A/N: Hey guys! I know, I suck at updating but University has literally taken all my time away from me. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoy! Please leave a review!
Somewhere between hope and despair.
"Hey, Humphrey..."
I shove the blankets off me like that voice causes some instinctive reaction from me, and there she is, in nothing but a coat and uggs, looking at me with glossy eyes ready to burst.
"Blair?" I say with furrowing eyebrows as my throat catches.
All she does is nod in response as she sucks in her lips. Tears ever so closer.
"W-what...what are you doing here?" I sit up straighter, wiping my face quickly as I realise it's still stained with the tears I was shedding not too long ago.
"I'm sorry..." She says weakly, inaudibly, and almost instantly the tears stream down her cheeks, "...I'm so sorry, Dan."
I jump out of the bed and wrap her in my arms without a second thought, "Hey, hey, there's nothing to be sorry about?" I say softly as my fingers graze through her hair, hoping it'll calm her down. It used to.
"No, there is..." She says into my bare chest, "...there's so much to be sorry about!"
"Blair, c'mon..." I say hopelessly, "...I hate it when you cry cause it makes me wanna cry."
She finally wraps her arms around my waist, "Please don't cry, Dan..." Her teary eyes look up at me, "...it's gonna break my heart."
I look down at her, look down into those welling eyes that's seemingly so endless and I can't help but frown, "What's going on, Blair? Why are you here?"
She plants her face back into my chest, "I fucked up!"
"What do you mean?" I ask agonisingly.
She slowly pulls away from me and wipes her face off with her coat sleeves, "I think..." She sniffles, "...I think we should sit."
"Uhh - okay, okay, yeah." We pull away from each other and move to the edge of my bed.
Once we're sitting down, Blair starts fidgeting nervously with the belt of her coat as her eyes stare into nothingness, almost as though she's trying to think of what to say.
"I wasn't completely honest with you, Dan..." She breaks the silence that was quickly growing unbearable. Her eyes still somewhere yet nowhere.
My eyebrows furrow, "Honest about what?"
"About our breakup." Her eyes meet mine as she bites on her bottom lip.
The worst scenarios instantly run through my mind while tears start forming behind my eyes, "Was there someone else?" I ask looking up towards the ceiling. I can't face the answer.
"What?.." Blair says in shock, "...No, not at all, Dan..." She comes closer and places her hand on my cheek - her touch is still so soft - and then she brings my head down so our eyes lock again, "...there was never anyone else. It's you. It's always only ever gonna be you..."
My head drops again and I interject, "Don't say that."
"But it's true." I can hear her frown.
"You told me this before."
"Told you what?"
"That you were always mine, and then look what happened to us." My eyes stay on the blankets beneath me.
She puts her hand under my chin and brings our eyes together again, "Yeah, and words can't describe how sorry I am for ending things, Dan. But you have to believe me when I say there hasn't been a moment when I stopped feeling what I feel for you. Nobody has my heart like you, Daniel Randolph Jonah Humphrey, have my heart. Nobody."
Somehow she still knows exactly what to say and I have to chuckle lightly at hearing my full name leave her lips, "Okay, so if it's not that then what is it?"
She takes my hand, intertwines our fingers and then inhales a deep breath before saying, "When we got together it felt like the best thing to ever happen to me. It is the best thing that's ever happened to me. But on the day when my mom banned me from being with you, I cried my heart out in my room that night. Everything around me was falling apart, and the one single thing that was keeping me together, you, was being taken away from me. And I realised the same thing you realised, that we could still be together at school. But that wasn't the only realisation I came to that night, Dan..." She sighs off.
"What else did you realise?" I ask.
"I realised I didn't even take a moment to process my parents divorce, and a part of me feels I was actually trying my hardest not to think about it because thinking about it was just bound to bring pain. And there's other things about me which I didn't tell you about that I also needed to deal with and sort out, because apart of me felt you wouldn't like me as much as you did once you found those things out..."
I interject quickly, "Hey, are you crazy? I lo-...like everything about you, Blair. Every single thing. Even the parts you haven't shown me yet."
"You say that..." She sighs, untwining our hands and averting her eyes downward.
"Blair..." I bring her head up from under her chin, "...did you not feel safe with me?"
"I don't feel safe with anyone." Her face falls.
"Oh, Blair..." I bring her into my arms, "...I should've done better..."
She pulls back quickly - interjecting, "No, there was nothing you could do, Dan. This is exactly why I just let things end. Because no matter how much you would of tried to show me you care, or tell me how much you liked my flaws, I wouldn't of believed you. And it had nothing to do with you. I needed to learn how to be vulnerable with myself, how to accept myself and I had to heal from everything that I was going through on my own. So being with you at the time, Dan, nine times out of ten I would've probably ended up hurting you. Because you can't love someone how they deserve to be loved without loving yourself first."
It takes a second for me to grasp everything she's just said but soon after my shoulders fall with relief, "Okay...I understand."
"You do?" Blair's eyes go bright, shedding that same sparkle of hope that they always used to.
I chuckle, "I do."
A smile so bright beams from her teary face and she wraps her arms around my neck to bring me in for a warm embrace. I grab around her waist and pull her as close to me as possible. Our chests touch and our heart beats collide, as though even after all this time, nothing was ever lost between us.
To have her so close to me for so long and not being able to touch her was a different kind of agony, but to hold her in my arms tonight in the midst of my deepest despair is something of miracle. I wonder if hope is not Blair looking into the mirror. Or if within her eyes hope resides. But these thoughts quickly rehash what happened earlier today and I gently pull out of our embrace.
"Are you here because of Serena?" I ask, trying not to give anything away.
"Serena? Why would I be here because of her?" Blair's eyebrows furrow.
"Oh, nah, it's something else, but it's okay, nevermind."
Her arms cross immediately, "What about Serena, Dan?" She still has that death glare I'm so insanely in love with.
"It's nothing, Blair. I swear." I untangle her crossed arms and place her hands in mine. She pulls them away.
"If you don't tell me right now what you're talking about I'm going to assume the worst and we'll go back to never talking again." She says sternly.
"Okay, okay..." I place my hand on her shoulders, rubbing my thumbs over them, "...I'll tell you." I chuckle.
"Smart choice, now proceed." She puffs her chest out a little to my amusement.
"I met Serena at this coffee shop in Manhattan earlier today, and she told me something about your mom." I bite my teeth.
"What'd she say?"
"Apparently Carson called your mom to tell her we fell asleep on the beach that night and your mom told him not to wake us up so she'd have a reason not to like me."
"What?!" Blair's entire face skews as her eyebrows nearly crash against each other, "How does Serena know this?"
"Your mom was boasting about it to Lily, so Lily told Serena the whole thing and asked her to tell me."
Blair stands up from the bed, her face a boiling red and her nails puncturing into her palms. She goes to stand by the window, I presume to calm herself down, but soon after a resentful laugh escapes from her mouth.
"For what it's worth, it's not like it made any difference." I say.
She turns to me quickly, eyes wide, looking to reply instantly but then hesitates once our eyes catch. As much as she wants to protest, and I can see it in her eyes that she does, we both know far too well Eleanor's scheming was hardly a game changer. In fact, it just hastened what we now both know would've been the inevitable. Blair would never go against her mother's wishes. Well, not before tonight at least.
She ends up not saying anything and instead comes to sit back down on the bed with me. Her fingers find mine and begin fidgeting with them.
"I'm sorry it had to be this way." Her eyes stay gazing at our fingers.
"Yes, I know. But I also understand, so it's okay." I say, looking at her looking at our hands.
She breathes out a sigh as she sketches mindlessly in the palm of my hand. Outside, the sounds of raindrops splitting against my window grab both our attention, and the droplets each catch the moonlight as they shimmer ever so subtly into my room. I fear she may well take this as her cue to leave, but instead her eyes avert back to our hands and she continues to play along the crevices of my fingerprints. My shoulders slouch again, relaxed, and I fall back against my headboard.
"I haven't done it yet." She breaks the silence.
"Done what?" My eyebrows furrow.
"Loved myself."
"You haven't?" I ask softly as I lean forward.
Her head shakes in response.
"But didn't you say that's one of the reasons why we couldn't be together? Because you needed to love yourself first?"
"Yes, and it still is a reason." Her eyes haven't left our hands.
"Blair...what are you saying?" I can feel the hope falling through my grasp once again.
"When I said I fucked up, Dan, I meant it. Because I really fucked up." Tears start dripping into my hands. Blair's tears.
"Blair, I can't take this..." I try my best to stay as calm as possible, "...will you just tell me what's going on? I thought you came here to tell me this was finally our chance to be together?" My face falls in agony as those last words leave my mouth.
"I wish it was, Dan, you don't understand how much I wish it was..." She finally picks her head up to look at me and then places her hand on my cheek as she guides our eyes back together, wiping away my tears in the process, "...I thought I could just fix myself and then come back to you once I was ready. I thought we'd still have time and we could figure it all out. I thought the future was somehow in our hands. Like you said, we're still so young and..."
"Just get to the point, Blair." I beg her.
"I'm moving to Paris, Dan." Blair's eyes turns tear-filled as sorrow pales through her cries, "My mom..." Her voice breaks, "...she...she's setting up an Atelier there."
And as though every last bit of hope had seemingly escaped from between my fingers, Blair had managed to tear away the remnants of what was left of it from between the crevices of my fingerprints. My body makes not a move, nor does another tear escape from my eyes, as everything from within me just shuts down automatically. I stare aimlessly over Blair's shoulder as she falls into the nook of my neck for comfort. But I haven't the capacity to provide that for her, so I gently push her away. It seems to shock her, and her mouth starts moving, meaning she's telling me something, but not a word gets registered. She probably realises it's a lost cause so she lays a kiss on my cheek and looks at me sombrely before making her way out my window, down the fire escape and onto the rainy Brooklyn streets. My mind's gone, and so too my heart, and maybe my soul as well. So I turn on my side and close my eyes. There's nothing left for me to see. There's nothing left for me to feel.
I've never experienced a hangover before, but if it's anything like how it's described in the movies, then I'm sure this is pretty close. My head's aching and spinning all at once. It seems I've also all of a sudden gotten a heightened sensitivity to light, because the sharp sun rays that illuminate the overcast sky pierces through my window and into my room, making it nearly impossible to open my eyes.
Last night feels like a blur, something I don't remember but won't forget. It feels like a dream, and a part of me really wishes it was. But I know far too well the pain reality plays regardless of the lives it takes, the turmoil it creates and the hearts it breaks. And this morning I woke up to the very same reality I've woken up to for the past three months; Blair and I aren't together.
I feel like a fool for letting myself get excited over her being here last night.
But when you see those big brown eyes, and feel those soft touched fingers, and hear those warming words off her gentle lips, nothing can stop your heart from pacing nor your thoughts from racing.
No matter what I do, no matter how many times I numb myself, always at some point it catches up to me. And just when I thought there would be some sort of progress, every memory, every sensation, every feeling, real and intangible, came crashing on me last night like a meteorite. And maybe that's why I shut down like that. There was no way I would be able handle all of those things knowing full well come tomorrow morning, Blair and I still wouldn't be together.
I still don't feel much right now. But there's a sharp pain clawing at the back of my head, and it feels like someone's tugging me down from behind with there nails embedded into me. I know this is my body telling me it's time to heal, time to let go. I know it's begging me to allow myself to feel everything so that maybe one day this pain won't weigh so heavily anymore. But there's a fear inside my mind, and most likely in my heart too, that if I let this go, if I let Blair go, I will lose everything I've ever felt for her. And I don't think I ever want to lose that feeling. Regardless of how much it hurts.
*knock* *knock* ,"Hey, can I come in?" My dad says, as he squeaks open the door.
"Yeah." I say into my pillow, still laying on my tummy.
My dad comes to sit on the edge of the bed and lays a hand on my back, "You okay in here, bud?"
"Mmm-hmm." I nod.
"You not going to school today?" He asks.
Shit! I completely forgot about school. But yeah, there's no way, so I shake my head to respond.
"Okay, then I'll just tell Blair to leave then."
I sit up like lightning, "Blair's here?"
My dad chuckles, "Yeah, she came to give you a ride to school."
"Oh, I don't know though, I'm really not feeling well." And there's no way I can look at her right now without falling completely apart.
"Okay, I'll tell her then." My dad rubs my arm in understanding.
"Thanks, dad." I reply. I really hope I'm not gonna regret this.
My dad leaves my room and I pull the blankets back over me. The piercing white clouds have gone grey and it's raining now. I'm sure it's not even a minute that passes by before my dad comes back in my room.
"Blair left you this." He throws an envelope onto my bed and then closes the door behind him.
I turn over quickly and pick it up. There's a red round sticker keeping the envelope closed and it's got the initials BW written on it in cursive. I pull the sticker off gently and open up the envelope. Inside there's a letter, folded three times over. I take it out and unfold it...
To: Daniel Randolph Jonah Humphrey,
There's so many things on my mind right now, and I'm afraid words were all I could ever give you, but of them all, I really just want to say thank you. Thank you for every hug, every kiss, every hand hold, every memory, every phone call...thank you for everything.
I also want you to know that you deserve to be happy. You deserve to see the world again through those wildly intense eyes of yours with a joy that only you could ever engender. Those watery eyes from last night just won't do. So I'm asking you, begging you Humphrey, to not hold onto what we could've been. I want you to be happy no matter what. And if that means moving on from us, then I'd want that for you a thousand times over. That smile on your face means more to me than anything else in this world, so do us both the favour of trying to find it again. Please.
What we had will always be my favourite little love story, Dan. Always.
Best wishes, Blair
PS: I'm sorry it had to be this way.
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