For the first time in a year I put on what passed for a school uniform at Constance Billard and looked in the mirror, I had tied my hair up in a messy bun on the top of my head but looking at it now I took it down and let in hang in its loose curls around my face.
"Clem," Jenson said, knocking on her bedroom door, he only ever referred to me as Miss when other people were around, "You're going to be late," He said through the closed door.
With a final sigh I picked up my satchel bag and threw it over my shoulder. "I'm not going to be late." I said opening the door, "I've got plenty of time." Jenson stood there with a plate of pancakes with strawberries and whipped crème.
"For breakfast, I mean." He said, "You're going to be late for breakfast." He took the plate and wandered through to what was considered the dining room in my suit and placed the plate down in front of my usual seat. I didn't sit down to eat, instead I stayed standing and picked up a fork.
Jenson was in his mid-thirties and though he didn't look it he was hiding a six-pack beneath his stuffy suits and ties. He was also the only person in the whole world I trusted with my life.
"C'mon sit down." He said and pulled out the chair for me just as I polished off the last bit of my breakfast.
"No can do," I replied dumping the fork on my plate, "Got to get to school, bring the car around?"
He looked at me with a grin and sarcastically replied, "Yes, your highness."
Jenson dropped me off right outside the school gates. It was September and the wind had started to pick up but I hadn't thought to grab a jacket, instead I wrapped my tartan scarf a little tighter around my neck, not that it really did much good. I walked into the school courtyard and people whispered loudly around me, some speculated about where I had been for the last year, others commented on how upset Blair was with my return.
"Clem!" Serena called and jumped happily down the steps towards me.
"Hey, Serena." I replied, twisting a strand of hair around my finger, a nervous habit I'd developed.
"Hey, just ignore them. They're just sad that their lives aren't as exciting as yours." Serena joked, I laughed a little but not enough.
"Seriously MD, I'm sure Blair is completely over it." It was nice to hear her use my old Gossip Girl title - MD, Miss Davinbride – it made it seem like everything was the same again.
"What about Chuck?" I asked, "She's going to expect me to avoid him like the plague, you know how Blair can be." Of course Serena knew, she had plenty of experience with Blair and sleeping with her boyfriends, even if Blair and Chuck weren't even a thing when Clementine... Blair maybe wasn't going to be completely over it.
"Chuck's, I don't know, my friend. He was the first friend I made when I was eleven and in the big city all by myself." I used dramatic hand gestures to make a point. "I don't want to lose that."
Serena looked down at me, her eyes were almost but not quite pitying, "Have you talked to Chuck?" She asked, "At all in the last year?"
I shook my head, I'd been too busy with my family and sorting everything out, then I got a new phone and lost all my contacts and... Well it had been stressful. I didn't tell Serena this though, I just left it as a head shake. "Then maybe, you don't even need him anymore." She said as if she was the happiest person alive, I knew how Serena felt about Chuck, the same way plenty of people, especially woman, felt about Chuck, but she didn't know him like I did.
"Oh, well. Look," She said looking towards the school gates where another black car was pulling up, "Now's your chance to talk to him." Sure enough out of the car stepped Nate Archibald – who looked tired but still as handsome as I remembered him to be – And Chuck Bass – who looked, as always, very pleased with himself. My stomach flipped and I wasn't certain it was in a good way. His eyes found mine almost instantly and his smile changed a little, like he couldn't quite believe that the rumours were true but he was glad that they were. I should have smiled back but I couldn't.
Then he walked straight passed me and towards the steps where Blair stood with her minions, surveying her kingdom. He climbed the steps and kissed Blair's cheek, she looked down at me triumphantly, like Chuck was a prize and she'd won. Chuck was no prize, in fact he was an arse.
"Let's get to class," I said to Serena and now her eyes did look at me with pity, "We're going to be late." I said even though there were at least five minutes before we had to be heading to homeroom, even so Serena came with me, she was a good friend, Blair was her best friend yet she was willing to walk passed her with me without even questioning it. I'd missed our friendship. We walked up the steps passed Blair with her annoying little smirk and passed Chuck, he didn't even give me a second glance. Once inside Serena stopped me.
"Hey, are you okay, Clem?" I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what I was right now.
"He didn't even say hello, Serena." I finally replied. "He hasn't seen me in a year and he didn't even say hello." Serena rested her hand on my shoulder.
"Maybe it's for the best, he's not a good person you know, maybe this is your lucky escape." She told me. She had a good point, Chuck was poison to almost everyone he touched but he'd never been that way with me.
"Do you want to meet me after school?" I said changing the subject, "Catch up for lost time?"
"Sure, we can have dinner in the hotel restaurant?" Serena suggested and I nodded.
We parted ways, each of us heading for our separate homerooms.
Dinner was the most fun I'd had in so long, "So you and Dan are pretty serious then?" I asked and Serena nodded.
"Yeah, we are." She replied and I knew she loved him from the way she smiled whenever one of us said his name. "But what about you?" Serena asked, "You've been gone a whole year, where have you been?"
"Home," I replied, most people knew I wasn't from America, "Back to Benvia, you know that tiny little country that no one's ever heard of?"
"Really?" Serena asked, "But you just disappeared, Chuck took you home from that party then the next morning you were just gone."
"My father died." I said simply, it was no big deal, not anymore, I'd had my time to come to peace with it and we'd never really been close.
"Oh," Serena said and there was that pitying gaze again, "Oh Clementine I'm so sorry." I shrugged it off and told her it was fine. A silence passed between us and I picked at the pasta in front of me.
"I slept with Chuck, you know." I said and I must have shocked her because she dropped her fork onto the table.
"You what?" She asked, she'd joked about it plenty of times but had never thought it was something I'd ever actually do. "When?"
"That night when he took me home from the party." I said like it wasn't major news. "I hadn't even been drinking but my mom texted me to let me know my dad had died-"
"Your mum texted you that?" Serena said, she sounded horrified, I wondered how she'd sound if I'd have told her it was probably one of her many servants who'd actually done it. I nodded and carried on,
"Yeah so anyways I asked Chuck if he could get me a cab and he must have see how upset I was 'cause he insisted on coming with me." Serena listened intently, "We sat in my room for a while, he didn't ask what was wrong, he just hugged me to him and told me everything was fine and then I kissed him and then we... well, you know." Serena sat speechless for what felt like forever. I continued to eat my meal like it was nothing, it was nothing, Chuck had slept with half the girl on the Upper East Side, I wasn't special.
"And then you just disappeared?" She asked and I nodded, "You slept with him and then just disappeared without even saying goodbye." When she said it like that it sounded horrible, but it was Chuck, he slept with girls and then never spoke to them again like it was a normal part of life. "Clem, why would you even think about sleeping with Chuck?" She sounded like it was worst mistake I could ever make, "You always said you never saw Chuck like that."
"I know, it was stupid, I was in a bad place and he made me feel better." I said, "The worst part is for the last year he's all I could think about, it's ridiculous. He's like a song I can't get out of my head."
"So what," Serena began again, "You expected to come back and he'd just be here waiting for you?" The disbelief in her voice was thick and it sounded so stupid when she said it. I couldn't make eye contact with her, instead staring into my pasta like it was the most intriguing thing I'd ever seen.
"I guess. I don't even know why, I don't even like him like that." I replied, my voice small. Serena laughed and it surprised me.
"Oh Clem," She said, "You're so naïve, its beautiful."
Ugh this is so full of babble, its so bad but if I play with it anymore its just going to get worse. So here it is in all its terrible glory. ~RainbowVeins