Chapter Eighteen: Let Me Out

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm pretty sure that the nineteenth chapter will be the last, but it'll be really long. It probably won't be up until next week, though. I want to take my time on it.
Oh, and just a warning, Nate gets pretty awful in this chapter and most of you will think that he's getting out of character. His break-up with Blair has started to affect him in more ways that he wishes it would, so he's been turning to things that make him act strange.
There's also a little line somewhere that Chuck says, and it's a reference to a one-shot I wrote the other day (which -hint hint- you should read and review).

His hand fastened tight around her wrist as he tried to pull her back to the bed. She was being so stubborn. One little thing happened and... now she wasn't in the mood? What a tease.

"Nate, let go," she whined, the tears beginning to build up in her eyes. He hated how sensitive freshmen could be.

"Just stay. You've been promising for two weeks now, and you keep finding some excuse. Don't let Chuck ruin this," he attempted to persuade her, loosening his grip so it wouldn't seem like he was being too rough.

She used her free hand to reach up and brush away some of the tears. "Let me go," she begged. "Tomorrow we can, I swear."

"'Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,'" he mocked her in a feminine voice. "Let's just do it now. It's a good a time as any, Jenny."

"I don't want to," she exclaimed, silent sobs taking over her body. "You're not acting normal," she said in between deep gasps of air.

He glared at her and then pulled her sharply back against the bed when he decided he had enough of her resisting. "I'm acting fine. You're the one being the little bitch."

"Let me go," she begged again. She did the only thing she could think of. Her free hand moved from her own face and she brought it down to slap Nate hard across the cheek. He let go of her wrist to curse and rub at the stinging flesh. "You're being as bad as Chuck."

Nate just froze as he heard her words, then tightly clenched his jaw. "Don't you ever fucking say that again."

"What are you on, Nate? I've never seen you like this," she said softly, backing away from the bed and out of his reach in case he decided to try and pull her down again.

"I'm not on anything," he insisted. "What are you on? Most girls would be begging to sleep with me."

"So now you're calling me one of those girls? One of those sluts?" she asked. Nate began to shake his head and attempt to explain, but she cut him off. "I'm leaving. Call me when you're not a fucking jerk anymore."

With that, little Jenny Humphrey gathered her things and left the Archibald home. If she was going to be the new Blair Waldorf or the new Serena van der Woodsen, she needed a backbone. She wasn't going to get guilted in to sex by someone who she wasn't even dating. Besides, Nate was acting like a jerk. She wasn't going to lose her virginity to someone who had just practically bruised her wrist from trying to force her on to the bed.

She stood on the sidewalk in front of the building, trying her hardest to get a taxi. Unfortunately, she stepped in to someone old gum (major 'ew') and since she had borrowed the expensive shoes from one of her new friends, she figured it would be best that she got the gum off soon. She moved over to a trash can and used the rim of it to scrape the gum off. When most of it was gone, she looked down in to the trash can and was surprised to see a familiar ruby ring.

A grin formed on her face and she pulled out her cell phone from her pocket. It was too good to be true. Blair was going to flip out when she found out that her precious ring was now sitting on top of crushed Starbucks cups, gum, and old fliers. Jenny snapped a quick picture with her phone, then glanced around to make sure that no one was looking as she reached down to grab the ring.

So what if it was a dirty garbage can? There was always plenty of anti-bacterial soap at home, right?

LOST AND FOUND

Found: Queen B's favourite ring, stuck in a garbage can in front of the Archibald residence.
Lost: The devil- B's loyal follower (and lover). What happened, C? Get yourself in trouble again? Maybe it's time to think about getting some body guards.

You know you love me,

XOXO Gossip Girl

Once again, Chuck was stuck in his hotel suite. This time, it wasn't because he was horribly disfigured, but instead it was because he thought he might be horribly disfigured now that Blair knew what happened to her ring. He felt like killing whoever took that picture. The person had to have been following him, or how else would they have known that the ring was in a trash can?

Blair left a lot of messages in the past couple of days, asking why Chuck wouldn't go to school, if he was avoiding her, then eventually she just got really angry that he wasn't answering and started yelling about how he was an idiot. He wasn't going to deny that. What was he thinking? Of course Blair would piece all of it together and realize what happened. Chuck just felt stupid for letting his jealousy take over his body and pushing him to do unnecessary things. No good could come out of throwing his girlfriend's most valued ring in to the garbage. At least he didn't give it to Jenny, though. Blair would've been more pissed at that.

It's the fourth day of hibernation when someone knocks at the door of the suite and doesn't stop until Chuck moves towards the door and yells, "Blair, leave." The only person who was usually so eager at his door was her.

"It's not Blair. Open the damn door, Bass," yelled back a feminine voice, that Chuck recognized belonged to none other than a tall, gorgeous blonde best friend.

He rolled his eyes and turned the door knob, opening it up for her. "What?" he asked. She became noticeably uncomfortable when she saw that he was just wearing a pair of boxers.

"You're a jerk," she told him, blinking to force her gaze up to Chuck's face.

"You always were a witty one," he noted sarcastically, stepping out of the way as he assumed that she would need in. Serena was a long-lectures-and-speeches kind of girl.

She stepped inside and glanced around for a moment before moving over to the bar and sitting at one of the stools. "Did someone die in here?" she asked, wrinkling up her nose in disgust at the condition of the room. Chuck's clothes were all over the floor, as were empty packs of cigarettes. Covering the bar were empty bottles that he managed to drink in the past couple of days.

He chose to ignore the rude comment. "What do you want?" he asked her. He stood on the other side of the bar and put the bottles on the ground so he could see Serena clearly.

"I can't believe you'd do that to Blair," she breathed out.

"Do what? You're not exactly making sense," he said, knowing perfectly well what she was talking about.

"You threw out her ring! You know how important it was to her," Serena said. "She told me that you took it and then there was that picture of it in the garbage can. Why would you do that to her, Chuck?"

"You're not even her friend anymore. Why do you care?" He reached for a bottle that was still a quarter full, taking off the cap and then taking a swig of it.

"Now I am. She came to me when she realized that you were avoiding her. I thought you didn't run away from things."

"Well, you thought wrong. What's the point in me talking to Blair, anyways? I already know she's going to dump me. May as well start the depression phase now- I've seen Nathaniel go through it before," he sighed.

Serena rolled her eyes and leaned forward, her fore arms pressed against the top of the bar. "You don't know that. She really cares about you, Chuck. As disgusting as your relationship is, it shouldn't end over something stupid like this. All you need to do is apologize."

"Chuck Bass doesn't apologize," he muttered, before downing the rest of the bottle.

"Come on. It's not that hard. You love her, don't you?" she asked.

He stared at her for a minute before lightly shaking his head back and forth while looking down at the floor. "I don't know."

"How can you not know? It's a simple question."

He tilted his head up and back down, watching the ceiling before shutting his eyes closed tightly. Serena wasn't helping him become any less confused. Chuck had just been thinking about how he cared about Blair before, how he wanted to be with her, but now there was 'love' added in to the equation. It was hard to figure out if you loved someone when the only time you ever loved anyone before was when you were three and your parents hadn't done anything to make you hate them yet.

"I just don't know," he told her after a few minutes of unbearable silence.

Serena watched him, and it finally hit her why Blair liked him. He wasn't bad all the time. He was just confused. Maybe it was because of all of the talk shows she had been watching the other day, but she was sure that his relationship problems were a result of poor parenting. Serena was like him a bit before, but boarding school and Dan helped fix her. It looked like Blair was starting to help Chuck, too.

"Just call her. She'll forgive you," she insisted. She took her own phone from her pocket and handed it to him. Only God could know where Chuck's phone was in this mess, so she'd let him use hers.

"Right, like Nathaniel was supposed to forgive me? I'm not you, Serena. I've got money, yes, but in case you couldn't tell, that doesn't automatically mean people will like me no matter what." He gave the phone back to her, and reached for another bottle.

Serena took a deep breath. She knew Blair would be upset that she told him, but she had no other choice. "But she loves you," she said.

"He's such an ass," she sobbed, throwing her cell phone down against the bed after another failed call. "He won't even talk to me. I'm his girlfriend, S! He won't even talk to his own girlfriend. What's wrong with him? What's wrong with me?"

"B, he's not worth it," Serena said. She put her arm around her friend, trying to comfort her and settle the sobs that had been shaking her body. "He doesn't deserve you."

Blair pushed herself away from Serena, throwing her head back as more tears flooded her eyes. Normally, she wouldn't allow herself to break down this much but to make herself feel better, she got drunk earlier and for once, she wasn't Blair the Happy Drunk. Right now, she was Blair the Bawling, Screaming Drunk, the opposite of what she wanted to be.

"I know he doesn't deserve me. I know that I deserve better. I don't want better!" she yelled, taking a handful of tissues and dabbing them against her eyes to soak up the tears and smudged mascara. "I want Chuck. He's my boyfriend, he's supposed to want me too. Why won't he answer? He always answers," she whined. She picked up the phone and was about to pitch it against the wall, but Serena stopped her before she got the chance to.

"Maybe he's just busy," she suggested, taking one of Blair's hands to soothe her. Blair responded to this gesture by squeezing her friend's hand tightly and digging her nails deep in to the skin.

"He's not busy. He's never too busy for me. I love him. He's supposed to answer his fucking phone! He used to answer his fucking phone before we were dating, even when he was fucking some fucking whore. He's a fucking ass. He should be answering his fucking phone!" she began to get hysterical.

Serena bit down on her lip, and then called for Dorota to come watch Blair. "I'll go get him, B. Everything will be okay. Dorota will take care of you," she explained, kissing her friend's forehead.

"Love? Love is bull shit. Everything you're saying is bull shit," he scoffed, taking a sip from the bottle. "I'll see her next week, if it's all blown over."

"She needs you now. You're both getting drunk as hell and brooding around. I promise, it'll be okay as long as you see her now," Serena said. "Right now."

He seemed to be considering it for a minute, but ended up shaking his head anyways. "No."