frozen in time
"Fuck!" he muttered, slamming the glass on the bar so hard it shook.
He was out the door before he had a chance to think about what he was really doing.
"Blair!"
She stopped, but didn't turn around. He didn't expect her to. He didn't know why he was even following her but he caught up to her anyway.
He stood in front of her but she refused to meet his eyes. Refused to show him the tears she had barely contained when she slinked away from him.
He didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything. They stood there in the middle of the street, barely a foot apart, not talking or looking or touching. Frozen in time in this place where they didn't know who they were anymore.
He hated her and loved her in equal measure in that moment and he didn't know if he wanted to cause her more pain or kiss her tears away. She was the only one who made him feel this fucked up and he hated it.
She wiped at her eyes as discreetly as she could manage before raising her head to look at him. She looked so broken and he didn't know how to make that go away. He wanted to, but he was the cause of it and that just made him want to turn and run the other way.
"He's not going to forgive me," he said finally as if he was only just realising it.
She sighed, the day's exhaustion taking its toll on her. "What did you really expect?" she asked.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I never stopped to think about it."
He looked so lost and she didn't want to care, but she did. That was always her problem. Even though he had just said words that she couldn't forgive, she couldn't help but know that he had lost the only person he ever loved. And it wasn't her.
~*~
He doesn't apologise to her and she's glad because there aren't words that would really make up for it. But he puts his arm around her and guides her to his limo. She lets him because she knows this is all she has left.
When he takes her back to the Palace and gently guides her to his bed she's too tired to protest. She curls up into a ball and cries herself to sleep.
When she wakes up its morning, she feels disappointment when she can't find him. The space beside her has not been slept in and the only trace of him in the room is the empty bottles by the bar.
She leaves quickly because she's scared to see him, scared to realise that he is the only one she has left, and even though he said she didn't have him, she is still here in his suite. That scares her because she can't let herself depend on this boy. He breaks her down, her pain fuelling his own, and then he picks her up again. The more she runs the more he chases, and when she comes back to him it starts all over again. They're stuck in this cycle of loving and hating and hurting that they can't break free from.
~*~
Two days later she sits by the fountain, watching her old life in front of her in the form of Hazel, Jenny and their minions having lunch on the steps. She feels weird watching from the outside but for once she doesn't even feel like she wants to be back in that circle of lies and deceit. She's had enough of that to last her a lifetime.
She feels kind of serene, like an outsider staring at a picture that's frozen in time. She doesn't even notice him at first. He sits next to her without a word, as if he is a stranger, and in some ways he is. She doesn't recognise this silent boy beside her. She can't decipher him from the boy who hurt her with his words just a few days ago. Or the one who stood by her whenever she needed a scheming partner. Or the one who told her he had butterflies and then ruined her reputation. He is never the same and she doesn't know which one of his personalities he is trying to be right now.
He silently hands her a coffee (which she recognises to be a non-fat mocha – her favourite) and she realises today he is going for friend. And that's exactly what she needs right now.
She can hear the distant sound of camera phones going off, but she doesn't care. They sit like this for a while, not talking, and she knows that things will never be the same again – but somehow that's okay.