Chapter Nineteen: A Rose and Its Thorn
All the fear and the fire of the end of the world
Happens each time a boy falls in love with a girl.
Happens grace, happens sweet. Happily, I'm unfazed here, too.
Wasteland, baby, I'm in love—
I'm in love with you.
All the things yet to come are the things that have passed.
Like the old enough hands, like the breaking of glass.
Wasteland, Baby! by Hozier
:::
September 4th, 2008: Main Street
A blonde and a brunette waltzed into a perfume shop. The afternoon was gorgeous and the blonde was sunshine, all long legs and whatever Aphrodite was made of. The brunette was rigid, but she was beautiful—the black swan. Poised, she walked ahead but was very aware that her counterpart's shadow fell in front. The brunette spritzed a bit of Viktor and Rolf on her wrist as they shopped, then did the same for the blonde. They were best friends, after all; they shared everything. Scents and clothes and parties and—the brunette eyed the blonde as her phone chimed for the millionth time that afternoon—tastes in men.
Stop me if you've heard this one before.
"It feels like I've been gone a decade," Willa Sheperd sighed, running her finger over a glass amber bottle before leaning over to sniff it, "not a year."
"Tell me about it," Cynthia Van Sant remarked, sounding more pointed than she'd intended. She idly scanned the room for Chanel, tying her brunette locks back to further prove that she was on a mission. "Anyway, what matters is that you're here now, just in time to help me pick a signature scent. It's our last year at Briar, and I want to be...remembered."
"Hm, okay," Willa smiled and swung an arm around her friend's shoulders, "as a rose garden," she pointed at the Coveted Duchess Rose by Penhaligon, "or a Golden Delicious?" She pointed at the DKNY.
Cynthia rolled her eyes. "Hilarious."
Willa smiled and picked out another delicate blue bottle with a giant spritzer. "As long as you make sure you wear whatever Penelope isn't."
Cynthia snorted, "God. And why would I care what Penelope Hayford is wearing?"
There was a slight pause as Willa seemed confused and Cynthia remembered that the last time her friend had walked the halls of Briar, they'd been traipsing in formation behind Penelope, the reigning queen of the campus. That was before Blair Waldorf, before the pool house, before the saints, before the sinners, before the kidnapping...before everything. Cynthia's lips curled into a smile of wicked delight at the chance to spill such ripe gossip, and an hour later, her friend was sitting slack-jawed across a cafe table as she regaled her with sins of the year past.
It was a story one knew well but had never quite heard before, somehow ancient and brand new. Of dark knights and ravenous young queens, fair maidens and the allure of a jester with just the right smile, of two princes shedding their old tales to write one of their own, of lavish balls and high spirits, of the gorgeous countess guarding her skin. It was a story of pillars and towers, of the deep woods and all of its teeth. It was of satin and sin, ruby lips, everything forbidden, and a love that spanned centuries and storybooks, cities and the miles beyond them. Cynthia set their scene in a blur on the map of New York state, upwards over the mountains where a lush cavern of forest greens and fresh air gave way to The Briar House. A queen arrived at a foreign kingdom, exiled from her own. But in devastation, there was also opportunity. In what was lost, there was only room to gain. Eager to mark her territory, our queen soon realized that a crooked king had already staked his claim. They engaged in emotional warfare, from hate to lust, from lust to hate, from hate to love. To all of it, all at once—dragging the rest of the kingdom into the fire with them.
Cynthia gave a perfunctory purse of her glossed lips. "And that's what you missed."
Willa's jaw was nearly on the ground. "Let me get this straight. You're saying that after having a total breakdown at my uncle's wedding, Blair Waldorf got shipped off to Briar just when my mother got the horrid idea to become a West Coaster?" Cynthia nodded. "And then Chuck Bass, the Chuck Bass, Chuck—4am wake-up call lest this is anything but a booty call—Bass just fell in love with her?" Cynthia nodded again. "Ethan ends up in a coma, some stalker goes Gossip Girl: Suburbia, Harrison is a rapist and attacks Blair after getting publicly humiliated, just before she gets kidnapped by the aforementioned stalker but gets rescued just in time to play prom queen with Chuck." Cynthia mimicked a bobblehead. "And while...all this is happening, some theater nerd joins their posse and bags Damien Dalgaard despite Diana looking like Diana, even though Diana's now dating that total hottie Ethan, even though everyone knows Ethan is gay and still in love with Serena van der Woodsen's little brother Eric—and they all teamed up to get Penelope expelled—thank god—for her involvement in said kidnapping." Willa genuinely seemed shell-shocked. "And now they're back at it again for a final year?"
"Mhm," Cynthia confirmed, still having a hard time believing it all herself.
"In—fucking—sane," Willa scoffed, "sounds like the plot of one of those god awful fanfictions. What are we, in an alternate universe?"
Cynthia chortled, "Perhaps. It would explain why I'm entering my senior year, a total catch, and still don't have a boyfriend." She adjusted the thin band on her head, clearly inspired by a certain someone's arrival. "As for Chuck and Blair, is it sick that I'm actually excited about what havoc they'll wreak this year?"
"No...I'm curious, too," Willa mused, admittedly excited about Briar's new social hierarchy and all the fun—and drama—it might bring. "I don't know about you, but I love a good comeback."
:::
September 10th, 2008: The Briar Dining Hall
"What the hell is that?"
Blair was annoyed, to say the least. Across the dining hall table littered with yogurt containers, lipstick-kissed napkins, half-empty mugs of coffee, and other remnants of their first real lunch all together at the start of senior year, her supposed friends were gathered around a tablet illuminated with her favorite picture of her and Chuck. It had been taken some time in February, after they had consummated their then non-relationship but before the whole Diana and Nate debacle had been revealed. That was back when things were so complicated that they almost seemed simple—a few blissful weeks of Chuck and Blair hooking up in her room, his room, and more than a few illicit spots on campus. Blair's cheeks went a bit pink thinking of a certain tryst in one of the alcoves shadowed by the main hall, near where they'd had their first real kiss at Briar.
Of course—Blair glanced up at one of the burly new campus guards biting into an apple while questioning a freshman on her way outside—that was before everything was put on lockdown.
In the photo, Chuck wore a long, handsome coat, his signature scarf, and that signature smirk, an arm wrapped around Blair's wool cape-clad shoulders as she used the scarf to rein him in, beaming. At first, Blair had been mortified by the blatant evidence of her utter adoration for Chuck Bass. Unaware of Diana and Jenny sneaking the snapshot, she'd been biting her lip at him, eyes glowing like a little girl's on Christmas. Delete that—like, yesterday, she remembered ordering as the two traitors had clearly pretended to do so.
Now, after all they'd been through, Blair was grateful for the sweet relic. But not when it was being used as—
"A relationship tracker!" Diana explained to the group. "When the dot beside it is green, they're together. When they're broken-up, it's red. And when it's yellow..."
"They're just Chuck and Blair?" Eric piped in, avoiding Blair's glare as he popped a piece of muffin into his mouth.
"Exactly," Diana replied. Damien snorted.
Blair reached across the table and snatched the tablet from Diana's hand, furious. She waved it at Chuck, who had just strolled over with his tie just slightly loosened and hair wickedly mussed, a tray of sweets in one hand and a skinny vanilla latte for Blair in the other. She traded him the tablet for the coffee, looking at him pointedly for backup, but Chuck only glanced at the photo for a moment before sliding it back onto the table, chuckling under his breath.
"Waldorf," Chuck sighed, taking the seat beside her and lifting his hand to lazily adjust a curl caught in her headband before dropping his thumb to smooth her frown lines, "you always longed for a more innovative and attentive set of friends." They both thought back to Nate and Serena's constant competition for Most Oblivious and Blair's minions, who could never quite be trusted to carryout a scheme without supervision. "These are the breaks." He golf clapped at their friends. "Congratulations, delinquents, you're not as banal as I once suspected."
Jenny frowned. "Um...thanks, Chuck."
With two fingers, he saluted her.
"It even sends us all texts whenever the color changes," Ethan said, stealing the tablet back to peruse the private site.
Blair fumed, used two manicured fingers to massage her own temples. "I hate you all."
Diana stood to hug her friend's shoulders from across the table. "It's about self-preservation, B. We love you both..." she eyed Chuck, who was patting his blazer for his flask "...mostly. And we'll gladly weather the storm of your epic love...but it would be nice to have an umbrella when it hits."
"How poetic," Blair rolled her eyes and sniffed. "One Romantic Lit class, and suddenly you're Lord Byron."
Diana smiled and kissed Blair's cheek.
As Blair affectionately—and immediately—wiped it away, she stared down at the dot beside their picture.
It was green.
Since their reunion on movie night—Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman oblivious chaperones to their NC-17 make-out session in the gardens, then to Blair dozing off on Chuck's shoulder when they rejoined their friends on the blanket—they had been back together. They had put the events of the summer and even the year prior—bruises, heartbreak, bloodshed, and all—behind them. Or, it seemed that way.
She glanced up at Chuck and, seeming to understand something that even she didn't know she was communicating, he set his hand on her knee, skating his fingertips across the line of skin between her skirt and knee-high.
Light banter, quick kisses, and snarky remarks exchanged ever so often was still them, Blair supposed. But something was off; something was missing.
As if to prove her point, Chuck's hand fell from Blair's knee as he made some snide remark about Eric's new hair color—a much darker blond—and whether it had anything to do with Ethan's new affinity for brunettes.
Eric scowled.
For the past week, Chuck and Blair had walked the halls of Briar as an official couple. They held hands, lingered for each other after class, teased one another while picking out lunch items, bickered over Euripides' Hecuba and her fallen city. But that was whenever they had a scarce moment alone, for the rest of their time was spent with Blair obsessing over regaining control of her queendom, loosely making amends with Jenny, admonishing Diana for her frazzled appearance every time she surfaced from the main hall, and feigning strep throat to dodge calls from Eleanor, now intent on having Blair return to Manhattan for her senior year.
And Chuck? She stared at the haunted look that had become a permanent fixture on his face since Tuscany. Blair considered herself fortunate if he allowed her more than a ten-minute window into his private life.
"It looks bigger, doesn't it?" Ethan said suddenly, snapping Blair out of deep thought.
Blair frowned, dragging her gaze from Chuck. "Hm?"
"Without Penelope's head taking up half the room," Ethan snorted, earning a chuckle from the table.
Blair smiled a bit.
"And a new queen," Damien added, winking at Blair.
She raised a brow at him. "I was always queen, Dalgaard. You should know better."
But as he threw his hands up to claim innocence, Blair wasn't so sure. Although the gang was back together—Blair glanced at Jenny's sullen face, the dreadful black hoodie over her uniform, and Diana and Ethan's clasped hands atop the linoleum beside Eric's untouched muffin—albeit in less than tiptop shape, the rest of the school was in blatant disarray. And what was a court estranged from its kingdom?
Blair surveyed the cafeteria, strange cliques forming and chatter dismal. The upperclassmen seemed depressed to be in lockdown (students were not to go outside for any reason other than gym classes, sports practices, chaperoned field hours, and underclassmen were using it as an excuse to go totally stir-fry, performing immature antics to get each other's attention, more circus than empire. Although it all still seemed to orbit around the delinquents, it was obvious that it was less out of respect and more out of disdain.
The thought made her stomach hurt, and she itched to get up and retreat to the restroom, sounding the sink to mask her next purge.
No, not now.
Not while everyone hung on her next move.
The truth was clear: if Blair Waldorf had never been exiled from the Upper East Side, they would all be lounging on plaid Burberry blankets on the outskirts of campus, getting kissed for the first, second, and third times by their new autumn crushes, sneaking sweet rosé in glasses of lemonade and onto each other's tongues. The Victors and Victrolas would still be active, planning some—
Blair gasped, standing from her seat.
"That's it," she proclaimed to her friends, "The Victors and Victrolas."
Eric frowned. "Things that got us in deep shit for 600."
Blair shot him a look. He'd been so moody since the conception of Ethan and Diana's fake little relationship.
"Look around you, stooges." Blair waved her arm like Vanna White. "Our kingdom is compromised. For some of us, this is the last year we have to reclaim our names at this sordid institution and restore the social order."
Chuck watched her for a moment, tracing the spot where her thigh met her hemline. "What are you proposing?"
Blair smiled. "A secret society."
Eric sighed. Diana shook her shoulders in delight.
"Not the Victors and Victrolas, not exactly. Something more exclusive…and elusive. Something purposeful and worthy of brick and ivy legend. The Victors and Victrolas were too flashy, too known, too much like a bacchanal, just for the sake of. I propose we draw up a list of deeds to be done before senior year. This will be Briar's best-kept secret, and those who are fortunate enough to be a part of it will have the release and esteem that the student body is so desperately craving. And those outside of it will be too fixated on getting in to think about anything else."
Damien seemed intrigued, "Deeds?"
"A scavenger hunt of trysts, meetings, and missions. A legacy that we would leave behind for every student body after us," Blair mused.
Eric cleared his throat. "I don't know, Blair. Shouldn't we just…lay low?"
A patrolling guard passed their table, tossing a ripe red apple between his hands.
"Laying low," Blair hissed, "is for the exiled and anonymous. And we are anything but."
Jenny bit her lip, then licked her own wound. "I think it's a great idea."
Damien glanced at her nervously, and Blair caught the look as quickly as it went. Without their own voids to fill, the two little blondes usually rebutted the rest of the group's want for scandal. Something in Jenny's excitement was tinged with danger, the voice of someone revving an engine with a cliff's edge in sight.
"I concur with Little J," Chuck inserted, his finger skirting higher up Blair's thigh and below her skirt. She shut her eyes. "If we're notorious for bringing the excitement, who are we to let the masses down?"
A few days prior, Blair had said something similar to him. Chuck had arranged a dinner for them in the dining hall late at night, paying off some underclassmen to keep the doors unlocked following a Campus Cuisine Club meeting and set candles atop a clothed long table, all of Blair's favorite treats arranged in the shape of a rose.
(This part of it had not been Chuck's idea, but a nice touch from a romantic sophomore regardless.)
"So, this is who we are now," Blair had remarked as Chuck unceremoniously dropped his blazer onto her shoulders and slid her fingers into his. They had left the remnants of their feast behind for a befuddled morning kitchen staff and were slipping through the shadowy halls back to Dexter. "Chuck and Blair hold hands, Chuck and Blair go to the movies…"
Chuck smirked. "It would seem so." He paused then. "Would you prefer—"
"No," Blair interrupted, "no, I'm content."
"Content."
"It's just not very like us, is it?" Blair peeked at Chuck. "No warfare, no bloodshed, no mass manipulation. I suppose I don't know who we are without it."
Chuck's jaw twitched, but he said nothing as they ascended the steps towards her dorm room.
"What I mean to say is thank you," Blair had murmured, fiddling with her clutch. They came to her door, and he spun her out of his blazer and up against the wall beside her entrance. She gave a demure smile. "Tonight was perfect."
"As I've always said," Chuck drawled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. The tension of before slipped from his features. "Anything for you, Waldorf."
Blair frowned as he winked at her before making his way back towards the staircase. "You're not even going to try to come inside?"
Chuck raised his eyebrows, pausing before the steps. "No."
"But you're Chuck Bass," Blair said, incredulous.
"I'm not following."
Blair narrowed her eyes. "Is this some sort of reverse psychology?"
Chuck laughed. "Why? Is it working?"
Blair paused before going to him, eyes meeting his beautiful hazel ones. She tugged him by his collar, pulling him flush against her, leaving him breathless for once. Her lips hovered near his, so close that he could feel her steady breath fan out over his chin. Since their encounter in gardens on movie night, Chuck had barely touched her. The occasional hand on the thigh and lips on the curve of her jaw sending her heart racing, but she wanted more.
"Yes." Blair was desperate for more.
Chuck caught her chin between two of his fingers and held her away at a safe distance. "I want you, Blair. You know exactly how much." He paused, a storm passing through his eyes before clearing. "But what happened in Tuscany made me realize that putting a label on what we are doesn't fix what tore us apart last year. Let's take it slow this time, do it right."
Blair was incredulous. "If you're not careful, someone might mistake you for a gentleman."
Chuck laughed and passed his thumb over her bottom lip. "You know how fond I am of a masquerade."
Now, true to his word, Chuck dropped his hand from its grip under her skirt, and Blair sank into her chair, miserable. The group seemed reinvigorated by talk of the new secret society, throwing ideas around the table for rules, admission, and their inaugural stunt, then swatting them down like flies.
"Something themed? Halloween? Masks?"
Diana sighed. "A little 2007, no?"
"Maybe a full moon ritual," Ethan tried, regurgitating something he'd seen on Charmed.
"Jesus, Merrick. This isn't The fucking Covenant," Damien replied, "though I have been told that I bear a striking resemblance to Chace Crawford."
Diana snorted.
Blair sighed, pretending to pay attention. She had everything she wanted, but peering closely, the details were wrong. Nothing looked like it was supposed to.
She eyed a doe-eyed, passing freshman, but the girl didn't even break pace.
Under the table, she found Chuck's knee, and he politely toyed with her fingers before letting her go.
She huffed as the next period started, and the crew rose from their seats without coming to a consensus.
"Coming, B?" Diana called, tossing a half-eaten sandwich into the garbage.
"In a minute," Blair said, reaching up to fix her errant curls as if to feel for a slipping crown.
:::
September 12th, 2008: The Abbot Entertainment Center
Damien cursed as the air hockey puck dove straight for his goal, kissing him on the wrist before sealing the game's fate. The tabletop went stagnant and his striker halted its hovering next to Diana's.
He rolled his eyes as she blew him a kiss and stretched across the table—rather performatively, if you asked him—uniform skirt catching on the table's edge, gorgeous black locks fanning out around her face, legs dangling just above the floor.
Damien laughed to himself as he collected the puck. The Abbot Entertainment Center consisted of an air hockey table, pool table, seven arcade games, and the new Wii, all an attempt to make Briar feel "less like prison and more like home," student services had gleefully announced. Damien wouldn't lie; the new digs weren't a bad way to spend the time suffering.
But he still preferred a joint on the fields over losing to Diana for the fifth time in a row.
Diana laughed as she readied herself like a linebacker in lust, prepared for her sixth win. As she tossed her hair over her shoulder, Damien noticed purple blossoming on the skin of her neck, almost in the shape of a wilted flower.
He raised a brow.
"Don't you think you're taking this little tryst with Ethan a little too seriously?" He reached over to tap on the hickey, and Diana winced. "I think people believe you."
Diana dropped her striker and pulled away from him as if she'd just been burned, searching for the compact tucked into what looked like a garter belt.
"Jesus Christ," she murmured to herself, patting the spot with powder. The bruise still loomed beneath her false skin tone, a storm brewing in the distance. "I told him to…" She paused.
Damien narrowed his eyes. "That is from Ethan, right? Or is there a waiting list for who you're fake-fucking?"
Diana glanced at the ground.
Damien strolled to her side of the table, sitting up on its ledge beside her. "Or…actually fu—"
"Shut up, Damien."
Damien laughed. "Holy shit, Di. I knew that you wouldn't go off the market publicly without something in it for you."
Diana rolled her eyes and slipped the compact back into its place against her thigh.
"False. I would have gladly done it. Ethan is my good friend," Diana remarked, "I know that the concept is foreign to you."
Damien crossed his arms over his chest. "Spill."
His best friend seemed to be at war with herself for a moment before she quietly whispered the name, glancing around for eavesdroppers.
"Peter Lewis."
Damien frowned. "Never heard of him. Don't tell me you've widened your pool to underclassmen." He paused and smiled fondly but sans any lechery. "Besides me last year."
Diana swallowed, toying with the ends of her hair that were tickling her waist.
"You would know him as…Mister Lewis."
It took a moment for Damien to process what Diana was telling him. He recollected the image of the geeky new guidance counselor with the over-the-top British accent and insincere smile. Back at the dorms, he and Chuck had had a beer over new beginnings the other night, and the boy had mentioned his disdain for the new authority figure in his life but not much else.
"You're fucking kidding me," Damien replied, pushing off the tabletop. Some freshman seemed hopeful that they were done with their turn at air hockey, but Damien cut him a glare and mouthed ocupado. "What is it with our crew? Why does everything have to be a goddamn Lifetime movie all year long? On tonight: Hot for Teacher."
Diana rolled her eyes, red lips pursing against her finger as she urged him to be quiet.
"One, could you lower your voice? And two, he's not a teacher, Damien."
Damien scoffed. "Sorry, Hot for Guidance Counselor wasn't as catchy."
"Hey, could you ease up?"
Diana, usually confident and unapologetic in her endeavors, seemed embarrassed for once. Her cheeks went pink, and he saw her for what the rest of the world never did: a young girl dressed in all of her mistakes. Damien felt bad immediately and embarrassed himself. Though most of his concern came from his protectiveness and brash nature, he knew that a tinge of leftover jealousy still lived deep in his chest. He loved Jenny, and his feelings for Diana were purely platonic at this point, but those evenings spent lost and adoring in the brunette didn't just go away.
"Hey, look, I'm sorry," Damien admitted, softening his tone. "It's just…with everything that happened with Harrison this year," they shared a pained look, "it doesn't thrill me to see you with some predatory dude with a bad accent."
Diana sighed. "He's not that much older than us. And you're just jealous because no one believed you were Australian when you put on that horrible accent freshman year."
Damien smirked. "Maybe so."
"I met him during the summer. I stopped by campus to pick up some transcripts, and I ended up staying much longer…than I thought. Blair and Chuck were practically on their honeymoon, Jenny was MIA, and you might as well have been…moping about her." Diana raised a brow, and Damien frowned. "Ethan was tending to his actual relationship with Ethan. And Peter was there. At first it was just…college application advice. And then he wanted to know more about me, everything that happened last year, all of the shit that went down between me and Nate, who I was also desperate to stop thinking about for one fucking second."
"And you don't think it's weird that some dude in his mid-twenties was so invested in our after school special?"
Diana shook her head and stretched out over the table again. They were alone in the game room now, save for an entranced gamer nearly breaking the joystick off of Pac-Man.
"It's me he's invested in. He listens. He asks questions. He sees me as more than just another score. It's an adult relationship."
Damien massaged his temples. "An adult relationship with a teenage girl. Right."
"Jesus," Diana groaned, "since when are you my moral compass? I haven't forgotten all the housewives you played pool boy for all those summers in Connecticut. Whatever happened to 'no judgement'?"
Damien sighed, laying down beside her. The light pushes of air emanating from the air hockey table made it feel like they were floating—the closest thing they could get to a high these days.
"I'm not judging you, Diana. I'm just worried about you; it's my job. I'm sorry for being a dick about it." He nudged her side softly. "I just don't want you to end up on the photo line-up of some creep's slew of victims on the nightly news. But…if you trust this dude, I trust you. I know firsthand what it's like to be under the spell of Diana St. Jean. Hard to resist."
Diana peered at him, finally offering a small smile through the veil of her hair.
"It's okay. And maybe…" she murmured, "it's not just me you're worried about."
Damien sighed. "Have you spoken to her?"
Diana sat up on one elbow. "Haven't you?"
Damien thought of the column of texts he'd sent to Jenny, unanswered, the instant messages marked as read but never entertained. Whenever he did see his girlfriend, or what used to be his girlfriend, it was all a blur of blonde and shadows. She was always wired, always late to class, always turning her attention to some mystery caller on her cell.
She was always guarding her purse like it was her prized possession. Like her lifeline lived inside of it.
Damien wasn't stupid. At the young age of seventeen, he'd already been hooked on everything there was to hook onto. He knew the language of rainbow pills, blocked phone numbers, and being seen but not noticed all too well. But he couldn't say it out load. Not to anyone, and especially not to himself. Because if he admitted that Jenny had a problem, he was also admitting that it began and ended with him.
"We're going to figure this out," Diana said, interrupting his train of thought. She reached up to smooth out the lines of his forehead and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. "This isn't going to be like last year. We've been through too much. We all love each other too much."
Yeah, Damien thought for a moment, maybe that was the problem.
"Not this again. Nothing's worse than a bad rerun."
Damien and Diana both glanced up to find Chuck strolling in at his signature cool pace, eyeing them both with casual interest.
Diana rolled her eyes but still dropped her fingers from Damien's face as if she'd been caught red-handed at the cookie jar. Chuck had a way of making everyone feel like they were up to no good, even when he was just making his usual bored remarks.
"Perfect timing, Chuck," Diana exclaimed, leaping from the table and waving her fingers at both boys, "I'm late for class. Which, you know, some of us actually go to now."
Chuck grinned at her, now somewhat fond of Blair's righthand. "What a concept."
Diana rolled her eyes, blew a kiss, and then she was gone.
Damien sat up and nodded at Chuck. "Just who I wanted to see. Things were getting a little too sentimental in here."
Chuck smirked, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I had something much better in mind." When he raised his hand, that familiar orange prescription bottle was in it, pills bouncing off the inner walls of the tube like a rattle.
Damien paused. "What is it?"
Chuck glanced at the bottle before dropping four pills into his palm. "Old friends." When Damien seemed reluctant, Chuck continued, "Look, Dalgaard, it was prescribed on campus. Consider it homework."
For a moment, Damien thought of pushing the pills away, walking them both to class, asking Chuck if he was okay, really okay. Their days of this had always been fun, but not when Chuck had that violent look in his eyes, such a havoc that it was nearly vacant. He'd ask him how things were going with Blair, he'd echo Diana, reassure him that they would get through whatever the hell this all was, that they just had to stick together. He might even realize that something sinister was lurking within the connection between Mr. Lewis's counseling over Chuck and sudden interest in Diana. That those pills in his hand were more weapon that medicine. That as they spoke, something was leaving Chuck and something worse was growing in its wake. Maybe he'd even tell him about how stressed he was over Jenny, and Chuck would tell him what to say to her, how to save all this.
Chuck sighed now, impatient.
Who was he fucking kidding?
Damien took the pills and raised them to his lips. "To old friends."
A shadow crossed over Chuck's features as he did the same. "To old friends."
:::
September 12th, 2008: Wentworth Dormitories
"You feel so good."
Eric moaned as Ethan's teeth scraped the skin of his neck, as his fingers worked through the knot of his uniform tie. The best part of being boys in love at a conservative boarding school during its lockdown was that being sentenced to their dorms during free hours was a prize in disguise.
Eric reached for Ethan's waistband, shy but purposeful in his motions, and Ethan exhaled, mumbling something under his breath.
Eric halted his advances, frowning. "Did you just say Diana's name?"
Ethan chuckled, pulling away just slightly. "What?"
"I heard you."
Ethan shook his head. "I said, the door." He stood up, his hair falling messily over his forehead, dress shirt half-unbuttoned and falling off his shoulder. He nodded at the door, still slightly ajar from when they'd tumbled in earlier, hands all over each other. "It's still open."
Eric let out a breath, frowning at the ground, trying to catch his breath.
"Why would you think that, Eric?"
Eric whispered, "I don't know. That is your girlfriend's name."
"Are you being serious?"
"Are you attracted to her?"
Ethan looked incredulous. "Okay, now I know that you can't be serious."
Eric scratched his head, hiding behind his bangs. "It isn't out of the question. You were with plenty of girls before you were with me."
Ethan crouched before Eric, setting his hands on his boyfriend's shoulders, gently massaging the tension there. "Yeah, and I also tell my mom that I lead the table in group prayer before every meal in the dining hall. I'm not…proud of it, but I do a lot of things for show. Including 'dating' Diana." He kneaded into the crevice between Eric's shoulder and neck, and the boy sighed. "So that I can be here. With you."
Eric said nothing.
"Eric, I'm not going to say that I've never…found a girl attractive. Diana's gorgeous."
Eric winced.
"And she's like my sister." Ethan paused, contemplating that for a moment. They both thought of Georgina, that empty house, Blair's limp body. "Well, maybe not my sister."
"So, you two haven't…"
Ethan scowled. "On the rare occasion that we barely kiss, all I can think about is everything I'd rather be doing with you."
Eric pressed his forehead to Ethan's shoulder and whispered, "I'm sorry, okay? This is all so freaking hard."
Ethan pulled him closer. "You know what isn't so freaking hard?"
"Please don't make a dirty joke right now."
Ethan laughed, jostling Eric until they were both splayed out on his bed again. "Loving you, you little dweeb. Easiest thing I've ever done. When everything else feels impossible, I remember exactly why it's worth it."
"Yeah?"
Ethan gave him that million-dollar smile, and Eric remembered exactly the relief he had when they'd first admitted how they felt about each other, what felt like decades ago now. Things like this couldn't possibly happen for boys like him. The nerd scoring the star athlete was what John Hughes movies were made of, but Andrew Clark and Brian Johnson didn't exactly share a kiss before the credits.
And yet, here they were.
"Now, let me close the D-O-O-R," Ethan spelled out, goofy again, and Eric suddenly felt silly about his worries, "and prove that you're my one and only."
As the door shut and laughter faded to moaning again, a third boy stood on the other side of it, cataloguing the scene into his mental field notes.
William Kincaid had more than a knack for spying—to him, it was an art form. It was what made him a genius, if he did say so himself. And it was what would make him a renowned journalist.
When he was sure that he couldn't hear any conversation, just disgustingly soft whimpers and playful murmurings, William strolled back to his room across the hall. He neatly hung his uniform jacket on the back of his door, pulling the pen from his breast pocket and aligning it with the four others on his desk. Before stepping away, he straightened it once more. Beside the line of pens was a playing card tower, neatly stacked and spitting a mosaic of sunlight onto the wall beside it. Carefully, he added the eight of spades to one of its spires.
Hm.
A small distraction from his hatred for the delinquents of his school, a sanctuary for serious students like him before they conquered its peace with their heathenism. People like them struck a rage in the usual primness of William's demeanor, especially Chuck and Blair.
The Kincaids were just as esteemed as the Waldorfs in high society and certainly more reputable than the booming Bass empire. To be social recluse due to the financial gap in their circle was a given. But to have everything they had and still not be good enough stung more.
William had always wanted to be a journalist, kneeling at the throne of truth, but his mother was disappointed, told him that they were the sort of people to be on the front page, not write it. Even Blair, with so much pent-up ambition, had nothing she truly aspired to other than the hunt of the aspiration itself. It didn't matter how much he knew, how well he wrote, how established he was in his dream profession.
It was better to empty and gleaming than full of gold inside.
In a fit, he knocked down the set of playing cards, and they flew across his desk, scattering over the draft of his next piece for The Briar Thorn. It was still filled with bullet points.
Relais Borgo Santo Pietro.
Bass: Oxy? Hydrocodone?
Diana and Lewis. Investigate further.
Blair eating disorder. Proof?
Georgina Sparks. The Nassau County Juvenile Detention Center. Visiting Hours…
William crouched to pick up the ace of spades, which had fallen by his waste basket and smiled, calm again.
Sometimes everything needed to be taken a part to get a look at the full picture.
:::
September 12th, 2008: The Iris Imogen Conservatory
The gorgeous notes of Gymnopédie No. 1 floated through the air of the Iris Imogen Conservatory as Chuck's fingers flew across ivory. It was Saturday, and Blair was wearing an emerald green dress with lace trim that fell over her legs and Chuck's as she sat in his lap, and he played for her. The music room this early in the morning was rarely occupied, especially with the help of the sheet music stand they'd lodged up against its doorknobs. She'd always known that Chuck enjoyed the piano, but the way he'd taken it back up upon their return was near hypnosis. He'd disappear there for hours and at odd hours. The songs he played were slow, dark, and dreamy, just like the boy himself. But it was the first time he'd invited Blair to join him. Perhaps he'd grown tired of her pretending to coincidentally stumble in.
She kissed his jaw, and his index finger slipped from a key.
"Now you know why I don't allow distractions."
Blair smiled. "I'm not used to you being so enraptured by anything other than the female anatomy."
Chuck halted his playing and drew his fingers from her chin to her collarbone, then down to the bodice of her dress. "Waldorf, are you suggesting that I play you instead?"
"Yes," Blair affirmed, releasing a breath as he continued south, "and while you're at it, use that dastardly brain of yours to help me come up with a plan to salvage our thrones at Briar."
Chuck smirked. "Blair, you know that I am the first advocate for your queendom, but perhaps your eagerness to reclaim your throne is the very thing challenging it.
Blair blinked back at him, suddenly tense. "What are you trying to say?"
"That you've never needed to try so hard to capture the allegiance of the masses," Chuck replied, smoothing his hand down her back to appease her. "Look at how you even have the devil kneeling at your feet."
Feeling slightly better, Blair pressed into him again. She felt something hard push back at her between their chests and frowned, but when she reached to investigate the item in his pocket, he caught her wrist.
"But leave it to me," Chuck insisted, dropping her wrist back in her lap. His pupils went alarmingly wide. The familiar song of alarm bells rang in Blair's ears, vision going scarlet with red flags. He stood her up, and his body was heavy against hers, insistent, as he led her to one of the room's stone pillars adorned with the names of famed Briar alumni who had gone on to become prodigal musicians. "If it's a reclaimed kingdom you want, it's a reclaimed kingdom you'll get. I have it under control."
What he spoke seemed to be a language for something else.
"Do you?"
Chuck cut her a look. "Do you?"
There it was again, all those secrets manifesting into a living, breathing, but invisible person standing between them. But rather than accept his challenge, Blair sank into him, riding their tension like the sparks coming from the embers of last night's fire. All promises of taking things slowly forgotten, he pulled her bottom lip between his teeth and yanked at the strap of her pretty dress, using his other hand to ball the bottom of it in his fist. Blair gasped as they fell backwards against the pillar, and there was a sharp crack as the bottom of it weakened. They both looked down at where a loosened board masqueraded as stone.
Chuck looked at Blair, but she was already kneeling to the ground, pulling it away to reveal the leather-bound notebook inside.
Blair set the book down on one of the music stands, and Chuck joined her with interest, setting the strap of her dress back into place as they opened it to the first page.
In neat cursive, the header read: The Seven Heavenly Sins.
Blair bit her bottom lip, and Chuck cupped his own chin as if he stood before a delicious feast.
"Well look at that, Waldorf," Chuck murmured, "I suppose that you do."
Blair smiled. She felt oddly possessed.
The sudden discovery consumed every thought she had—of failure, of hunger, of the mystery object in Chuck's pocket. Even those that ran deeper: Tuscany and Manhattan and the Merrick house.
Faintly, Mrs. Reginald's voice called to her from where it lived, too.
"Are you healed, Blair? Or just distracted?"
:::
September 16th, 2008: The Briar Theatre
A mousy little blonde girl sat at a sewing machine, drowning in beautiful fabrics in the costume room of Briar's theater department.
Don't stop me, for you haven't heard this one before.
The girl was not Jenny Humphrey.
For Jenny was the one standing at the room's entrance, rage coiling in her chest as an imposter threaded and wove her dreams.
"Sorry, who are you?"
The other girl looked up, startled.
"Oh my gosh, hi, sorry, um…are you Jenny?"
It was like a looking glass into a former life, her youth fleeing the cage of her own tormented bones and sitting before her, taunting her. She had once been this girl, nervous and fresh-faced and consumed with her hobbies. Her own reflection now seemed like the fake one, barely recognizable behind the dark circles, the sickly skin, the black pupils eating away at her baby blues. She wasn't sure how to answer the girl's question. Was she?
"Professor Thoreau, um, asked me to tell you to go see her if ever decided to, er, grace us with your presence." The girl went frazzled again. "Not that…I mean, I'm just quoting what she said."
Jenny narrowed her eyes and pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail. One jet black streak shot through the blonde.
"Got it."
Professor Thoreau's office door was open when Jenny arrived. True to form, the woman's outfit resembled something Shakespearean. Pencils intersected to hold her hair in place atop her head. Annoyed, Jenny knocked on the doorframe and entered with little fanfare.
"Miss Humphrey, you've decided to grace us with your presence. What a sight you are for sore eyes."
Jenny rolled her eyes. "You might want to rehearse your lines, Mrs. Thoreau, they're getting a little stale."
"You will not disrespect me, Miss Humphrey, not in my own office."
Jenny bit her tongue. "What's disrespectful is seeing someone else at my sewing machine. In the costume department I worked on all year last year."
"And I appreciate that, Miss Humphrey. I'm sure everyone in the theater department does. But you gave up your claim over that sewing machine when you stopped showing up to it. Frankly, I would be worried less about making a new dress and more about even passing your design course. You blew off the intensive workshop required of all design students this summer. And now I've convened with all of your teachers, and it seems that you've been using each of us to get out of class with the others."
"Look, I've been going through some things," Jenny whispered. She itched to pull the white baggie from her purse and escape into the restroom.
"Okay," Mrs. Thoreau rebutted, "then perhaps I should call your father, and we can work together to get you the help you need."
"No," Jenny exclaimed, "don't…call my dad. I'll make up the grades. The semester just started. And you know I'm good enough to pass without having gone to some stupid summer workshop—"
"Yes," Mrs. Thoreau, "I do know. That's what's so sad about it. You're on academic probation for the remainder of the semester, Jenny. That means that you'll submit a 3,000-word narrative to me about a powerful event or act of nature that altered the course of your personal history. Perhaps whatever it is that you seem to be going through right now. I will still have to contact your father to alert him of your status here at Briar, and if you continue on this path, even that will cease to exist."
Furious, Jenny shoved away from the table and out of her chair.
"Oh, and Jenny?"
She paused, back turned to the professor.
"The costume department and your sewing machine privileges will be off-limits until you raise your grades and start attending class."
In the hallway, Jenny burst into tears. A cacophony of voices surrounded her, telling her that she wasn't herself, asking of what she had become. Worse, her own voice, somewhere deep inside of her, begging to be found again, needing to be saved from the very person she was now. It was unfair. She'd been on the same racecourse everyone else had been on, but like a cruel joke, they were in on the finish line, and she'd gone sprinting ahead of it. Now she didn't know when to stop. Or if she could.
"J?"
Past the blur of tears, she saw a concerned Eric standing before her.
Immediately, she slapped away the tears on her cheeks, drawing black lines down her skin from the dripping mascara.
"Sorry, Eric, I'm late for class."
Eric crossed his arms. "How can you be late for a class you don't even go to anymore?"
"What are you, my dad?"
"No," Eric said, "I'm your friend. Your best friend, actually. I've been trying to give you some space to work things out on your own, but enough is enough. Something is seriously wrong with you, Jenny."
"Yeah," Jenny scoffed, "so they tell me."
Eric took her elbow and pulled her away from the stream of students in between classes.
"What happened this summer? Why won't you talk to me?"
Immediately, the memories flooded in. She'd been a wreck when she returned to Manhattan at the end of the school year. Meeting up with her friends at the beach house midsummer was a faraway light, but she was too shrouded in darkness to even have had hope for it. Her father and Dan didn't understand what she had gone through the year prior, so they could only judge her for it. They didn't want to hear about how she had been the side character suffering every consequence made for a protagonist, how she lived in constant fear of shadowy figures and secrets revealed, how she had lost her virginity to Damien in the wrong way and at the wrong time, how he was perfect and she loved him but she'd always imagined her first time as an escape into a dream and not a way to hide from a nightmare, how she couldn't even look at him now, couldn't even look at herself. How it had all started with some Adderall from a senior for which she'd exchanged an A+ essay.
How she'd met up with her old friend Agnes from the city in Central Park on one lazy afternoon, just to have someone (anyone) to commiserate with. How it was Agnes that had introduced Jenny to her new friends, now resting in the hidden compartment of her purse. How now, she was always asleep and always awake, existing in some halfway world, never quite here nor there—
Ding!
Her phone buzzed at the same time Eric's did, the matching texts from Blair lighting up their screens. They were being summoned by their queen, some vague mention of a grand plan for their renaissance before her signature sign-off: xo, B.
"Saved by the bell," Jenny remarked, going monotone again. She shoved past Eric to meet everyone in the main hall.
And he watched her go, as if she hadn't already been long gone.
:::
September 16th, 2008: The Main Hall
They sat around the book on the cushioned benches that lined the alcove like children beholding a shiny new toy.
"Well, what is it?"
Blair drummed her fingernails on one of the aged pages.
"As it turns out, the Victors and Victrolas weren't the first secret society that ruled Briar's halls. Behold our predecessors, Briar's Angels."
A passing guard cast them a long glance, and they all went silent for a moment.
"As in…" Ethan quietly trailed off, "Charlie's?"
Blair rolled her eyes. "They were established in the sixties, Merrick, predating the spy show. From what Bass and I have uncovered, they were an elite group at this school. And every meeting, every tryst, every secret party is recorded in this book."
Even Eric seemed curious. "So, what does that have to do with us?"
"Oh, Little E, what doesn't this have to do with us? Even more powerful than invention is legacy. And they've left a large one behind. The Seven Heavenly Sins. Seven deeds to fulfill before the school year ends."
She flipped a page and slid the book into Diana's lap who shot Blair a giddy smile as they all leaned into her. Already, Blair felt her confidence returning, her stature more poised. Beside her, Chuck matched her devilish grin. She thought of The Art of War then, how they could leave the pain of what they used to affix themselves, all of them, to each other behind them and leave this school with a legacy of their own. They all had things they were running from. Perhaps they'd found something upon which they could finally stand still.
An hour later, their meeting adjourned, and they all agreed to reconvene about their first deed and new recruits—more pawns on the board than real court members—once their college visits were over.
Blair and Chuck seemed more bonded than ever. Diana was already spreading an ominous rumor to the masses about what was to come, beginning with those gossipy but popular seniors, Willa Sheperd and Cynthia Van Sant. Jenny was still sullen but seemed grateful for the distraction and company of her friends. Ethan was still sitting there, legs spread, flipping through the book like it was a sports magazine. And Eric was just happy to see their group falling into place again.
He was content as he headed back to the dorms to pick up his trigonometry book when someone fell into step with him.
Well, happiness was short-lived these days.
"Hello, Eric," William Kincaid greeted.
"Uh…hey."
"Headed to class?"
Eric eyed the halls, desperate to find someone to talk to other than the bane of Briar's existence. "Nope."
"Funny, I thought you were chattier than this."
"You know you wrote an entire exposé on me and my friends to kick off the school year, right? Blair is one of my best friends, and you totally defamed her."
William laughed, continuing to follow Eric up the stairs to Wentworth. "It was all in good reporting, Eric. No one ever said journalism was a nice sport, just a fair one. I see a good story, and I jump on it. Nothing personal, trust me."
"Seemed pretty personal to me."
William placed a hand on Eric's shoulder. "Then here's an olive branch. Let me buy you a coffee before trig."
Eric shrugged away. "We…are at a really expensive boarding school. The coffee here and pretty much everything else is free."
William did not let up. "Okay, then let me fill your free coffee cup, Eric, show you that I'm not such a bad guy."
Eric narrowed his eyes.
William smiled, raked his fingers through his black curls. "Or is Ethan the only guy who's got a shot around here?"
Across the hall, Blair watched curiously and with disdain as a wide-eyed Eric followed William Kincaid out of the dormitories before she snuck into Chuck's room. That would surely be another thing to keep on her radar.
But first—she tied a Bulldog Blue ribbon through her curls as she admired herself in Chuck's mirror—she had Yale to deal with.
:::
September 19th, 2008: Yale University
"I see that you're wearing your beret."
Blair smiled as Chuck whispered in her ear, muffled by the sound of conversation and pop music in the limousine as they rolled down the I-84 towards New Haven. Perhaps they could be controlled when they were on campus, but there was little to be done to withhold the students' freedoms during their college visits. Ethan and Diana had tagged along for the journey. Despite the mar on the Merrick name and his less than stellar grades, Ethan was a shoe-in for Yale with his connections, and Diana was just along for the ride to assure his mother that they were still very in love and attached at the hip. Besides, she would never pass up a free limo ride and a slew of college parties.
Blair tenderly kissed Chuck's cheek as he toyed with the cloth of her blue beret. "You know it helps me scheme."
Chuck laughed under his breath. "And here I thought Blair Waldorf was taking on admissions the good old-fashioned way."
She rolled her eyes, almost offended.
Blair turned her attention to Diana, and the girls quietly chatted as Ethan and Chuck discussed their "in" with Skull and Bones. Though they had their newfound endeavor with Briar's Angels back at school, there were bigger fish to fry, and Blair was excited to see Chuck alight about a legacy of his own.
"Hey, how are you, B?"
Blair glanced up at Diana. "I'm fine. What's with the small talk?" She yawned. "Shall we exchange our opinions about the weather, too?"
Diana rolled her eyes and reached for a chocolate truffle from the box they were sharing, popping it between her lips. "I mean…we haven't really checked in about everything that happened this summer. Everything seems to be going back to normal, but is it really?"
Blair stared out the window at the mural of blurred trees and late morning light. Though she shared Diana's sentiment, she would never admit it. They were all dancing carefully across a ballroom of trip wires, and if any of them truly faced how fragile it all truly was, they would surely set them off.
"I'm fine, D," Blair insisted, "I'm on the way to Yale with my boyfriend and best friends, beyond prepared for my interview with Dean Berube. His favorite writer is George Sand, you know. Every year—"
"He asks his interviewees which person, dead or alive, they'd invite to dinner, and the most impressive answer gets on the shortlist for early admission. This is your golden ticket," Diana recited in a robotic tone, then winked. "I know, B. You only told me and Eric one million times when we mock interviewed you last week."
"Go ahead and mock me," Blair sniffed, "let's see which sorority house broom closet you'll get to stay in when you visit Yale next year."
Diana laughed and gave Blair a peck on the forehead.
"How are…you?" Blair asked, surprising Diana. Blair pretended to remain apathetic as she stole away another truffle and eyed the line of Chuck's jaw as it clenched, sending a flurry of pestering butterflies to her belly. "I only ask because you seem to be distracted lately. Like something is pulling you away." Blair eyed her pointedly. "Perhaps someone."
Diana kept a poker face, slowly licking the chocolate from one manicured thumb.
"I feel fine, B," she assured Blair. "Trust me, nothing could possibly be pulling me away from you or what is going to be the greatest year of our lives. Unless you're talking about my English teacher, who is totally going to fucking fail me if I ask her for another extension on this essay I'm writing." She paused, then lifted her phone to reveal that obnoxious relationship tracker on its screen. "But still green, I promise."
Blair stared at her for a moment, then, seemingly satisfied with the girl's answer, rolled her shoulders back and relaxed in the leather seat.
"Fine," Blair said, "I just don't want to see you hurt again. I love you, D."
Immediately after the words escaped her, Blair nearly gagged at the sentimentality. She could practically envision the Gossip Girl blast now: Pass me a tissue. Looks like our Queen B has found her heart. If only she could do the same with her crown.
But Gossip Girl was dead, and Diana had a new Chanel to show Blair, and not even a few sweet nothings could ruin this high.
They arrived at Yale just an hour later, only having stopped once so that Ethan could buy a—Blair and Chuck shuddered—Slurpee at a rest stop. Before the sprawl of glimmering buildings and lush greens, Blair immediately felt transformed. Some dreamed of castles and ballgowns, but this was her fairytale. For a moment last year, she thought she'd lost herself to wickedness, but it was true that one could have it all. She'd dealt with the dark knight and remained a queen. Not completely unscathed, but she'd made it.
"Here we part, Waldorf," Chuck announced in front of the Dean's Office, grasping Blair's chin between two of his fingers, lips brushing hers as he spoke.
Blair quirked a brow and smiled against him. "I think I can take it from here, Bass."
Chuck licked his lips. "I find your determination arousing."
"And I find your lechery," Blair whispered, "lecherous."
"Hey, B," Diana called, leaning against the door of the limo as she filed her pinky nail, "what part of the interview is this?"
Blair rolled her eyes and went to kiss Chuck. But before she could lean in to say goodbye, they were interrupted by another exchange of farewells as Dean Berube himself walked none other than William Kincaid out of the main doorway. Blair's stomach turned, suddenly feeling sick. That sham of a newspaper, The Briar Thorn, was in William's left hand as the two exchanged a few last words and he strolled back down the cobblestone towards them, brightening exponentially when he saw that he had an audience.
Chuck watched as the color drained from Blair's rosy cheeks.
"Oh, shit," Ethan murmured beside them.
"Oh," William greeted, "what was that? Shit. indeed. What a pleasure to see you all here, my peers."
Diana made a face. "And you wonder why everyone leaves the room when you enter it."
"You're so spirited, Diana," William observed, still content, "I've always admired that. Anyway, I'm happy to see you, Blair."
Blair hardened her stance. "Oh?"
"Just wanted to wish you good luck on your interview with Dean Berube. You know, aside from being an esteemed high school, Briar does have its reputation as a partial reformatory, so the competition is stiff these days. Timing is such an interesting thing, isn't it?"
Blair stared.
"But lucky for you," William continued, the hand holding the school newspaper twitching just slightly, "I was able to prep him for you. Thought at least one of us could give him the rundown on all our wild adventures at Briar."
Blair's lips parted, and the entire group braced themselves for the verbal lashing she was about to administer, but before she could utter a word, the secretary called out her name to usher her into the building.
She looked around at her friends, then at William, then at the paper in his hands. And there, the imaginary voice of Gossip Girl, taunting her once more.
Uh oh, B. Perhaps you should spend less time on your sweet nothings and more on your comebacks.
The walls of Dean Berube's office seemed to close in on her the moment he shut the door behind them. The walls of her throat followed suit, tightening into its own chokehold. He was smiling at her, but Blair couldn't trust it, sure William had just slung her name through the mud.
"So, Blair, it's wonderful to see you. I was at an event with your father just a year back, but it seems like just yesterday. Where is he living now?"
"I—"
She could hear the man's question, but her brain wouldn't translate it. Instead, she heard, Where is it that you first lost your virginity to Chuck Bass? Was this before or after you staged an assault to frame a rapist? Also, just for our files, did you call Penelope Hayward a wretched bitch or a phony faux-cialite?
"I—"
"Blair?"
"George Sand!" Blair shouted, startling the man and herself.
"Excuse me?"
"George Sand is your favorite writer and mine. An utter coincidence, of course," Blair rambled breathlessly, "I want you to know that the kidnapping is totally behind me, and I have mentally and physically recovered, Dean Berube. And anything you've heard about debaucherous parties or illicit societies is absolutely false, and I'm prepared today to refute it. Ethan tripped into that pool, you know. I hate the taste of alcohol, and—"
"Miss Waldorf," Dean Berube exclaimed, "please, get a hold of yourself."
"I know that snake, Kincaid, came in here to convince you that I'm not Yale-worthy, but I can assure you that they're all lies—"
"William Kincaid didn't mention you once in his interview, Miss Waldorf," Dean Berube said. "In fact, the only connection you have to him that I know of is that his dream dinner guest would be George Sand. It would appear to me that you have quite a fixation on the young boy. This interview is no place for that."
Blair was going to throw up.
"I think it's best that we wrap this up, Blair. Perhaps we'll find another time to talk when you're not in the midst of some sort of…breakdown. In the interim, I'm going to refer you to our campus's mental health services."
Blair remained frozen as the dean stood to open his door for her, escorting her right out of her own fairytale.
:::
September 19th, 2008: Yale University
As Blair endured her living nightmare, outside, Ethan and Diana had departed to stroll the campus and snap some pictures as evidence of their faux relationship, but Chuck and William were still in a stand-off.
"Kincaid, your obsession with my girlfriend has become disturbing."
William stared at Chuck evenly. "I really don't know what it is that you mean, Chuck."
Chuck lips lifted, but the expression was unkind. "I'm no stranger to psychological warfare," he remarked, "especially against Blair Waldorf. Nice trick, that little prop." He gestured to the newspaper in William's hand, which both boys knew for certain was not the issue that had been released about the scandals of last year but a writing sample on the effects of dining hall food on Briar's lacrosse players.
"It's almost endearing to see a puppy attempt an old dog's tricks," Chuck said smoothly. Already, he knew that he was missing his window to meet Ethan where members of Skull and Bones notoriously came to collect their recruits for an afternoon of mischief. But something annoyingly selfless had gotten ahold of him.
Something that was desperately in love with Blair Waldorf.
"But I do see the potential here," Chuck continued, "an exchange of skillsets, if you will. Of access."
William seemed taken aback for a moment before he returned to his neutral stance.
"And what do you propose?"
"You're dreaming if you think we'll ever be friends."
"You're dreaming if you think I want to be your friend."
Chuck smirked and stared at him for a moment, unsure if he'd rather manipulate the boy or benefit from his presence. He would choose both. "In ten minutes, Blair will walk out of that building after allowing her neuroses to completely sabotage her interview. You're going to rectify that."
"And what's in it for me?"
"Let's start with what you're going to do for Blair."
:::
September 19th, 2008: 116 Crown
That night, the crowd at 116 Crown was rife with Polo Lacoste and someday-inheritance, perfumed with Tom Ford and fraternity sweat. Diana and Ethan watched in dismay as Blair downed her third shot of the night, whiskey straight.
Some greasy-haired nightcrawler leered as he leaned into her, and Diana gave him the finger before rescuing her friend and carefully ushering her to Ethan, who wrapped an arm around her bare shoulders. Blair was in a slinky halter dress, lips red, eyes rimmed with black. Neither of her friends had ever seen her like this. She always tiptoed around the boundaries of provocative, but never quite drowned in it. This Blair wasn't just dancing with the devil. She was on a rampage, the devil herself.
"Where the hell is Chuck?" Ethan shouted to Diana over the roar of the crowd. "It's getting a little hard to keep track of whose fake boyfriend I'm playing."
"He texted me and said he would meet us here," Diana shouted back. "Blair hasn't seen him since before her interview."
"Chuck abandoning me," Blair slurred, stealing a drink from another college boy whose gaze was trained on her chest, "now there's one we haven't heard before. Just like the good old times." She looked back at her friends and raised the foreign glass in a toast. "Ethan pretending to like girls. Diana and her secrets."
Diana pursed her lips and snatched the drink from her. "Stop it, Blair."
Ethan placed his hands on Blair's shoulders. "Come on, Blair, I'm sorry that your interview with the dean went badly, but that's no reason to—"
"You're sorry? Your sorry isn't going to get me into Yale." They could see the rage rush over her body, take hold of her stance, flush red over her skin. This rage was a year old, beginning on a train ride up the Hudson and threading through months of ballroom humiliation, bathroom floors, sharp betrayals, and unanswered phone calls to Chuck. Blair decided then that she was surrendering to whatever darkness had been born inside of her the moment she stepped foot on Briar's campus. "Your sorry isn't going to take back everything that's happened since—"
"You fell in love with me," Chuck finished. The three of them turned to find him nursing a glass of scotch, listening in on their conversation. In a better state, Blair would have lusted over the way his hair was so deftly swept back, how one extra button was open on his dress shirt to make his outfit as casual as he would ever allow, but she couldn't see anything but her fury.
As she prepared her rebuttal, Blair spotted something worse in the crowd. Clinking drinks around a table was the unholy trinity that apparated during all of her lowest moments like an evil brand of magic. Serena van der Woodsen, Nate Archibald, and Dan Humphrey. Beside them was a handsome man she didn't recognize, setting down a full drink beside Serena's empty glass. Of course.
Chuck called out to her, but Blair was already gone, parting the sloppy crowd of the Ivy League's finest like the Red Sea.
"Well, if it isn't the haunting of the Upper East Side."
Serena looked up in surprise, then clapped her hands in delight, standing from the table to reach her arms around Blair and squeeze. Blair stood still, waiting furiously until the blonde released her.
"Blair, it's so good to see you," Nate said, also standing to greet her.
Dan played with the fabric of his shirt and remained seated, awkwardly saluting her. "Hey, Blair."
"Hey, S," Blair chirped, ignoring both Dan and Nate, the false cheer dripping from her lips. "I can't say I'm surprised to see you here. I know that you're a stranger to original thought."
Serena's eyes widened, realizing how intoxicated her old friend was.
Blair leaned in and smiled. "You do know that Yale can't actually have sex with you, right? Poor Serena. Guess you can't fuck everything that's mine."
The stranger at the table nearly spit out his drink.
"Blair," Chuck interrupted, yanking her back by the elbow, "stop talking." He turned his attention to her four new adversaries. "Please, ignore her. She's not feeling well."
"My knight in shining armor," Blair cooed, sauntering back to the group despite Ethan and Diana's best efforts to gently hold her back. "Fine, I'll stop talking. Actions do speak louder than words."
With that, she stole another flute of liquor from a passing tray and proceeded to pour it on Serena's dress.
Chuck cursed under his breath as Serena recoiled, Nate and Dan in a race to pat her down with napkins. Satisfied, Blair stormed through the crowd again and onto the sidewalk outside, letting in a bit of the cool autumn air as Diana and Ethan chased after her.
"I'm sorry," Chuck said with a grimace before joining them, looking pointedly at the man sitting with Serena, Nate, and Dan. He turned to his two old friends and the one stowaway with little more to offer than, "As always, a pleasure."
Outside, Blair was smoking someone else's cigarette.
"Jesus Christ," Chuck whispered as he lit one of his own. The smoke spilled from his lips as he approached his friends, listening as Diana scolded Blair.
"What the fuck was that, Blair?" Diana took her friend's arm in an attempt to capture her attention. "That was absolutely uncalled for, and…somewhat satisfying, but that's not the point. You can't just make a scene every time—"
Chuck raised a palm at Diana to hush her, then took another drag of his cigarette.
"I know what you're doing," Chuck said, glaring at the side of Blair's face.
"Good," Blair said pointedly, stubbing the cigarette out on the ground with one heel, "I know what I'm doing, too."
"Do you? Because it looks like you're making a fool out of yourself. And the rest of us."
Ethan glanced down at his phone, pretending not to listen.
Diana fiddled with her own phone, changing the relationship tracker to code red.
"Embarrassed, Chuck?" Blair asked, filling his name with venom when she said it. "I think I liked you better when you were unapologetic about a little public humiliation. Or do you only save that for when you're ruining me?"
Chuck clenched his jaw. "I think you look like the very plebeians you and I sneer at."
"Do you ever find your arrogance debilitating?"
"You don't get nearly enough credit for your wit."
Blair's smile was tight when she walked up to him, slowly, purposefully, like a predator just having spotted live prey.
"You know what I really think, Bass? I think that while you were off playing games with your Skull and Bones brigade, my shot at Yale was falling apart."
Chuck let out a cutting laugh and stepped away from her. "Or perhaps I was making a deal with the very rat who got inside of your head before your interview. Since you seem to know everything, Waldorf, I'm sure that you recognized Dean Berube's nephew, Andrew, inside. He's a senior at Yale and an old acquaintance of the Kincaid family, and I invited him here tonight with Kincaid's help in the hopes that you—as utterly charming and conniving as you are—would sweep him off his feet. I've heard that he also knows Serena, as most men do, which is probably why he happened to be sitting with them."
Blair shivered, suddenly becoming very aware of the early evening chill and its touch upon her bare skin. She suddenly became very aware of everything—that old familiar sneer on Chuck's face, the pink skin on the back of Ethan's neck, how Diana seemed like she herself was about to be sick. Blair suddenly remembered that it wasn't just her ex-boyfriend inside, but Diana's, too.
She was a horrible friend.
"Seems difficult to rule over a court you refuse to trust," Chuck snarled.
Blair swallowed, looking around for someone else to blame for this mess, but she only caught her own skewed reflection in the bar window, red eyes, smeared makeup, and the look of her own disgust.
"I'll find my own hotel for the night," Blair said solemnly, refusing to bend despite how wrong she knew she was. The alcohol in her system was still rafting through her bloodstream, refusing to give in. She looked past Chuck to Ethan and Diana. "Are you coming?"
Nobody moved.
Blair smirked. "Good to know where your loyalties lie."
They waited until she was halfway down the block before Diana sighed and collected herself, looking longingly for a moment at the door of the bar as if she could see through it to where Nate was sitting inside.
"I'm going to follow her," Diana said to the boys, already heading down the street after Blair. "I'll text you if…anything."
Ethan nodded, offering a half-smile.
Chuck was still.
"Hey, man, let's grab a beer," Ethan said to him, "cool off, and—"
"Hey, man," Chuck mocked dryly, "there's the limo. It's yours for the night. Have at it."
"Come on, Chuck," Ethan pleaded.
Chuck patted his pocket for the pill bottle before strolling off in the opposite direction as Blair. Ethan just barely heard him murmur, "I have my own bridges to burn."
:::
September 20th, 2008: New Haven Green
Chuck found her early the next morning—deep red peacoat, black ballet flats over white stockings, and cloche hat trapping an array of soft brown curls like a mirage in the fog of the New Haven Green. Blair was eating a croissant and sipping coffee from a small white cup, peering over the Yale campus, her dream, the way Audrey had stared at the Tiffany's window in the opening scene of the film. Wanting, solemn, and still.
Still in a slight dull haze from the night before, he clenched his fists to brace himself, about to go to her until she wiped a tear from her cheek and picked up her phone.
"Daddy," Blair greeted, putting on that air of nonchalance and sickly sweet cheer she could whip out at a moment's notice. "Yes, Daddy." She coughed. "Yes...tell him I say hello, too." She paused. "Yes, I think so...Yes, but I told you, you should call him Chuck. Mhm, that boy, always wearing purple."
Chuck smirked, glanced at the ground.
"The interview? Oh, it was absolutely fantastic, not that either of us should be surprised." To the untrained ear, Blair's confidence in her lie would have seemed astounding. But Chuck knew better, listened for the catch of her breath, eyed the tension in her shoulders. "I belong here. Always have, always will."
Chuck stared down at the ground.
"Okay, Daddy," Blair chirped. Another second passed before she bid him farewell, ended the call, and buckled forward, a sob escaping her throat.
Chuck caught her just before her coffee cup fell to the ground.
He held his breath as a startled Blair began to cry into his shoulder. He found so many things disconcerting all at once—how firm his grip was when he was carrying her (but never when he was attempting to hold his own), how fragile his girlfriend felt under his hands (even phrasing it that way made him queasy), and worse, how natural it all felt.
How natural it had always felt with Blair.
Chuck pressed his lips to the crown of her head as she let out yet another very…un-Waldorf-like sob into his chest. He let her cry for what seemed like hours (three minutes), suppressing all thoughts of having to dry clean his favorite Saint Laurent round collar the instant they were back on campus.
Blair stared at him now, damp and puffy-cheeked, surely in an attempt to read his mind.
"You done?" Chuck asked without malice, lifting his lips in that surly signature smirk, though his eyes were still narrowed in concern. He didn't let go of her elbow, or the small of her back.
Blair let out a small breath, then lifted her chin.
"I know that you're upset with me," she began.
Chuck raised a brow in agreement, watching her carefully, still slightly guarded himself. "I never accused you of being unobservant."
Blair frowned.
"Let me finish," she snapped, stepping away from his embrace, "I have something else to say, something to admit, I—" Chuck's heart stopped as dread paled her features.
Blair cleared her throat before continuing. "I'm…"
Chuck pursed his lips and went as still as if he'd just swallowed ice to freeze his insides. Preparing to be hurt.
Blair seemed to be in utter pain now, as if what she was about to admit was far more painful than any injury she'd ever sustained, more painful than any heartbreak, more painful than losing Yale.
"I'm sorry, Chuck."
Chuck stared at her, incredulous.
"And before you begin to torture me with whatever Bassian rebuttal or coy comeback you have planned, just know—"
"I forgive you, Blair."
"—that I refuse to…" Blair trailed off as he smirked at her, fully registering his response. "I'm sorry?"
Chuck smirked. "So, you can say it twice."
"Why aren't you declaring warfare? Reminding me of the horrible things I said to you last night?"
Chuck sighed. "Because I'm your boyfriend, Blair. Perhaps it's time we stop fighting our battles apart from each other, each ending up as casualties, and start fighting them together."
Other words hid between those spoken out loud: I'm afraid, too. I need you. I can't do this alone.
Tell me what's going on in your eyes.
Tell me why I've seen you ducking out of the bathroom like you have something to hide.
Your pocket.
The night you disappeared.
How we never really recovered, either of us, just stopped looking at it in the eye.
How we see too much of ourselves in each other, and that's why we keep running.
More tears pooled in Blair's eyes, and she cast her gaze downward, realizing how tired and defeated he looked in the light. He looked as he did when she'd first seen him again. When he was always on something, and it wasn't yet her. She realized then that she, too, had forgiven him, but she hadn't been there for him. She felt terrible.
Almost reading her mind, Chuck murmured, "We don't have to erase everything that happened. I don't think we could if we wanted to."
Blair shook her head. "No."
"But we can still be us and be together."
Blair was still looking at the ground. "Can we?"
Instead of answering her, Chuck took her hand and silently led her down a path to one of the campus's tucked-away buildings as it began to rain. It was filled mostly with lecture halls, but there was one room at the very end of the maze of halls that was vacant, glass frosted.
Chuck locked it behind him.
He sat Blair up on what must have been a professor's desk, then silently, reverently, pulled her wet coat from her shoulders, then the cloche hat from her curls. He threaded a few between his fingers, then let them loose to bring those fingers to her lips. Blair parted them, rolling her tongue over his wet skin. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she swore he tasted of an éclair—incredibly sweet.
Chuck kissed her slowly, tracing his tongue over hers, cupping her throat with his hand, and parting her legs with one of his.
"Keep your eyes on me," he told her, voice going hoarse as he pulled her stockings down her thighs, then her panties. Blair gasped as her bare skin touched the desk, then again when he thrust two of his fingers inside of her. She was already wet, and he was quick. When she went to look down, he held her chin to stop her, his face close to hers, his eyes right on hers.
"What happened to taking it slow?" Blair whispered.
Chuck smiled a bit and halted his ministrations, began to move his fingers in and out of her at a maddeningly slow pace.
Blair's eyes rolled back.
He spread her legs wide as he unzipped his pants, entering her so quickly she was almost dizzy. His thrusts were hard and fast, and his name escaped her lips between them each time. She clawed into the fabric of his shirt, the skin at the nape of his neck, her own chest, desperate for more of him.
Chuck pressed his forehead to her shoulder, and she held him as he groaned and curled a fist into her curls. It seemed impossible that sex could be this feral and sweet.
She was overwhelmed with him, with the bizarre fantasy of it all: making love to Chuck Bass inside of an empty Yale classroom.
"I love you," Blair exclaimed, too loudly in the empty classroom, but it only made Chuck grit his teeth against a wave of more pleasure as he rocked into her.
"I love you," she said again, knowing that this was the control he had to offer her when she'd lost it in every place else. She leaned back to lift his chin from her shoulder. Now it was she who commanded, "Keep your eyes on me."
The way Chuck looked at her then made her see stars. It was hungry and wanting and adoring all at once, like nothing else existed.
Like she was the only thing.
Author's Note: Dearest Wires readers—or shall I call you fellow delinquents? Here we are. I cannot begin to describe to you how my heart reacted when I received your lovely responses to my author's note on continuing this story. I've been chipping away at this chapter at a snail's pace for eons, and I'm so thrilled to bring it to you now. As always, reviews are the greatest present, and so encouraging, so If you have time to offer thoughts and feedback, please, please do. Buckle up, and until next time. xo, N