[2] Study Date
Serena opens the door for her, half-laughing as Blair stumbles in, carrying an armload of books and a bag stuffed with sheets of notebook paper. Not even her deadliest glare can reign in Serena's exuberance, but then, Blair reasons, what force of nature could quell the excitement of new love?
"Good God, B, are we taking the LSATs or an English exam?"
Strangling her exasperation, Blair wordlessly marches to the divan and drops her bag with a satisfying thud. She can feel Serena's amusement as she sheds her wool coat and matching beret, and sure enough, when she turns back, her best friend is still watching her with a small smile.
"Are you coming, or not?" Blair snaps.
"You know, you did come over to my place to study, right?"
"Just get your books, and let's get started."
Serena saunters towards her room, leaving Blair to begin organizing her stacks of materials. Typewritten copies of her notes, lists of suggested questions, and highlighted copies of the reading material soon cover the coffee table.
A door slams, ruffling her papers, and Blair looks up from her copy of Hamlet, annoyed. Words of derision die on her lips as her eyes meet Chuck's for the first time in days.
She feels herself flush, and inwardly cringes as she looks quickly away from his face. Chuck never made her feel secure in her position—she'd never wanted him to—but now she's more unbalanced than ever. Moreover, she's acutely aware that she sacrificed taste for comfort when choosing her current ensemble.
"Sorry, sorry, I couldn't find the anthology, but it was under my bed—" Serena cuts herself off, looking between Blair and Chuck.
What the Hell, Blair ponders, made me choose jeans?
"So," Chuck says, breaking into Blair's self-chastising, "doomed princes and romantic poetry. It's so very…relevant to our modern age."
"Communication at its finest, really. Wish we all went around speaking in sonnets, which, by the way, have fifteen lines and a rhyme scheme determined by the two major types." Blair glances at him briefly before turning to Serena, "And the types are?"
"Spenserian and Shakespearean. Chuck, are we going to bother you if we study in here?"
"Not at all, I think I'll quite enjoy it. I might even learn something."
"You realize that we're reading Shakespeare, not Playboy?"
Her words barely sound harsh, let alone biting. He smirks at her, brushing her arm as he moves by on his way to the kitchen. She wonders if he knows it will drive her insane for the rest of the night, trying to figure out if the touch was intentional or accidental—or did he even notice it at all?
She smiles thinly, taking a moment to quash the messy emotions now running rampant in her mind. Pivoting on her heel, Blair scoops up a stack of notecards covered with facts she's already committed to memory. Handing them to Serena, she recites the names of fictional characters until the sound of her voice drowns out the pounding of her heart.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Two hours later, Serena's cell buzzes for the umpteenth time.
"It's Aaron, Blair, please?"
"Shouldn't starving artists understand the meaning of concentration?"
"Come on, B, you already know all of this anyway—"
"Take the fucking call, Serena."
The interruption is significantly less upsetting than the sheer delight she can read all over Serena's face and the musical lilt of her breathy 'Hello?' as she answers the phone. Envy washes over her as she watches her best friend cradle her cell on her shoulder, turning away from Blair. Inching away a few steps at a time, Serena gives herself both privacy and—Blair can barely stand to think the word—intimacy.
"Amazing Humphrey can stand to walk past her in the courtyard, isn't it?"
She whips around at the sound of his voice, rearranging her features into simple annoyance.
"I'm not sure what you're getting at, Bass."
He chuckles softly, mumbling something under his breath that could be "I'm sure you don't," but she isn't paying attention, because he's distracting her by sitting down on the couch. Her couch.
"The Comedy of Errors," he says, reaching over her to grab a stack of her notes, "was written in what year?"
He's in her personal space, and she can't focus.
"What?" She gasps out.
He leans in and slowly repeats, "In what year was The Comedy of Errors written?"
"Sometime in the late sixteenth century, no one knows for sure. Why are you doing this?"
"You want to study; my dear sister is occupied. What is the title of the later adaptation?"
"See If You Like It."
He moves back, settling into the cushions. She instantly regrets the distance between them, then hates herself for her weakness. Suddenly self-conscious, Blair picks at the seam of her jeans. A stray thread has emerged near her knee, and the temptation to rip it free proves a welcome distraction from the boy sitting opposite her.
"Blair, I could pepper you with question after question, but you already have all the answers. This isn't a study session; it's an exercise in futility."
He's watching her hands play with the edges of the denim, and she wonders again about the touch, the slide of his skin over her own.
"I like to be sure."
"Be sure of what?"
"That I have it all figured out. If I can prepare beforehand, then I can be aware of possible problems," she pauses, "I like having all the facts."
He looks up, studying her face for a long moment.
"You're over-thinking things and making it more complicated than it needs to be."
Her heart catches in her throat, and she isn't sure what to say or do. This wasn't what she intended to happen at all, and it wasn't how the evening was supposed to go. He wasn't supposed to be here; he was supposed to be out at a bar somewhere. And she was supposed to be studying Shakespeare, not her life choices.
"Come on, Waldorf, you know you're going to do fine on the exam. At this point, you could probably write a dissertation on the material."
"Yes," she concurs, "I probably could."
He hands her the pages he's holding, but their fingers don't brush. She packs her belongings into the latest Balenciaga bag, and he stands abruptly.
"Chuck," she says, but she has nothing else to say. He stands in expectation, his expression unreadable.
"Thank you," she says, finally.
"Of course," he returns, ever the sadist, "what are friends for?"