tell me something true
dan/blair. jenny, vanessa, iz, penelope, nate.
s1 au. 14k words. Selfie/Drive Me Crazy-inspired.
PART ONE
"What I don't understand," Dan says, as he lets Blair direct him around her living room, all the furniture pushed close to the walls, "is how many excuses you people find for a party."
"Cotillion isn't merely a party," Blair says, something of a reprimand in it. They pass each other, clasp hands, move on to other, invisible partners. Dan is hopeless at choreography.
"That's right. It's an antiquated –"
"– charming –"
"– sexist –"
"You're a boy, what do you know –"
"Where you spend all this money to parade girls around for attention –"
"Cotillion teaches grace and poise, which every girl should –"
"Oh, you just want to wear a big dress and tiara."
Blair makes sure to step on his feet a few times. "You know, you could use some grace and poise yourself."
Dan raises his eyebrows. "I am not the one stepping on their dance partner."
"I'm making a point," Blair says. "Cotillion will be the ultimate test for us and cotillion will be the ultimate triumph if we play our cards right." She starts to get swept up in the idea. "For me, it's a chance to rise above my detractors – a phoenix from the ashes, better than before. And for you it'll be a transformation. Ultimate outsider to ultimate insider. It all hinges on cotillion."
Dan always looks at her like she's crazy, but there's increasing affection in it lately. "Say cotillion one more time."
Blair makes a face at him. "Cotillion."
Catching Dan up on the choreography has made Blair unexpectedly sad, albeit in an abstract and untouchable way. He's terrible, there's no denying it – his timing is way off and he has no interest in applying himself – and that just makes her think of how not-terrible Nate had been. She and Nate had practiced together since they were children, enrolled in baby ballroom by their mothers. He was a natural, and Blair always felt terribly romantic in his arms, allowing him to dutifully spin her.
Since her trouble started, she's only been going to the bare minimum of practices. Just enough to keep her spot, which she wouldn't dream of giving up, and even that had been awful, an instructor standing in for the partner she didn't have. "You'll need someone soon," they'd told her, as if Blair hadn't known.
Her thoughts must show on her face, because Dan gives her shoulder a shake, completely breaking form. "C'mon. Remind me why this is good for me, again."
She's been working in little boyfriend tips here and there, fulfilling her end of the bargain to turn him into the perfect partner. "Do you know how much girls love a good dancer?"
"Shockingly, this is something I have learned from the television." Dan forgets which direction he's supposed to go in and does a funny little turn as he tries to get back on path. The music tinkles along merrily in the background. "Anyway, I'm not so hopeless – I did pretty well the other night, didn't I?"
Blair can feel herself go scarlet, which is absurd, and she hopes her Chanel Vitalumière is doing a good job of hiding it. "I mean, if you want to call that a kiss –"
"Oh, no, not that." His hand lands on her waist in the exact same spot, and they're very close for a moment before the dance has them parting. "Didn't I tell you? I sort of met a girl."
She blinks and misses a step. "You were busy that night, weren't you?"
Dan ducks his head. Blair is starting to wonder at his shyness. "It looks like your good work is starting to pay off after all."
"Hm." Blair turns away from him and crosses to shut off the music. That's more than enough practice for today. "What's her name?"
Dan tells her (it's no one Blair knows, a girl who transferred to Constance from Spence last year) as he shifts the furniture back into place. "I mean, we just talked school stuff." He gives Blair a half-smile. "I have a girlfriend, remember?"
Having a real girlfriend doesn't mean much to most boys, so Blair can't imagine a fake one means much more. "I'm your first, aren't I? Real or fake?"
For some reason he goes a little pink, adjusting the position of an end table, and gives a quick nod.
"You'll have to bide your time, of course – keep her interested without seeming like a creep who's stepping out, and then like you aren't moving on too fast after our breakup."
He rubs the back of his neck. "Jeez, Blair."
"Come here." He looks wary, which makes her smile. "I'm not going to eat you. I'm your friend. I'm helping." Dan makes his way over to where she's leaning against the sideboard, waiting for him. "You should touch her. Nothing over the top. Nothing obscene. Just –" Blair trails her fingertips down his arm to his wrist. "Girls like to be touched."
"I touch you all the time," Dan says, and his arm snakes around her waist, tugging her close.
"I noticed." Blair bites her lip, looking up at him, and then evades his grasp, slipping away. "Fast learner."
"Blair."
She turns to face him, eyebrow arching.
"I'm proud of you," he says, which is not what she expected. "Talking to Isabel again, putting in time at the gallery. I even heard, uh, some nice things you said about me to, um, Nate. Which was probably bullshit, but…" He shakes his head a little and shrugs. "I maybe don't regret this deal we made."
Blair smiles genuinely, and her little bit of cat and mouse play begins to feel silly, miscalculated.
"Even school," Dan continues. "I applied for this summer thing, and I think I might get it. I never would've even tried for it without you hassling me about Yale, so – you know, thank you. You've helped me. And I want you to know that."
A strange sensation is rising in Blair's chest, that feeling you get between tripping and hitting the ground. It would be a staggering coincidence for Dan to be talking about this – the program she had spent years thinking about, months working on an application for, carefully crafting essays and curating letters of recommendation. The program that got so many applicants from Upper East Side prep schools that they only ever took one person from the combined student body of Constance and St. Jude's.
It would just be too much of a coincidence.
But Dan had helped her with those essays.
"That summer thing," she says, smile suddenly feeling fixed. "What's it called?"
"You know it," he says, then tells her, and Blair's stomach drops like hitting the ground.
The girl who transferred from Spence to Constance is named Nelly Yuki and the only reason Blair hasn't gotten the lowdown on her before now is because one look told her Nelly Yuki was too tragic to ever really be competition. If Nelly is the kind of girl Dan likes, then it's no wonder both of them are alone, too busy slinking around corners with their noses in books to notice any other human life forms.
Nelly hasn't changed since that first time Blair and the girls went around to scope out the newbie: big unfashionable glasses, dull skin, flat hair, and a clothing color palette straight out of some fictional dystopian future world. Like Blair said: tragic. She's not even sure how Nelly ended up at Kiss on the Lips.
Blair drops all of her books onto the table next to Nelly with a huffy put-upon sigh, receiving a pointed look from the librarian for being too noisy. It's Blair's free period, the one she usually spends in the coffee shop around the corner, by herself. But today she's spending it in the library.
Nelly looks up, not expecting the interruption.
"SATs," Blair says with that over-the-top put-upon-ness anyone in their class would sympathize with. "Getting in as much prep as I can."
"Uh-huh." Nelly's gaze travels from Blair to the pile and back. "Look, I don't know what you heard but I was only tutoring the other girls because that ringleader Penelope basically blackmailed me into it, I have no interest in –"
"Whoa, whoa, Nelly Yuki, calm down." Blair blinks at her in feigned innocence, lashes fluttering. "I don't need tutoring. I just sat down here because, well, you seemed nice." Nelly doesn't seem to be buying that, so Blair adds, "I heard you met my boyfriend. I mean, he said you were nice. He liked you."
Great job, Blair, she thinks with an internal eye roll. It was the word boyfriend that had her flustered, sounding weird in her voice, out of her mouth. For all she's heard it from others, she never thinks of Dan as her boyfriend, or even calls him that herself. Because he isn't her boyfriend, not really.
Nelly gives Blair a curious, assessing look. "Oh. Okay."
"No one wants to sit alone, even to study," Blair goes on to say, voice still odd and too chipper. She concentrates on opening one of her prep books and then just stares at the text, her hands laying on the page, unblemished skin and ice-pink nails. She used to be good at this sort of thing. She could psychologically crush a girl while prying out the information she wanted all without leaving a mark. Now that she's nice she can't even manage to be normal for thirty seconds.
Nelly Yuki puts a hand on Blair's arm. Last year, a girl like Nelly Yuki wouldn't even dare to brush Blair's sleeve. "I don't know what you think happened, exactly," Nelly says cautiously. "But we just talked a little."
"I don't know what you're implying." Blair's voice is too cold where it was too pleasant before.
"Nothing," Nelly says, jerking her hand back to her side. "I'm not implying anything."
After that Blair is too embarrassed to stay or go, so she and Nelly focus on their respective tasks until the bell rings and Blair runs off like she's on fire.
"I'm such an idiot," she complains to Iz after school, face buried in one of the overly frilly pillows that decorate Iz's bed. They never used to go to anyone's house except Blair's, but times have changed.
When Blair emerges from the pile of pillows, Iz looks sympathetic. "That is…pretty bad," she says, but she's only able to keep a straight face for a second before dissolving into giggles. "In front of Nelly Yuki. God, Blair, that's like…a new level of embarrassing yourself."
Blair thwacks her with a pillow, frowning. "Yes, thank you, Isabel, I was not aware."
"It's just super absurd. Like, Dan is so into you, I don't know why you'd even worry."
Blair harrumphs at that. She can't very well tell Iz the truth, but reminding herself of it highlights how ridiculous it is that she'd overreact about Dan and Nelly Yuki. What does she care if he makes eyes at some loser in last year's specs?
Finally, when the silence has stretched a beat too long, Blair says, "You're right. Plus it's not like I even care." She frowns, slumping into the bed. "He's just some nobody from Brooklyn. Of course his first real party would go to his head."
Iz arches an eyebrow and makes her hands into little claws. "Raaawr," she says. "Harsh."
Blair rolls her eyes, but it's become increasingly impossible to ignore the way insecurity has buried its way under her skin. She tries to remain rational. She doesn't care if Dan likes someone. It doesn't mean anything. He won't get into Ivy Scholars this summer. He won't because he can't, because Blair needs that spot. She's worked too hard for that spot. Dan will not steal it from her. "What? It's true."
"Nothing, I just, you know…" Iz shrugs. "I thought you guys seemed pretty happy."
"Happy?" Blair repeats.
"Yeah, like –" Iz flips her laptop so it's facing Blair and scrolls through Blair's Gossip Girl tag. Practically everything on it features Dan – their heads bent together over a textbook, Dan standing impatiently next to Blair's locker as she digs for something, Blair fussing with the knot of his tie. "You're always together at school and – okay, don't get mad or anything, but you're a lot less uptight lately. Like, you're way more relaxed."
Blair's frown only deepens. She doesn't need someone like Dan Humphrey to make her less uptight. "I'm just using him." It's true in a way Iz doesn't realize. "He's not terrible looking and he's a passable kisser." She shuts the laptop with a snap. "High school boyfriends are pointless. If the last year taught me anything, it's that."
Iz snorts. "Yeah, that was some kiss alright," she teases. "He's hot, even if he is on scholarship."
Saying those words, hearing them echoed back to her, makes the tension seep out of Blair's back. He's nothing to her, ultimately. He isn't going to steal anything from her.
Saturday afternoon once again finds Blair behind the counter at the Bedford Avenue Gallery. She's been coming by every other weekend to dole out drinks and sandwiches. By now she's tamed the finicky panini press, can make a macchiato in her sleep. She's even gotten over her qualms about touching the grimy handle of the dustpan, or wiping down the counters with a previously used sponge. She is truly – on the surface, at least – One Of Them. She had even shocked Eleanor once at breakfast with two perfect lattes.
Today involves none of her blue collar skills, however. Rain is coming down in sheets outside so the gallery isn't getting much traffic. Nevertheless the entire team is on hand: Vanessa fiddling obsessively with the music selection, Jenny sketching at an empty table, Blair deploring the state of her manicure, and Dan out in the other room helping his father dismantle the latest exhibit.
"Oh, leave this one," Blair says to Vanessa. "I love this song."
Vanessa looks up from the iPod and raises an eyebrow. "You love this song?"
"Hidden depths," Blair remarks dryly. One of her nails is snagged. "I can't imagine you'd have a nail file?"
She doesn't, but Jenny does, so Blair hops off her stool and trots over. As she works her nail over, she can't help looking down at Jenny's drawing. "Have I seen this before?"
Jenny starts, eyes going wide, and says, "Yeah, I'm surprised you remember. You saw the rough draft, this is sort of updated." She tilts it up for Blair to see better.
Blair has always loved fashion drawings: the sweeping, slim figures in amorphous gowns, the splashes of color. Jenny's are annoyingly adorable, much like the girl herself; this one features a woman with a big blonde bouffant and comically overdrawn eyelashes in a silver gown with a gigantic bow at one shoulder. Jenny has painted in the slightest floral motif over the fabric. Blair looks at the whole thing put together and has the immediate pulse of want she's gotten with a million dresses over the years, desirous of voluminous skirts and luxurious textures, beautiful things that feel as though they should rightfully belong to her.
"How much would it cost to make?" she wonders, fingertips tracing over the train.
"Make?" Jenny repeats. "Um. I haven't worked it out exactly. Why?"
Blair's cotillion dress is a Waldorf Designs original, a slate blue number with gold detailing that Blair had loved, once. Instead of answering Jenny, she asks, "How long would it take to put together?"
The rest of the rainy day is taken up with measurements and planning, Jenny's excitement so catching that Blair and even Vanessa get swept up in it. Jenny mumbles about brocade while she wraps Blair's various parts in a measuring tape, and Blair takes over the music much to Vanessa's protest, putting on the girliest pop she can find. Vanessa lectures them all on the evils of cotillion but it's with a smile on her face that Blair has never actually seen.
That's how Dan finds them hours later, his skin dusty and hands scraped up, looking every bit the worker, utterly exhausted. But when he sees the three of them he smiles, tentative and curious. "Okay," he says, "What did you do to Vanessa? Because the real Vanessa would never stand for –" He pauses, listening. "Is this Taylor Swift?"
"It's called having fun, Dan," Jenny says. "Maybe you've heard of it? Oh, wait –" She makes a face at him, which Dan mirrors right back at her.
"I have fun," he says.
"Sort of," Blair remarks. "If one's idea of fun is doing speed rounds on practice tests."
"That was your idea, nerd," he reminds her, tugging on her ponytail as he passes by, and Blair smiles at him, because sometimes she can't quite help it.
Something like guilt prickles deep in her chest, but Blair ignores it. She's good at that.
By the time cotillion rolls around a month later, Blair thinks she might have permanent scarring from all the times Jenny stabbed her with a needle by accident ("By accident," Vanessa said once, sardonic, her eyebrow arching). But it's worth it when she puts the dress on for the final time in Jenny's room and looks in the mirror: the fabric is heavy, stiff and formal, but the dress is fitted to her exactly and the silver brings a shine to her skin, sets off the dark brown of her hair. It's perfect, and Blair thinks even her mother would be shocked to agree. It looks like the old her, the girl she thought was gone.
"Wow," Dan says.
Both Blair and Jenny swivel towards the door, startled, and Dan must read something on their faces because he puts his hand up in front of his, averting his eyes.
"Is this like a wedding thing?" he says. "Am I not supposed to see?"
Blair rolls her eyes, snorting a laugh. "You can look, Dan."
He gives her a wry smile as he drops his hand. "Ready to go?"
Dan doesn't look half bad himself – or he wouldn't if he didn't look like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. The tux is a little flashy for Dan, who usually considers a vest over a flannel shirt to be the height of formal dress, a charcoal suit with silver tie that complements her. He looks good. Not that Blair would ever dream of telling him that.
They're at the door to the hall when Dan stops her, hand on her wrist just above the silver glove. Blair is itchy with enthusiasm, can't wait to get in there and show off, so it's with impatience that she turns to him. "What?"
"Just – it's dumb, but –" He delves into his pocket and then holds his hand up to her, a slightly tangled necklace dropping from his fingers to dangle in front of her eyes. It's nothing special. From a somewhat tarnished silver chain hangs a geometric, vaguely art deco snowflake, studded with dark stones.
"Is this for me?" Blair asks, a sneer already in her voice. "Where'd you get it, the sale pile at a thrift store?"
Abashed, Dan says, "It's my mom's."
Blair's stomach does a funny little flip-flop. "Well, then." She turns, her back to him, and waits. "Go ahead."
The little snowflake falls against her chest and when Blair looks down at it, she doesn't mind how it looks there.
They find their place in line, a few behind Iz and her date, one of those indistinguishable North twins; Blair sees Kati has the other one. The line runs alphabetical all the way down to Waldorf, which Blair always liked, because it meant she had the last word. But right now she feels a slight twinge that there's no van der Woodsen right there with her, like they'd always planned.
Then she notices Dan sort of watching her out of the corner of his eye, like he's trying to hide it, and Blair laughs, sadness cracking. "Just admit it," she teases him. "You worship me. It's okay."
Dan laughs soundlessly, cheeks pinking as he looks away. "Nope, no way," he says. "I have…grown accustomed to your face."
"I don't think you were looking at my face," Blair says pleasantly. She leans into his shoulder a little and Dan responds with an arm around her waist, a loose hold. He's been touching her a lot more since they had that talk. She thinks Dan is fantastic at faking it but almost at the same time thinks he might kiss her; she doesn't know which is true. Dan is either really good at acting, or he's awful at it.
Blair is slightly nervous that something might happen when she steps up to be announced – some Carrie at the prom kind of thing, orchestrated by Penelope, that will leave Blair humiliated and murderous. But nothing happens except polite applause, Dan taking her hand, Blair dipping into an accidental happy curtsy.
That seems like the most dangerous part of the evening finished; all there is afterwards is picking at a fixed menu meal and taking a few turns around the dance floor. Dan doesn't embarrass her there. At least when he messes up, he's capable of covering it, and Blair's too flush on victory to mind a few slips. Iz gives her encouraging smiles whenever their eyes meet, and even the rest of the girls seem less cold-shouldered. Kati is primed to break now that Iz has been won over, and Hazel never had much of a mind of her own to start with. Plus there's Jenny Humphrey milling through the crowd in Blair's cast off cotillion gown, the blue and gold very pretty against her blonde hair. It doesn't feel entirely hopeless.
"You look nice."
Blair is sitting at her table chatting to Iz, Dan on her other side distracted by some argument with Kati's date about some movie Blair's never heard of. Blair looks up to see who had addressed her, and she's shocked to see that it's Nate.
Iz gives a curious lift of the eyebrows and dutifully busies herself with her water glass.
"Thank you," Blair says. "You too." Her eyes sweep over him, all cream and pale silver. "I'd almost forgotten how handsome you are, Archibald."
He tips his head towards the dance floor. "Old times' sake?"
Blair forgets to say anything to Dan. She just goes.
She and Nate fall into old steps with the casual precision of habit but it feels like just that – a habit, brushing her hair or picking out shoes for the day. Her stomach doesn't flutter, her hands don't shake. Nate doesn't make any mistakes, so she has no reason to poke fun or laugh at him. It all feels very…obligatory.
"I'm glad you're doing okay," Nate says. Blair hates when people say things like that, as though she was dying or something, and Nate hastily continues, "I just mean…even though things ended really messed up between us, I'm happy you're…you know, happy. You should be."
Blair is surprised, not least because such maturity is generally beyond her own grasp or understanding, so it certainly seems beyond Nate's. But he always had a good heart, so maybe she shouldn't be too taken aback. She kisses him on the cheek. "Thanks, Nate."
By the time they return to the table, Penelope is hovering, looking none too pleased. She's in a lacy, gilded lilac dress that even Blair has to admit looks incredible on her. Penelope learned from the best, finally combining sartorial expertise and meanness into one unified whole. "Hey, B," Penelope says. "I was just catching up with your date."
"It was scintillating," Dan says dryly.
Blair smirks. "I'm glad. I hope you didn't mind me absconding with yours."
Nate, ever the well-trained boyfriend, has sidled around so he's standing just behind Penelope instead of Blair.
"Of course not," Penelope says. "I really came over to congratulate you."
This raises Blair's suspicions. Even though she's already decided to count the night as a success, she can't imagine Penelope giving in so quickly. "Oh?"
"On the Ivy Scholars spot," Penelope says, as though it's obvious. Blair's spine goes straight as a steel pole.
Dan's brow furrows. "I didn't know they'd already chosen someone."
"Oh, well, I shouldn't really say –" Penelope leans in conspiratorially. "I sort of have the inside scoop. My mother's on the board."
Blair internally runs through every name on the list. "There's no Shafai on the board."
"After the divorce, she went back to her maiden name." Penelope watches Blair closely. "Benedetti." When Blair doesn't say anything, she goes on, "It's funny, you know, because she mentioned the spot from our school was down to a few kids but they'd just had to discount someone because they got this reference call saying all sorts of things about the guy, like he had some cheating scandal and he even might be planning to pay someone to take his SATs –"
"Shut up, Penelope," Blair says tightly. Dan gives her a confused look.
"So of course I had to ask who it was," Penelope continues, undeterred, "And I was shocked–" Her eyes are very wide, to convey said shock. "– to hear it was your Dave. Sorry – Dan. Mom was really appalled, you know how she feels about cheating – just as Dad. Now. Who do you think could have possibly spread all those lies about Dan just to take him out of the running?"
"Pen," Nate sighs tiredly, but the intervention is much too late, damage already done.
Dan, however, is still looking at Blair, with a suspicious tinge encroaching on the doubt in his expression.
Blair tries to cut it off before it spreads any further. "Penelope's always been very jealous." She ignores Penelope's scoff. "She's just trying to ruin –"
"Why do you care, anyway?" Penelope interrupts. "You're just using him, aren't you? That's what you said to Iz, anyway. How did she phrase it – you said, 'he's just some nobody from Brooklyn.' Right?"
But Dan is still looking at Blair, has not wavered in waiting for her to denounce this or confirm it. "Blair?"
Blair presses her lips together, stalling. "You don't understand," she starts, but that is apparently enough, because Dan gets to his feet.
"I should've known better," he says. It makes anger rise hot in Blair's chest, her cheeks going red with it.
"You're so judgmental," she snaps. "If you would just take a minute to understand–"
"All I've done is try to understand you. Help you. But I guess it was all for nothing, because you're still pulling the same old stunts."
Everyone in the vicinity is watching them with a mixture of rapt enjoyment and discomfort. There's a word for that, enjoying someone else's pain. Eyes zip back and forth between Dan and Blair like following the ball at a tennis match.
"Just because you spent your entire life being too anti-social to understand how the real world works –"
"I should've known there was a reason everyone hated you, joke's on me for thinking you were different –"
"It's not like you could afford the program anyway," Blair snits. "You just went after it because it was mine."
Dan stares at her, frowning. "You're a real bitch," he says. It's something Blair's been called a lot in her life but somehow, coming out of his mouth at this moment, it's the worst thing anyone's ever said to her. "Like I said – I should've known better."
She feels herself go hard and protective and cruel. "You think you're so much better than me just because you serve four dollar lattes to out of town transplants. You think you're so superior."
"I don't, actually," Dan says, shaking his head. "I just stupidly thought this fake friendship was real."
Then he's gone, stalking off across the polished floor, leaving Blair standing there in her stupid custom-made gown feeling like a fool. "I hope you're happy," she says to Penelope, but the worst part is that she probably is.
After that Blair decides she doesn't care about Dan, not even a little bit. She's actually better off without him around.
There are downsides, of course. She can't sit in the library during lunch anymore, and she can't sit in the courtyard either because she has no interest in being subjected to Penelope's smug face or Iz's cringing apologies. They'd had a fight too, after cotillion.
"I can't believe you told her what I said about Dan," Blair hissed. "I can never trust anyone. All of you, running behind everyone's backs to gossip, to reveal every single little tidbit you hear."
"It's not like that," Iz protested. "I didn't know it was a secret! You said it like – like it was no big deal, I just mentioned it to her, I wasn't trying to tattle."
So she hasn't been speaking to Iz either. Which doesn't matter because Blair doesn't care. She can be strong and solitary until she goes away to college and makes all new friends. But sometimes she wonders what exactly she did to Penelope to deserve such treatment – and then a guilty little voice pipes up in the back of her head: what didn't she do?
Lunch finds Blair instead in the disused art rooms, where she begged a key off a teacher who felt sorry for her. She sits on the dusty desk (towel laid down between her and its surface, of course) and picks irritably at her yogurt-with-granola, heels knocking against wooden desk legs. That's where Jenny finds her, slipping silently onto the desk beside her.
"I come here sometimes too," Jenny says. "It's nice to have a quiet place to draw."
"I don't draw," Blair says, and her voice comes out rough, choked, where she had meant to sound cold.
"I figured." Jenny glances at Blair, then fishes a tinfoil-wrapped sandwich out of her lunch bag and offers Blair half. It's whole wheat, chicken cutlet, mustard. Nothing Blair would ever eat. She accepts half and takes a bite. "For the record, I keep telling him he's being stupid."
Blair takes a minute to chew and swallow, then sighs. "No," she says, because it's the worst part. "He's not."
"Alright, well…it was pretty messed up," Jenny says. "He shouldn't have called you that. Or gone after your spot."
Blair takes another bite of that sad little sandwich.
"But you didn't really…say those things about him, did you?"
Blair looks down at the sandwich in her hands with its two half-moon bite marks, her legs in their white stockings, her pale blue shoes against the dark floor speckled with paint. "Jenny, why are you here?"
Jenny seems surprised. "I felt bad."
"For me? Even after –" Blair clears her throat. "What I did?"
Jenny nods. "I know you don't…Like, I know I'm not your first choice of friend or anything. But I always wanted to be your friend, and after everything that happened last year, it seems like you could use one."
"I'm not a good friend." She never even tried to contact Serena after she went away. Serena was probably just as happy to be rid of her as everyone else.
"Maybe you just have to try harder," Jenny suggests, and there's something a little challenging in it.
Blair looks at her, that small, determined face. "You Humphreys don't give up, do you," she says.
Jenny grins at her. "It's kind of our thing."
Blair does three things after that. First she comes clean to Mrs. Benedetti, which, of course, disqualifies her from the program. Second, she starts having lunch in the courtyard with Jenny. Third, she decides to make amends with Dan. She goes to the gallery early on Sunday, before it opens, but the stone-faced person who opens the door for her is Vanessa.
"I should let you go all the way back to the city," Vanessa says over her shoulder on her way up into the gallery proper. "I shouldn't even bother talking to you."
"And yet you are anyway," Blair says wryly. "Fancy that."
Vanessa turns on her heel, facing Blair with both eyebrows arching up incredulously. "Look, I don't like you, I'm sure I've made that more than clear. Dan is my best friend and you really hurt him. If it were up to me, you know, good riddance."
Blair's teeth sink into her tongue and she curls her hands at her sides. "And? What's your point?"
"Someone has to call you on your shit," Vanessa says. "I guess right now that's me."
"I can do that just fine myself."
Vanessa really pulls the disbelieving act better than anyone. "Oh really?"
"I know, okay," Blair says, annoyed. "I'm not the Antichrist, I just fucked up."
Vanessa looks at her for a moment and Blair dares to believe she sees the suggestion of a smile on Vanessa's face.
"I'm trying to fix it," Blair says. "I gave up the spot."
Vanessa blinks, genuinely caught off guard, though she smothers it in a moment, her face calm and sarcastic once more. "I don't get it, but Dan really likes you. It's embarrassing. He's been moping nonstop. He tried to send you like fifty apology texts but he chickened out."
It's Blair's turn to be caught off guard. "Really?"
"He feels bad about what he said." Vanessa shrugs. "Even though it sounds totally deserved to me."
Blair rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I get it. As ever, V – your company has been a pleasure."
"V?" Vanessa tosses it off with half a smirk, finally continuing on her way to the café. "I'm the only one on today, Sundays are slow." She grabs an apron and holds it up. "Wanna lend a hand?"
Vanessa is lucky that Blair is wearing comfortable shoes. "I suppose I could," she says, reaching to snatch the apron. "Helping the needy is good karma, after all."
"And we both know you could use a lot of that," Vanessa says before moving off to go open the doors for the public.
Blair had spent the weeks after cotillion trying to ignore Dan entirely. Now that she isn't trying anymore, it seems like he's everywhere.
She sees him coming up the steps every morning in his old beat-up green Army jacket, the one she'd tried to get him to throw out. She sees him through library windows, brow furrowed as he reads and reads and takes notes on top of notes. She sees him smile at something Nelly Yuki says and commands herself not to be jealous.
"You are totally crushing on my brother," Jenny says, sounding supremely pleased about it.
"Oh, hush, Little J," Blair huffs.
In between stalking Dan (as Jenny put it, because Blair would never say such a thing, and also that is not at all what she's doing), she makes up with Iz. "Really, Blair," she says earnestly, eyes big, "I didn't know it was going to turn into a huge thing, I –"
"It's fine," Blair says, firmly, the kind of easy forgiveness she has never given. Under normal circumstances she would probably set up Iz's boyfriend with another girl and let Iz catch them in the act – or maybe some lowkey public humiliation would suffice. But the truth is she knows Iz didn't mean anything by it, and she knows Iz feels awful anyway. "I believe you."
Blair doesn't exactly credit Dan with everything– she isn't really the type to pass off credit to anyone except herself. But she can't deny that he did help her; there are things she never would have done without his prodding, irritating at it was at the time. When she thinks of him, his words, his voice saying I'm proud of you, she feels warm in a way she hasn't since Serena was still around. When Serena would be there to tell her you can do it, B! with such absurd, charming authenticity that Blair couldn't help but believe her. Dan makes her feel something like that.
It's this realization that sends her straight to his locker at last bell. She gets there before he does so she waits, half-afraid he'll catch sight of her and leave, but she tries to remind herself of what Vanessa had said. Dan really likes you. It's embarrassing.
Blair knows something about embarrassing. She hung that stupid snowflake necklace on her vanity.
Dan freezes when he sees her, books in his arms, and then his face sets into a humorless expression. "Oh," he says. "It's you."
"That's some way to talk to a lady," Blair says. "I didn't teach you that."
Dan rolls his eyes and steps up besides her, jerking his locker open and beginning to stack his textbooks away. "Blair, if I wanted to see you –"
"You'd have sent one of those forty texts you composed?"
He sighs. "I should have taken Jenny for a traitor."
"Vanessa, actually."
Dan – very melodramatically, in Blair's opinion – rubs a hand over his face. "Turncoats everywhere."
Half a smile curls her lips. "So it would seem."
"It's just –" The locker closes between them with a clatter. The hall has emptied around them, and the sound echoes in the silence. "It's like you have no trust or faith in your own abilities. You would have probably kicked my ass if you'd just let your transcript stand for itself but no, you let insecurity get the best of you."
Her eyebrows arch. "And you let middle class superiority complex get the best of you."
"Me?" he says, aghast.
"Yes, you, Dan Humphrey, you," she says. "Face it: you're the judgiest person I've ever met outside of…well, myself, and you're certainly proud of it, and any puncture in that puffed up cloud of self-importance is apparently staggering for you."
"I – You know –" Dan fumbles, then snaps, "That isn't the point."
"But it's true," Blair says coolly. "So don't pretend like I'm the only person with flaws. I'm sorry. I did what I could to make it right and I'm working on it. But I'm not the worst person on earth."
"I never said you were," Dan says, and it comes out too soft, devoid of anger.
"I am sorry," Blair repeats. "But I don't have any regrets either." And she curls a hand in his tie, dragging him down and into a hard kiss. His mouth opens against hers like he can't help it, like maybe he's been waiting for this as much as she has.
When she lets him go, he's confused. It's written all over his face. "No one's watching," he says.
Blair smiles. "I know."
dan/blair. jenny, vanessa, iz, penelope, nate.
s1 au. 14k words. Selfie/Drive Me Crazy-inspired.
PART ONE
"What I don't understand," Dan says, as he lets Blair direct him around her living room, all the furniture pushed close to the walls, "is how many excuses you people find for a party."
"Cotillion isn't merely a party," Blair says, something of a reprimand in it. They pass each other, clasp hands, move on to other, invisible partners. Dan is hopeless at choreography.
"That's right. It's an antiquated –"
"– charming –"
"– sexist –"
"You're a boy, what do you know –"
"Where you spend all this money to parade girls around for attention –"
"Cotillion teaches grace and poise, which every girl should –"
"Oh, you just want to wear a big dress and tiara."
Blair makes sure to step on his feet a few times. "You know, you could use some grace and poise yourself."
Dan raises his eyebrows. "I am not the one stepping on their dance partner."
"I'm making a point," Blair says. "Cotillion will be the ultimate test for us and cotillion will be the ultimate triumph if we play our cards right." She starts to get swept up in the idea. "For me, it's a chance to rise above my detractors – a phoenix from the ashes, better than before. And for you it'll be a transformation. Ultimate outsider to ultimate insider. It all hinges on cotillion."
Dan always looks at her like she's crazy, but there's increasing affection in it lately. "Say cotillion one more time."
Blair makes a face at him. "Cotillion."
Catching Dan up on the choreography has made Blair unexpectedly sad, albeit in an abstract and untouchable way. He's terrible, there's no denying it – his timing is way off and he has no interest in applying himself – and that just makes her think of how not-terrible Nate had been. She and Nate had practiced together since they were children, enrolled in baby ballroom by their mothers. He was a natural, and Blair always felt terribly romantic in his arms, allowing him to dutifully spin her.
Since her trouble started, she's only been going to the bare minimum of practices. Just enough to keep her spot, which she wouldn't dream of giving up, and even that had been awful, an instructor standing in for the partner she didn't have. "You'll need someone soon," they'd told her, as if Blair hadn't known.
Her thoughts must show on her face, because Dan gives her shoulder a shake, completely breaking form. "C'mon. Remind me why this is good for me, again."
She's been working in little boyfriend tips here and there, fulfilling her end of the bargain to turn him into the perfect partner. "Do you know how much girls love a good dancer?"
"Shockingly, this is something I have learned from the television." Dan forgets which direction he's supposed to go in and does a funny little turn as he tries to get back on path. The music tinkles along merrily in the background. "Anyway, I'm not so hopeless – I did pretty well the other night, didn't I?"
Blair can feel herself go scarlet, which is absurd, and she hopes her Chanel Vitalumière is doing a good job of hiding it. "I mean, if you want to call that a kiss –"
"Oh, no, not that." His hand lands on her waist in the exact same spot, and they're very close for a moment before the dance has them parting. "Didn't I tell you? I sort of met a girl."
She blinks and misses a step. "You were busy that night, weren't you?"
Dan ducks his head. Blair is starting to wonder at his shyness. "It looks like your good work is starting to pay off after all."
"Hm." Blair turns away from him and crosses to shut off the music. That's more than enough practice for today. "What's her name?"
Dan tells her (it's no one Blair knows, a girl who transferred to Constance from Spence last year) as he shifts the furniture back into place. "I mean, we just talked school stuff." He gives Blair a half-smile. "I have a girlfriend, remember?"
Having a real girlfriend doesn't mean much to most boys, so Blair can't imagine a fake one means much more. "I'm your first, aren't I? Real or fake?"
For some reason he goes a little pink, adjusting the position of an end table, and gives a quick nod.
"You'll have to bide your time, of course – keep her interested without seeming like a creep who's stepping out, and then like you aren't moving on too fast after our breakup."
He rubs the back of his neck. "Jeez, Blair."
"Come here." He looks wary, which makes her smile. "I'm not going to eat you. I'm your friend. I'm helping." Dan makes his way over to where she's leaning against the sideboard, waiting for him. "You should touch her. Nothing over the top. Nothing obscene. Just –" Blair trails her fingertips down his arm to his wrist. "Girls like to be touched."
"I touch you all the time," Dan says, and his arm snakes around her waist, tugging her close.
"I noticed." Blair bites her lip, looking up at him, and then evades his grasp, slipping away. "Fast learner."
"Blair."
She turns to face him, eyebrow arching.
"I'm proud of you," he says, which is not what she expected. "Talking to Isabel again, putting in time at the gallery. I even heard, uh, some nice things you said about me to, um, Nate. Which was probably bullshit, but…" He shakes his head a little and shrugs. "I maybe don't regret this deal we made."
Blair smiles genuinely, and her little bit of cat and mouse play begins to feel silly, miscalculated.
"Even school," Dan continues. "I applied for this summer thing, and I think I might get it. I never would've even tried for it without you hassling me about Yale, so – you know, thank you. You've helped me. And I want you to know that."
A strange sensation is rising in Blair's chest, that feeling you get between tripping and hitting the ground. It would be a staggering coincidence for Dan to be talking about this – the program she had spent years thinking about, months working on an application for, carefully crafting essays and curating letters of recommendation. The program that got so many applicants from Upper East Side prep schools that they only ever took one person from the combined student body of Constance and St. Jude's.
It would just be too much of a coincidence.
But Dan had helped her with those essays.
"That summer thing," she says, smile suddenly feeling fixed. "What's it called?"
"You know it," he says, then tells her, and Blair's stomach drops like hitting the ground.
The girl who transferred from Spence to Constance is named Nelly Yuki and the only reason Blair hasn't gotten the lowdown on her before now is because one look told her Nelly Yuki was too tragic to ever really be competition. If Nelly is the kind of girl Dan likes, then it's no wonder both of them are alone, too busy slinking around corners with their noses in books to notice any other human life forms.
Nelly hasn't changed since that first time Blair and the girls went around to scope out the newbie: big unfashionable glasses, dull skin, flat hair, and a clothing color palette straight out of some fictional dystopian future world. Like Blair said: tragic. She's not even sure how Nelly ended up at Kiss on the Lips.
Blair drops all of her books onto the table next to Nelly with a huffy put-upon sigh, receiving a pointed look from the librarian for being too noisy. It's Blair's free period, the one she usually spends in the coffee shop around the corner, by herself. But today she's spending it in the library.
Nelly looks up, not expecting the interruption.
"SATs," Blair says with that over-the-top put-upon-ness anyone in their class would sympathize with. "Getting in as much prep as I can."
"Uh-huh." Nelly's gaze travels from Blair to the pile and back. "Look, I don't know what you heard but I was only tutoring the other girls because that ringleader Penelope basically blackmailed me into it, I have no interest in –"
"Whoa, whoa, Nelly Yuki, calm down." Blair blinks at her in feigned innocence, lashes fluttering. "I don't need tutoring. I just sat down here because, well, you seemed nice." Nelly doesn't seem to be buying that, so Blair adds, "I heard you met my boyfriend. I mean, he said you were nice. He liked you."
Great job, Blair, she thinks with an internal eye roll. It was the word boyfriend that had her flustered, sounding weird in her voice, out of her mouth. For all she's heard it from others, she never thinks of Dan as her boyfriend, or even calls him that herself. Because he isn't her boyfriend, not really.
Nelly gives Blair a curious, assessing look. "Oh. Okay."
"No one wants to sit alone, even to study," Blair goes on to say, voice still odd and too chipper. She concentrates on opening one of her prep books and then just stares at the text, her hands laying on the page, unblemished skin and ice-pink nails. She used to be good at this sort of thing. She could psychologically crush a girl while prying out the information she wanted all without leaving a mark. Now that she's nice she can't even manage to be normal for thirty seconds.
Nelly Yuki puts a hand on Blair's arm. Last year, a girl like Nelly Yuki wouldn't even dare to brush Blair's sleeve. "I don't know what you think happened, exactly," Nelly says cautiously. "But we just talked a little."
"I don't know what you're implying." Blair's voice is too cold where it was too pleasant before.
"Nothing," Nelly says, jerking her hand back to her side. "I'm not implying anything."
After that Blair is too embarrassed to stay or go, so she and Nelly focus on their respective tasks until the bell rings and Blair runs off like she's on fire.
"I'm such an idiot," she complains to Iz after school, face buried in one of the overly frilly pillows that decorate Iz's bed. They never used to go to anyone's house except Blair's, but times have changed.
When Blair emerges from the pile of pillows, Iz looks sympathetic. "That is…pretty bad," she says, but she's only able to keep a straight face for a second before dissolving into giggles. "In front of Nelly Yuki. God, Blair, that's like…a new level of embarrassing yourself."
Blair thwacks her with a pillow, frowning. "Yes, thank you, Isabel, I was not aware."
"It's just super absurd. Like, Dan is so into you, I don't know why you'd even worry."
Blair harrumphs at that. She can't very well tell Iz the truth, but reminding herself of it highlights how ridiculous it is that she'd overreact about Dan and Nelly Yuki. What does she care if he makes eyes at some loser in last year's specs?
Finally, when the silence has stretched a beat too long, Blair says, "You're right. Plus it's not like I even care." She frowns, slumping into the bed. "He's just some nobody from Brooklyn. Of course his first real party would go to his head."
Iz arches an eyebrow and makes her hands into little claws. "Raaawr," she says. "Harsh."
Blair rolls her eyes, but it's become increasingly impossible to ignore the way insecurity has buried its way under her skin. She tries to remain rational. She doesn't care if Dan likes someone. It doesn't mean anything. He won't get into Ivy Scholars this summer. He won't because he can't, because Blair needs that spot. She's worked too hard for that spot. Dan will not steal it from her. "What? It's true."
"Nothing, I just, you know…" Iz shrugs. "I thought you guys seemed pretty happy."
"Happy?" Blair repeats.
"Yeah, like –" Iz flips her laptop so it's facing Blair and scrolls through Blair's Gossip Girl tag. Practically everything on it features Dan – their heads bent together over a textbook, Dan standing impatiently next to Blair's locker as she digs for something, Blair fussing with the knot of his tie. "You're always together at school and – okay, don't get mad or anything, but you're a lot less uptight lately. Like, you're way more relaxed."
Blair's frown only deepens. She doesn't need someone like Dan Humphrey to make her less uptight. "I'm just using him." It's true in a way Iz doesn't realize. "He's not terrible looking and he's a passable kisser." She shuts the laptop with a snap. "High school boyfriends are pointless. If the last year taught me anything, it's that."
Iz snorts. "Yeah, that was some kiss alright," she teases. "He's hot, even if he is on scholarship."
Saying those words, hearing them echoed back to her, makes the tension seep out of Blair's back. He's nothing to her, ultimately. He isn't going to steal anything from her.
Saturday afternoon once again finds Blair behind the counter at the Bedford Avenue Gallery. She's been coming by every other weekend to dole out drinks and sandwiches. By now she's tamed the finicky panini press, can make a macchiato in her sleep. She's even gotten over her qualms about touching the grimy handle of the dustpan, or wiping down the counters with a previously used sponge. She is truly – on the surface, at least – One Of Them. She had even shocked Eleanor once at breakfast with two perfect lattes.
Today involves none of her blue collar skills, however. Rain is coming down in sheets outside so the gallery isn't getting much traffic. Nevertheless the entire team is on hand: Vanessa fiddling obsessively with the music selection, Jenny sketching at an empty table, Blair deploring the state of her manicure, and Dan out in the other room helping his father dismantle the latest exhibit.
"Oh, leave this one," Blair says to Vanessa. "I love this song."
Vanessa looks up from the iPod and raises an eyebrow. "You love this song?"
"Hidden depths," Blair remarks dryly. One of her nails is snagged. "I can't imagine you'd have a nail file?"
She doesn't, but Jenny does, so Blair hops off her stool and trots over. As she works her nail over, she can't help looking down at Jenny's drawing. "Have I seen this before?"
Jenny starts, eyes going wide, and says, "Yeah, I'm surprised you remember. You saw the rough draft, this is sort of updated." She tilts it up for Blair to see better.
Blair has always loved fashion drawings: the sweeping, slim figures in amorphous gowns, the splashes of color. Jenny's are annoyingly adorable, much like the girl herself; this one features a woman with a big blonde bouffant and comically overdrawn eyelashes in a silver gown with a gigantic bow at one shoulder. Jenny has painted in the slightest floral motif over the fabric. Blair looks at the whole thing put together and has the immediate pulse of want she's gotten with a million dresses over the years, desirous of voluminous skirts and luxurious textures, beautiful things that feel as though they should rightfully belong to her.
"How much would it cost to make?" she wonders, fingertips tracing over the train.
"Make?" Jenny repeats. "Um. I haven't worked it out exactly. Why?"
Blair's cotillion dress is a Waldorf Designs original, a slate blue number with gold detailing that Blair had loved, once. Instead of answering Jenny, she asks, "How long would it take to put together?"
The rest of the rainy day is taken up with measurements and planning, Jenny's excitement so catching that Blair and even Vanessa get swept up in it. Jenny mumbles about brocade while she wraps Blair's various parts in a measuring tape, and Blair takes over the music much to Vanessa's protest, putting on the girliest pop she can find. Vanessa lectures them all on the evils of cotillion but it's with a smile on her face that Blair has never actually seen.
That's how Dan finds them hours later, his skin dusty and hands scraped up, looking every bit the worker, utterly exhausted. But when he sees the three of them he smiles, tentative and curious. "Okay," he says, "What did you do to Vanessa? Because the real Vanessa would never stand for –" He pauses, listening. "Is this Taylor Swift?"
"It's called having fun, Dan," Jenny says. "Maybe you've heard of it? Oh, wait –" She makes a face at him, which Dan mirrors right back at her.
"I have fun," he says.
"Sort of," Blair remarks. "If one's idea of fun is doing speed rounds on practice tests."
"That was your idea, nerd," he reminds her, tugging on her ponytail as he passes by, and Blair smiles at him, because sometimes she can't quite help it.
Something like guilt prickles deep in her chest, but Blair ignores it. She's good at that.
By the time cotillion rolls around a month later, Blair thinks she might have permanent scarring from all the times Jenny stabbed her with a needle by accident ("By accident," Vanessa said once, sardonic, her eyebrow arching). But it's worth it when she puts the dress on for the final time in Jenny's room and looks in the mirror: the fabric is heavy, stiff and formal, but the dress is fitted to her exactly and the silver brings a shine to her skin, sets off the dark brown of her hair. It's perfect, and Blair thinks even her mother would be shocked to agree. It looks like the old her, the girl she thought was gone.
"Wow," Dan says.
Both Blair and Jenny swivel towards the door, startled, and Dan must read something on their faces because he puts his hand up in front of his, averting his eyes.
"Is this like a wedding thing?" he says. "Am I not supposed to see?"
Blair rolls her eyes, snorting a laugh. "You can look, Dan."
He gives her a wry smile as he drops his hand. "Ready to go?"
Dan doesn't look half bad himself – or he wouldn't if he didn't look like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. The tux is a little flashy for Dan, who usually considers a vest over a flannel shirt to be the height of formal dress, a charcoal suit with silver tie that complements her. He looks good. Not that Blair would ever dream of telling him that.
They're at the door to the hall when Dan stops her, hand on her wrist just above the silver glove. Blair is itchy with enthusiasm, can't wait to get in there and show off, so it's with impatience that she turns to him. "What?"
"Just – it's dumb, but –" He delves into his pocket and then holds his hand up to her, a slightly tangled necklace dropping from his fingers to dangle in front of her eyes. It's nothing special. From a somewhat tarnished silver chain hangs a geometric, vaguely art deco snowflake, studded with dark stones.
"Is this for me?" Blair asks, a sneer already in her voice. "Where'd you get it, the sale pile at a thrift store?"
Abashed, Dan says, "It's my mom's."
Blair's stomach does a funny little flip-flop. "Well, then." She turns, her back to him, and waits. "Go ahead."
The little snowflake falls against her chest and when Blair looks down at it, she doesn't mind how it looks there.
They find their place in line, a few behind Iz and her date, one of those indistinguishable North twins; Blair sees Kati has the other one. The line runs alphabetical all the way down to Waldorf, which Blair always liked, because it meant she had the last word. But right now she feels a slight twinge that there's no van der Woodsen right there with her, like they'd always planned.
Then she notices Dan sort of watching her out of the corner of his eye, like he's trying to hide it, and Blair laughs, sadness cracking. "Just admit it," she teases him. "You worship me. It's okay."
Dan laughs soundlessly, cheeks pinking as he looks away. "Nope, no way," he says. "I have…grown accustomed to your face."
"I don't think you were looking at my face," Blair says pleasantly. She leans into his shoulder a little and Dan responds with an arm around her waist, a loose hold. He's been touching her a lot more since they had that talk. She thinks Dan is fantastic at faking it but almost at the same time thinks he might kiss her; she doesn't know which is true. Dan is either really good at acting, or he's awful at it.
Blair is slightly nervous that something might happen when she steps up to be announced – some Carrie at the prom kind of thing, orchestrated by Penelope, that will leave Blair humiliated and murderous. But nothing happens except polite applause, Dan taking her hand, Blair dipping into an accidental happy curtsy.
That seems like the most dangerous part of the evening finished; all there is afterwards is picking at a fixed menu meal and taking a few turns around the dance floor. Dan doesn't embarrass her there. At least when he messes up, he's capable of covering it, and Blair's too flush on victory to mind a few slips. Iz gives her encouraging smiles whenever their eyes meet, and even the rest of the girls seem less cold-shouldered. Kati is primed to break now that Iz has been won over, and Hazel never had much of a mind of her own to start with. Plus there's Jenny Humphrey milling through the crowd in Blair's cast off cotillion gown, the blue and gold very pretty against her blonde hair. It doesn't feel entirely hopeless.
"You look nice."
Blair is sitting at her table chatting to Iz, Dan on her other side distracted by some argument with Kati's date about some movie Blair's never heard of. Blair looks up to see who had addressed her, and she's shocked to see that it's Nate.
Iz gives a curious lift of the eyebrows and dutifully busies herself with her water glass.
"Thank you," Blair says. "You too." Her eyes sweep over him, all cream and pale silver. "I'd almost forgotten how handsome you are, Archibald."
He tips his head towards the dance floor. "Old times' sake?"
Blair forgets to say anything to Dan. She just goes.
She and Nate fall into old steps with the casual precision of habit but it feels like just that – a habit, brushing her hair or picking out shoes for the day. Her stomach doesn't flutter, her hands don't shake. Nate doesn't make any mistakes, so she has no reason to poke fun or laugh at him. It all feels very…obligatory.
"I'm glad you're doing okay," Nate says. Blair hates when people say things like that, as though she was dying or something, and Nate hastily continues, "I just mean…even though things ended really messed up between us, I'm happy you're…you know, happy. You should be."
Blair is surprised, not least because such maturity is generally beyond her own grasp or understanding, so it certainly seems beyond Nate's. But he always had a good heart, so maybe she shouldn't be too taken aback. She kisses him on the cheek. "Thanks, Nate."
By the time they return to the table, Penelope is hovering, looking none too pleased. She's in a lacy, gilded lilac dress that even Blair has to admit looks incredible on her. Penelope learned from the best, finally combining sartorial expertise and meanness into one unified whole. "Hey, B," Penelope says. "I was just catching up with your date."
"It was scintillating," Dan says dryly.
Blair smirks. "I'm glad. I hope you didn't mind me absconding with yours."
Nate, ever the well-trained boyfriend, has sidled around so he's standing just behind Penelope instead of Blair.
"Of course not," Penelope says. "I really came over to congratulate you."
This raises Blair's suspicions. Even though she's already decided to count the night as a success, she can't imagine Penelope giving in so quickly. "Oh?"
"On the Ivy Scholars spot," Penelope says, as though it's obvious. Blair's spine goes straight as a steel pole.
Dan's brow furrows. "I didn't know they'd already chosen someone."
"Oh, well, I shouldn't really say –" Penelope leans in conspiratorially. "I sort of have the inside scoop. My mother's on the board."
Blair internally runs through every name on the list. "There's no Shafai on the board."
"After the divorce, she went back to her maiden name." Penelope watches Blair closely. "Benedetti." When Blair doesn't say anything, she goes on, "It's funny, you know, because she mentioned the spot from our school was down to a few kids but they'd just had to discount someone because they got this reference call saying all sorts of things about the guy, like he had some cheating scandal and he even might be planning to pay someone to take his SATs –"
"Shut up, Penelope," Blair says tightly. Dan gives her a confused look.
"So of course I had to ask who it was," Penelope continues, undeterred, "And I was shocked–" Her eyes are very wide, to convey said shock. "– to hear it was your Dave. Sorry – Dan. Mom was really appalled, you know how she feels about cheating – just as Dad. Now. Who do you think could have possibly spread all those lies about Dan just to take him out of the running?"
"Pen," Nate sighs tiredly, but the intervention is much too late, damage already done.
Dan, however, is still looking at Blair, with a suspicious tinge encroaching on the doubt in his expression.
Blair tries to cut it off before it spreads any further. "Penelope's always been very jealous." She ignores Penelope's scoff. "She's just trying to ruin –"
"Why do you care, anyway?" Penelope interrupts. "You're just using him, aren't you? That's what you said to Iz, anyway. How did she phrase it – you said, 'he's just some nobody from Brooklyn.' Right?"
But Dan is still looking at Blair, has not wavered in waiting for her to denounce this or confirm it. "Blair?"
Blair presses her lips together, stalling. "You don't understand," she starts, but that is apparently enough, because Dan gets to his feet.
"I should've known better," he says. It makes anger rise hot in Blair's chest, her cheeks going red with it.
"You're so judgmental," she snaps. "If you would just take a minute to understand–"
"All I've done is try to understand you. Help you. But I guess it was all for nothing, because you're still pulling the same old stunts."
Everyone in the vicinity is watching them with a mixture of rapt enjoyment and discomfort. There's a word for that, enjoying someone else's pain. Eyes zip back and forth between Dan and Blair like following the ball at a tennis match.
"Just because you spent your entire life being too anti-social to understand how the real world works –"
"I should've known there was a reason everyone hated you, joke's on me for thinking you were different –"
"It's not like you could afford the program anyway," Blair snits. "You just went after it because it was mine."
Dan stares at her, frowning. "You're a real bitch," he says. It's something Blair's been called a lot in her life but somehow, coming out of his mouth at this moment, it's the worst thing anyone's ever said to her. "Like I said – I should've known better."
She feels herself go hard and protective and cruel. "You think you're so much better than me just because you serve four dollar lattes to out of town transplants. You think you're so superior."
"I don't, actually," Dan says, shaking his head. "I just stupidly thought this fake friendship was real."
Then he's gone, stalking off across the polished floor, leaving Blair standing there in her stupid custom-made gown feeling like a fool. "I hope you're happy," she says to Penelope, but the worst part is that she probably is.
After that Blair decides she doesn't care about Dan, not even a little bit. She's actually better off without him around.
There are downsides, of course. She can't sit in the library during lunch anymore, and she can't sit in the courtyard either because she has no interest in being subjected to Penelope's smug face or Iz's cringing apologies. They'd had a fight too, after cotillion.
"I can't believe you told her what I said about Dan," Blair hissed. "I can never trust anyone. All of you, running behind everyone's backs to gossip, to reveal every single little tidbit you hear."
"It's not like that," Iz protested. "I didn't know it was a secret! You said it like – like it was no big deal, I just mentioned it to her, I wasn't trying to tattle."
So she hasn't been speaking to Iz either. Which doesn't matter because Blair doesn't care. She can be strong and solitary until she goes away to college and makes all new friends. But sometimes she wonders what exactly she did to Penelope to deserve such treatment – and then a guilty little voice pipes up in the back of her head: what didn't she do?
Lunch finds Blair instead in the disused art rooms, where she begged a key off a teacher who felt sorry for her. She sits on the dusty desk (towel laid down between her and its surface, of course) and picks irritably at her yogurt-with-granola, heels knocking against wooden desk legs. That's where Jenny finds her, slipping silently onto the desk beside her.
"I come here sometimes too," Jenny says. "It's nice to have a quiet place to draw."
"I don't draw," Blair says, and her voice comes out rough, choked, where she had meant to sound cold.
"I figured." Jenny glances at Blair, then fishes a tinfoil-wrapped sandwich out of her lunch bag and offers Blair half. It's whole wheat, chicken cutlet, mustard. Nothing Blair would ever eat. She accepts half and takes a bite. "For the record, I keep telling him he's being stupid."
Blair takes a minute to chew and swallow, then sighs. "No," she says, because it's the worst part. "He's not."
"Alright, well…it was pretty messed up," Jenny says. "He shouldn't have called you that. Or gone after your spot."
Blair takes another bite of that sad little sandwich.
"But you didn't really…say those things about him, did you?"
Blair looks down at the sandwich in her hands with its two half-moon bite marks, her legs in their white stockings, her pale blue shoes against the dark floor speckled with paint. "Jenny, why are you here?"
Jenny seems surprised. "I felt bad."
"For me? Even after –" Blair clears her throat. "What I did?"
Jenny nods. "I know you don't…Like, I know I'm not your first choice of friend or anything. But I always wanted to be your friend, and after everything that happened last year, it seems like you could use one."
"I'm not a good friend." She never even tried to contact Serena after she went away. Serena was probably just as happy to be rid of her as everyone else.
"Maybe you just have to try harder," Jenny suggests, and there's something a little challenging in it.
Blair looks at her, that small, determined face. "You Humphreys don't give up, do you," she says.
Jenny grins at her. "It's kind of our thing."
Blair does three things after that. First she comes clean to Mrs. Benedetti, which, of course, disqualifies her from the program. Second, she starts having lunch in the courtyard with Jenny. Third, she decides to make amends with Dan. She goes to the gallery early on Sunday, before it opens, but the stone-faced person who opens the door for her is Vanessa.
"I should let you go all the way back to the city," Vanessa says over her shoulder on her way up into the gallery proper. "I shouldn't even bother talking to you."
"And yet you are anyway," Blair says wryly. "Fancy that."
Vanessa turns on her heel, facing Blair with both eyebrows arching up incredulously. "Look, I don't like you, I'm sure I've made that more than clear. Dan is my best friend and you really hurt him. If it were up to me, you know, good riddance."
Blair's teeth sink into her tongue and she curls her hands at her sides. "And? What's your point?"
"Someone has to call you on your shit," Vanessa says. "I guess right now that's me."
"I can do that just fine myself."
Vanessa really pulls the disbelieving act better than anyone. "Oh really?"
"I know, okay," Blair says, annoyed. "I'm not the Antichrist, I just fucked up."
Vanessa looks at her for a moment and Blair dares to believe she sees the suggestion of a smile on Vanessa's face.
"I'm trying to fix it," Blair says. "I gave up the spot."
Vanessa blinks, genuinely caught off guard, though she smothers it in a moment, her face calm and sarcastic once more. "I don't get it, but Dan really likes you. It's embarrassing. He's been moping nonstop. He tried to send you like fifty apology texts but he chickened out."
It's Blair's turn to be caught off guard. "Really?"
"He feels bad about what he said." Vanessa shrugs. "Even though it sounds totally deserved to me."
Blair rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I get it. As ever, V – your company has been a pleasure."
"V?" Vanessa tosses it off with half a smirk, finally continuing on her way to the café. "I'm the only one on today, Sundays are slow." She grabs an apron and holds it up. "Wanna lend a hand?"
Vanessa is lucky that Blair is wearing comfortable shoes. "I suppose I could," she says, reaching to snatch the apron. "Helping the needy is good karma, after all."
"And we both know you could use a lot of that," Vanessa says before moving off to go open the doors for the public.
Blair had spent the weeks after cotillion trying to ignore Dan entirely. Now that she isn't trying anymore, it seems like he's everywhere.
She sees him coming up the steps every morning in his old beat-up green Army jacket, the one she'd tried to get him to throw out. She sees him through library windows, brow furrowed as he reads and reads and takes notes on top of notes. She sees him smile at something Nelly Yuki says and commands herself not to be jealous.
"You are totally crushing on my brother," Jenny says, sounding supremely pleased about it.
"Oh, hush, Little J," Blair huffs.
In between stalking Dan (as Jenny put it, because Blair would never say such a thing, and also that is not at all what she's doing), she makes up with Iz. "Really, Blair," she says earnestly, eyes big, "I didn't know it was going to turn into a huge thing, I –"
"It's fine," Blair says, firmly, the kind of easy forgiveness she has never given. Under normal circumstances she would probably set up Iz's boyfriend with another girl and let Iz catch them in the act – or maybe some lowkey public humiliation would suffice. But the truth is she knows Iz didn't mean anything by it, and she knows Iz feels awful anyway. "I believe you."
Blair doesn't exactly credit Dan with everything– she isn't really the type to pass off credit to anyone except herself. But she can't deny that he did help her; there are things she never would have done without his prodding, irritating at it was at the time. When she thinks of him, his words, his voice saying I'm proud of you, she feels warm in a way she hasn't since Serena was still around. When Serena would be there to tell her you can do it, B! with such absurd, charming authenticity that Blair couldn't help but believe her. Dan makes her feel something like that.
It's this realization that sends her straight to his locker at last bell. She gets there before he does so she waits, half-afraid he'll catch sight of her and leave, but she tries to remind herself of what Vanessa had said. Dan really likes you. It's embarrassing.
Blair knows something about embarrassing. She hung that stupid snowflake necklace on her vanity.
Dan freezes when he sees her, books in his arms, and then his face sets into a humorless expression. "Oh," he says. "It's you."
"That's some way to talk to a lady," Blair says. "I didn't teach you that."
Dan rolls his eyes and steps up besides her, jerking his locker open and beginning to stack his textbooks away. "Blair, if I wanted to see you –"
"You'd have sent one of those forty texts you composed?"
He sighs. "I should have taken Jenny for a traitor."
"Vanessa, actually."
Dan – very melodramatically, in Blair's opinion – rubs a hand over his face. "Turncoats everywhere."
Half a smile curls her lips. "So it would seem."
"It's just –" The locker closes between them with a clatter. The hall has emptied around them, and the sound echoes in the silence. "It's like you have no trust or faith in your own abilities. You would have probably kicked my ass if you'd just let your transcript stand for itself but no, you let insecurity get the best of you."
Her eyebrows arch. "And you let middle class superiority complex get the best of you."
"Me?" he says, aghast.
"Yes, you, Dan Humphrey, you," she says. "Face it: you're the judgiest person I've ever met outside of…well, myself, and you're certainly proud of it, and any puncture in that puffed up cloud of self-importance is apparently staggering for you."
"I – You know –" Dan fumbles, then snaps, "That isn't the point."
"But it's true," Blair says coolly. "So don't pretend like I'm the only person with flaws. I'm sorry. I did what I could to make it right and I'm working on it. But I'm not the worst person on earth."
"I never said you were," Dan says, and it comes out too soft, devoid of anger.
"I am sorry," Blair repeats. "But I don't have any regrets either." And she curls a hand in his tie, dragging him down and into a hard kiss. His mouth opens against hers like he can't help it, like maybe he's been waiting for this as much as she has.
When she lets him go, he's confused. It's written all over his face. "No one's watching," he says.
Blair smiles. "I know."