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Monday is sweet with rain and bagels on Fifth, the soft tittering of heels as a background noise. Blair is young, newly divorced, and New York shines like a coin.
"You're my best friend, you know that?" she asks, all sharp eyes and red lipstick, precise intonations.
"I know," Serena answers, sliding a pliant arm around Blair's waist.
The honks and shouted profanities are music to Blair's ears.
"Well then," she whispers, tipsy with Serena's warmth. "If you know."
Serena laughs, and Blair bends to fit her body in the hollow of her ribs, ivory melting into golden almost seamlessly.
*
Monday is shopping at Chanel and finding a baby doll dress that Blair can't work but Serena can. Blair isn't even jealous anymore, at least not farther than the familiar pinpricks in her side.
Serena doesn't notice. Blair doesn't resent her for that either. It's not her fault Blair notices so much all the time, after all.
"You look good," Blair says blandly.
Serena smiles, bright.
The she strips down to her underwear and it's miles and miles of honey skin, and Blair resents her for the marks her nails will leave as she digs them into the flesh of her palms to keep from shielding her eyes.
*
Monday is another day of remembering, her sleep mask on her eyes (it isn't shame, whatever they tell you), what it was like kissing Chuck and Dan and Louis.
Kissing Chuck was like kissing a forest fire; Blair's tongue still has splinters and on her bad days it tastes like ashes. (Like a forest fire – the forest grows back but the ground always stays burned, black inside). Because she doesn't know what else to call it, Blair calls it love.
Kissing Dan was a kiss in a novel. Dan's hands on her hips felt like he was drawing his next words out of her, draining the ink from her veins without asking for permission. Pages rumpled, as ever, Waldorf.
Kissing Louis was a princess kiss. Kissing Louis was castles and tea and sunshine like diamonds on the surface of a glimmering sea. Kissing Louis was everything Blair's life has always been – falsely magnificent.
Blair slides her fingers inside of her and works on the fire there.
There's no kissing, and she thinks about Serena when she comes, because Serena always wins, the boys and the fame and Blair's heart.
*
Tuesday is slow. It isn't raining anymore, and Blair takes her breakfast in bed, laptop open on her legs that feel paralysed playing Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Dan is breathing in her ear.
"What's it like to be in love with Serena?" she asks as Holly strums her guitar on her window, Blair's heart beating tightly inside her pretty-girl skin.
"Why do you want to know?"
Blair doesn't answer.
"It's like that, then," Dan answers, the burgeon of a sigh hiding somewhere in his voice.
"So," Blair asks, drunk with stupid courage, "what's it like?"
"You were there first," Dan says.
He hangs up.
"I was there first," Blair repeats; it feels strange in her mouth, truth instead of her usual lies.
*
Tuesday is Serena crying on her shoulder for yet another lost lover.
"What has driven him away?" Blair asks, petting Serena's hair. She dreams of a day where she'll be allowed to mess it up, tangle it, wreck it.
"Same as always," Serena says, looking up at her. Her eyes are red and she has her rage right there, trapped between her teeth. Sometimes Blair forgets that she's not as stupid as she looks.
"You know what they say," Blair says, inanely.
Serena is watching her with big, radiant eyes. "No. What do they say?"
Blair leans in until her whole world is the smell of Serena's hair (lavender and heartbreak), the curve of her jaw and her earlobe. "They're always wrong," she whispers.
Serena bursts out laughing. Her body shakes on Blair's knees.
"They really are," she says happily, and then: "Let's get drunk now."
Blair has never told Serena no, and she isn't about to start.
"Okay," she agrees, and wipes her lipstick off with a smooth arm. She doesn't like it when the rim of the bottle turns red; it makes her feel old, and a little like a murderer.
*
Tuesday is Blair missing her father the way she does sometimes, suddenly, acutely. It's Blair looking at her phone, wondering who she can call and not calling anyone. It's Dorota finding her curled up on her bed trying not to choke and holding her.
Tuesday is Blair wondering what went wrong. Tuesday is Blair hungry. Tuesday is Blair in pain.
Tuesday is Blair in bed with an empty stomach and bile on the tip of her tongue, unsaid words, unshed tears, unloved lovers.
Tuesday is black and white and Blair's life isn't a movie.
But Tuesday is just one day in the week, after all, Blair thinks as she falls asleep, Dorota's hand softly stroking her hair.
*
Wednesday is a little more upbeat. There's drama Blair can't keep track of but does anyway, because that's her job. Queen B, they used to call her. She's not sure she's that person anymore.
Blair isn't in high school anymore. Sometimes she looks at the old yearbooks and wonders why she can't shake that life out of her skin.
"You loved it, didn't you?" asks Serena, who always gets it wrong.
"Yes," Blair answers, stroking her hair. I loved you.
She learned a long time ago that there is no way to keep Serena away, so she lets her lie with her head on Blair's shoulder, the side of her breast brushing against Blair's arm.
"And you still do?" Serena asks again, softer.
Blair inhales sharply through her nose. Serena probably mistakes it for melancholy.
"Yes," Blair says, and bites her lip hard enough to keep the next words in.
*
Wednesday could as well be a Monday or a Thursday (not a Tuesday, though). Blair always loses track during the holidays, lets it be day after day with intermissions of hot, star-sprinkled nights.
Blair takes a jet and flies to Paris. She brings Eric and his boyfriend with her, because sometimes she needs to see people being happy and those two deserve a little carelessness before the Upper East Side fastens its noose around their unsuspecting necks.
They mess around the fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg, playfully splashing water at each other while Blair watches them, sipping her orange juice. It's not raining here.
There's not a lot of Serena in Eric's traits, just a little of her plump mellowness, a hint of her golden glory. But he's softer, less dangerous – he has a flimsy heart where she has a fiery love of spotlights, and tears where she has glitter and vomit.
Blair calls the waiter and asks for a religieuse because she can do anything here, can eat as much chocolate as she wants and not be mean and let the sun soak her with fond heat.
She even smiles, a little. It feels strange.
*
Wednesday is watching the sun set from a plane window, a pair of seventeen-year-old boys sleeping next to her. It feels strange not to be seventeen anymore. Blair feels like she still is, and time has moved on without her.
She drinks champagne at her mother's expense as she reads a book Dan lent her, yet another ballad that speaks of rich people despairing the loss of an imaginary purity. She chucks it on the seat next to her.
It's night when they get to the airport.
"Get up," she says, and shakes Eric's shoulder, not unkindly.
He rubs his eyes. "Where are we?" he asks groggily, blindly groping for his boyfriend's hand.
Blair smiles, a little sadly. "We're back in New York. I called a car for you."
He looks at her, all big, earnest eyes. Wasn't it him that tried to kill himself a few years ago? "Thank you, Blair," he says.
(He probably remembers all the times he called her evil, she thinks with a little satisfaction. He probably doesn't understand, and feels guilty, just like Serena would, but softer, more intimate.)
"You're welcome," she says. She doesn't pat his cheek. As much as she wishes they were, they're not in a fifties film.
The wind is blowing when she steps down the stairs and onto the tarmac. It plasters Blair's skirt on her thighs and pushes her jewellery into her skin.
"The car is here, Miss Waldorf," Dorota shouts from afar.
Blair closes her eyes. "A few seconds, Dorota."
The wind howls at the back of her neck. It's New York, Blair thinks somewhat inanely, welcoming her back and saying, You should never have left.
*
Thursday starts with Blair's phone ringing and someone she doesn't know asking her what it feels like to have lost a kingdom.
"It feels like someone has cut my chest open and ripped my heart out," Blair answers before she can censor herself.
She hangs up immediately and sinks back in her silk sheets.
Her heart beats like a mad drum. It's still here, the bastard.
*
Thursday is opening her door to a radiant Serena and letting her thrust the invitation to a party Blair's already invited to into Dorota's hands.
"I got it for you," Serena says, her eyes shining, before launching into a tirade about her lover of the week.
(Nate, apparently. He's had her so many times, sometimes Blair wants to shout at him that he should learn to keep her, because he's the only one who ever seemed like he could.)
"We're going to get coffee," Serena says.
"Okay," Blair answers. "Let me get my shoes on."
She puts on her terrorist heels, the one she wears on the days she's afraid she'll do something dangerous, like walk away or spin Serena and kiss her on the lips.
*
Thursday is a party. It's an Upper East Side party: there are masks and evil plots and too much money spent on dresses (Dan always says it could feed a small country, but he puts on his Hugo Boss suits all the same; that's why he wasn't good for Serena, too weak, not even a real outsider).
Blair drinks enough to be a little tipsy. She deserves it. She's beautiful and thin and shallow and rich. Hurrah.
Blair watches Serena laugh as she twirls in a man's arms.
She doesn't know what possesses her to walk up to them and slide an arm around Serena's waist – Serena's mouth crashes against her, and Blair tastes enough vodka to know that she'll be the only one to remember.
Hurrah, Blair thinks, and tangles her hands in Serena's hair.
*
Friday and Blair isn't hiding. Even if she were, no one can blame her.
The thing is, Blair prefers disdain to insanity; she likes her heartaches slow and private, locked tight inside her safe of a chest.
"Miss Blair," Dorota pleads, "Mister Lonely Boy called again..."
Would they have called her Lonely Girl, Blair wonders, if they'd stayed together?
"I don't want to speak to him," Blair answers.
Dan has learned his way around Dorota, though. Blair has had the time to put on a robe when he opens the door.
"Hi," he says, cheeks flustered and hands in his pockets, looking awkward (when doesn't he?).
Blair cocks an eyebrow. "What do you want?"
Dan looks at her for a long moment. She feels the sentences writing themselves in his mind, doesn't find it in her to forgive him. "I'm sorry," he says.
She doesn't answer.
He steps forward and hugs her, draping his arms clumsily around her shoulders. She stiffens, her arms hanging limply at her sides, and waits for it to be over.
*
Friday is Gossip Girl calling her Queen B again and making awful puns. It's in the paper somewhere, too – Blair Waldorf kissed Serena Van Der Woodsen at Norman Kayne's party (did you hear, did you hear?).
Serena calls. She's always been brave, stupidly heroic, one of those stand-up citizens who don't like cheating. A guilty heart.
"Hi," Blair says. Her voice isn't shaking.
"Hi," Serena smiles through the phone. "So we kissed?"
I kissed you. "Yes."
"Were you drunk?" Serena asks.
"Yes," Blair answers. It's not a lie.
"I was drunk too," Serena says, laughs, and there, it's forgotten.
("Was it the reason you kissed me?" she could've asked – but she didn't.
"No," Blair would have answered. That wouldn't have been a lie, either.)
*
Her mother is there at dinner. Blair doesn't know where she was but the gift on her bed – a sequinned purse – suggests Japan.
"So you kiss girls now?" she asks between two bites of roasted duck.
Blair takes a sip of water. "Yes," she answers.
"Oh," her mother says.
And that's it.
*
Saturday: it's like Serena is new to break each time she gets broken, like she doesn't learn.
"He was a jerk," Blair offers, and watches Serena take a long sip of from the vodka bottle.
"He wasn't," Serena spits. "I was a bitch. You know that," she accuses, her eyes dark – it's always in these moments that Serena's the most threatening, the closest to the truth. "You know me."
"I do," Blair says.
"You know," Serena says as she flops down onto the bed, her hair spreading around her like a deceptive halo, "I know why you kissed me."
Blair chokes on her words of reassurance.
"I know," Serena repeats, and her eyes have never been that sharp.
Blair takes a breath, waits for something to explode. The wind slips through the half-opened window and makes the curtains rustle.
"Come here," Serena whispers.
*
Saturday is Serena breathing heavily in her shoulder, no soundtrack, Blair's leg wrapped around her waist.
"I know you want this," Serena says as she drinks the protests straight from Blair's tongue, a hand crawling up her stomach to cup her breast.
Blair sinks her teeth into the flesh of Serena's neck and pretends to be drunk so she can flip Serena over and enjoy the sight of her, bruised lips and legs open almost wantonly, chuckling.
"I love you," she says fiercely, and sets to opening the button of Serena's shorts. Serena whines high in her throat.
"Shh," Serena says, half-choking on it when Blair pushes her underwear down.
*
Saturday is the taut length of Serena's body as she spasms under Blair's caresses, her hand reaching down to tangle in her hair and yank too hard.
Blair slides one hand against Serena's side to leave these cat scratches she always knew would look beautiful on her, and the other up her thigh.
"Wait," Serena says, and hauls her up. They kiss; it's sloppy and messy, Blair's slick-shiny lips sliding against Serena's.
Serena pushes Blair up until she's sitting astride Serena's lap and then her fingers are pushing into Blair, no hesitation, nothing. Blair chokes on a broken moan.
They come like that, chest to chest, Blair's knee digging into Serena's ribs, her thigh bumping against Serena's elbow, fingers deep into each other.
The traffic is buzzing outside and Blair bites Serena's shoulder through her orgasm and Serena just shouts, long and sort of guttural.
No soundtrack. Sweaty skins and tired bones, heavy eyelids. Sleep.
*
Sunday.
Blair wakes up without her sleep mask in unfolded sheets with her best friend sleeping next to her. There's a vodka bottle on the nightstand, barely touched. Blair stands up on wobbly legs and goes to empty it in the bathroom sink, then puts it back next to the alarm.
She sits down on the bed, doesn't look at the smooth expanse of Serena's back. Serena stirs.
Blair's head is pounding. It's probably best not to talk about her heart.