With sunglasses covering her eyes Blair walked through town with Emily, Spencer, Aria and Emily and the current hot topic was the fact that Hanna had done a real number on her boyfriend's Sean's car the night of Noel Kahn's party. No one knew why Hanna had done it, neither did Hanna but the car had taken quite some damage although it was quite a write off. Blair had expected Hanna to be freaking out about what she had done and at the very least grounded but apparently not, here she was with them playing the entire thing off and making it out like it was no big deal. Blair knew that if she had done something like that he dad would have grounded her for a minimum of two months, her dad may be the fun gay dad but he laid down the law when he had to.
"So your mom was totally cool without he fact that you wrecked Sean's car? There was no shouting or Hanna I'm so disappointed with you/ how could have been so stupid lectures in the slightest?" Blair asked in disbelief as the five of them walked to where a memorial was going to be set up for Alison.
"I did not wreck the car I just damaged it and actually everyone's been pretty mature about it." Hanna explained and Blair was still having a hard time believing what had happened. She had never known Hanna to ever do something so out of character and intense but then again they were all learning things about each other and Alison that they never knew before.
"Oh." Emily quietly said.
"There is no oh, we're just being groans ups about it, that's all." Hanna retorted and Blair couldn't help but chuckle as they reached the destination, it was one of those small recreational outdoor areas where you could just sit and observe the coming and goings on of Rosewood.
"Okay so the town is going to put in a new bench put the new bench and we'll plant the flower beds and there's going to be a pathway of art tiles." Aria explained as Blair and Spencer sat down on a bench and Blair stretched out her legs as she leant back into the bench, all she needed now was a nice cold lemonade and she'd be content. They had decided to have something made to commemorate Alison and her memory but also for the person who had killed Ali, they wanted to have something for her killer to look at being constantly reminded of what they had done if then even still lived in Rosewood. Blair thought it was a good idea, not to mention it killed two birds with one stone.
"Art tiles?" Spencer asked.
"Messages, pictures, memories." Emily clarified.
"Aww, like little headstones." Hanna quipped and Blair couldn't help but snicker, it was inappropriate but also happened to be kind of funny.
"Hanna!" Aria scolded.
"What!?"
"We should each do something." Emily suggested.
"As nice of a thought as that is Em, have you met me? I cannot do anything creative or arty in the slightest, that gene seems to have evaded me despite who my father is. You've seen inside our house and read his books and know me well enough to know that creativeness along with my auburn hair is not something I get from my father. So I'm going to have to skip on the tile but Aria can make mine for me and i'll slap my name on it at the end…" Blair idly stated and received disapproving looks from both Aria and Emily because of her comment but she chose to ignore them given that she was being honest about her lack of creativity and they knew. There was a reason why Blair didn't take art; she couldn't draw to save her life which is why Aria was the artsy one and Blair was the typical girl next door with the unconventional family dynamic in their group. They all had their parts and played them very well in Blair's opinion.
"I've had Alison's bracelet since the day we found in the woods and I do not want this responsibility anymore." Hanna said pulling out Alison's friendship bracelet from her purse and holding it out for somebody to take. They had found it a couple of days ago in the woods when they attempted to finally go to the shed but they had gotten spooked by something and started running and then they found Alison's bracelet.
"I'm not taking it, sorry…" Blair quickly said.
"I do not want." Aria added.
"Seriously, someone take this…" Hanna stated waving the bracelet around until Spencer finally caved in an took the bracelet.
"Look at us, a bunch of babies!" Spencer lectured using her scary and intimidating Hastings voice which Blair was convinced she had since she could talk. If Blair had to describe Spencer in two words, she'd say scary and smart as Spencer was amazingly smart and didn't take any nonsense for anyone. "There's nothing that A can do or say to get us into trouble without making trouble for herself."
"You sure it's a her?" Hanna asked and from behind her sunglasses Blair rolled her eyes, although they couldn't be sure Blair reckoned that A was a female as no male she knew signed off texts with XOXO and called a bunch of girls his bitches. Blair had no idea who A was but for some reason she felt that A was a female.
"Him or her, it makes no difference." Spencer replied as she leant over and pulled out her laptop and began to type and Blair slid her sunglasses up so they were sitting on the top of her head so she could glance over to see that Spencer was entering her details into some website.
"What are you doing?" Aria asked.
"I'm going to block all messages from people I do not know. IM's, texts, emails, everything… Screw you A." Spencer explained and when she finished typing Blair motioned for her to hand over the laptop so she could do the same. Blair liked Spencer's idea of blocking out A from their lives, it was the first real productive thing they had done since A came into their lives and honestly they should have thought about this sooner.
"Hasta la vista A!" Blair chimed as she finished entering her details and as such erased A from her life before turning to the others." Who's next?
"I'll go." Emily said taking the computer from Blair as Spencer stood up.
"I spy with my little eye something that begins with F." Spencer stated in a cheerful manner and Blair looked up in time to see their english teacher Mr. Fitz riding past on a bike and boy did he look good. Whilst Blair liked english, it wasn't a class that she paid much attention to until the arrival of their incredibly young and handsome new teacher which was Mr. Fitz who certainly very nice to look at first thing in the morning instead of a calculus textbook.
"Hey Mr. Fitz." Hanna called out and Mr. Fitz looked over at them and offered a wave.
"Looking good Mr. Fitz!" Spencer added.
"Such form!" Blair said and it caused them all to giggle in response, this was what five teenage girls were supposed to be doing instead of blocking out a mysterious and anonymous stalker/blackmailer from their lives.
"My turn." Aria said pulling Blair up from her seat to take her place and then taking Spencer's laptop from Emily so she too could enter her details in and once and for all be rid of the Big Bad A.
"There are teachers you don't want to see on a bike and there are some that you do wanna see on a bike…" Spencer noted and Blair couldn't help but murmur in agreement as they watched Mr. Fitz ride off into the distance before she pulled her sunglasses back down. Mr. Fitz was such a good looking man and he had given them all a well needed boost by riding past for them all to swoon over him to their hearts content. Although however good looking and nice he may be, he was their teacher.
"I do not want to see Mr. Glory on a bike." Hanna stated and Blair couldn't help but blanche in response, she had gone from thinking about Mr. Fitz to Mr. Glory in the space of two seconds which was not nice and the mental picture of Blair trying to imagine Mr. Glory on bike getting all hot and sweaty would probably haunt her forever.
"I don't want to see Mr. Glory in motion of any kind, that says it all." Emily added.
"Me too, so can we please stop talking about him and get back to Mr. Fitz?" Blair questioned steering the conversation back to it's previous topic as she slid her glasses back down her face now that Mr. Fitz was out of sight.
"Ahh, Mr. Fitz–" Hanna began.
"Hanna! It's your turn." Aria interrupted and Hanna went over to sit next to Aria to do her thing whilst Blair stood and idly looked at her shoes, or rather the scuff marks that were on them. Petra was going to kill her if she didn't find a way to remove them as they had only just brought them but in Blair's defence running through the woods tended to do that to shoes.
"You've talked to Ben?" Spencer asked Emily, making conversation and referring to who Emily had broken up with Ben moments prior to Toby Cavanugh coming in and all but kicking Ben's ass for Emily. Blair had been so surprised that Emily and Ben had broken up as the two of them went well together and it didn't seem like there was any problems going on with the two of them at the moment. But what did Blair know?"
"Nothing to talk about." Emily replied with a small shrug of her shoulders.
"So your really done?" Aria asked.
"It's okay, I'm fine."
"Would you believe that is the same thing Blair told me when I asked about Rob?" Spencer nonchalantly said and Blair's head snapped up from the ground the moment she heard this as she hadn't been expecting Spencer to kind of announce that she had broken up with Rob. Blair knew that she had to tell her friends but she was kind of waiting for the right time. "Blair, I am so sorry… it just came out."
"Spence it's fine, they were going to find out anyway and what better way to find out now since Emily will be going me in the newly single lonely hearts club." Blair replied, doing her best to make a joke about the entire thing.
"Blair have you and Rob broken up?" Aria questioned and Blair slowly nodded.
"Yeah, it happened a few days ago… It was a long time coming, even more so recently as Rob met some girl whilst he was on holiday and he really likes her and wants to make a go of things with this so called Megan girl. So he dumped me and now I get to be the poor little giraffe that everyone gets to fawn over and take care of her…"
"B, why didn't you tell us?" Hanna asked.
"I was planning to it just never seemed like a good time and to be honest I'm pretty much over it, we ended things on good terms and now we both get to be happy and be with other people. Rob had the decency to not do anything with this new girl until he ended things with me, so there's nothing really for me to be angry about as I was the one who suggested the break as I wasn't happy." Blair replied with a smile as she didn't want her friends to be worrying about her, things were looking up for them all and she didn't want to bring them down with the fact that she had just be dumped.
"You sure your okay?"
Blair looked over at Aria. "I'm fine, in fact I am better than just fine I am really good."
"I wish we had a drumroll for this, here we go…" Hanna said bringing them all back to the reason that they were here a she finished typing and clicked on the button that we block all and any anonymous or blocked messages whatsoever. "We are official A-proof!"
"Listen all those tiny little messages floating through the air all around us." Spencer said as the five of them all looked around their surrounding knowing that they were safe from A and to be honest it felt quite good knowing that they didn't have constantly keep looking over their shoulders and worrying about receiving messages from A.
"Yep and none of them from A." Blair quipped in a cheerful manner as it kind of felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Not just hers but all of them as they could finally put A behind them, literally and go back to living normal lives.
"This feels like a good thing." Emily added.
"Of course it's a good thing, out of mind and out of sight." Hanna stated as Emily joined her and Aria on the bench whilst Blair and Spencer both stood up and whistle the five of them all relaxed in peachier, a leaflet was blown through the wind and landed right by Aria's feet who picked it up. The leaflet was actually one of the missing posters that had been put up in town when Alison had disappeared but this one was different as someone had write in red marker 'Ding Dong the Bitch is Dead.' The moment that Blair saw this she immediately looked around to see if she could see anyone as there was no way that this leaflet just happened to come across them with those written on it. But Blair along with the other girls couldn't see anyone and Aria crumpled up the paper and with that they left.
"I can't believe what was on that poster…" Emily eventually said.
"Look can we not talk about it? This isn't our problem anymore so let's not even entertain what sick joke someone has clearly pulled." Blair bluntly said not meaning to sound harsh or like she was jumping down Emily's throat, it was just that they had just gone A free and Blair didn't really want to jump back in. She wanted things to get back to normal or as normal as it got since Alison's body had been found.
"Blair's right, we don't need to be focusing on the poster instead we need to be focusing on the fact that our very own Blair Swanson is turning seventeen in a few days!" Hanna said in a rather excited manner and Blair just smiled. The only other thing than shopping and a hot guy that got Hanna all worked up and excited was a birthday party. "So what's the plan Blair?"
"We're not having another party at my house Hanna, last year things almost got out of control with that party you threw for me. This year I'm just thinking something simple, like we all hangout and have a sleepover or something. I just want us to hangout and do normal things…" Blair stated and she was quite surprise that Hanna was very receptive to this idea, Blair thought she was going to have to fight her on this.
"Sounds good."
"I'm already looking forward to it." Spencer added.
Twenty minutes later the five of them had split up, well most of them did but Blair was with Hanna who wanted to take her shopping in order to get her a kick ass outfit for her birthday. Hanna had also said something about getting an outfit that would show off her body and make the boys drool which Blair promptly ignored. However she agreed to go shopping with Hanna to distract her friend from her recent problems and do the whole normal thing. "Hey I'm going quickly go into the Grille and grab a coffee, do you want anything?" Hanna asked.
"Ice tea, please." Blair politely said and Hanna nodded in response before going inside the Grille whilst Blair waited outside and whilst she waited, Blair was approached by none other than Mike. Given everything that had been going on in her life Blair hadn't spoken to Mike, but she had seen him around school occasionally. "Hey Mike…"
"Hi Blair, I thought that was you."
"And correct you were." Blair replied with a small chuckle but Mike didn't laugh, instead he was looking at her in a weird way that Blair couldn't figure out because of her sunglass so she had to take them off to see that Mike was actually frowning at her. "Mike, is there something wrong?"
"You've been avoiding me." Mike said and Blair tried her hardest not to react too much to this.
"I haven't been doing such a thing, I've been busy with a few thing as my life does not revolve around you Mike Montgomery." Blair joked although she was kind of lying as she had been avoiding Mike ever since she had broken up with Rob. It wasn't because he had done anything wrong, it was just that she needed time to herself for a while.
"Well it seems like it Blair, you don't answer my calls and I barely ever see you around anymore, so you can't really blame me for thinking that your avoiding me." Mike quietly said and Blair felt terrible, she knew she wasn't leading Mike on as she did have feelings for him but she was kind of stringing him along at times and he didn't deserve.
"Rob and I broke up." Blair quietly announced and she could have sworn that Mike's face lot up given by the smile on his face. It seemed to be the best news he had heard which didn't surprise Blair as since he had come back to Rosewood all Mike wanted to know was when she was going to break up with Rob.
"Is that so?"
Blair slowly nodded. "It happened a couple of days ago and it didn't go the way I thought it would go but the two of us are over, both free to do whatever we want and see whoever we want now.
"How do you feel about that?" Mike asked.
"Well I'm not as thrilled as you are about it given that Rob has been a huge part of my life but I'm relieved in a way… The two of us weren't happy anymore and we both wanted to be with other people. I warn you now you have some big shoes to fill if your going to be my boyfriend Mike Montgomery." Blair replied
"I like the sound of that." Mike said as he took a step closer to Blair and their fingertips gently brushed against each others.
"Of what?"
"Being your boyfriend."
"Course you do." Blair drily said trying to keep a straight face but it was kind of hard to when Mike was looking at her the way he was even with the goofy yet sweet looking smile he had on his face. Blair would be a liar if she didn't admit that she was a tiny bit scared of this as Mike was Aria's little brother and god knows how she'd react to the news of one of her best friends dating her little brother. Relationships were scary and often required a leap of faith which was what Blair was going to do, take a leap of faith with Mike and pray that she didn't drop like a rock.
"Do you want to go somewhere together?" Mike suggested.
"Trust me I'd love to but I have plans with Hanna, she wants to go to the mall and help me pick out an outfit for my birthday. I'm just waiting on her to come out with our drinks, going to the mall is not usually my thing but I figured what the hell and my dad did say I could put a small dent in the credit card." Blair admitted with a small smile.
"That's okay, I'll call you later?"
"I'd like that very much." Blair replied and after a quick glance at her Mike walked past her and Blair just stood there and let out a sigh. Her day seemed to be getting better and better by the hour, all she needed know was a pony and she'd die happy. Blair stood outside the Grille with what was probably a full on grin on her face even when Hanna came out holding out their drinks.
"What was that?" Hanna demanded and Blair knew she was in trouble or rather potentially in trouble if she couldn't play this off and make it go away.
"What are you talking about Hanna? What was what?" Blair asked in a nonchalant manner, acting all innocent and pretending like nothing had happened and she had been all by herself whilst Hanna had been in the Grille.
"You and Aria's brother Mike, I saw the two of you with my own eyes Blair and it looked like he was seriously flirting with you which should be creepy as he's Aria's brother but everyone always knew that Mike's always had a crush on you Blair…" Hanna stated and Blair knew she could possible regret telling Hanna this but that's what friends did and she no longer had to worry about A dropping the news.
"It wasn't exactly a one sided thing Hanna." Blair quietly said and at first she thought that Hanna hadn't heard her but then it became apparent that the news was taking some time to sink in and Hanna was still trying to process it.
"YOU? You had a crush on Aria's brother! OMG Blair, you dark and creepy horse!" Hanna demanded her eyes growing to the size of spaceships as she processed this no doubt juicy piece of news.
"Kind of a bit more than a crush Hanna, Mike's kind of my boyfriend now…" Blair revealed as she took her ice tea out of Hanna's hand and took a sip for it and then she waited. Blair slowly started counted back from five in her head and once she reached zero, she heard a squeal that would have destroyed a normal person's eardrum.
"YOU AND MIKE? When? How? Who made the first move? I want to know everything Blair!" Hanna squealed and Blair couldn't help but smile, it felt nice being able to tell someone about this although Blair knew she was going to have to swear Hanna to secrecy as no one else could know about her and Mike until she figured out a way how to tell Aria.
"It's a long story Han." Blair said knowing that it wouldn't do anything to stop Hanna from wanting to know all the details, the story could be two hours long and Hanna would want to know everything and more.
"I've got time."
