"I…"
"I can't do this."
Pressing silence and heavily angstfilled air.
This is sadly too familiar.
"Goodbye, Serena."
Serena is laying in her bed, eyes wide open. She only stares at the ceiling, her stereo blasts the gloom and doom of Taylor Swift.
She has heard that music can be therapeutic, and that Taylor is perfect to listen to after a break-up. Not that she has been dumped, or had a relationship in years.
Either way she's in desperate need of therapy. She doesn't think this music is it though.
It's kind of depressing.
Like her life is, like it's been for so long. Like she herself is.
She wants to lock herself in, plans to be in this bed for a long time.
Because inside of these walls she can't hurt anyone but herself.
She rolls over on her stomach as Taylor sings about wanting to go back to December. Serena doesn't think she is singing about a month or missing snow and hot chocolate.
She sings about missing a boy. Of course.
Again, kind of depressing.
"Because the last time you saw me is still burned in the back of your mind. You gave me roses and I left them there to die."
She stares at the phone, wants to call him badly. She bites her nails.
"It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you. Wishing I'd realized what I had when you were mine."
She can't call him. It will not make a difference. She left. To be free she thought.
Because that's what her sorry ass needed back then.
She doesn't feel sorry for herself so much now, she feels sorry for him.
For him loving her. For him holding on.
She is poison.
Her track record is spotty to say the least. In love and in life in general.
Taylor Swift is still laying her heart out and Serena listens intently. Has to rewind the song a couple of times. It's scary to hear the words, because it's like they are taken from her own life, her own damn head.
"These days, I haven't been sleeping. Staying up, playing back myself leaving. When your birthday passed, and I didn't call. Then I think about summer, all the beautiful times. I watched you laughing from the passenger side. And realized I loved you in the fall"
Serena's eyes starts filling with water. She curls up with her arms securely placed round her legs. She lets the tears come, it feels freeingly. Doesn't try to stop them or wipe them away.
It feels good in a way.
Every tear that drops is for him.
"I realized I loved you in fall."
She loves Nate Archibald.
Of course she does. Winter, spring, summer, fall.
Doesn't matter if her age is sixteen or seventy-six
She will always be in love with Nate.
And she knows that, to her it's facts. She has always known it.
Right now it doesn't change anything.
She is stupid. This is all so very stupid. Tragic. Miserable. Pathetic.
But she has been burnt so many times. By others and by herself.
By Carter, by her father, Dan, even Nate.
She is a big pile of daddy issues and mommy issues. And on top of that she has issues with being and finding herself.
She is a wandering cliche and chatostrophe. She is really pathetic.
That is too a fact.
You are, have never and never will be good for him.
No matter what he says.
And he didn't even want you in the end.
He married Blair.
She sighs.
He married Blair.
There is no more tears at this point.
The song is finished and now Taylor is singing about ruining a wedding. About how the groom shouldn't be marrying the bride.
Speak now.
The irony of it all makes her laugh.
She turns off the music and lays back in bed.
As she closes her eyes there is no more laughing, no smiling. She only hears the words from the previous song over and over.
"And then the cold came, the dark days. When fear crept into my mind. You gave me all your love, and all I gave you was goodbye"
A single tear has been playing hide and seek and now it makes its way down her cheek.
That tear is too for him.
Blair Waldorf hates running. She hates all form for exercise.
But now she runs the stairs like she never has in her whole life.
Unfortunately Humphrey doesn't seem to believe in elevators.
When she reaches his floor, she is all out of breath.
She stops by his door, ready to knock.
Then after all the running and pacing and everything, she hesitates.
Is she doing the right thing? By him?
Then she only smiles. Because yes, this is right. Yes, for him, for her. For the both of them.
She is one hundred percent sure. This time she truly knows.
There is no hidden agendas, no imaging a perfect fairytale life, no magnetic darkness bullshit she has ben hiding behind in the past.
It's only two people that fell in love. For real. No games and no grand family history shadowing them.
She is almost jumping up and down when she knocks his door.
She feels like a little kid again. She has missed that feeling.
It's freeing and carefree.
When he opens the door, she doesn't give him time to speak, she just throws herself at him, lips first.
He's frozen, totally taken aback.
Then he puts his arms gently around her, his hands resting securely on her lower back. His lips moving in her tempo. Fast and hungrily.
She pulls away to catch her breath, closes her eyes and breathes out.
He looks at her with wonder in his eyes. She just smiles.
"I love you, Dan." She says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
And perhaps it is.
He blinks, his mouth halfway open. He is speechless.
All he can do is taking a mental picture of this.
This is not going to be forgotten.
The way she looks at him, the feeling her words gives him. Every bit of the moment.
"I love you." She repeats over and over. Her smile wider and wider.
He smiles now too.
"I can't believe this..I" He grabs hold of her.
He needs to touch her so he knows that this is all real.
"The book was…" She starts.
"It was perfect. It just made me realize how much I love you. That those words came from you mind was so beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. And it was.." She stops, gives him a crooked smile.
"And it was sexy." She lets out a little laugh.
He does too.
"I love you." She says again.
"And I'm ready now. No more stupid space or time, no more stupid me. We only have one life."
He pulls her close, kisses her again. They are still standing in the doorway.
They don't care.
The first kiss was full of eager and built up tension. This kiss is slow, lingering, consuming, perfect.
Her mouth is moving in easy rhythm with his. He savors it, them. Lets himself sink into the feel of her, drowns in it.
When they part they just rest their foreheads on each others for a moment, only listens to their steady breaths. It sounds like the most beautiful music.
Dan feels like writing it all down. The way she smells now, the way she feels pressed up against him, how her eyes is looking at him, how her cheeks is lightly blushing.
All of it.
He places a kiss on her forehead, looks at her tenderly.
"We can take this slow. We should.." He doesn't get to finish the sentence.
"Slow?" She asks, sparkle in her eyes.
"I don't want slow. We have done slow. I'm like already four years too late, am I not?"
His face light up. She can't stop smiling, she feels like a teenager. Like a normal teenager.
"I.." He starts.
She doesn't let him finish now either, just kisses him.
Blair pushes him inside the apartment, manages to close the door shut.
She really doesn't want slow, she simply wants him.
He cups her face, kisses the corner of her mouth, trails his lips down her neck as she throws her 3000 dollar coat on his somewhat dirty, wooden floor.
"I love you." He whispers as she starts unbuttoning his shirt.
It's getting harder for her to breathe as they stumble to his bedroom. They are both just in their underwear now.
She lays back against the pillows in his bed, takes him with her. They're still kissing as she kicks the blankets aside.
Suddenly he pulls away, almost out of breath.
"Blair." He breathes out.
She furrows her brows, holds tightly around his arms.
"I..Uhm.." He looks scared all of a sudden, and she is confused.
"I.." He svallows.
She strokes his arms, smiles a little at him. Tries to make him able to get the words out.
They seem stuck in his throat.
"I kind of.. I haven't had sex in over a year." He breathes out.
"There. It's out." He blushes mildly.
"I don't want to like..To disappoint you I guess."
She smiles at him, gets up and kisses him.
"You won't. You can't."
She bites his earflap, drags him down with her.
"Besides, sex is like riding a bike."
He laughs at her, starts kissing her neck, feels secure again. Trails a path of kisses down her whole body. Stops with his lips at the border of her panties. Feels her wimpier underneath him, looks up at her and smiles teasingly.
"Dan." She moans.
He removes her underwear and kisses his way back to her lips.
Is done with the teasing now.
She reaches between their bodies to get rid of the last piece of clothing that is separating them at this point.
He groans into her mouth as one of her legs hooks around his hips.
As he thrusts into her she grabs a hold of his hair, the hair she has told him to cut multiple times before.
Right now she likes it this way.
Her moaning gets louder and louder as she is close to the edge.
He manages to tip her over right before his own release.
She places a tender kiss on his lips as their still joined as one. And then he collapses on top of her as she still breathes heavily.
"I knew you wouldn't disappoint me." She whispers as he rolls over at his back.
"God, I love you."
Nate doesn't want to be weak anymore. Doesn't want his life to be ruled by other people. Their opinions and their motives.
Doesn't want to be a push-over any longer.
He wants to be himself, make his own decisions. He just doesn't quite know where to begin. Doesn't really know who he is.
So now he is leaving.
He is standing at the airport, watching the board.
Okay, he thinks. Decision number one.
Where the hell should he go?
Right now he doesn't even care. He just wants to leave this all behind.
Serena.
She is like a disease that has infected his whole being.
It's both good and bad. He wouldn't want it any other way really.
He can't imagine a life without loving Serena. Maybe that makes him pathetic. Maybe some will think it makes him weak.
But in a way Nate thinks it makes him, well, Nate.
In a messed up way it makes him who he are. Part of it anyway. He just can't let it define his whole life.
That's what'll make him the weak one in all of this.
And he doesn't want that anymore.
He just wants Serena. And it will always be as simple as that.
And that hard.
He knows she doesn't believe in the concept of happily ever after.
He knows it's no such thing as ever after. No one lives forever.
There is a now and then there might be a long after. Not an infinite one. hopefully a somewhat happy one.
At the moment he hoped they could concentrate on the now-part. And then she might eventually grow to like the idea of an after with him.
It's not even important. He would settle for a lifetime of only "nows", if she would be there for every single one.
He sighs.
And suddenly he decides to go to Italy. Just to chose something.
Just to push himself to leave her behind.
Right here, right now, he's on his own.
And maybe that's exactly where he's supposed to be.
Right when that thought is about to leave his mind, a smiling face is walking towards him.
A face he wished he would never see again.
"Oh crap. This day really could get worse."