SORRY EVERYBODY, FOR THE DELAY, it's the holiday season and all :) Happy (belated) Holidays!!!!

This chappie is short and angsty, I know, but the story WILL GET BETTER, as Blair's new beau is in the works and Chuck is about to have his heart painfully kicked around as Blair cavorts around town with...dun dun dun *the suspense is killing me, too*

Disclaimer: searchingforanabsolute owns nothing, even if she wishes she does. this will be the last time she refers to herself in third person.

REVIEW. REVIEW. REVIEW. OR ELSE...(have to think up a threat here, but I'm too lazy)

"Dorota!" Blair's voice was shriller than usual when she called for the maid. Having made it back from Staten Island, soaked in rain and in her tears, Blair sat in her bedroom, curled up into a pitiful ball drinking hot chocolate and watching Audrey Hepburn fall in love. At least, she thought bitterly, the rain had given her an excuse for why her mascara was running and why her nine-hundred-dollar Chanel jacket was soaked through…

"Yes, Miss Blair?" the maid poked her head into Blair's room, anxiously glancing at the young socialite. Blair didn't seem quite alright—everything she did was a little bit off-balance, as if she was trying very hard to compensate for something that was missing.

"I'm going to take a bath. Please have everything ready for me to go to bed when I get back," Blair said commandingly, trying to be as normal as she could.

"But…Miss Blair," Dorota said in shock. "It is a Saturday night. Surely…you are not going to bed…at...eight-thirty in the evening?"She said the words tentatively and then winced.

Blair glared at the maid. "Is there something wrong, Dorota?" she asked imperiously, annoyed with her maid's suggestion that she was morphing into a loser.

"No, no, Miss Blair…" Dorota looked at her worriedly. "You are alright, no, Miss Blair?"

"I'm fine, Dorota," she said vehemently, heading for the bathroom. Maybe a bottle of wine, a bottle of expensive lavender bubble bath and lots of sleep would convince her that this was just a bad nightmare. Thinking of Chuck again, the ever-constant aching in her chest flared up a little, just enough to remind her of his expression when she had left—shocked, determined, bitter, but most of all, tortured…

The pain was enough to tell her that it was not right for her to feel so much for him, when all he felt for her was lust…

How could she, Blair Waldorf—smart, beautiful, cunning—have been so stupid as to hand over her heart to Chuck Bass? How could she be so foolish, so blind? Blair was always jaded, cynical, never so naïve.

But she had honestly thought that she'd be special enough to change him from narcissistic playboy to caring monogamist…in the end, though, Chuck was just not meant to be changed, so she had officially joined his massive pool of broken-hearted ex-girlfriends.

Blair shut her eyes, trying hard not to remember the night she'd spent with him in the limo, trying not to remember his lips on hers, trying not to remember his arms around her…

Blair couldn't quite manage to keep out the single memory of her conversation with Yale University's dean's daughter…

Did you have your first time with someone you loved? The little girl had asked her so innocently that it had evoked a certain maternal feeling in Blair, prompting her to tell the truth. Blair remembered thinking about Chuck, remembered the gut-wrenching moment when she'd said, yes, yes, I did. Blair remembered the starburst of joy that had shot through her body, how it had felt like how she'd always pictured falling in love.

What a shame that her heart had chosen a Prince Charming that was less like Prince Charming and more like goddamned Hugh Hefner.

Blair sighed, remembering the days she'd spent daydreaming about the princesses in Disney movies—her favourite movies had always been those with open-ended happy endings and glorious sunsets. She'd wondered who her match would be—even back then, she'd realized that she was a hard-to-understand girl, difficult to love. She'd learned that she was hard to love the hard way, her parents' difficult marriage having scarred her in ways that she'd never admit.

She'd known Chuck for so long now that it was difficult to imagine life without him. She'd known Nate just as long, but her feelings for him, as they had during their ill-fated relationship, remained platonic and boring, whereas her feelings for Chuck had evolved to a deep, all-consuming rage of passion long ago.

Chuck was the epitome of all that she wanted, and he captured her essence in himself—in recent weeks, she'd realized that Cathy Linton's memorable words...He's more myself than I am, whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…applied to her and Chuck so aptly the words may as well have been written for her and Chuck.

Unable to stop herself, Blair's tears slid down her cheeks, each one carrying a piece of her shattered heart, each one stealing a little bit of herself away from her, each one a painful reminder of all that she could have had…

She had thrown everything of herself, everything she could give, everything she could say or do, at him, and he'd pushed it all away. Could she move on, or would she remain in this abyss of her misery, of her heartbreak? Would she ever move on from a love that she was sure could rival even the greatest loves in history? She was sure that Elizabeth Bennett had never loved Mr. Darcy as much as she did Chuck, that Cleopatra had never felt so much for Julius Caesar…

She closed her eyes, comforted only momentarily by the soothing smell of lavender. Images of Chuck and her spun in her head, and the sharp pain in her chest returned. Sighing, Blair felt all her willingness to fight for Chuck fleetingly, and then the will to fight was all gone…