Inside Out - Chapter Six

When Blair Waldorf was five years old, she had a stuffed horse named Horse, who took pride of place among the other toys on her bed, and in her arms each night. His fur was soft yet slightly prickly, and she used to stroke him incessantly, to the extent that he started to become patchy (and thus sadly unsuitable to remain in the role of Chief Toy).

Now Dan Humphrey is standing awkwardly in front of her in the dark theater, rubbing a hand compulsively back and forth through the stubble on his face, and it's taking her back to the soothing, scratchy sound of her horse's fur, lulling her into blackness. The familiarity is unnerving. What would happen if she reached out and touched his face with her own hand? Disappointment, probably. It's always disappointment. Besides, she won't be doing that since she pretty much despises him. With his passive-aggressive three-hundred-and-twenty page text documents and now, his attempts at retraction. Not to mention the way he's gazing at her like he has no plans to ever stop. He's impossible.

She's grasping for a way to get things back on track, and settles on looking pointedly at her watch. "Well, Humphrey, I'm truly sorry for any offence I've caused by neglecting to finish your magnum opus, but can we please move on to Rule Two now?"

He shakes his head. "Blair, we don't need any rules. There is no game." Leaning alarmingly close to her, he persists. "Do you think it's possible that for once in your life you could be wrong about something?"

She takes a step back from his looming frame, damp with sweat and unnecessarily muscular in that tank top. "Yes! I was!" Her poise is undermined by the shrill sound of her voice. "About you. About being your friend."

She notices that his jaw has tightened and he seems to pick his words slowly, warily. "What you read... it wasn't what you think."

"So it's not an undignified love letter to an elusive Upper East Side princess?"

His short laugh surprises her, and she can't help but feel glad that the tension has been broken for a moment. If maybe he could stop with the gazing for just a few seconds, her composure would have a chance at being fully restored.

"Well... it wasn't about Serena. I don't feel that way about her and haven't for a long time. At the start, yes, she meant a lot to me but - "

She folds her arms. "On page one you said you were addicted to her."

"Yeah, in the toxic sense."

"Britney Spears, Humphrey? Seriously?"

It's definitely not funny, even though his expression indicates that he hoped otherwise.

He shrugs. "Well, that's how it was. But I kind of went through some hardcore rehab." He pauses to take a gulp of water. "And that's what the book was really about."

The way they're standing, silhouetted against the cinema screen, is starting to feel excessively dramatic, so with a sigh she sits down again. Smoothing her dress over her thighs, she contemplates why he would have wanted her to read a story about getting over Serena.

She frowns at him. "You know, you have some nerve, standing there calling my best friend toxic."

It's hard to tell whether Dan hesitates because he knows she's right, or because the scene of a character being shot dead through a window is a little noisy to talk over.

He sinks back into his seat, without ever taking his eyes off her.

"That is not what I'm saying. I care about her. You know that. But when we were together it was always sort of harmful to both of us." He holds his hands up. "Hey, I share the blame."

"So you didn't libel her? Because that would be just as bad as being obsessed with her."

"See, this is where I get confused. If I were obsessed with her, why would you find that so terrible? I thought you were past your conviction that I bear contagious diseases?"

A memory from high school washes over her - that play, when she was forced to rehearse with him night after night. He was always looking at her and smiling relentlessly and just saying things, and she found it so acutely annoying that most of the time she felt like they were in kindergarten and she wanted to push him over.

"He is literally the last person on earth I want to do this with!", she had raged at Penelope one lunchtime. As it happened, Dan had overheard. He sidled up to her, clearly relishing her outrage.

"Literally, Blair? There's literally no-one in the whole world who disturbs you more than me?"

"You heard me."

"Not Osama Bin Laden? Not Lindsay Lohan?"

She scowled silently at him, but he couldn't stop himself. "I'm just saying, I thought you of all people wouldn't succumb to over-use of that word."

That time, she had actually gone ahead and pushed him. Not over. It was just a shove. But he did teeter for a second or two.

Didn't make him any less annoying though.

She ignores his question and poses one of her own, laced with disdain. "So what you wanted me to read about was your Serena rehabilitation program?"

He looks as if he's just eaten something rancid. "No. I didn't. I really, really didn't. Blair, I sent it to you by mistake."

"Who did you mean to send it to?"

"No, I didn't mean to send it to anyone. Ever. It being read at all... that's basically the manifestation of my worst nightmare." As he grows quiet, his eyes seem to be darkening. Talk about melodramatic.

"How peculiar. Shouldn't a writer be looking for readers?"

"Ordinarily, yes. But this is different. It's about my friends and family. And it has the potential to upset most of them. Had the potential. I've deleted it now."

He turns away from her at last, wiping the moisture on his brow with his knuckles, and she sneaks the opportunity to look at him properly, lit in shifting slivers by the screen. There's the messy stubble, threatening to become a beard; fingernails bitten ragged; and a sort of emptiness in his eyes. He looks more drained than she's ever seen him. She has the confusing sensation of wanting to make it - if not better - at least not worse. It takes her a moment to dare herself.

"Well, I think it's silly."

"What is?"

"That you deleted it."

"Why?"

She swallows uneasily. "It seemed like it might have been... potentially... not bad."

He turns towards her again, cautiously, and says "Thank you."

A kind of calm has settled and they both look up at the screen again. Of course the story doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to either of them, as they've missed the majority of it, but it's still absorbing. Before long the scene shifts to an elevator. In a slow and hypnotic movement, almost dream-like, Ryan Gosling backs Carey Mulligan against the elevator wall, his hand skimming her waist, and proceeds to kiss the hell out of her. It's sudden. It's weird. It's insanely hot.

Watching this with him is strangely intolerable. She's no prude, and they've watched plenty of love scenes together in the past; but this feels different, and her heartbeat is becoming unreasonably rapid. She has to say something to lessen the tension.

"So how did Clair feature after Chapter One?"

"It's gone. Can we just pretend it never existed?", he pleads. The pink of his cheeks is not, she feels certain, caused by the heat. He's blushing and she wants to know why.

"Did they become friends?"

"They're just made-up characters, Blair."

"Did they become friends?", she demands.

"Yes. They did." He's gritting his teeth.

On the screen, a brutal murder plays out.

Blair fiddles with her pony-tail. "And what was it like?"

"What do you mean?"

"What was the friendship like? What did he like about her?"

"It's kind of strange actually." He seems to be softening. She thinks she can detect a smile in his eyes. "At first, it was a challenge, and he liked that. And then... then it was easy, and he liked that even more."

"Not so inscrutable then?"

He shakes his head and whispers "No."

"What happened to them?"

"They worked together a little. Argued with each other a lot. And there was some of this" - he gestures at their surroundings - "except they had way more respect for the movies and didn't talk all the way through them."

He flashes his goofy grin. Her stomach feels peculiar. "Did they stay friends?"

She can tell that he doesn't know how to answer. "In a way."

What does that mean? An hour ago, Blair knew precisely what she thought of him and precisely what to do about it. He was callous and cowardly and in love with Serena, and she didn't want to know him anymore. But now she's utterly adrift. That's not him at all. He's exactly the same boy whose company she'd grown to cherish, exactly the same boy she pretended to feel nothing for after they kissed, exactly the same boy she was ready to admit that to before getting sidetracked by reading those confusing first pages. But she can't tell him any of this, because she doesn't know how he feels and she's not about to beg someone she cares about to say he feels the same way. She's been there. She's desperate to know how the book continued, but if she asks any more questions it will be obvious that she - well - she's not ready to risk that.

"Why didn't you tell me about Louis?"

He's peering at her so intently that the truth just tumbles out. "Because I was scared."

"But I would have understood."

"That's what I was scared of."

She did not intend to say that out loud. His stupid, sensitive eyes had mesmerized her or something. As she jumps from her seat, Dan looks genuinely shocked.

"Blair Waldorf, did you forget your Number One Rule of Cinema-Going? You can't leave till the credits are over."

"Forget rules. You were right, they're not needed," she cries as she scurries to the aisle.

"Will you please have coffee with me?", he calls after her.

"I have to go. And you need a shower."

She breaks into a run.

Dinner is ready when she gets back to the penthouse. She eats in silence, not berating Dorota even once, which does not go unnoticed. Dorota does her best to avoid disturbing her all evening; but later, before saying good night, she can't hold back.

"Mr. Lonelyboy?", she asks gently.

"How did you know?" Blair's too surprised to deny it.

Dorota smiles guardedly, so as not to rile her. "When you have the big eyes, always Mr. Lonelyboy," she whispers.

After she's gone, Blair approaches her mirror guiltily and studies her own face. It's true. There's something there which she can't disguise. It's that goddamn hope again. Reflected in the mirror, she catches sight of the velvet box perched on top of her closet. She turns and reaches for it on tip-toes. Placing the box on the bed, she removes the lid and digs through the menagerie of toys until she finds it, just as sweet and damaged as she remembered: her horse. She lies down on top of the covers, curling him into her arms and stroking his beloved fur, whispering to her faithful old friend the truth, the truth that until this moment she has never dared to say, even in her own head:

I'm in love with Dan Humphrey.

TBC

Thanks for reading. I have *some* idea of how much longer this story should go on, but would be interested in your feedback before I decide.