A/N: Team, I am SO sorry to have been so remiss in uploading. In my defense, I was preparing for and executing a move from New York to Paris, which has been a big (wonderful!) adjustment.
I'm endlessly grateful for the time you all give me in reading, reviewing, PMing, liking and following. We've picked up several new readers recently and I want to say welcome and thank you to everyone !
Onward ! Happy holidays to all. =)
- XOXO
i.
Tuesday, February 12
The ride home from school finds him scrunched low on the rear bench of the limo, bottle of Perrier perched in the cupholder to his right- he lifts it to take a sip between underlinings, left hand pausing, pen poised, his eyes never leaving the page. His propped-up knees form the tilted desk for his studying.
He's reviewing the minutes of the last eight quarterly meetings of the Bass Industries Board of Directors which arrived, along with a secret flood of warmth in his chest, in a package bearing a note from Ellen James, this morning.
Managed to dig these up. Thought they might be useful.
Best,
EJ
Whether she ran this by his father or not, he's unsure- on the one hand, he imagines Ellen does little without Bart's approval; on the other, Bart's been making vague references to the benefits of coming into the business "blind," to being "a sponge" and other veiled allusions to Bart's own ingenuity when he was Chuck's age, and may want to see how quickly his son takes to the material without the benefit of a foundation beforehand.
Whatever. He'll take all the help he can get.
He flips the latest sheet he's finished facedown, on top of its predecessors, next to him on the leather seat.
He's been tearing through these sheets between classes, working through the sections in chronological order, the way Ellen packaged them; he's nearly finished with the first two sets of minutes, meaning he's still eighteen months in the past. He wants to finish the next two before his appointment at the tailor, in two hours; Nate's appointment, to which he'll probably arrive late and damp from his post-game shower, is directly after. That will leave a year's worth to finish tonight.
He takes a sip of Perrier as the limo rounds a bend, and slides further down in the seat, adjusting the papers higher on his knee.
ii.
Blair's eyes track humorlessly over the image for what must be the dozenth time. She wants to believe she doesn't care anymore, that it's such stale water under a bridge so far behind her that she can't even remember it, but she finds herself searching the details of the photo of Nate kissing her hand at the Snowflake Ball last year. She's not even sure what she's searching for. Nate was aloof in those weeks after Serena left, certainly, for reasons that became clear just a few months ago; she remembers, now, with a wry twist in her stomach, that she knew in the moment that he was forcing the romance of that kiss, that smile; remembers, with a pang of shame, how readily, needily, she responded. I love you, she murmured. It took so little for her to overwrite the obvious in his case. So little for her to be weak for him.
Not just for him, she thinks, gaze sliding, emotionless, into oblivion.
So little for her to be weak. Period.
It's one of the questions she would ask that past person- Blair the Unflinching. The girl she was before. The condition that she doesn't have to voice the questions out loud, the parts of that girl that she didn't, still doesn't, understand, to Dr. Genove, has had a surprisingly potent effect on the reflective process her therapist asked her to work on during their last session.
She told Chuck that she didn't mean it. When she called him a mistake.
It's the most honest thing she's said in… weeks. Months?
In a low part of her stomach, probably deep in what could only be described as her gut- but she hates that word, so she'll call it her soul- she burned when she said it, even when she tried to just work up the momentum to say it. Her hands felt cold, and her chin trembled, and not because it was weak to apologize or to admit she was wrong, and not because it was difficult to relive that day- being, as it turned out, the very last day of that past girl's life.
She burned and shivered and perspired because she understands that part of Blair the Unflinching. She remembers that part well- could conjure a strong impersonation of it, now, if needed- the bile that came to her, the rush of hot pride, in a moment when she could feel her power over someone, when she knew she could hurt.
This will help you, the doctor had said to her last Friday, to see yourself in a more clear and human light.
And it has.
Standing in the courtyard that day, cool-eyed and unblinking, it was easy to lie to Chuck, easy to deliberately hurt him. (So she could shake him loose and turn, readily, needily, back to Nate the moment he reached for her.)
She sighs inwardly.
But it was a lie, and confessing to the lie, putting her hand over it and pulling it back from the table, made her hot and cold and tremble all over. Because Chuck doesn't look at her like he feels sorry for her; he looks at her like Chuck- like he's Chuck Bass and she's Blair Waldorf and in spite of everything, they can still complain that the lobster bisque at Le Bernardin is insufficiently seasoned, and he can still look hard at her when he knows she's lying; he can still take the blows she lands and snipe back at her, without telling her how good she is; can talk to her like she isn't about to fall apart at the seams if he doesn't do everything softly.
And telling him it was a lie, that she didn't mean it, feels right. It feels strong. It feels like she's not that girl anymore, outwardly Unflinching, inwardly Trembling, so desperate and weak that she, the Blair of Now, cannot bring herself to look too closely, in case the good doctor's promise- that she'll see herself more clearly- should arrive in sharp focus.
Confessing a lie, even one that hurt, that was designed to hurt, that was weak and petty, and apologizing for that lie, is strong. It shows growth past the hollow, brittle Blair the Unflinching.
Saying that lie out loud is enough, she decides, scrunching further down in bed and sliding Page Six into safe concealment under her duvet when she hears footsteps on the stairs.
That'll be Dorota with the tea.
It's nearly time for therapy.
iii.
Since it's postseason, neither team bothers with elaborate opening sequences, player introductions or the like; St. Jude's, the home-court team, is in white, with Dalton in midnight blue. Even the cheerleaders are lackluster: some of them are still wearing their warm-up pants under their pleated skirts, and a handful of ponytails are unadorned by ribbon.
The bleachers on both sides are sparsely populated, though naturally St. Jude's has more attendees. The Dalton side is a smattering of adults with Blackberries and/or cameras- parents- and student-aged girls- most likely girlfriends of the players. Serena smiles, a small smile, eyes dropping, to herself, remembering Nate's comment that Blair used to come. She leans over to Dan, hand finding his way under his folded coat to touch his knee, and thanks him for coming with her: "I know it's an odd request for a date."
"Worse things have happened to better people," Dan quips back, low, smiling and leaning forward to kiss her.
She smiles back against his mouth, and they part just as the referees and starters (not Nate, she notes, but without better knowledge of his position on the team is unsure whether this is significant) convene in the middle of the court for jump-ball.
"It's the least I can do," she says, watching as the ref, palming the basketball in one hand, brings his whistle to his lips with the other and trills on it, bringing the whole of the room to attention.
He bounces it twice; both players, white and blue, nod in agreement that the ball is viable. He holds it up above his head, whistle dangling down his torso, white and blue shifting their weight in anticipation, bodies coiled tight as springs, and tosses it lightly in the air.
The game goes well, with Nate not part of the starting lineup but subbed in within the first sixty seconds of play, low-fiving the player he swaps for as their paths cross.
No eye contact.
Serena has seen Nate play before, many times. She, Blair and Chuck have gone to dozens of games over the years, and she's accompanied Blair to games without Chuck as well, particularly when her mother was… well. Pursuing other interests.
She's watching him, alert for bits of technique she can praise later, keeping an eye out for his trademark Nate the Athlete smile: Nate isn't boastful; he doesn't brag or grin about his achievements; there's a soft-sloped half-smile that he makes when he's satisfied his athletic expectations for himself, and that's what she's looking for.
If she weren't watching him so carefully, she might not notice that today, Nate isn't smiling at all. He's playing well, if not with the effortless agility she's used to seeing in his performance then with an extra shot of ferocity. He seems less focused and is a half-second behind his teammates on several occasions, which surprises her. And he moves with a hard-bitten jerkiness and heavier-than-normal footwork; he's out of breath quicker, probably because he's not pacing himself; and he stands around on the sidelines, on his breaks from the game, glancing continuously at the half of the court closest to him, even when play is at the opposite end.
"How's he doing?" Dan asks at one point, trying to feign interest for her. Dan doesn't know the first thing about basketball.
"I've seen him in better form," she replies, quiet and honest.
What she doesn't realize, can't realize from her vantage point, is that Nate's inability to concentrate isn't the way he came into the game; it's not the court he's glancing at, nor is it the preoccupation of forlorn emotion that's distracting him.
He notices it after his first two or three rounds in play: one of the adults- parents, presumably- on the Dalton side of the court has a camera on a strap around his neck that seems to be raised to eye level only when Nate is playing.
At closer inspection- eyes lingering on the guy for a few seconds here or there, one of which causes Nate to miss a pass, after which his coach swaps him back to the bench (fair enough)- the guy is too young to be the parent of a player, and, unless college recruiting is trending in a more artistic direction these days, it's unlikely that he's a scout. Perhaps he could pass for a camera-enthusiast brother or cousin, except that he's also too sloppily dressed and nervous-looking: as Nate's suspicion grows and he turns to look at the guy more regularly, the camera is quickly redirected or dropped, with its owner averting his gaze.
Nate goes up for a foul shot, the St. Jude's cheerleaders chorusing encouragement as he dribbles, palms the ball in both hands, winds up…
Up! Up! Over the rim!
Come on, Nate, put it in!
Sink it, Nate, sink it!
(This particular chant, while not of Voltaire-caliber profundity, is amazingly motivating for him: a rush of adrenaline, 'my moment to shine' and all that, especially as it ends with all cheerleaders' hands in the air, a row of burgundy-and-white poms held in superstitious salute until you make the shot, the court so quiet you could hear a solitary cough.)
…and breaks off, feeling himself prickle, imagining a lens trained on him, like that day uptown with Chuck.
He pauses, dribbles again- a gesture not unusual in foul shots, but his lack of focus burns on his cheeks.
The cheerleaders hold their salute.
(He doesn't see, but Serena, next to Dan in the top row, is watching him, intent.)
His foul shot bounces off the backboard. His shoulders slump momentarily, before he remembers his unease and draws himself upright- the less he gives that's photo-worthy, the better- glancing over his shoulder, like he's just checking to make sure no one's behind him, as play resumes.
The next time he swaps out, he makes a display of getting Gatorade, drinking it in long sips, riveting his eyes at a safe angle away from the guy across the court, and then cuts his eyes over quickly.
Directly into the lens that's pointed at him.
He fights the urge to crush the cup in his hand.
The guy- he's wearing a bright blue windbreaker, too cheap-looking to realistically be from the family of a Dalton student, Nate sees- lowers the camera, pretends to fiddle with it, trains it on the players left on the court and snaps a few frames.
Nate tries the trick again after the halftime break, wandering with another cup of Gatorade (lemon, which he hates) to the end of the bleachers on his side of the court, and this time catches the guy watching him, attention turned blatantly in the opposite direction of play, though his camera is not raised.
Too quickly, in a burst of irritation, he crushes the cup in his fist and tosses it into the trash.
The guy's too slow to get the shot.
Nate gives him a hard, mocking look, just as his coach beckons to him- Archibald- and he swaps back into play.
iv.
Despite her inward decisiveness to the contrary, halfway through her session she's forcing her fingers to stay relaxed, forcing her hands not to wring, because the doctor's habit of letting silence stretch, pensive, between them- like she knows something more than she's saying, like she can read Blair's thoughts, like every time they make eye contact she can also see the film reel in Blair's head (drastically off course: someone has surely bastardized her story), grainy and inconsistent in its pace- first jerking forward, then jumping back, skimming, frame by agonizingly slow frame, over moments that she can't- won't-
"Blair."
She blinks.
"Yes."
Dr. Genove fixes her with a blank, penetrating look- not a smile, not a stare- that, for all Blair knows, she may have been employing for the last few minutes while Blair looked elsewhere.
She thinks they're about to slide again into quiet, wonders if she can say she has a headache, something, anything to end this session early. She just doesn't feel well. She didn't sleep well last night. That's why she feels this way. And then this woman asks these quiet little questions about why she thinks things or why she feels things, and then she just keeps staring at her like-
"You were going to share some of your insights about why you may be feeling the way we talked about during our last visit," the doctor says, not unkindly, but not gently either. "Whatever you're comfortable talking about."
She lets the pause before answering drag on as long as she plausibly can, and then waits another five seconds.
"I don't really have any insights," she says, quietly.
The doctor's pause is comfortable. "None at all?"
Blair clenches her teeth together, then releases. "I have to think about it more."
Same pause: about two seconds.
"That's quite all right." The doctor, Blair notices, is matching her tone quite well. Irrational annoyance spills through her on the instant: a shiny distraction.
She pounces.
"Is it?" she replies, clipped. "Is it quite all right?"
The doctor doesn't flinch.
It pisses her off.
"You're the doctor," she presses on, her tone nastily bitter, lip curling just enough to be a sneer. "Shouldn't you be the one providing insights? How much are my parents paying you per hour to sit here and ask me pointless questions?"
The doctor blinks, quickly, twice- she looks like she's thinking about what to say; her expression is not challenging, is not concerned, is not anything.
But the silence stretches, again, too long, and something very like fear squirms through Blair.
On the pretext of adjusting her posture, she presses her fists into the mattress on either sides of her hips, digging her fingernails into her palms.
The movie reel is gliding along, a silent Golden Age picture, from the archives of her mind, brought out against her will. That isn't her story. It's not the story of Blair the Unflinching.
(It is, though. That weak, desperate girl under the surface.)
(The one whose existence ended, she's now determined to conclude, that night.)
No, Blair the Unflinching's behavior has been apologized for; she's admitted she was wrong and needlessly hurtful, and that she didn't mean it. It was right to do that. It was strong. It proves she's not that girl anymore; that girl is over and done with, and she's the Blair of Now, so what difference does this movie make?
None.
Still, it plays on and on and on- freezing and wet on her back, through her coat-
She shivers on the spot, a chill running down her spine.
Desperate tears struggle to her ducts. She digs her nails in harder and focuses on the sting.
"This is useless," she tells Dr. Genove, who is, infuriatingly, still looking at her quietly. "You're getting paid to sit there and say nothing? Is that what therapy is? Isn't this supposed to be about you helping me to move on from what happened? Not just…" she waves a hand uselessly, palm-away from the doctor in case she should see the pink crescents of fingernail damage, but disconcertingly the doctor's eyes don't stray from her face.
She has to restrain herself from squirming. She can still feel the cold on her back, though logically she knows she's safe, warm and dry, down pillows and cashmere all that's behind her.
She jars herself upright as if to elude the imaginary sensation, crossing her legs.
"Not just," she continues, "sitting there staring at me and asking me these questions like I'm some kind of…"
The hot, heavy reality seeping into her, pulling forth every last bit of energy from her sinking limbs, mind racing as quickly as it could, time passing with agonizing slowness, feeling, with strange detachment, the warmth of blood on the side of her face, and scrabbling, desperate, for anything, anything-
"Some kind of…" she repeats, uselessly, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, turning the film reel black.
Alighting on something in the deep recesses of her consciousness, synapses firing wildly and without judgment, without evaluation, without anything beyond self-preservation, grabbing for it, dragging breath raggedly into her lungs-
She blows her breath out sharply.
"It's unproductive. Isn't your job to help me? How is this helping me?"
She stares, hard, at Dr. Genove.
After several seconds of silence, the doctor opens her mouth and says, entirely without preamble- no quick lick of the lips, no inhalation:
"What are you thinking about, right this second, Blair?"
Her jaw twitches, but she rallies quickly. "I'm thinking about your increasingly apparent level of incompetence, doctor," she shoots back, dripping poison.
Still no flinch from the doctor. The notebook, closed again this session, is on the woman's lap, but no pen, even, tucked into its spiral. Blair wonders if her therapist is working as hard to sit still as she herself is.
As if she can read her thoughts, again, Dr. Genove crosses her legs the other way, the movement light and fluid. "What else?" she asks, just above a murmur.
She blinks, weakening against her will. "There's no room for anything else," she tries, but the memory of the cold at her back is too tactile to bear and she shivers, and then looks down and pulls up her covers, busily.
The doctor watches as she straightens the blanket over her lap, tugs it up to hug her torso and folds it down neatly. "Are you cold?" she asks after observing a minute of Blair's fussing. "I can ask Dorota to bring another blanket."
"No," she replies, picking at the edge of the sheet where it folds over the duvet, smoothing it inch by inch, studying the hemline: the tiny, even stitches.
Silence falls.
"I have a headache," Blair says at length. "I don't feel well."
She raises her eyes and finds the doctor blinking back.
"Are you requesting we end today's visit early?" The doctor's crossed foot doesn't bob idly; crazily, Blair wishes Dr. Genove would do something more to irritate her; something to provoke her.
The woman doesn't even rise to her own goading, a fact that fills her with unease.
She needs someplace to put the acid burning in her. Something to distract her from the reel in her head.
"I… I don't want to talk about anything stressful. It'll make my headache worse." She attempts to be impassive, averting her eyes, disinterested: Blair the Bored. "So." She rolls her eyes thoughtfully ceilingward. "I'm not sure we have much to discuss."
"If you'd prefer the time to yourself, to rest or reflect, that's fine." Her tone is so amiable that Blair shuts her eyes against it.
No good: the reel starts up again, sucking freezing air into her lungs to push the words out-
Dr. Genove saves her, unknowingly, "What would be best for you, Blair?"
What would be best for you?
She covers her eyes with one hand, but it's too late. Her face crumples. Tears don't come at once, but worse: shame. A whimper.
She all but writhes in humiliation- she's acting like a petulant child throwing a tantrum, hot with anger one moment, dissolving into hysterics the next; it's embarrassing- for Dr. Genove to ask her what's wrong, to ask again if she'd like to be left alone, if her headache has gotten worse.
But the doctor just waits.
v.
Nate gets fouled again, though he's starting to suspect the refs are treating him with kid gloves- poor kid, he's under so much pressure, what with that a crook of a father and batshit crazy mother, and now his girlfriend getting r- he bites back that thought, unclenching his jaws with effort as the ref holds up two fingers (he gets two foul shots, which is ridiculous, and he forces down more irritation at the notion that he, Nate Archibald, needs to be babied) and takes his place at the foul line.
Up! Up! Over the rim!
He tests his weight, one foot, the other, and blows out a long, cool breath that hits his own chest as he looks down and dribbles, slow, steady.
Come on, Nate! Put it in!
He looks up at the hoop- his old friend. Chuck has eye-rolled on more than one occasion that an Archibald 'never met a hoop he didn't like.'
Sink it, Nate! Sink it!
He dribbles once more, winds up, and shoots.
The ball's arc is perfect, careless; it swishes through, nothing but net.
One corner of his mouth turns upward as the cheerleaders do their peculiar little celebration, which involves stomping while smacking their poms against their neighbors', then together, then straight out, kicking one sneakered foot forward as well and bowing their heads. They do this when you've made your first of two fouls. It's a series of thuds and swishes, a rhythm of no more than three seconds that he's heard hundreds of times before, so that listening for it is both a reward and a Pavlovian reaction.
The ref palms the ball, bounces it amiably back toward him.
The cheerleaders wind up for their encore: Sink it, Nate! Sink it!
He dribbles faster this time, heart light and shoulders relaxed, and winds up-
And when he raises his head, a flash of bright blue at the edge of his vision makes him glance sideways, and he fumbles with the ball, nearly drops it, tension racing through him like someone's plunged a ten-gauge needle between his shoulder blades.
His teammates, and the Dalton guys, look at him, perplexed. He can feel his cheeks reddening. He makes a half-hearted attempt at dribbling again in the awkward quiet that hangs now, his coach's eyes on him, riveted crowd and frozen cheerleaders at the sideline- and he's trying to fight down the shame of embarrassing himself, and his teammates, and his coach, again-
When he hears a click.
He knows it's a camera shutter, tries to convince himself on the instant that he imagined it, but, a second or two later, another, from the direction of the windbreaker, and then two more, on top of each other.
He closes his eyes, heart pounding, trying to bring his focus back to the ball, but it's too late.
He drops the ball, unceremonious, like it's a piece of trash.
Turns, faces the windbreaker.
Lifts both arms in a careless shrug. "Okay." He pulls his mouth into a grin, cheeks still flushed with embarrassment. "Here I am. Want me to pose for you?"
Though Nate hasn't moved toward him, the guy takes a step back, toward the bottom row of bleachers- he got out of his seat, still safely on the sidelines and not touching the court, to get a good angle for Star Athlete Archibald Missing Foul Shots- Close to a Nervous Breakdown?!, perhaps- but keeps the camera poised.
Click.
"Come on," Nate says, louder, dimly aware of the other players turning to watch him, "what's the money shot?"
"Dude," the Dalton player closest to him murmurs, but Nate barely hears him and acts as if he doesn't hear him at all.
He starts across the court, and at the foul line he's already halfway. The windbreaker is out of luck because there's no way to exit the court where Nate couldn't cut him off.
"Archibald!" It's his coach, who is hilariously- or it would be hilarious in a less confused moment- hovering at the sideline on the opposite side, far behind Nate's back, because if he steps onto the court it's a penalty for St. Jude's. "Get back here!"
The ref trills his whistle quickly in agreement, as if to say, 'yeah, what he said!'
Nate, still grinning, arms still held out as if pantomiming an emphatic shrug, advances on the windbreaker. "You like smiles better, or serious?"
"Nate," one of his own teammates says, into the otherwise-quiet, moving to follow, but drifting to a stop after a step or two. Nate has laid out more than one of his own teammates 'by accident' in practice in the last few weeks.
The windbreaker, not realizing- who would?- what's about to happen, doesn't make a run for it. He simply lowers his camera and continues backing away, in the direction of the exit this time, as Nate steps up to him, likely thinking he's going to run him out of the building.
The irony: Nate looks beatific, gorgeous, rosy spots on his cheeks and hair shaded dark at his temples from sweat.
Completely photogenic.
Lightning fast (Archibald reflexes), he grabs the windbreaker with both hands, the motion startlingly and comfortingly familiar, though he's the only person who could possibly know that.
Possibly he says something, but if so, it's quick and low and no one hears.
A shriek comes up from one of the cheerleaders- maybe more than one. It echoes in the silence.
Nate shoves the windbreaker backward, hard, with both hands. The guy hits the floor and gasps, the wind knocked out of him. Atmospherically, he hears the hasty tweet-tweet-tweet of the ref's whistle, and he knows it's directed at him: like he's fouling another player in the game, like he gives a fuck about the game anymore.
He punches the guy, hard, across the jaw.
There's a flurry of movement in his periphery, teammates, Dalton guys moving as one, shouting his name, their voices blurry like they're underwater, Nate's jaws clenched so tightly he swears he can't hear or see anything beyond the windbreaker- there's a faint chirping in his ear, persistent, that he recognizes as more whistling, and the sharp knife of his coach's voice; he lands another blow before he feels hands on him, and he shoves them off, roughly.
He doesn't hear her coming, doesn't hear her at all- maybe he mistakes her shouting his name for a cheerleader?- and doesn't see her until she's in front of him, half-underneath him.
It takes a half-second for her features to organize themselves into her face; truthfully, he very nearly strikes her.
vi.
They only have a few minutes left in the session by the time Blair forms any type of coherent thought. They barely touch on it. Dr. Genove says she's happy to stay longer, if Blair wishes, but Blair shakes her head minutely, listless blonde falling over one shoulder, and says it's fine.
They'll discuss it Friday.
She struggles it out, forcing it into the air- the irony not lost on her that this confession, unlike the one she made, that night, the one in the reel, is one that she has to work up to vocalizing.
"I screamed," she says, weakly, looking at an indistinct point in the air above her bed, "for my friends."
Her eyes are already swollen from the bout of face-in-hands, rib-jabbing sobs she's spent the last ten minutes on. She thought she was done, and ready to speak, but to her halfhearted disappointment, tears prick again at her confession.
She pushes on before she loses her nerve, at a whisper the doctor may or may not hear: "I called their names."
She shuts her eyes, letting the warm, salty shame trickle down her cheeks.
She doesn't wait for the doctor to reply, now, as it's clear the doctor is better at that game than she is. She shakes her head, lip curling again, sneering at herself now.
"Isn't that stupid?" she levels at Dr. Genove at last, aware that the seconds are counting down and she'll be alone soon, alone again with the reel, black and white and silent- and suddenly she doesn't want the doctor to go after all; she doesn't want to be alone with it, but she doesn't have a choice about that and so instead she wants to confess, wants to get this off her chest while she can, and maybe it will help.
It's not a lie, after all. Not in the least.
She wants the doctor to tell her that it's time to let those memories go, that those moments, cold, wet pricking at her back, seeping through her coat, don't count.
Don't count.
Dr. Genove half-obliges.
"No, it's not stupid," she says, her voice calm and intelligent and somewhere between friendship-warm and receptionist-chilled. "In our lowest moments, it's natural to wish for those closest to us to come to our aid- to save us. And Blair," she adds, and waits for her patient to make eye contact, "that doesn't make you weak. Wanting someone there to help you to safety, wishing someone you trusted could have stopped it, saved you, is not weak. Wishing for help, asking for it-" the doctor pauses, blinks, chooses her words carefully: "- even though, under the circumstances, things didn't go that way, is not something to feel embarrassed about. It's not something to feel ashamed of."
Blair realizes she hasn't breathed since the doctor started talking, and she inhales, and feels the twist of cold in her lungs again.
She swallows.
"It feels like shame," she says, gaze dropping.
"We want comfort from those we love," Dr. Genove says, in the firmest tone she's used all day. "We seek their presence to help us when we're in need, as we want to help them when they're in need. There's no shame in being in need, Blair. It's completely valid. Even to have- then, even now- fantasies about someone close to you having intervened, having stopped what happened." Her eyes search Blair's face. "There's nothing wrong with that. Thinking of a person close to you when you're in danger means that you feel a close bond with them, that you want to rely on them, that you trust them."
Blair nods along, slowly. When the doctor finishes speaking, she continues nodding, eyes burning.
(How quickly she found those words.)
She becomes aware, after a minute, that Dr. Genove is waiting for her to reply.
"Thank you," she says to the doctor. "I think that's enough for today."
It's two minutes past the hour.
vii.
All at once she appears in his vision, like a film reel cut to black and inserted her, special-effects style, into his scene: Serena, brow twisted in misery, holding up her palms as if to say, I come in peace.
"Nate," she says with urgency.
He looks down at her, confused; she's almost lying on the floor, hair on the dried-sweat-covered hardwood.
"Nate," she says again, putting her hands on his shoulders. She's half-blocking the windbreaker, putting herself between them; behind her, he sees someone helping up the blue- with some red now, and a terrible thrill rushes through him- and when he looks back into her eyes it's like switching between two worlds.
"Stop," she says, low, "please."
They hold each other's gazes for a few seconds, the other voices still echoing in the background, the Dalton and St. Jude's players and the ref- whether from shock or fear- not having quite had the courage to get so close, and Nate's world shifts back into focus, and when Serena, quite quickly, moves one hand from his shoulder to rest on the side of his face, palming his jaw bone, just briefly, the warmth and familiarity of her touch brings the reality of what he's just done, what he's just enjoyed doing, fully to consciousness.
He turns away from her concern, which he does not deserve, and murmurs that he's sorry, to her, in the windbreaker's general direction, at his teammates- as the latter move forward to help him to his feet- and, dazedly, to his coach, who doesn't even look furious, as he should, as Nate waits for him to- but puts a hand on his shoulder, looks him in the eye, and tells him to go wait in the locker room.
viii.
After Dr. Genove has disappeared, counting to one hundred after the elevator chime announces her departure, Blair fumbles under her duvet with one hand- her first reach turning up nothing, which would irritate her if she had energy to spare on it; she searches further to the right, fingertips skimming sheets- and, with the other, opening her bedside drawer.
She finds the felt-tip pen without issue-
Shuts the drawer with a flat, open palm-
And just as her fingers finally brush the glossy texture of Page Six, she hears Dorota on the stairs.
ix.
Opening Miss Blair's door, she finds her sitting, serene as an orchid, up in bed, hands folded on the smoothed duvet. Her eyes are puffy, which is not unusual after the therapist leaves.
"Another?" Miss Blair asks, when she presents the wardrobe box. Then, idly: "Don't these designers have anything better to do? Honestly, it's getting embarrassing."
Dorota nods back down the stairs. This wardrobe box, freestanding though it is, is very light- whatever's inside must be silk or chiffon. "You want me to take away?"
Miss Blair's face tightens, the way it does before she says something cutting.
Then, like someone stuck a pin in her, she deflates a bit.
"Just put it in the closet," she says, quietly. She glances down at her folded hands, then, briefly, to the right. Raises her eyes. "And could I have my tea soon?"
x.
In the confusion after Nate leaves the court, and the windbreaker stumbles out the door without much in the way of concern or solicitude from the crowd (these are Upper East Siders, after all)- cheerleaders milling about agitatedly and the tight-mouthed St. Jude's team exchanging flat looks and minute shakes of the head, spectators drifting onto the court like sheep out to pasture- Serena, lips parted but few words forthcoming, tells Dan without making eye contact that she's sorry, but she needs to go home, and she hopes he understands. She apologizes again, robotically, when he tries to catch at her arm, takes a few steps after her; she pulls her elbow away.
Back at The Palace, she silences the fourth of his calls, not wanting to Ignore and send him to voicemail. He doesn't deserve that; he's done nothing wrong; but she can't talk to him right now, can't hear his voice.
Arms hugging her waist tightly, she paces, paces, in front of her dresser, coat thrown in a heap on her bed.
She's never seen Nate like that, never, not once in her whole life. She's known him since they were five.
That look in his eyes.
The utter, utter helplessness of her situation sends a chill down her spine, and she hugs herself tighter. She squeezes her eyes closed, trying to force away the image of this Nate she's never seen before.
When that doesn't work, she stops in front of her dresser, flattens both palms on it and leans forward, scrutinizing her reflection in the mirror. Maybe her eyes look different, too.
xi.
She gets off the elevator on the 18th floor, strides with a quickness of purpose that's almost desperate, and turns the corner toward 1812.
Only to find Dan waiting for her.
He's parked on the floor to the right of Chuck's door, back against the wall, tie askance, coat draped over his lap. His backpack slumps, mopily, beside him.
He looks up with no visible challenge in his face, but then he doesn't need to; his very presence there is a challenge. An irrational feeling of affront rises in her at seeing him sitting there.
Him. There. At Chuck's door.
It doesn't… fit.
And something deeper, too: this, Blair, Nate, all of this, isn't his. It's theirs. It belongs to the four of them.
She knows, of course, that it's public knowledge and not theirs at all- and even that she's shared a lot of what Dan knows with him herself- but something about his presence here, now, so comfortable staking out Chuck's doorway, when she wants Chuck- when she wants to stand murmuring with him, lowball glasses in hand, about Nate, and exchange looks that convey exactly the state they're all in, without needing to state it outright, without needing to talk about everything, slices cleanly into her and breaks the skin.
Dan's said something, and in the confusion of trying to quiet this surge of what she recognizes is a surge of protectiveness, of battening down the hatches against an intruder, she missed it.
She blinks at him.
"What?"
"I said," he says, quietly, eyes dropping to his hands, "I knew you were upset. I thought you might end up here. I was worried."
She prickles at what he may not even have meant. "Worried about me ending up here?" she replies, incredulous. "Why would that worry you?"
He looks up; takes a long, dragging breath through his nose; blows it out inelegantly through his mouth.
"You ending up here didn't worry me, in particular. I just thought I might find you here."
She shifts, the wanted impetus for defensiveness not having materialized, from one foot to the other.
Dan pauses, then jerks one thumb over one shoulder. "He's not home," he says, nonchalantly, and gets to his feet.
"Maybe he just doesn't want to come to the door." She goes to step around him. He moves, and tries, without touching her, to make her face him.
"Serena." It's barely more than a whisper.
His face is absolutely blank; no judgment, no pity.
"What?"
"Why are you here?"
She licks her lips. "We've talked about this before. The four of us-"
"I know. You've been together a long time."
She flares. "If you know, then why are you wasting time asking me?"
He's flat, unimpressed by her sullenness, having now seen this cycle enough times to know that it's a fatuous show to push him away.
"Serena," he says, as she brushes past him and knocks emphatically on 1812. He turns and, without preamble, asks, quietly: "Do you feel guilty that this happened to Blair?"
Maybe she imagines it, but she could swear he emphasizes Blair in that question, as if contrasting Blair with someone else- someone else that this could have, should have, happened to.
Fist still poised, she turns her head and looks at him over her shoulder.
"As opposed to…?"
Her eyes are narrowed. Her voice is low and deadly.
He blinks, his unconfused expression confirming that, yes, that's what he meant.
Do you feel guilty that it was Blair who was raped, and not you?
She lowers her fist and, instead, turns so that she faces away from Chuck's door. She backs up against it, against 1812, against The Four of Them.
Eyes half-hooded, she stares him down. Her arms cross in front of her ribs.
"You mean," she says flatly, "because I used to be such a slut?"
Dan's mouth drops open at that, and he starts to protest, but she beats him to it.
"Because I used to let whoever wanted into my pants, in?" she surges on, her voice low with the rumble of thunder, too close now to get away from. Her mouth twists wryly. "Because, really, it should have been me?"
"No," Dan tries, but it's too late.
"Yes, Dan, I do feel guilty. Yes, I do think it should have been me." An unexpected relief floods her at the simple act of saying it out loud. And an unexpected love catches fire in her heart, because she realizes, 1812 at her back, why- why she can't open herself fully to Dan, why she can't take the risk, why she goes running to Chuck, to Nate- in the absence of Blair- at every turn.
Because, Chuck- all of them, The Four of Them- they love her. They love her for That Serena. Old Serena. Just as they all love Blair, for all her fury and bloodletting and ice; and Nate for all his frustratingly moment-to-moment behavior that belies a melancholic disdain (and maybe anger, based on what she's just seen) for the world they've all grown up in; and Chuck for his long history of dubious morals and cruel timing and questionable decisionmaking in- well, basically everything but Scotch; The Four of Them love her, for all her promiscuity and the deep, paralyzing fear of rejection she uses it to cover up; for all her selfish, inappropriate, short-sighted hurtful choices; for every flaw she has, everything she's done, everything that makes her Bad Serena.
And Dan does not.
Would not.
Cannot.
This realization breaks so spectacularly over her head that she's breathless for a moment. Dan says something else, but she doesn't even care to ask him to repeat it.
She believes him that Chuck isn't home. Chuck may lie and he may deceive, but he wouldn't ignore her when he knew she needed him. That's not what The Four of Them do.
And Dan's genuine, earnest face, so like the face of one who loves, loves truly and thoroughly- which, if she thought about it, she's sure he actually believes he does, which somehow makes this all worse- is more than she can stand to look at right now.
She pushes away from the door and says, quietly, "I'm going home. Goodnight."
xii.
Chuck arrives home from the tailor that night cradling an armload of board meeting minutes, vaguely pressing the pocket with his wallet in it against the badge reader and sighing in relief when it somehow reads his key card through the layers of credit cards and cash and wool and satin, then leans his back on the door to open it.
His phone begins to ring, and he drops the minutes on the island and fishes it out.
Blair.
"Bass Industries, Junior Management Speaking," he drawls, the momentum of actually learning something that matters, the anticipation of what this could mean, where it might lead, evident in the timbre of his voice.
She chuckles. "I called to say good luck. Is there a business way to say that?" she muses after a brief pause. "Like in show business, they say 'break a leg.'"
He smiles, cradling the phone between ear and shoulder, and tugs off his scarf. "I think it's 'buy low, sell high.'"
There's a real laugh on the other end. "So. How goes the preparation? Do you feel ready?"
He glances at the stack of papers, edges sticking out at frenetic angles after the trip to the tailor and walk up from the car. (Carrying a stack of papers in an organized fashion is as foreign to him as carrying a baby would be.)
"I have a bunch more reading to do," he says, and tells her about the package and the note from Ellen.
"Wow," Blair murmurs. "That was great of her."
"Beyond great." He runs a hand through his hair, smiling absently at the papers. "If this goes well, who knows. Bart might invite me to more things, or…" he trails off. The possibilities are endless, and so good he doesn't want to jinx his chances.
The way Bart talks about the business, the way he looks when he's 'on' and in the middle of a negotiation, or bumps into an investor, or strides through the lobby of The Palace, is a clear indicator of purpose, of power, of hard-fought triumph. If his son can succeed in this area… well.
He clears his throat. "Who knows," he says again.
"Do you think you'll need to speak at all?"
"I doubt it." He hopes not. "I think I'm just there to observe." Bart will be keen to gauge his understanding, though, that's for sure.
She beats him to it: "And of course there'll be a quiz afterward."
He snorts. "Probably an oral cross-exam."
"Well," Blair says, just as he's sizing up the stack to see how many more hours of reading he has- his tux fitting ran late, as Nate arrived much earlier than expected and Erik and Lily coincidentally had the appointments directly after theirs, so the four of them got talking, Nate with a tension in his shoulders and a tight smile and no mention of the game, which makes Chuck think St. Jude's probably lost again; "I'll let you get back to reading, but will you tell me how it goes?"
"Definitely. I'll call you after we get out. It might be late; we're starting at five."
He hears her smile as she tells him she'll be up.
"Buy low, sell high," she says, "goodnight."
xiii.
He goes home after his tux fitting, after kissing Lily on the cheek and accepting the same from his mother like the model of Upper East Side sonmanship that he is, and, after showering and placing his basketball shoes in the back left corner of his closet, pulls on a worn Dartmouth sweatshirt before heading downstairs for dinner.
He and his mother exchange pleasant small talk; she's still pondering the photos of him and Blair in Page Six, studying them as if she's going to give him feedback. One corner of his mouth twitches up, then back to neutral.
Wait for tomorrow, he thinks, without malice, without shame, without even much interest.
He's starving and eats more than his normal amount. His mother notices and smiles in absent approval when he reaches for thirds.
There's mint tea to finish the meal. His mother seems preoccupied- probably with the photos- and pours it early in the meal, so there's not long to wait before it's perfect drinking temperature.
"I talked to your father today," she remarks, placing her cup on its saucer.
Nate tries gamely to keep his expression pleasant. "How is he?" he asks tonelessly.
That empty datebook in the study.
That empty look in her eyes.
His mother shrugs, a tiny gesture. "He's all right, I suppose."
He did this to her. To them. Put them in this position.
Nate finishes his tea and stands. His mother smiles up at him, but it quavers and doesn't reach her eyes. She opens her mouth to say goodnight, but he parts his lips and she waits.
"Mom," he says.
She tries again at a smile, but then sees he has more to say.
He puts his hand on her shoulder and looks at her face.
He clears his throat.
"I'm off the basketball team. Coach and I agreed it's for the best. Next year we can talk about me trying out again."
Her chin trembles, just once, before she presses her lips together. Then she says, in a very small voice- she's so small; has she always been so small?- "try out?"
He nods. "Yes. Try out." He swallows, on reflex, not nerves, and then the words come. "And I want you to know that I'm not going to ask Blair to the Gala."
She blinks, more a fluttering of her pale eyelashes than anything, as if he's speaking in a language in which she is not fluent and she's trying to translate aurally, word by word.
He leans down, hand still on her shoulder- baby blue sweater set, pearls at the throat, for no reason at all- and kisses her cheek.
"I love you," he says. "Goodnight."
And he takes his hand off her shoulder and leaves her there, in her place at the head of the empty Archibald table.
xiv.
Serena sleeps hard that night, harder than she has any right to: the sleep of a girl who has found herself, of a girl who can taste freedom. It doesn't matter that Erik and her mother came home from their appointments at the tailor full of pleasant small talk about having run into Nate and Chuck there, and Lily bubbling over dinner about their having had a wonderful chat, and Nate looking so handsome in the suit he was having fitted (Chuck, predictably, refused to unveil his choice before the night), and how they were all so grown up, and when did that happen?-
Or that Erik mentioned, in an unremarkable tone, that he thought Nate seemed a little… and here he fumbled one hand in the air for a second and a half, looking for the right word… wound up-
Or that Lily tilted her head and said, what else would one expect, having come directly from a basketball game, and he probably had to hurry to make the appointment, and fight rush hour traffic-
Or that she remembers the sensation of knowing that Nate, even as he first saw her in his path on the court, was coiling backward like he was winding up for another punch, or that calling herself a slut to Dan's face was the most twisted pleasure she's known in longer than she cares to remember. Like dropping her robe on the runway after Betsey Johnson, magnified to an exponential degree.
She takes a long, hot shower, and, pulse vibrating thick and slow in her skin, puts on a thick sweater and crawls under her duvet and sleeps like she's dead.
She wakes the following morning later than she should, groggy, still dreaming, and brushes her teeth and measures out two lines of cocaine.
Only when she's brushing at the bottoms of her nostrils, checking her reflection for residue, does she pick up her phone and find an email from Bart Bass at the top of her inbox.
Serena-
Would you please kindly stop in my office on 3 before leaving this morning? I'll have a car take you to school to avoid tardiness.
Thanks,
Bart