AN: I very rarely affect myself emotionally with my own writing; this is one of the few exceptions where something I've written has brought me to tears. This one particular drabble is longer than the others, and on top of that, it's probably one of the few where I took a lot of creative liberty with the storyline that was on the show.
However, I would like to add that bulimia is a disease and one that's not easy to "cure." I'd like to see JS and SS address Blair's bulimia again, though I'm not holding my breath. In lieu of that, I give you #4, Hell is Paved in Marble.
Hell is Paved in Marble
The fight goes on with victory;
While I'm watching my defeat
Nobody, not even Dr. Sherman, knew the extent that Blair Waldorf depended on the simplest of freedoms: the ability to eat until she was full to bursting, the ability to excuse herself to the bathroom with polite, charmingly-intonated phrases, the ability to kneel in front of the only throne she'd really ever deserved, and most importantly, the ability to hit that perfect spot at the back of her throat until she felt her stomach empty of all the petty jealousies, the aching insecurities, the empty beliefs that she could ever be good enough.
Eleanor watched, of course, but Blair was certain that she'd become good enough at hiding the evidence that her mother never suspected that she'd never been "cured" of her "little problem." It wasn't Dr. Sherman's fault, Blair thought with fatalistic logic, this was simply who she was. It was what Blair Waldorf did. Stopping would be like bleaching her hair blond and throwing away every headband in her collection. It would be like forsaking the Upper East Side for New Jersey.
But even though it was an integral part of her, and sometimes the most natural, most innate thing she did, Blair had become good at monitoring herself. When she'd first started purging, she'd let the numbness seep too far into her skin and gradually, it'd begun to take control of her. She'd stopped eating normally, and with the blithe glee of someone who'd finally figured out how to live in the role that's been created for them, Blair had let herself go, purging whenever she felt like it. The end of the recklessness had come when she'd finally collapsed in her bedroom, her body exhausted and sick from both too much food and not enough.
Three years later, Blair was now much too smart to let herself purge whenever wanted-at least she'd been before Chuck's final betrayal. With an iron sense of self-control, she'd only permitted herself to do it when there were no options left-when she felt as if she didn't, she would explode into a supernova, burning everyone with the icy fire of her despair.
Blair knew that Serena thought the only relapse she'd experienced was the Thanksgiving after she'd returned to New York. She'd only called Serena because even after making herself sick over and over again, the acid burning her throat until it was raw, she'd still felt out of control.
It was the very first time that Blair had ever purged and not felt better afterwards.
The second time happened in Tuscany, but this time, there was no Serena to help her off the floor, no Serena to gently brush her hair back, no Serena to wash her face of the tears and the vomit.
There was only Blair, a marble floor, and the cell phone that had finally informed her that Chuck wasn't coming after all. The bile had been steadily rising in her throat from his first text message, when she'd still been on the helipad, but she'd needed to believe that he wouldn't betray her, that the speech he'd given at the wedding coupled with his behavior of the last week had meant that he was finally ready to be with her.
Except he hadn't been ready at all.
In the end, it had been an instinctual reaction, the least self-control she'd allowed herself in a year. She'd opened the Gossip Girl blast, expecting to see some tidbit about Serena hiding out in the Hamptons, but instead what she'd seen had sent her careening to the bathroom, the marble cold and hard and unyielding beneath her. She could still taste the bitterness, the slimy, gag-inducing acid as the breakfast she'd eaten on the plane came up. She hadn't even had to find that perfect spot with her fingers; the blast alone had been enough of an inducement, the accompanying picture leaving her sickened and nauseous, desperate for another full stomach so she could rinse and repeat.
Spotted: Chuck Bass romancing not a familiar brunette, but a strange blonde instead. My sources tell me she's the brand new Mrs. Bass's interior decorator. Looks like Chuck didn't waste any time keeping it in the family. Our sympathies, Miss Waldorf.
With trembling figures, she'd dialed the hotel phone and with a voice that didn't even sound like hers, had ordered more food than she'd ever purged before, even during the bad times that had sent her to the hospital.
But this time there was no Eleanor to notice she was falling to pieces, no Serena to watch with sad eyes as she left for her "spa week" in upstate New York, no Nate to lie to, no Chuck to send carefully chosen care packages devoid of anything edible.
She wanted to order room service again, screw what it would look like, but when Blair tried to rise to her feet, even to her knees, her legs didn't hold her.
No wonder Chuck had abandoned her, that vengeful, noxious voice inside snapped, she was pitiful and pathetic. Lying on the floor, no strength to get up, to carry on, to survive despite everything she'd lost.
Eventually, after hours had passed, she'd managed to find some buried, hidden well of self-preservation, and with only the fear that she'd travel too far down to ever claw her way back up pushing her, Blair had dragged herself from the bathroom to her bed. She'd slept for sixteen hours, and when she'd woken up, the only evidence of her failure was the faint smell of vomit and the sharp ache of an acid-burned throat.
After Tuscany, Blair's stumbles had begun to coincide more and more frequently with Chuck's transgressions, until now, when even his absence made her long for the familiar release that her practiced fingers could bring.
"Blair, he's changing his name. His landlady said he's on his way to the train station. This is Chuck we're talking about, he really could just disappear," Serena said, acting as if this was the worst thing that could possibly happen.
As far as Blair was concerned, it was the best news she'd had all summer. Maybe if she knew he was gone for good, knew he wasn't ever going to come back, wasn't ever going to hurt her again, she could take a breath and stop—if only for a little while.
Before slipping into the red gown, Blair had knelt over the toilet, noiselessly expelling the tea and pastries she'd just nibbled on. With she and Serena living in such close quarters this summer, she'd had to learn to be quick and quiet. Because the alternative was stopping, and with the Chuck-sized cloud over her head, she couldn't. Not yet.
But if he was gone . . .really gone. . .maybe . . .
"If you're so torn up about it, stop him," Blair snapped, hating Serena, hating Chuck, hating everyone who seemed determined, despite all her best intentions, to drag her back down into the darkness.
"You and I both know you're the only one who can do that." And he was the only one who could destroy her. Fate really was a bitch.
"If you'll excuse me, I have a ball to attend." She swept out of the room, but Serena followed, doggedly chasing after her the way she'd clearly been chasing after Chuck all day, Blair couldn't help but think bitterly.
"Blair, he almost died holding onto that ring, and onto the hope of you."
She had told him after Jack, "We both hit rock bottom, Chuck, and we've hit it together. At least we won't be lonely in hell." What Chuck didn't know was that without him, she'd hit the bottom more regularly than when they they'd been a couple.
Just this week, she'd hit rock bottom every single day. Sometimes in the morning and after Serena went to bed.
"I forgave him for something that no one else in the world would ever get over. Then he turned around and did the one thing he knew I could never let go." After all she'd done to prove her love and her loyalty, his transparency and his betrayal were too much to handle—she could purge for hours and never empty it from her stomach. And she had tried.
"But you don't need to forgive him; you don't need to even talk to him again after today. But I know you, and you'll always regret it if you do nothing and let him disappear."
Someday, maybe, Blair would tell Serena about all the toilets in Paris that she had visited, how she was intimately familiar with the restrooms in all the best restaurants, about all the floors she had cried on. And maybe then Serena would understand that the best thing in the world would be for her never to forgive him. Never talk to him again. Pretend that he'd never even existed.
The marble floor was beckoning seductively, the promise of comfort in its cold oblivion, and she didn't want him to let him destroy her as well as himself.
But because she loved him, she could never purge it from her system, no matter how hard her fingers pushed. She would let him try, because he was Chuck Bass, and that meant he was still victorious, even in her defeat.
AN: Dialogue was taken from episode 4x02, "Double Identity," though I did refer to scenes in 1x09, "Blair Waldorf Must Pie!" and 1x18, "Much 'I Do' About Nothing."