A/N: Hey guys (: I know, it's been a while since I posted but I've been busy, graduatin' from high school and what not. As per usual, you are all FRIGGEN amazing! Thank you for your lovely reviews that are so lovely they don't even know how lovely they are. Thanks to the reader who pointed out that I spelt Coney Island wrong, however, I'm using a bit of creative license here and using 2 o's instead of one just because. Props to the always amazing of mine aka. Kate 2008 (check out her stories, their fantastic. You know you want to.) And, now I'm going to stop this ridiculously long note and let you read the chapter. Reviews are always loved and appreciated, so leave one if you can.
PS. The quotation is from, "My sisters keeper." No copyright infringement intended.
"Love is not an equation, it is not a contract, and it is not a happy ending.
Love is the slate under the chalk, the ground that buildings rise, and the oxygen in the air.
It is the place you come back to, no matter where your headed."
- Jodi Picoult
Chapter Seventeen:
December 29th, 2011.
"You know, when I said you could stay here, I assumed that you knew you would actually have to do normal things." The futon dipped in the corner, Tessa's body weight shifting with her words. The early morning air was crisp, carried along the early December breeze and heavy with the scent of ground coffee beans. Blair hardly turned her head, burying herself further into the blankets with a sigh.
"Such as but not limited to," Tess continued, sarcasm edging her syllables, "I don't know, like, showering, eating and going outside, maybe even conversing with someone for a couple seconds beyond limited one word phrases."
Obstinate silence. In the distance someone, probably Mark, was moving something, a muddled curse passed through the paper thin walls as it crashed to the ground.
Blair had nothing to say.
"Well," Tessa stood up, turning towards the kitchen, "I guess that settles it then. I'm going to have to call your parents."
The threat was solid, burning against Blair's skin. She shot up, blinking furiously, combating the film of sleep that tasted foreign on her lips. "What?" She whined, "Don't. Please?"
Slowly, Tess cut the short distance between them, her expression blank. "We'll talk about it once you shower and change," She ordered, "You've been in the same dress since you got here."
If it weren't for the mark of probability in her parents actually getting involved, Blair wouldn't have wasted another moment before diving between the comfort of her dreams. Instead, thrust forward into the idea of actually doing something, she sat up, rubbing a weeks worth of sleep and laziness from the corners of her eyes.
"Fine," She agreed begrudgingly, unfurling her stiff muscles.
"Good," Tess countered," just think of how nice it'll be to move around a little B."
She clambered into the small bathroom, shutting the door behind her and leaned all her weight against it. She closed her eyes, images flitting across her thoughts. The empty apartment, her packed suitcases, the heated conversation that was so sharp it quietly broke everything to pieces. She peeled off her clothes, throwing them in the hamper.
Water streamed through her hair, down her back, towards her feet. It was scalding but it woke her up. Blair couldn't remember what day it was, how she had really managed to make it all the way into Brooklyn before shedding any tears. Everything was blurred, like a memory built up in rainwater, its natural instinct was to evaporate.
She turned off the taps and stepped out of the bathtub, wrapping a towel around her chest. The mirror, an oblong shape above the yellow sink, was avoided as she brushed her damp curls and pulled her hair into a high ponytail. She was grasping for the familiarity of this routine, only the scene had changed beneath her feet, the circumstance fresh. She changed into a clean pair of pants and a sweater from Bergdorf Goodman, things that held no attachment, the least reminder of him.
"Chuck? Where are you?" She had asked, the naivety of her words ringing in her ears. She had just woken up the morning after Christmas - without him.
There had been static on the other end, his cell phone fading in places. He had grumbled, a long drawn out noise she hadn't been able to decipher.
"I'm sorry Blair," was all she had heard, but it was enough. It was no different than the millions of other times Chuck had flown out of the country unexpectedly, a mirage of smoke and mirrors, never anywhere long enough to be more than a shadow in her life.
"I'm not," She had said, with a confidence she hadn't possessed. The line went dead and she hung up, but this time was different. She didn't feel the need to disappear in a sea of pretty little chocolates and expensive wine. The seams had split and everything had fallen into itself.
She knew then, or at least recognized, that her entire life would be waiting, waiting for him to come home, to love her. And suddenly, she was in their apartment, lying in their bed, the phone still in her hand, when she had thought of her mother. A life couldn't be built out of faded promises, the brittle straw of bleached words. It just wasn't possible.
Blair shook her head, spinning it off its train of thought, moving to open the bathroom door. Her heart felt much like it had been partly shovelled out, the other half not belonging to her anymore, but the funny thing was that she didn't feel it; it would always belong to him.
"Alright, I'm showered," She announced to no-one in particular, flopping down on the couch.
"I almost flipped out there for a minute," Mark chuckled, appearing at the doorway to his room. "The mute speaks!"
"Scary right?" She played with her hair, focusing on anything but the curve of his smile.
"Should I be wielding a sword or something?" He asked.
"Depends," She pretended to be thinking it over, "Are you scared of me?"
"Only when we're alone," The jest had somehow drained from the words stretching between them. He moved awkwardly into the living-room. She didn't know what to say, but then again she hadn't said anything for quite a few days now. "Mind if I sit?" He gestured towards the spot beside her.
"Of course," She smiled, faintly. There was already guilt nipping at her feet for the days she had soaked in, monopolizing the entire living room.
"Hey, I'm sorry about the whole, stealing your couch thing and the ... showing up without notice thing ... too." The thought was pieced together a million different ways. Where was Tessa? She always managed to dance away somewhere when she was most needed.
"No problemo," He said, reaching his feet towards the corner of the coffee table, "Mi casa, su casa. Besides, Tess has a really mean arm."
"Thanks," She mumbled. Not sure if she really should be.
"I'm kidding," He offered with that lop-sided grin, she could hear her heart beat against her chest. "I'm glad your here and, if it's any kind of compliment, you look like someone who just showered ... very ... clean."
"Oh shu-" It seemed like Mark could melt away the numbness; speak through the layers of muddled thought and action when she hardly even knew him. Suddenly she felt a laugh bubble in her throat as though it didn't hurt to breath.
Tess poked her head around the wall and it took a moment for the sight to register. Blair had spent so much time in a plastic dream this past week, her eyes were still adjusting to the way the light filtered through the blinds, the words falling from people's mouths with intention, soft and touchable. She walked over, plunking herself on the edge of the armrest. Blair's hands fell to her lap.
"Now, don't you feel better?" Tess implored, her brilliantly blue eyes locked on her best friend.
"I feel okay," She answered, "thanks."
"It was for the better of mankind, trust me B."
Without even realizing it, Blair grazed Tess in the shoulder. "You're so mean," She glowered.
"I know."
"What an evil woman," Mark added, the soles of his shoes pressed together.
"Shut up!" Tess squealed, "Don't you have a class to be at or something?"
"A poetry reading actually," He corrected, glancing down at his watch, "And it's about that time."
He jumped to his feet, sliding his hands in his pockets, Blair kept her head lowered, her eyes on the floor. She had spent so much time here that it was like a second skin, but there existed an intimacy in Mark's gaze now that she couldn't manage to scrub away anymore.
With a quick wave, he pushed back his hair and left. Tess turned to Blair when the door slammed shut and the dead bolt fell into place, leaving the two friends completely alone. She shuddered at what might fall from Tess' mouth. They had hardly talked, much less about why she had arrived at midnight with a barrage of suitcases in a mess of tears and unkempt hair. It was probably about that time. Conversation, right. She could do it.
"So, are you ever going to tell me what's going on?"
Cotton had been stuffed in Blair's mouth; she was full of nothing but dried explanations. "I, uh -"
"Mmhm?" Tess prodded.
"We broke up," And then she was crying before she even felt the sadness.
"You and Mr. Business, always leaving before he even gets home?" There was distaste evident, like sour keys, bittering the words before they even met the air. Tessa hated Chuck, loathed him so much that she wasn't the least bit interested in knowing anything about him once she found out what he did for a living. To her, he was a blank slate, only desiring money, always hurting Blair. Two things Tess didn't care for.
"Yes," She whispered, "I just got up and left."
"I'm guessing he doesn't know?" Tess leaned towards her, caught in between the meanings. She was struggling to keep the judgement at bay, but Blair could feel it anyway. Not everyone wanted to sit around discussing the undertones of classic literature for a living.
"I left a note ... kind of." She must have spent a good half of the day just sitting in the walk-in closet, riveted by rows of neatly pressed suits and ties, shoes that had been polished and organized by expense, as if he ever really was home long enough to do anything but pack everything up again. The human suitcase.
She had walked up and down the length of the room, pressing her nose into the folds of the collars, trying to memorize his scent as if it were something she would ever be able to forget.
As the sun set, early with the grey clouds, she had taken a fountain pen and drawn her heart, in a messy hand, her signature beneath it in loopy cursive. It would always be hidden like their love, a silent passage of time but always there, retaining pieces of their affections, behind his Armani, in the place she had desperately tried to make their home, if Chuck Bass ever bothered to look, to dig behind everything else but the empty side of the closet that used to belong to her.
"So you just left ... no reason?" Blair shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat with a cough.
"I just ... I can't be with him anymore. We're strangers now, I hardly see him, I hardly know him, I can't just sit around for the rest of my life waiting for him to throw me a weekend, a smile, a kiss, you know? I'm not that kind of person. I never have been. And I know it's hard for you to comprehend this, to think that his life is anything but perfect since he has the money, he has the company, he has everything. But I have everything too, you know, so why don't you hate me?" It came out one after the other, tumbling, a brook of meaning.
She wiped furiously at the tears that dripped down her chin. It was so complicated and yet broken down, digested, it seemed less somehow.
Tess said nothing, she sat very still. Finally, as if another moment could break the tension, she opened her cherry red lips, running a hand through her blonde bob. "I don't hate him Blair; I hate what he does to you. I know, I know it seems like I'm not the best friend at times, like I can hardly hear you over my own self-righteous causes, but I do."
Blair collapsed softly into Tessa's arms, deflated. She blinked, feeling her friends hand rise only to gently stroke the crown of her head with her fingers. "I really hated you at first, but I couldn't imagine my life without you now, we're best friends you know, and I'm here for you. I want you to know that, to know that you can talk to me about anything, even if it's something I really hate, or someone I really don't like."
"I know," Blair sighed, "I know I can, I'm just being stupid."
"No," Tessa's voice was firm, "You're confused and hurt and upset, but I'm proud of you. You shouldn't have to spend all your time waiting around, I'm glad you did what was right for you, even if it was hard."
"I love him so much," She replied, "It's too much, I think."
"Sleep on it for a couple of days; weeks, months, you can stay here as long as you want."
The offer was warm, she wanted to wrap herself in it. "Thanks Tess, for listening to me, I love you."
"I love you too B. But," Tessa gestured with her other hand, "You're going to have to go back to class after the holidays, and shower on a regular basis and talk sometimes, not always, but sometimes."
"Alright," Blair said, "I guess that's agreeable."
She felt the bile creep up her throat and in one swift motion she was stumbling for the porcelain sanctuary of the toilet, heaving up much of what she hadn't really bothered to eat in the last couple of days. When she fell back onto the couch with a thud, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Tessa looked concerned.
"You okay?" She asked.
"Fine I think, just getting over that flu YOU gave me."
"There's some cough syrup in the medicine cabinet if you want it," Tessa offered, "it helps."
"No thanks, I'm okay." Blair rummaged through her bag, pulled out a pack of mints and popped one into her mouth with a silly grin, "I've got it all figured out." Even if she didn't.
Tessa grabbed the remote from between the futon cushions and switched on the tv.
"So do we have a deal?"
"Deal," She countered, and although it hurt to know she would think of Chuck, it wasn't as painful as it had been. She needed to be with herself for a while, figure out who that was, without the sporadic interruption of a man oversees with chestnut hair and pastel clothing, an air of butter in his tone.
Stars, glowing beacons, had begun to peak around the veil of early evening, glittering in the sky, heavy and full. If she were still seventeen, she might have closed her eyes, wished and prayed on one, but there was no greater reminder of the passed time, than the moments she found herself caught in now.
She lagged behind, Chuck's silhouette strong and broad, guiding the twins towards the Ferris wheel they had been begging to go on. Two seconds of their combined charm and anyone's heart became theirs, not that Tula or Henry had to fight for anything, and his eyes had already melted, turned with a love unwilling, the steel of decision. A change, Blair knew, she could only detect because of their shared past.
They tugged at his sweater, grinning from ear to ear, the expressions so frighteningly similar that she could trace either of their faces and map it out to the end of the world. Somehow it only led back to Chuck.
"I love Ferris wheels," Tula announced, her grip tightening on his arm.
"Do you?" He asked.
"I do too!" Henry added, his hair shining in the path of the light bulbs. All four of them came to a stop at the bottom of the metal landscape. It felt like she was bleeding a picture dry, just by being there, intruding on the memories that belonged to him as much as they belonged to her. Henry shuffled over to Blair, pulling her closer. She leaned in.
"Well then," Chuck said, "I guess we'll have to go up there now, won't we?"
"Pretty please!"
"Hold on a minute!" Blair declared, digging through her purse, she pulled out a digital camera. If the sky fell on their heads, she wanted to remember the curve of his lips, the way it felt like the burnt miscommunications between them could be healed. "I need a picture."
And for a second, Chuck watched her as she directed them towards the Ferris wheel, all three of them standing there, and she felt it, the pitter patter of her own heart. Then, the second was captured, Tula and Henry enclosed in Chuck's arms, smiling like she had never seen him smile. He looked at Henry and Tula like they were his sun, his moon, the Earth, just as they were hers.
This, if nothing else, they shared still.
"You're not getting in the picture, mom?" Tula asked, curiosity floating through her words.
"I -"
"You have to," Chuck prompted, his voice soft. He moved away, bartering with a nearby tourist, who took the camera from her hands with a polite nod.
Blair smoothed her bangs, running into the frame with a laugh. It was all so quick, his hand sliding across her back, the uninhibited grin that stretched across her face, the silly expressions that graced Tula and Henry's faces and then the flash, that left all of them temporarily blind, as she stumbled for, and retrieved the digital camera, sliding it into the pocket of her jeans.
"Alright gang, lets get in line."
The pod was tiny, but they managed to squeeze inside. The twins excitedly watched the land below them get smaller and then closer, as the Ferris wheel made its rounds. She avoided Chuck's gaze, her head lowered and he took up conversation with the kids, both fighting to keep the bubbled tension beneath the surface of their words.
"We used to go on these all the time," Tula said, turning into her mother's cardigan.
Chuck nodded, a flicker of longing passing through his irises. All the things he had missed with them.
She rested her neck on Blair's stomach, looking up at her mother, "Didn't we mom?"
"We did," She agreed, stroking her daughter's hair, tightening her hold on Henry's palm.
"They remind me of home," Tula blurted out, quietly. A wisdom beyond her years.
"Me too," Henry quickly whispered, leaning his head against her hip.
"Geez," Blair teased, "I've got a couple eight year olds going on fifty-two."
They had told both her and Mark this exact thing, several times. It's why they spent as much time as possible at Cooney island, it gave them a base from which to grow, when there didn't seem to be enough time to travel as she would have liked. To live out of her suitcase with her babies. She had instilled this in them, a place to be and even if Chuck already knew, which he probably did, given his adoration of private investigators, she didn't care.
"Home?" Chuck asked curiously, "What do you mean?"
"We've been on the London eye, two hundred and forty three times," Henry stated proudly, his chin turned up, a smudge of sugary cotton candy on his lip. She resisted the urge to wipe it off with her hand.
"Mom took us up there when we were just babies," Tula squeaked.
Chuck was trying very hard to keep from looking at her, to keep his betrayals quiet, but she could see it was struggle enough, to be in the blatant glare of secrets unfolded. More than he had bargained for and everything he already knew.
"Yeah," She said, emotion drained, "I did."
She knew what he was thinking, calculating in his own way, the waves of his hair as he pulled his hand through them. Blair was never one of those women; she wanted to say to him. Flat, outright, lined with nothing but honesty. But there wasn't enough space to breathe the words, hardly enough just to think them and silence fell in droves, wedging itself between them like gauze.
She thought of how easily the lies came from her mouth when she had Henry and Tula to protect. How bendable the truth was when one has a spine tempered by steel, all the time she told herself it was the right thing to do.
The two ex-lovers were measurements of distance beside each other while Tula and Henry danced ahead, the wind pushing against their frames, the four of them walking towards the surf. They had stopped at a shop on the boardwalk, convincing the owner to sell them a pair of ridiculously expensive sand castle buckets and plastic shovels, that now clanged together between the excited jabber of the kids.
"Stay where we can see you, okay?" Blair called. They both nodded and continued running.
She sat down on the sand, untying her shoelaces and peeling off her shoes, sticking her bare feet in the heated gravel. The last traces of the sunset marked long thin strips of colour that stretched across the sky, the waves breaking against the shore.
She didn't know what to make of everything that had been left unsaid, of the love that sat on the edges, that was proof enough in their children. It was weird enough considering them as parts of someone else, in the real way that she could actually see on her own, instead of crossing different points on a map and directing her thoughts on that next step, relying on the memory of his face, instead of the living, breathing man.
It was easy to believe, in the quiet of their differences, that they could just forgive each other. A frayed friendship, built out of necessity. But she knew that he could hate her if he wanted, maybe it would be better that way, if they could only skim the surface, forget entirely about everything but Tula and Henry. She had taken this from him, everything that had become her life.
Blair opened her mouth; she wanted to tell him anything. Instead, she looked up at the visible stars, sparkling balls of fire, without a sound.
She could still remember how he felt under her fingertips, how he tasted like elegance. A piece of her, wanted him to see her underneath everything.
"I thought I saw you once," She watched the way his chin moved out of the corner of her eye; drinking him in as though she was dehydrated. "I saw you once," He corrected himself, "I was walking down this alley in London and I passed by this restaurant. I saw this woman, long brown hair, your eyes, the window was frosted, I could hardly make it out and I was drunk, but seeing you, or hoping I'd seen you, sobered me up enough. I must have stood there for half an hour, not realizing I could have just walked in, right up to you. I swore I could hear you laugh, even though we weren't close at all. I thought maybe you were there on purpose, maybe you were looking for me and when I finally went inside, the table was empty, you were gone. It was almost a year after you'd gotten up and left. I fell into the bottom of a bottle and I walked away that night resolved to forget about you, to forget that I'd see you in every woman who walked by me, like some kind of pathetic loser."
"Did it work?" She didn't know how she could find the words, but they were there, brittle and breaking apart upon contact. And then, his eyes were on hers, burning.
"What do you think Blair? Some of us can't just stop loving someone, even if I am a Bass."
"I didn't stop... loving you..." She managed. She had just scraped away enough room to love someone else too, and even that hadn't come easily.
He continued as though he hadn't heard her. "I figured you didn't want to be found. And then, when I finally came around to it, I went to Paris, I looked for you there."
She had forgotten how to think, how to react to him.
"I never thought that you'd be in London, that maybe I'd actually seen you that once, you were just this breeze, sailing through my life. I fucking mourned you, like I'd never see you again."
"What do you think you were to me?" She retorted, trying in vain to keep the emotion from her words, it was painful. They were scars, not entirely ready to be read, to be opened again.
"You were everything," He said it like it answered every question, filled every emptiness, knitted together all the broken pieces that had lost direction.
"Now they are," She gestured towards their children, "I know you feel it. They're every bit of us that's good Chuck."
"I know," He answered, "I know. I just, I don't know how you could have walked away, how you could have had them without me."
"I did what I thought was best," She said it as simply as she could have, even though it was much more complicated.
"I guess," He sighed heavily, "I can't believe it, they're so amazing."
"Aren't they?" She felt as though the tension had lessened a little, it wasn't so much about Chuck and Blair anymore, only what had led them to Henry and Tula. "You've been great today," She added. He had been every bit the doting dad with every claim and no title, buying copious amounts of candy and entertaining the twins every whim with an unwavering smile that was so real she could almost reach out and touch it.
She had forgotten, somewhere along the course of the day, to worry. It had slipped off of her like rain in the middle of the storm. If Tula and Henry saw themselves in the plains of Chuck's face, in the way he spoke, she would know eventually. She glanced down at her watch, carefully remembering the time.
And, for some time, the two of them sat in silence, together and yet apart. This was her life now, a pair of dirty converse and easily maintained hairstyles. He had changed little, but then again, what reason other than their breakup, did he really have? At one point she had been full of him, defined by their stability, not realizing that the world wobbled on its axis, that stability was a funny thing to have, an easy thing to loose but a better thing to find.
"They love you," She coughed, covering her mouth with the corner of her sleeve.
"Well, their perfect," He said.
For whatever reason, perhaps out of ancient habit, she felt the sentiment in him and reached up, lightly grazing his knuckles with her fingertips. She expected him to pull away; instead, he blinked and remained still.
"I don't want to be Bart. I can't lie to them. I won't do this with you because of Mark or whatever other justified reason it is that you think you have. I can't be that to them. I know them now, Henry and Tula and I know I can't just pretend like I'm not their dad."
For the first time in a long time, there aren't words. The seconds between them, the grit of truth, was flung open like an ocean, and she wondered how she could reach across it, how either of them would be able to reach each other under all the specifics of passed time.
By the time she tied up her shoes, collected the children and called a cab, the twins' every step was heavy and mellow with sleep. She hoisted Henry onto her hip and he pressed his cheek into her chest, breath against her collarbone, just like he did when he was smaller. Chuck was not far away, Tula cradled in his arms, her fingers clutching his sweater in places. How many times has she seen this in her dreams?
Their conversation was trivial, sitting on topics that meant nothing. Words were a hum, spoken into the thick air that lulled the kids further into calm sleep. She called Mark to make sure he knew that they were coming home, just the three of them, Chuck dislocated from the retelling. Another lie she would have to uphold. She had always been devious, a schemer, but she couldn't remember exactly when it was that she had become a liar.
The look on Chuck's face was nothing short of devastating as the twins hugged him goodbye and shuffled with tiresome effort into the taxi. A reminder of the distance that separated them really.
"Run the meter," Blair instructed, as she walked towards a small alcove not thirty feet way, her eyes steadily keeping watch on the cab as Chuck followed in her footsteps.
"I hope you know that I'm not just going to disappear again," That's the last thing she had thought to do. "I know you want to be their dad, and it's weird, but I want you to be too, you have this right and I'm not ignoring that, I'm just asking, I guess I'm begging actually."
He snorts, "Blair Waldorf, begging?"
"Let me finish," It was said sternly. "I'm asking you to give me time to figure this out, to explain this to the kids, to Mark. I need you to promise me that."
"I wasn't going to do anything."
"I know," She said, although she wasn't so certain. "But I still need you to promise."
"Like it'll actually matter?" He asked.
"It does," She replied.
"I promise," And he sighed. Before she even knew what she was doing, his arms were wrapped around her waist, drawn into embrace, only she's careful not to linger on his scent, the curve of his body holding her.
As she climbed into the taxi, snuggling between Henry and Tula, Blair was reminded of this article she read once, about stars in the night sky that look brighter than the others. It was when one looked at them in the glare of a telescope that they realized they were looking at twins. The two stars rotated around each other, and sometimes it took a hundred years for them to do it, but they created so much gravitational pull that there was no room for anything else.
Only, she didn't really know what it meant or why she had thought of it in the first place, as the car pulled away from the curb, leaving Chuck Bass standing there.