Sometime Around (Chapter 2)
And it starts, sometime around midnight
(at least that’s when she finds that friendly numbness and lets it pull her down deep and she becomes the crowd, wraps it around her like a shield)
And sometimes when the strobe light pounds and the beat pervades her body she thinks tonight might be the night she forgets what brought her here
(I still remember the look on your face)
Because it has been long enough
(since you stared at him through the darkness at 1:58)
Since she cut her ties and cut her losses
(the words that you whispered for just us to know)
And it took three days of slinking around the city for her to tell her own family she was back
(you told me you loved me so why did you go away)
But she can’t help but feel like he should’ve known, he should have known
(and where were you and why didn’t you look for me, why didn’t you find me, why didn’t you bring me back?)
just like she knows the feeling that dusts over her shoulder, her collarbone, and warms the tips of her fingers
(and he’s watching her and she soaks it up and her lips curl at the corners without permission and the tug in her chest feels like coming home)
And she’s laughing
(because if she doesn’t laugh off the nervous energy she’s going to cry and her fingers are blanching and she’s got a death grip on her glass)
And she smells rain and coffee
(and the music thumps like a heartbeat)
And she can feel his arms
(around her waist, over her shoulders, fingers in her hair)
And she can’t control it
(like she’s proven she can’t control anything around him)
And her legs carry her across the room despite the crowds and chaos
(and nothing has changed because nothing has ever been able to keep her from him)
And all she can see is those eyes and the space around her is electrified, alive, aware,
(and they are still NateandJenny)
She tries to pull it together
(like she doesn’t still sit on the floor wearing his clothes when she’s drowning)
But the riptide drags her down, he is her natural disaster
(bangs tickle her nose and a finger drags a knee sock down one calf and she hates all the buttons on these flannels he continues to wear)
She is lost.
(I don’t know how to be something you miss.)
She is not sure how they got here because she is not sure where they ended
(because she’s not sure where they began)
He sees
(never thought we’d have a last kiss)
everything she’d love to hide
(forever your name on my lips)
And she thinks if only he would hate her he would stop watching so closely for every stutter in her movement and every hitch in her words
(I do remember the swing of your step)
Sometimes she thinks he must.
Especially now when everyone that thinks Jenny Humphrey thinks Chuck Bass
(that is one title she’d always thought would be his)
But she spent a year screaming
(pleading)
for someone
(anyone)
to listen
(and in the end of her fairytale the prince did not save the princess from the dragon; the princess had sex with the dragon and let its breath consume her whole)
And maybe this is how it was supposed to end and Chuck and Blair were right and they are just as fucked up as the rest of the world
(but I love how you walk with your hands in your pockets, how you’d kiss me when I was in the middle of saying something; there’s not a day I don’t miss those rude interruptions)
And none of it fucking matters because there are hands on her hips and lips tease her throat that belong to someone tall, dark, and meaningless
(and you take joy in this, hope he drowns in how you feel every day you watch his life in pictures like you used to watch him sleep; Gossip Girl is always generous with gratuitous Nathaniel Archibald shots.)
And she will make this one count
(because I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe)
Because sooner or later Eric and Dan and Chuck and Blair and Serena will get tired of the weekly briefings
(and I’ll keep up with our old friends just to ask them how you are)
So she scratches deep, digs her nails in and takes a piece of him with her so later when the sun is finally shining and it’s a beautiful day something will remind him and he’ll wish he had stayed.
She looks at him one last time
(one more, she promised herself)
And he’s already staring back and she allows herself one fleeting minute to feel all they were and all they are and all they will never be and she bolts
(she tells herself she’s just going for a walk around the block to cool off because if she lets herself absorb the fact that this is the last time she will be strong enough to see him she will never move her feet through that door)
And she hopes that it hurts forever because at least then when he thinks of her he will feel something
(because she left her heart with the boy with the blue eyes and brown bangs five years ago)
And she must be drunk or shaking because people are looking at her funny and the guy at the corner asked if she was alright and she raises her hands up to check and they’re getting wet and she thinks it is rain but she realizes she’s crying and people must think she is crazy
(but you don’t care because you promised yourself you wouldn’t do this, you promised you could handle it)
And you’ve gotta stop before you make it back to the tiny apartment in Dumbo you’re sharing with your brother because Dan will know
(and you tried telling him, Dan, I need Nate, because he knows what it’s like to need someone but you had this conversation three years ago and it doesn’t end differently in take two)
And you’re not sure where you are because you’ve been snotting and stumbling blindly and in circles and the summer city heat is oppressive even at night and there are people everywhere
(just not the right one)
And they don’t understand, they must not understand because they wouldn’t be asking ‘are you okay?’ if they did because you are not okay and you’re not sure you ever will be and you want to tell them so but you can only moan because you see blue blazers and brown hair everywhere you turn
(and you hate NYC for the first time in your life because she taunts you like a cruel woman that holds what you can’t have and you know Chuck would understand, he would commiserate with the driving need and the inhumanity of being taunted by reminders and shadows and memories of the one you lost and wishing you were a stranger in the only place you have ever called home but you won’t go to him because the picture of you entering the Empire will hit Gossip Girl in under thirty seconds)
And you’re lying to everyone when you say you want to make him bleed the way he’s made you cry; and you know that, that will be the thing to break him because that is what he has always been for you
(confidant, therapist, white knight extraordinaire)
So she’s faltering, tripping, walking
(trying)
And she is not drunk enough to remain numb when she finds herself at the steps of the apartments where she’d spent Blair’s birthday with Nate, all those lifetimes ago
(the beginning of the end; why didn’t she see it?)
And she’d been so sure her life was turning around and Nathaniel Archibald was just around the corner of this block, the next block, whenever she needed (wanted) him; they were close, and they lost it and she’s not sure when it slipped through their listless fingers or why
(I never planned on you changing your mind)
Because she loved him, God, how she loved him
And she sits.
And she gazes at the stars and she names one Nate and one Jenny and doesn’t find solace in the fact that they are closer to eachother than Queen J and Nathaniel ever will be.
(Never imagined we’d end like this.)
(I never thought we’d have our last kiss.)