and inspects them.
Still milky white, softly pink. Nothing has changed, yet everything stings with unfamiliarity.
She tries to raise herself from her bed and then sighs and rolls over.
She hates waking up. She hates not sleeping. If she is asleep and not awake then she can pretend that Chuck is there, holding her. The bad dreams come but he shushes them away.
"It hurts," she mumbles in her nightmares, crying softly.
"I know," he soothed her.
"Make it stop," she wept, her eyes dripping pain, "Make it stop, Chuck, make it stop-"
"Shh," he whispered, gently wiping away the wetness of her cold cheeks. "I'm here, I love you, I love you-"
"I can't live without you."
"So don't," he challenged.
"Why did you leave me?" she demanded.
"I'm right here, aren't I?"
"But I'll wake up," she whimpered, "And you'll be gone."
"Blair, don't cry," he coaxed.
"You're just a dream. You're just a dream."
When she woke up, she was still clinging onto the pillow that smelt like him, and her bedspread was soaked with tears.
She begged him in every dream to keep the nightmares away but what she forgot every time was-
He was her nightmare.
Blair Waldorf hates weakness.
But every moment she tries getting out of bed all she can think of is how much she would like to fall asleep again.
Chuck is there in her dreams and her unconsciousness lets her forget that that is the only place she can search for him, find him and have him.
Ignorance is bliss.
So is lunacy.
"So this is what," Blair Waldorf thinks idly, "it feels like to be insane."
She lay back in the boat, staring at the stars, counting them with a thoughtful finger.
One, two,
Buckle my shoe.
She laughs at the memory of Chuck tripping Georgina over with his new loafers that first day in kindergarten.
Three, Four,
Shut the door.
Chuck slammed the door of his apartment in her face.
Blair's smile flickered.
Five, six,
Pick up the sticks.
She and Chuck shared a Chinese meal of noodles with a single pair of chopsticks. She dripped some over his cheek as she fed him. She gently wiped it away with a forefinger. Chuck smirked and she loved the way his half smile fell right into her hand.
Seven, eight,
Lay them straight.
Chuck told her he didn't want anything to do with her so blankly and so brutally she could have sworn she felt her heart crack.
Nine
He went.
Ten.
And never came back.
Blair rolled off the boat and into the water.
Drowning stunned her.
The water was too cold and the sensation of it rushing into her nose and mouth too crude. If she wanted to die, this was not the way, this had never been the way. She was a Waldorf remember?
People don't tell you who you are. You tell them.
But what happened when she couldn't recall who she was anymore?
Blair gasped and reached for the surface, grasping the handle of her boat.
She shook like a leaf as she fought her way back in the vessel.
Weakness was a sin.
It shouldn't exist, not inside of her.
She is a beautiful girl with a beautiful disposition.
She is Blair, and she is not dead. She couldn't be, otherwise the water would not have hurt so much.
She is still wet and soaked to her skin when she knocks on that door, that door she swore she would never touch again.
Gossip Girl can be right about you all she wants but she is not going to be right about me.
I will not be weak anymore.
Blair raps sharply, hard, until her soaked knuckles bruise pink, bruise blue, bruise purple.
When the door finally does open she takes in the stunned face of the man before her. The face so handsome, it made one blink before they could think straight.
"Blair?" he asked her shocked, not a dream, but reality. His eyes roved her dripping dress and coat. "What are you- are you- okay?"
"Nate," Blair whispered, reaching out to grab the arm that was just as familiar today as it had been twenty years ago. "I need your help."