"I've been jumping from the tops of buildings
For the thrill of the fall, ignoring sound advice
And any thought of consequence.
My bones are shattered. My pride is shattered.
And in the midst of this self-inflicted pain,
I can see my beautiful rescue."

-This Providence

The days passed. An airplane containing Nate and Vanessa departed from New York at 1:00 pm exactly on the first day of June. Jenny breathed again, the bottles of memories in her mind sealed and thrown out to sea, floating on the surface, unable to drown. But the seas in her mind that contained the memories of him were angry, constantly churning and battering those bottles.

Her eyes were trained on the cloudless June sky that lay just beyond the wall of the window in Eric's room. A week had passed since Nate's departure to Europe and Jenny had spent almost every day since with Eric. She wondered sometimes how Erik and Jonathan dealt with her being there all the time; she knew that she was a third wheel, and always tried to show up later than Jonathan or leave a few hours early so that the two could have some time together. She didn't have many friends, and frankly, that was sad for a Queen of the UES.

Eric's voice called her name, and Jenny looked away from the window. Jonathan and Eric had gone downstairs a little while ago, and she had heard their voices in the kitchen at one point, but she hadn't thought anything of it. She raised her eyebrows at her friend, who had just entered the bedroom, and he grinned at her. "Jenny," he said again, taking her hand and pulling her off the window seat. "Jonathan and I have been thinking. You've been so incredibly supportive of us from day one, and we're grateful to you for it." Eric took her out of the room, looking thoughtful. "And to be honest, we think you should start dating again. You've been hurting over Nate too long, and Wes doesn't count because you only saw him that once." He laughed here at the scandalized, shocked expression on Jenny's face. "We hate to see you this way... so we did some searching, and we found someone for you. He's in the kitchen right now."

"Eric!" Jenny exclaimed as quietly as she could, not sure if she should be offended or angry or excited or grateful. The kitchen was silent; her feet sounded loud on the steps. "I am not hurting over Nate. In fact, I'm pissed as hell at him! I don't even think it's possible for me to forgive him at this point. I just... I don't know..."

Eric looked at her with his kind eyes and was silent for a moment. "You really need to stop wallowing, J."

Jenny finally nodded with agreement as Eric tightened his grip on her hand and led her into the kitchen. Her eyes first landed on Jonathan's pleased, easy smile, and then transferred to the tall boy by his side. His eyes were dark and so was his hair; his lips were thick and immediately she could tell that they could be easily turned into a smile at any time. Eric and Jonathan had done well, maybe even better than that. His eyes weren't blue like a certain other boy's, his hair wasn't light and floppy and straight, his complexion wasn't porcelain and pale. He wasn't wearing a suit and tie or anything by Ralph Lauren or some other expensive designer.

He smiled at her, and Jenny smiled shyly. She had been so sheltered in the past few months, so kept to herself that meeting someone new --not just that, but someone who could actually be romantically interested in her-- felt strange. Or maybe Nate had just scarred her more than she thought.

"Jenny," she introduced herself, stretching her hand out for him to shake.

His large hand shook hers, and he was still smiling. "Scott."

"I still can't believe Dan met you before I did," Jenny said for maybe the hundredth time in the past two months. The sun was setting beneath thick August clouds and she and Scott were taking a stroll around the city, a few of Jenny's shopping bags in Scott's hands. She had spent much of her time during the summer with Scott; the two often paired up with Eric and Jonathan as well.

Scott laughed. "Jenny, I told you that the first day I met you. And I told you that I met some girl named Vanessa, and some guy with brown hair that was hitting on her."

Jenny's smile slackened a little. "Do you seriously keep forgetting that his name's Nate?" She asked, looking up at him and raising her eyebrows.

Scott raised his eyebrows right back down at her. "Well honestly, from the little that you've told me about him, I'm pretty sure that he doesn't deserve to be referred by any name that doesn't rhyme with masshole. And he was just too smooth for my liking when I met him, anyway."

Jenny couldn't respond; she had nothing to say to defend Nate. As she and Scott walked along, she looked down at the iced coffee in her hands and recalled that first day she'd spent with him.

Scott had been surprisingly easy to talk to there in the Van der Woodsen's kitchen. He seemed genuinely interested in what Jenny had to say, and she could feel some of her old confidence slowly returning. After the damaging experiences with Agnes and Nate, Jenny's confidence and trust in other people had been almost totally destroyed. And even now, she still couldn't give Scott her complete trust. But she was nearly there. It was just that sometimes he would express too much of an interest when she spoke about her family, and the way that he looked at Rufus the two times he had come to visit her home bothered her.

But maybe what made her trust him more than anything else was what he'd done that first night. He'd walked Jenny home, and she could read tension upon his features as they stalled at the doors of her building. Jonathan and Eric were waiting down the street silently (they just wanted to hear him kiss her, she knew it) and expectantly.

He had been on the verge of speaking, but Jenny piped up first. "Scott, I can't lead you on," Jenny had said seriously, looking down at her hands. "I mean, I'm still... recovering from something, and I don't know how long it would take. So even though Eric and Jonathan want you and I to..."

Scott had smiled at her comfortingly. "I'm glad you told me that Jenny. Because you're a beautiful girl, but... I can't either. I can't be with anyone right now, especially you, but I don't think I'm quite ready to talk about it." He had tilted his head to the side a little, observing her. "I don't want to hurt you more than you have been. I'd like to be your friend more than anything else."

Jenny had grinned up at his face and thrown her arms around him then, because a friend was what she needed more than anything else -- the only thing she needed, really.

But Gossip Girl certainly didn't agree. Someone submitted a picture of the hug and from that point on, a frenzy had ensued. It became common for Jenny to log on to the website and see a photo of her and Scott taken only hours previous. In these photos, even the most innocent of gestures were easily misinterpreted. Jenny's leaning over to whisper in his ear turned out to look like she was pulling away from a kiss, Scott's gentle touch on the small of her back to steer her around a crowd of tourists looked like he was about to grab her butt, and running out of a club in the middle of the night with her hair all a mess from dancing looked like they'd just finished having sex in an alleyway. Was it so impossible for everyone to believe that a Queen Bee could be single? In every post he was dubbed as her 'mystery consort' or her 'dark haired prince'. She was surprised that Scott didn't just cut and run, but he just laughed it off, and she was eternally grateful.

Jenny jerked to attention when she felt tiny rain droplets hit the top of her head. "Aw, man," she groaned, ducking for shelter beneath the awning of a building. Scott had tilted his head toward the sky, mouth agape in attempt to catch some rain drops, and Jenny rolled her eyes. She grabbed on to his arm and pulled the boy toward her beneath the awning, shaking her head at him.

"You know New York rain isn't exactly the cleanest, right?" She teased, the shopping bags that Scott carried hitting her thighs as they crowded together beneath the tiny dry space.

She should have realized where she was before the limo pulled up to the home next door and Nate got out. She hunched her shoulders and tried to merge into Scott, hoping he wouldn't see. But he did. Nate's blue eyes widened a little, and Jenny realized how bad this must have looked. For heaven's sake, Scott was holding her Victoria's Secret bags. Not exactly the most innocent of bags to carry when paired with rumors of a relationship.

Nate stood there in front of his limo looking at her, his hands in his pockets; she looked at him and then at the butler exiting Nate's home to retrieve the suitcases that were being pulled out of the vehicle. He must have just returned home from Europe. Jenny looked up at Scott, and he looked down at her, his hand tense on her shoulder. And Scott could tell by her wide eyes and shaking hands that she was afraid of this, of going back to the broken girl that she was at the beginning of the summer, and Nate could see that too, that Scott had changed her for the better, and there was this pang of envy in his chest.

In silence Jenny mustered the strength to turn her back to Nate, took a deep breath, and began her way back to Brooklyn with her friend in tow. If she had looked back, maybe she'd have noticed Nate looking down at his phone in thought. If she had looked through his phone, maybe she would see that all of the Gossip Girl posts about her from the entirety of the summer were saved in his inbox, and maybe she'd see the many photos of herself and Scott in his photo gallery.

Maybe if she had looked into his heart, she would realize that the sight of her made Nate Archibald hurt, too.

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter :) If you forgot who Scott was, he appears at the end of the last episode of season 2. Rufus and Lily's lovechild who they think is dead, remember? Yeah, that sexy thing. ;) .