Chapter Eighteen: We'll Always Have Summer
Oh I'm sorry I broke it, never forgive me.
Your love is the hopeless light that I need to remind me I'm living, and that I still need it.
You pulled me together with blood and soft stitches.
You're proof that I'm breathing,
and that I still need to be loved and to hear you whisper to me.
You're enough, you're enough, you're enough.
- The Pugilist by Keaton Henson
:::
For the past five nights, Blair's dreams lived in Tuscany.
They were sun-soaked, they were writhing in the dark, they were diamonds at the poolside, they were feeding each other grapes, wine dripping down the nape of the neck and collected at tongue-tip like gods at the bacchanal. Relais Borgo Santo Pietro had been their escape from the world, where they'd seemed to have nothing but time—no headmistresses casting stern glances at their bodies pressed together around the brick wall corners—reinventing themselves not as the mess they'd started but as what they'd always been: Chuck and Blair.
"I imagine it would have been in my limo or atop Nate Archibald's bed," Chuck had drawled as they mused about some alternate timeline in which they had collided before Briar House. It was a sickly sweet dream that they toyed with, never mentioning what it would actually mean for them because it would hurt too much. On the one hand, they'd never have met their slew of delinquents who Blair had grown so fond of. On the other, they'd be the King and Queen of the Upper East Side, sitting above the stone pillars of Constance and St. Jude's, their rightful throne. No accidents with the Victors and Victrolas, no catty Penelopes lurking at every corner, no kidnapping…no wicked games.
But then, it was always a game between them.
"You're awful," Blair had laughed, wearing the silk sheets as a dress around her shoulders and hips, sliding over on the bed to straddle Chuck. "I think I deserve a bit more than blue pinstripes and Nate's dirty lacrosse shorts." Her nose wrinkled.
Chuck smirked. It had always seemed like he and his old best friend had been decades apart in outward maturity, especially when it came to women. Never did he think that they'd be after the same one.
"The limo then," he'd whispered, sliding his thumb down the center of Blair's pink bottom lip. "I'd have given anything to deflower you across those leather seats." He hoisted her up and pressed his lips to the line of her jaw. "Our city whirring by us, innocent passersby with no idea that you were just behind those tinted windows, purring my name…"
"Enough," Blair hissed, shoving him back down onto the duvet. "I would never do something so disgraceful."
"And yet, since you've met me, your repertoire has been rife with disgraceful things."
Blair narrowed her eyes and flushed. She was about to spout off some insult about how she had traded her soul to the devil and his signature scarf, but she stopped short when she realized he was staring at her with an odd look in his eyes, the amber in them darkening before sparking alight.
Blair rolled her shoulders back, glanced away. "What is it, Bass?"
It was golden hour, and the way the light was pouring across her skin was doing something to him. Her curls were perfectly disheveled, falling over her cheeks and shoulders like a doll's would. The sheets around her frame made her look like some goddess from an ancient time, the sort that the stars remembered, even when time forgot.
"Stay," Chuck murmured, holding her hip as he reached for something on the nightstand, "stay right there."
Her eyes widened as Chuck aimed his cell phone lens at her, smiling as he snapped her at every angle. Her first instinct was to slap the thing out of his hand, but as he held her firm and held the phone out of her reach, her spine uncurled, and she relaxed under his gaze, dipping her chin to her shoulder and posing a bit.
"There she is," he chuckled, snapping another one. He wanted to immortalize her this way. Her, this, them. The moment. Summer's end would be a test on the already-wavering tightrope that bound them together. But if he could just keep her this way, if he could just keep something for himself, he'll have proven the world wrong about Chuck Bass.
"If you show these to anyone, I'll destroy you," Blair sniffed, still angling herself towards the camera.
Snap.
Chuck smiled.
Click.
"Waldorf," he sighed, "you already have."
For the past five nights, Chuck's dreams lived in Hell.
It was the last thing he remembered before the fallout, saying goodbye to Blair, finding his way to the resort's cigar room. It was nearly empty at the time, just a few older men who looked too much like his father when he squinted puffing on Cubans and grumbling about NASDAQ. Chuck had sat back against one of the leather lounge chairs and lit a cigarette of his own. He grinned, still feeling the brush of Blair's hair against his cheek, her light grip on his arm. He despised how his feelings for her had turned him into nothing more than a giddy schoolgirl, her presence haunting him even when they were only meters apart.
"Hello."
Chuck woke from his reverie. Standing before him was an older blonde in a white slip dress. Her lipstick was bright, legs long, tan perfect. In some other era, Chuck would have already thrown her a line and waited for the reel. Now, he was already bored.
"Can I help you?"
The blonde smiled, took the seat opposite him. "I think we can help each other."
"Tempting," Chuck lied, raising his finger for the barman, "but I have someone waiting for me back at the villas. Insatiable and…quite vicious. Just a warning."
"Ah," the blonde laughed, her accent spilling heavily but unrecognizable. "I understand. I have someone waiting, too. But I was talking about a nightcap." She slid two drinks across the table between them. "You see, the gentleman over there keeps buying me drinks, and I don't want to put myself in a compromising position. You seem harmless, so I thought I'd offer one to you."
Chuck raised a brow. "Perhaps you should reevaluate your definition of harmless."
The blonde raised a brow.
Chuck sighed, never one to refuse a scotch freshly poured. "I appreciate your generosity." He drank it back after raising his glass in a mock toast.
The blonde raised her own glass, pretending to sip it as she watched Chuck's eyes grow heavy.
"Perhaps you are the one who needs to reevaluate your definition of harmless," Chuck swore he heard before everything went black.
What followed was a blur of limbs, dark rooms, muted phone calls, stings of pain, rushes of high followed by low lows. He remembered calling Blair's name so desperately that he couldn't even recognize his own voice, then being deposited on a dirt road just outside of the Relais Borgo, crawling his way back to the beacon of home.
Blair.
She hadn't greeted him with open arms, but rather accusations at the apparent bite marks on his neck, scratches like tattoos of regret down his skin, the needle marks stretching down his arm.
"Blair," he rasped, just regaining his voice as she flew around the room in a blur of lace, curls, and Chanel No. 5. "Please."
"I have a private flight waiting," Blair said, her voice returning to that ice queen cold he could only remember from before they'd really known each other. And from the times he'd truly scorned her. "I suggest you arrange the same, Chuck."
"I can't remember what happened. I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you. Not after all that we've been through together. Blair, I love you. It took us both a long time to get there, but I haven't looked back since. I never will."
Blair paused, still turned away from him. "I want to believe you."
Chuck fell to his knees, fingers fumbling for the hem of her dress. "Because you know that I'm telling the truth."
"I don't—"
"You do, Waldorf."
Blair turned to him slowly, a single tear slipping down her cheek in the wake of all that she'd cried over the past two days. Finally, she wiped it away and stood so tall she seemed a million feet above him. "Look in the mirror, Chuck. That's the only truth there is."
"Blair—"
Chuck startled awake in his backseat, disoriented and still feeling sick in his stomach. The limo pulled up to Briar's cobblestone driveway near midnight. Almost every light was off on campus, save for the few students tittering here and there, the back-to-school buzz in full effect. He could see silhouettes of girls spinning around their mirrors, holding their new blouses and jewels to their bodies, boys clinking flasks to the exciting months ahead, the irony of a school meant to reform the misbehaved in full debauchery. In one window, he swore he saw the ghost of a brunette girl, sullen and beautiful, staring right at his limo, peering straight into his soul. He knew it was impossible—the limo was parked, lights off, tinted windows shielding him from any onlookers. Still, he swore she was there.
But when he blinked again, the window went dark.
She was gone.
:::
September 1st, 2008: Dexter Hall Dormitories
"Kidnappings, sexual harassment claims, liquor-soaked masked balls, and underground societies landing prized pupils in the ICU. Sound like the plot of a CW teen TV show? For us, the mishaps are nothing more than a normal day at school. In the wake of a dramatic final semester, it's a wonder that Briar House hasn't closed its doors for good. Who do we have to thank for our new curfews, ruler-strict regulations, and security guards? None other than billionaire tyrant Chuck Bass and the self-crowned queen of campus, Blair Waldorf. The two raised havoc upon the student body last year, Waldorf's arrival like the detonation of Bass's awaiting bomb. Though most of us think expulsion is called for before the two set the rest of the school on fire, it's no surprise that Waldorf, Bass, and their entitled Scooby gang played the victims, funded another science wing, and landed reentry to an academy that we used to call home. Time will only tell what they have in store for their senior year, and if we'll all survive it before they're gone for good. Try what they will, but this student will be holding them all accountable. This is William Kincaid with The Briar Thorn."
Blair scoffed as Diana read aloud from the pathetic press, monopolized by its insufferable new editor, that had been distributed early morning before the first Briar House assembly of the year. She slid the sleeping mask from her eyes and tied her curls back from her face, gaze coming into focus on their new triplex, each queen-bed on a platform of its own, accessible through a rising spiral staircase at the center of the room. When the campus had still been the estate of the esteemed Briar family, rooms like these had served as servant quarters, a factoid that would normally have put Blair off from coming anywhere near it. But the dank triple room had been transformed into a miniature palace, the beds donning white canopies, the desks adorned with flower vases and new notebooks, wide windows giving way to a view of a blanket of trees across the forests around Briar. The prize of it all was only marred by Jenny's absence on the top bed. They'd gotten an ominous text from her late in the summer about her eventual return to school, but it was not enough to reassure Blair's worry.
Or anger with her friend, who'd conveniently made herself scarce when Blair had needed her the most.
"Give that to me," Blair hissed, in a remarkably bad mood that morning. She had slept a total of three hours in the past three days, and she had dark circles the color of a night storm just in time for her first public appearance after all that had transpired the year prior. She skimmed the sheet of paper as Diana handed it to her, then crumpled it up in her fist. "Please. We've summered with the Kincaids twice. They're more elitist than the entirety of the Upper East Side. This Gossip Girl knock-off is horrid writing and a waste of trees."
Diana raised a brow. "B, the sudden environmentalist. This summer really changed you."
No witty comeback came. Diana immediately felt terrible about dragging Blair back into thoughts of the summer. She had held her friend in her lap for hours when they'd both arrived on campus, but even their ritual of chocolates, champagne, pink cigarettes, and Audrey movies hadn't healed what Diana had imagined to be a catastrophe. She only knew sparse details of Chuck's disappearance and all the wreckage that had followed, but she had never seen Blair broken this way. No duchess wanted to see her queen fall from grace. She was the strongest of them all. What did that mean for the rest of their hearts?
Diana crept onto Blair's bed and pulled her friend close. In the mirror across the room, the glass distorted them to look like one person, a tangle of long dark hair, sweetheart smiles, and devious eyes. Sisters.
"Blair," Diana whispered, "Are you sure he isn't telling the truth? I had one too many nights in Cabo with Damien that ended without any underwear on." She paused. "And…him in mine."
Blair made a face. "I'm going to do you a favor and pretend I never heard that in order to uphold our brand."
Diana rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying that I don't remember those times either. They left me feeling…" Diana cleared her throat, and Blair had a feeling it was Harrison's name that belonged in Damien's place. "If something bad really happened to Chuck that night, despite how it looks, I think he'd want you with him, not against him. You two together are…invincible."
Blair pinched the underside of her arm to stop herself from crying. "You? So fond of Chuck Bass?"
Diana held Blair's hand and sighed. "What can I say? He's been courting our queen so long, I guess I've warmed up to the bastard."
:::
September 1st, 2008: The Courtyard
"Hello, darling."
Students paused and stared for a moment as Ethan strolled up one of the school's carnation-lined pathways, looking particularly dashing and golden after a summer away at the beach house. Blair perked up a bit, preparing to be doted on by one of her favorite friends, but it was Diana who he scooped up instead, sliding his hand down her lower back and planting an open-mouthed kiss on her lips. Blair went slack-jawed as they shamelessly French kissed in front of her, touching each other in a way that turned films from PG-13 to rated R.
"Hi, handsome."
Ethan groaned against her, hand sliding lower.
Make that unrated.
Blair let out a disgusted sound and reached over to pry them apart. "I'm sorry, but what the hell am I looking at right now?"
Ethan let out a breathless little laugh and wiped the lip gloss from his lips and chin, Diana looking extremely satisfied with herself before giving him a high-five.
She lowered her voice and edged over to Blair. "You're looking at the reason why Ethan is back at Briar and his parents are more than pleased about it. Believable, huh?"
Blair crossed her arms over her chest, looking stunned and somewhat impressed.
"You're his beard?" Blair let out a little laugh and glanced at Ethan. "I must say that I'm wounded to have been so easily replaced."
Ethan laughed and gathered Blair in a hug, planting a kiss on her cheek. "Never. You'll always be my favorite fake girlfriend."
Blair snorted. "What an honor."
Just then, a voice interrupted their little reunion as Damien and Eric strolled up the path behind them.
"Thanks so much for the display," Damien drawled at Ethan and Diana. "I hadn't digested my breakfast yet." He hugged Diana and Ethan, then turned to face Blair. When he half-smiled at her, she realized how startlingly he had grown to look like Chuck, the haunted eyes, the messy dark hair, the pale skin, all she attributed to the absence of a certain blonde. There was something in his demeanor, so cutting yet casual, that made her ache in a way she both despised and longed for.
"Blair."
"Dalgaard."
They hugged, pulling each other in closer than the rest. It was surprising, but whether they liked it or not, they had bonded the most over all that had transpired over the past year. Saving Chuck, saving Diana, saving each other…they knew each other's pain all too well. Misery loved company, after all.
"It's good to see you," Damien said.
"And you," Blair nodded. "What is a queen without her court jester?"
Damien smirked.
When Blair tuned back into the rest of her friends, she caught the end of Ethan and Diana's fake little romance, how she'd vacationed with him and his family that summer, feigning puppy love so easily that she'd duped them into believing Ethan had forgotten his stint with Eric and was ready to return to Briar a reformed man for his senior year. They just needed to go through the motions long enough to avoid any suspicion—or photographic evidence of Ethan's true love making it back to his parents.
While Damien congratulated the happy "couple," Blair pulled Eric aside, who was looking less than pleased with the entire situation.
"E, when were you going to tell me that our favorite golden couple had become a ménage a trois?"
Eric frowned. "It hasn't. We…aren't."
Beside them, Ethan winked at Eric, then slid his arm around Diana's waist.
Blair raised a brow. "Right. And you're perfectly fine with Diana pawing your boyfriend all year?"
Eric frowned. "It's just for a few weeks into the semester. He wants to establish an image that will get his parents off his back, and I want him to spend his senior year with me. We both get what we want."
They both watched Diana and Eric hold hands, a perfect couple on the surface. Everyone seemed to have what they wanted in some form or another, but their love stories were marred by caveats.
Blair wanted to pry more deeply into Eric's feelings, but she had neither the questions nor answers to make this twisted little situation any easier than it was. Instead, she led their group to the marble benches that overlooked the entire courtyard. Even after all that they had done, all they had become, the crowd still parted for them like royalty. Down below, sweethearts shared whispers of kisses, separated by the stacks of books in their hands. The new security guards patrolled like grumpy knights, keeping a careful eye on the gates that now separated stone from soil. The freshmen looked doe-eyed and charmed by their new lives. The seniors looked so free, skirts rolled up just at regulation, basking in the final appearances of the summer sun before autumn took over with its crisp foliage.
Damien nudged Blair. "Looking for new recruits?"
Blair smiled, toyed with the tip of one of her French-manicured nails. A part of her had been looking for a bony little fresh-faced blonde in the crowd. Another part of her had been looking for a dark knight.
"No," she replied, staring up at the sun until it hurt her eyes. "A queen is always sure of where her court stands before she adds any others."
:::
September 1st, 2008: The Briar Theatre
"I needed my friend."
Jenny jumped, pricking her finger on a sewing needle. A dot of her blood stained the white satin draped over her lap. She didn't want Blair to see her face, so she remained hunched over her current project, something a fallen angel would wear, pearly white darkening to a dyed black at the end. Frayed, like her.
But she couldn't hide any longer.
"Jenny, look at me."
Finally, she turned. Blair gasped when she saw her, as Jenny's father had, as her brother had, as her mother had when they'd sent her away for the summer. "I just don't think that a reformatory school should be leaving you worse for wear, Jenny." The girl looked so different, older, tense, disturbed. When Blair had first met Jenny, she'd almost resented how much she looked like a miniature doll version of Serena, a halo always floating above her perfect blonde hair, an aura of gold, a joyful innocence that you just couldn't fake.
Now, her cheeks were sunken in, her eyes bloodshot, her hair a stringy mess, matted and held back in a ponytail. She kept scratching the side of her knee like she had a tick. Her lips were bitten bloody. She looked like the rest of them, a miserable, sleepless ghoul.
Blair's voice cracked. "Jenny."
"Blair—"
They were both startled by a shadow at the entrance of the costume room. Blair turned to find Chuck standing there with peonies in his hand bound by her favorite color ribbon, royal purple in a cushion of pink tulle and garden-green mesh. It was too dark in the room to spy the expression on his face, but his eyes were glowing with something less than hope.
God, they'd both been gone and now she was walled in by everything that had failed her, a funhouse of disappointments.
She slowly turned back to Jenny, spinning on her heel. "You should talk to Damien," Blair said, "I…he missed you."
Jenny hung her head and nodded, still scratching at her knee. "Okay." She abandoned the dress on a stool in the corner to give the pair some room to speak. Blair inhaled. They hadn't been face-to-face in the same room together since that night. She avoided Chuck's eyes as he sauntered closer to her, offering the flowers without a smile.
Blair stared down at them. "Flowers and fast-tracking forgiveness. Your two favorite things."
"I'm here to apologize."
"You've apologized."
"I'm here to say—"
"Say what?" Blair threw her hands up. "You said you'd never do anything to intentionally hurt me, and yet you continue to hurt me all the same." Blair took the flowers, then dropped them on the ground. His neck was still bruised.
Everything inside of her was still bruised.
"It's always a coincidence or mistake or mystery with you." Blair nodded to herself more than him, stepped on a petal as she made her way past him. "And I'm done playing detective."
:::
September 1st, 2008: The Briar House Assembly
"Students of Briar House. What a pleasure it is to see your bright and eager faces ready for a year of prestigious academia and…for some of you, the beginning of your voyage into the collegiate world."
"Good to see that you were, in fact, screening my calls and not in the ER."
Jenny focused on the headmistress as Damien whispered to her, intent on not making eye contact, lest it break her.
"I understand that we are coming off a year of hardships. But rest assured that we will not follow in the legacy that the press has bestowed upon us. We are not a damaged student body. We are raising resilient classes, invested in self-improvement."
"I can't talk about this right now," Jenny whispered. "I can't do this right now."
"I've been waiting on you all summer, J. I think this is the perfect time. Fucking…look at you. You look wired. Like you haven't slept in weeks, like…If there's something wrong, you need to—"
"With our academy's newly-enforced security and curfews, I'm hoping that you all will treat our establishment with the respect that we have continuously shown you. This the year of new beginnings."
"I need to what?" Jenny finally turned to face him with a ferocity Damien hadn't known she had in her.
"You slept with me and then you disappeared. You don't think I'm owed a fucking explanation?"
"I'm just doing to you what you and Chuck have done to every other girl in this school," Jenny hissed. "I'm doing to you what we've all done to each other. I'm not the good one here. None of us are, get it?"
Damien shook his head. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I'm finally fitting in," Jenny deadpanned. "Aren't you happy?"
She grabbed her notebook and shot up from the assembly room seat, jostling the row of students on her way to the side exit. If the headmistress noticed, she did not waver in her speech.
"This is the year we will overcome."
:::
September 3rd, 2008: The Briar House
This was the problem.
People couldn't fix other people. They couldn't save each other. They could only distract each other's demons. And when that person left you, the demons would come back, worse than ever, knowing how alone you really were. True healing comes from somewhere inside of us, no matter how long they hold you in the dark. No matter how often they're there to catch you when you fall. You're still falling.
And Blair was still on her knees in a bathroom stall. Her finger was like burning iron down her throat as she wretched away the contents of her lunch, all that she still had control over in the wake of losing everything. She could hear the sounds echoing against the bathroom tiles, such an awful song that she thought she'd forgotten. It had only been paused. Her little problem had been afraid of Chuck's shadow and now it was dying for the spotlight.
When she was done, she wiped her lips on a tissue and reapplied her lipstick in the bathroom mirror. She felt for her bones like braille, tracing up her ribs and spine, breathing out after her release. It didn't feel good, but it felt right. She had a grasp on this and no one could take it away from her.
As she left the bathroom, she straightened her skirt and wiped the errant gloss from the side of her lips, oblivious to the fact that Chuck was watching her from down the hall. He wasn't an idiot. He knew that Blair was relapsing, that this was her vice in times of distress. When Blair wasn't doing well, she lashed out. When Blair really wasn't doing well, she clawed her way in.
He caught one more glance at her before she disappeared into Mrs. Reginald's office.
Chuck glanced down at the slip of paper in his hand. Though many things had gone back to the way they had been junior year, his guidance counselor assignment was not one of them. The room was a floor above where he had spilled his dark heart out to Mrs. Reginald so many times. Sitting behind a clean desk was a young man, couldn't have been older than thirty, a handsome jaw and generic smile on his face.
"Hello, Charles."
Chuck sank down into the chair, feeling number than ever. "It's Chuck."
"Chuck, yes." The man's British accent seemed forced, as did the non-prescription glasses on the bridge of his nose. "I'm Peter Lewis, and I'm here to make sure that we stay on track this year."
"The royal we," Chuck remarked. "Did you also nearly overdose last year? Sorry, Peter, if this all sounds a little too High School Musical for my taste."
Mr. Lewis clasped his hands together and smiled. "A sense of humor."
"I've been told it's wicked."
"Well, Chuck, as you know, your father and the school administration thought it best to have you and Miss Waldorf see different guidance counselors this year, lest we have some of the same occurrences as the year prior."
"Brilliant."
Mr. Lewis glanced down at his files. "You saw a psychiatrist with your father this summer, yes?"
Chuck glanced away. When he'd returned home from his summer with Blair, his father had been waiting for him on the helipad. He'd expected a yell, a hit, a disownment. But instead, he'd been whisked off into a session of white-suited professionals and prescriptions that had left him feeling nothing more than a gaping hole in his chest. Perhaps a part of him knew that this was the way Bart Bass ensured that the characters in his life continued to play their role. On so many pills and painkillers that Chuck was growing to rely on, a nameless and endless plethora, he wouldn't stir up a ruckus. He wouldn't call any more attention to himself. He wouldn't be able to do anything at all.
Even now, he felt himself sweating at the brow, sinking back into his seat, drowning. Hearing everything thirty seconds after it sounded.
This is a lot for the boy, Mister Bass.
About as much as I'm paying you.
This summer has shown us all that Chuck can't help who he is. So I will.
"How about this," Mr. Lewis said, "you keep showing up, I keep filling your prescription, and we keep your father happy. Agreed?"
Chuck narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
On his way out an hour later, he ran into Diana. She seemed embarrassed for a moment, but he thought nothing of it, feeling so empty of his wit that he couldn't even muster up a remark about her flustered stature. She shut the door upon entering Mr. Lewis's office, waited a solid beat, then threw herself into the guidance counselor's arms.
"Hi," she murmured. "I'm looking for some guidance."
Mr. Lewis smirked, removing his glasses and reaching over to shut the window blinds behind her. "You've come to the right place. Now, don't make a single sound."
But something did. Over her shoulder, as her dirty little secret kissed her neck, Mr. Lewis' cell phone buzzed, the initials "BB" lighting up on the phone screen. But before she could comment, his teeth found her skin, and Diana's eyes fluttered shut, surrendering to a fit of pleasure and forgetting about everything else.
Just downstairs, Blair recounted the details of her summer to an attentive Mrs. Reginald.
"Well, I'm very happy to see you, Blair," the counselor said, "but I'm very sorry to hear about Chuck. I was hoping that everything you had experienced last year would bring you and Charles closer together, not tear you apart."
Blair pursed her lips. "I was hoping so, too."
"But I'm confident that he's in good hands with Mister Lewis. This is the right thing for him."
"Mister Lewis?"
Mrs. Reginald nodded. "His new guidance counselor, which is about all that I can say. But let's talk about you, Blair. You have a big year ahead of you. You're back with your friends, thinking about extra-curriculars, beginning your Yale applications."
Blair let out a breath. "Yes…Yale." She cleared her throat. "My mother wants me to come back to Constance my final semester. She thinks I'd be an asset to her fashion internship, but I think she just wants to bribe me away from everything here. Save face and have her daughter around when it's convenient for her. A shining star."
"Let's talk about right now, Blair. We need to get through the first semester before your final one. I want to know about your health. Any…incidents since we last spoke?"
Blair forced a smile, the bile thick in her throat.
"Not at all."
:::
September 3rd, 2008: Paramore Fields
It was a midsummer's night dream with the perfect haze of autumn weather, blankets splayed across Paramore Fields, girls in their silk nightgowns, boys in their open shirts and slacks. Firebugs buzzed, the hum of chatter and glasses clinking filled the air, and a static-filled screen was projected across one of the brick walls on the east of the campus. To avoid the implications of another homecoming party, the academy had decided to host a film night instead, playing Casablanca on the wide screen as students lazed about on the grass with their friends, sneaking in sips of rosé with a buffet of snacks at every few square feet.
Blair wore a rose pink gown and her hair in a pretty up-do, pulling a blanket over her shoulders as the night got colder. The movie was set to start in ten minutes. Jenny had shown up in sweats and a cami, sitting as far on the edge of their blanket as possible. Damien sat at the other end, swigging something Blair was positive he'd found in Chuck's chest of surprises. Diana had her head on Ethan's lap as he stroked her hair back. Beside him, Eric sat at a safe distance, but their pinkies were interlocked where no one could see. Down at one of the grassy landings, the new guidance counselor made eye contact with Diana. She pretended not to notice.
Everything looked right.
Everything was so wrong.
Blair sighed and said hello to the stragglers who were just joining the gathering, pretending not to look around so obviously at the crowd.
And then, there he was.
Chuck wore silk pajamas, and only he could make them look like a GQ suit. Blair felt such fondness for him in that moment. Break-ups were awful. One moment, you hated the person for everything that they had ever done to you, for ever having mishandled your heart. The next, you were imagining every single time they had ever touched you, made you smile, made you feel whole. The pain of never having any of those things again.
Blair got up to say something to him, unable to contain herself, but another girl got to him quicker. Eva.
She was wearing a white nightgown that stopped just at her upper thighs. Her hair was in pin curls. Chuck smiled at her when he said hello.
The pain of imagining someone else having any of those things when they were once yours.
"Trouble in paradise?"
For a moment, Blair stiffened, pulse quickening when her view was blocked, and her memory fled to the times of Penelope and Georgina tormenting her life. And then she remembered that Penelope had been expelled for aiding Georgina in the kidnapping and Georgina was in a juvenile detention center far away from here.
It was William Kincaid, standing in front of her bearing a smile she wanted to slap off his face.
"Kincaid," Blair smirked, "is your life so boring that you had to make my business your own?"
"You read my paper."
"Your pathetic excuse for one," Blair remarked, "Yes. Though I must admit that I had some trouble staying awake."
William laughed. "You're really something, Blair. You've got to understand that the world of reporting is cut throat. What is it that they say? You're nobody until you're talked about?"
Blair narrowed her eyes. "Then you must be nobody. Now if you'll excuse me, the movie's just beginning." She started down the path she'd just seen Chuck depart down.
William called after her. "But your blanket is that way."
Blair didn't respond.
"Remember, Blair," William called again, his smile knowing. "Somebody's always watching."
"Creep," Blair hissed, crossing her arms over her chest as she ran after Chuck. She kept out of sight of the security guards patrolling, found herself out of breath when he finally rounded a corner of the school where the lights were out, an alcove giving way to a grassy patch of wild garden. The Eco Club's grounds. He knew it was her before he turned around.
"I see that you've found some other fool to obsess over you."
Blair scoffed, "The only fool here is the one you've made out of me."
"I thought we were done with these games."
"I thought they were all that we are."
Chuck sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Blair, this isn't going to work if you're constantly waiting for me to fuck up again. Do you trust me?"
Blair went quiet, raveling and unraveling the silk knot at her throat. "Do you trust me?"
"Blair—"
"Chuck—"
It felt like being naked; on this poker table of snide remarks, drawled last names, and sick ultimatums, they had dealt it all. And now they were both empty-handed.
"Believe me, Blair. I don't know what happened. But it happened to me. It wasn't anything I did to you."
Blair weakened as he came closer to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. He sounded so lost, like someone else was speaking for him, like he wasn't sure what was real.
He let out a ragged breath. "Believe me, Blair."
Somewhere on the other side of campus, the screen took them across the world to Casablanca. Blair reached up to cup his face and immediately, he leaned into her hand. He kissed her wrist, her inner arm, her collarbone, laid her back on the bench above a bed of roses, held onto her for dear life.
"I've missed you so much," Blair breathed. "Loving you, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me. The best thing."
I've missed you, I've missed you, I've missed you. She hummed it deep in her throat again and again as he rested his chin by her shoulder and silently asked her permission as he toyed with the edge of her panties, waiting for her nod before he slid his fingers inside of her. It seemed to last for hours, the cool night soaking her skin as she sank her nails into his shoulders, hips rising to every thrust of his fingers. He spread her legs wider, so deep inside of her that she felt infinite. This felt infinite.
But eventually, she landed.
She cried out into his neck, legs tightening around his arm, and they both moaned as she and the stars quieted down, only the film's music accompanying them in the background.
They snuck back into the fields together, joining their friends on the blanket, Blair's legs still shaking, Chuck's hands still trembling.
"No more secrets," he whispered against the nape of her neck, sinking his face into her hair. Behind her, he pulled a pill from his pocket and slid it onto his tongue.
Blair's hand grazed her stomach.
"No more secrets."
Author's Note: And we're back. If you've been keeping track of me on Tumblr, you'll know that I've recently vowed to finish this story, to keep Briar alive until the oldest of our delinquents graduate, and to see this love story through. Reviews are like presents, and I'd love to know if you are all still invested in this little world I've created.