"Mr. Lonely Boy is here."
Blair glanced up from the table to find Dorota standing in the doorway of the dining room. It had been two weeks since she stepped off the plane, back in New York, California behind her like some sort of bad dream. She blinked at Dorota who was fussing a little with her white apron, waiting for the reply that had been the same every day. Blair wished Dorota would just figure it out herself and stop walking into the dining room every morning to ask her the same question over and over..
"What do you want me to do?"
Her face always held this little bit of hope and Blair knew that Dorota liked Dan, wanted things to be different. They'd hadn't talked about it since Blair's return, even when Blair woke up sobbing and Dorota sat on the edge of her bed and smoothed her hair, rubbed her back, until Blair felt like she could breathe again. Still, every day Dorota asked the same question, and every day the pain felt exactly the same, and every day the answer was the same answer.
"Send him away."
Blair bit into a piece of bacon, extra crispy. Since her return Dorota had been plying her with her favorite foods, leaving snacks at her bedside for the middle of the night, 'just in case', Dorota said, doing everything exactly the way Blair liked, as if that could somehow make a broken heart even a little bit better.
The penthouse felt big and empty, and Blair bumped around in it feeling small and out of sorts. She had spent her days trying to read or maybe watch a movie, not wanting to go out. Without Serena there it was quiet, no one to jump onto Blair's bed in the morning, full of sunshine and energy, recounting her exploits from the night before, not noticing Blair's grumbling, or maybe just ignoring it. Sometimes Blair missed the chaos that always seemed to come with S.
Serena hadn't dared show her head since California. She'd been strangely absent from the party circuit. Blair didn't even know if she'd returned from California. For all she knew Serena was in Hollywood, charming movie director and accidentally falling into her next unchosen career of starlet.
Dan was back. It was hard to miss since the day after she returned he'd shown up at the penthouse, asking to see her, and Blair had resisted the urge to run downstairs, confront him, rail at him, shrink him down to nothingness with her words in the way that only Blair excelled at. Not that he didn't deserve it, but she didn't want Dan to have any chance to hurt her again, and just seeing him would make her vulnerable.
Of all the people in the world, why Serena? As hard as she tried, Blair couldn't get the image of Serena and Dan, kissing, fucking. Did he enjoy it? Did he even think of Blair, care how this would affect her? What Serena wanted, Serena got, and once again Blair had ended up on the losing side of the equation. Serena had gotten Dan, the 'love of her life', not caring that her actions would cost her best friend. Blair's heart being broken was just a bonus, another wound in the long list that Serena had made when it came to hurting Blair, and this one was going to scar.
He'd come every day since then. She'd just calmly told Dorota to ask him to leave and gone back to reading the New York Times, or eating her breakfast, or just staring out the window pretending she wasn't being slowly eaten away by melancholy and sadness. In the least Blair wanted to mourn in some beautiful way, if she indeed had to mourn Dan Humphrey, maybe a single tragic tear down her flawless skin, but even the tears didn't want to come. They would only come when she least expected them. Mourning had a way of sneaking up on you.
Any other boy would have at least sent her flowers, and candy, and cards begging forgiveness. Another boy would have filled the foyer with her favorite blooms, hired quartets to play her favorite tune, write her ridiculous love letters about his broken heart. Dan did none of this. He didn't even call and Blair was glad because there was nothing left to say. He just showed up, as if to tell her that this is what he had to give. Himself. Every day. The same time. As if to show her what she wouldn't let him say, that he would never walk away again. Blair didn't want anything to do with Dan and she wondered when he would finally give up.
Fuck you, Dan Humphrey.
That was what Blair would scream in the middle of the night when she jerked away from one nightmare of another, her hair matted, her face wet with tears, and she would let all that anger and betrayal go, yelling as loud as she could, her voice echoing in her empty bedroom. She would turn over and bury her face into the expensive down pillows and sob, wrenching, guttural sobs that shook her entire body. Sometimes Dorota would have spent the night and she would come flying into the room and Blair would feel her hands stroking her back, hear her saying something in Polish over and over, and Blair's breathing would slow and her eyes would start to flutter shut, and she would drift off to sleep. Other times she would be alone and the pain felt like it would never end.
In the morning she would wake up and gather herself, wash her face, comb out her hair, moisturize her skin, put on her makeup and smile at herself in the mirror, as if whatever happened in the darkness of her room, whatever sadness that overwhelmed her, was part of some other reality.
Sometimes Blair didn't want to go to sleep.
Blair took another drink of the coffee that was cooling on the table and was about to read the arts section of the New York Times when Dorota returned to the dining room. Blair glanced up and again Dorota picked at her apron and looked around nervously. Not a good sign.
"What?" Blair snapped.
It couldn't be Dan. He'd made his daily visit, at 9:15 sharp, and part of Blair liked that Dan's day now appeared to be centered around his daily dose of Blair Waldorf rejection. But maybe it was, and Blair felt irritation well up. Wasn't it bad enough she had to deal with Brooklyn's Benedict Arnold on a daily basis, couldn't he just leave her alone? She was about to tell Dorota to send yet another message, this time involving telling him to go to hell, when Dorota cleared her throat.
"Um...Miss Blair, it's...it's..."
"Spit it out, Dorota. I don't have all day."
That wasn't entirely the truth. Blair really had nothing to do but try to pass the time, but she also didn't want to spend a lot of time waiting for Dorota to spit out whatever it was that she knew Blair wasn't going to like.
"It's Miss Serena."
Blair felt like she wanted to vomit and it reminded her of being a teenager and her mom giving her bad news, like she was going to marry that short, sweaty man, Cyrus Rose, and how she used to need to find a bathroom so she could empty the contents of her stomach, and it was the only thing that would make her feel better. Old habits have a way of rearing their ugly head.
Serena. How dare she show up here like this, asking to see Blair, like she had any right, like she hadn't fucked Blair's boyfriend in a beach house high on a cliff on a windy spring night.. Blair didn't say anything, just shoved her half-eaten plate of breakfast away from her so she didn't start wolfing her food down. She didn't want anything to drag her back to being the old, insecure Blair. She wanted to be strong and face her life, but this felt like almost too much.
"Tell her to get the hell away from me. Serena Van der Woodsen isn't welcome here anymore." Blair said to Dorota, picking up the newspaper with studied indifference.
Dorota hesitated and Blair narrowed her eyes. There was something she wasn't telling her. Dorota stepped to the side and Serena walked into the room.
"Blair."
Blair closed her eyes and maybe when she opened them this would all be a dream. She would be sitting eating breakfast and Dan would be next to her, drinking his coffee and there never would have been Chuck kissing her or a trip to California and Dan fucking Serena, and she would tell him what an awful dream she'd had and threaten him bodily harm if he ever left her, and Dan would smile as she dressed him down for transgressions that he'd never done and then he'd laugh and they'd figure out what their plans for the day were, and it would be simple and wonderful.
She just had to open her eyes and it would all be a distant memory.
Blair took a deep breath and she lifted her eyelids, and Serena was still there and nothing was different.
"B, please..."
She wasn't as sparkly and golden as usual. Serena actually looked disheveled, and not beautifully disheveled, but disheveled in a rumpled, I-haven't-been-sleeping kind of way. Her hair was messy, as usual, but her eyes had circles under them and her skin was pale. Still, Blair knew that even in this state Serena would always command attention from everyone around her, would always outshine Blair who would stand by her side as the nice looking mousey one who had to work hard for everything she got in life.
"Get out." Blair hissed.
Serena stood frozen in place, not moving as Blair had commanded her, and Blair felt a flush of fury climb her cheeks.
"Get out." Blair repeated.
She could have picked up her plate and thrown it for emphasis. That would make Serena turn and run away. She imagined those green eyes going wide, the shock across her perfect, chiseled face as Queen B. hurled fine bone china in her direction. It made Blair feel kind of happy.
Serena ignored Blair's command, her stance wide, like a gunslinger in an old western with his hand on his gun, waiting to fire the first shot. Serena had come here for something and she wasn't going to leave until she was done.
"He loves you, B."
People who love you don't cheat. They don't fuck your best friend. They certainly don't fuck Serena fucking Van der Woodsen. Blair said none of this. She just stared at Serena.
"Blame me." Serena continued hesitantly, taking Blair's silence as tacit approval to continue. "I didn't tell him the whole truth about what I saw, I let him think you were back with Chuck..."
Serena stuttered and even on her it was unflattering. Blair still said nothing.
"I love him, Blair. You know that, right?" Serena said hoarsely.
Blair knew that Serena thought she loved Dan, that she might not love him anymore if he were available. She knew that Serena wasn't used to not getting what she wanted. She knew that she didn't love Blair enough to leave Dan alone.
"...and he's not the only one to blame."
Blair laughed out loud and her lips curled into a sneer. Ultimately it was Dan Humphrey's penis inside Serena, his decision to fuck her. No one made him do it.
"You told me once that he's one of the good ones," Serena continued. "and you were right, he really is. It's just that he's yours and if I had never gone to him, never told him what I saw, neither of you would be here now."
Blair felt some of her anger melt with Serena's words, and behind the anger was what she'd been avoiding for the last couple weeks. Sadness. Loss. Grief.
No. She would not let this happen. She would not let those feelings through. Not right now.
"I've never seen him so miserable," now Serena laughed, a wry laugh full of irony, "god, I wish it were different, but it's not. I had to come today, to see if I can fix what I broke."
More anger melted away. Blair felt the trembling start and she leaned forward and gripped the table with both her hands. She would not do this. Not here. Not now. Breaking down was reserved for the darkness, when she was alone with her thoughts and all she could do was miss the way he had touched her. It was only for the midnight hour when no one could witness that Blair Waldorf was entirely undone. In the daylight she kept it together, feeling barely held in place by what little pride she had left. And now even that was starting to fall away and what was left was raw and exposed and something she didn't want Serena to see.
"Get out." Blair managed to hiss again from between clenched teeth. She could feel the tears starting to pool in her eyes, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they spilled over. She could start to feel her breathing starting to hitch, the slight heave of her chest as she choked back a sob. She would not do this.
"He loves you, B." Serena repeated. "That has to mean something."
It meant nothing except that Blair's heart was broken and at the moment it was threatening to engulf her, and she stood up slowly and finally did pick up the fine bone china plate then she threw it in Serena's direction with all her might. It shattered on the wall next to Serena's head.
"GET. OUT."
Serena jumped back and then turned and ran from the room, and she didn't see Blair standing there frozen, then, as if in slow motion, she slowly sank down to the ground and let out a sound that was almost inhuman as the tears started to flow in earnest, and Dorota raced into the room and put her arms around Blair and held her as she cried.
TBC