i want it all ( gg next gen )

𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙨 𝙘𝙞𝙜𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚

Henry Waldorf-Bass felt like a gloomy rain cloud was drooping over him. College didn't start for another two weeks, and life was already bleak. He had left his off and on girlfriend Camille who he was supposed to meet at Dartmouth a week ago. Moving away seemed so wrong. He had friends in New York, a life. He was Henry Waldorf-Bass and didn't want things to have to change. Maybe that was what it was, he was afraid of change.

See what I mean? Mama's boy doesn't like change.

And besides, this whole thing with Camille was stupid. Henry wasn't good at being a boyfriend, and she wasn't good at being a girlfriend, so it didn't work.

Excuses, excuses.

Oh, but when he thought about her, Henry felt his heart glow. She'd had a boyfriend when he met her at a party in the tenth grade. He remembered seeing her from across the room with her friends, other girls who attended L'école, the bilingual school. He remembered how her long honey-brown hair had natural red lights to it that sparkled in the dimly lit room. Her eyes were elegant and almond-shaped, and she had dimples on her cheeks when she smiled.

She wasn't the prettiest girl there but had a sort of radiance about her. Eventually, Henry had gone to talk to her, and they had flirted for a while (which almost earned him a punch from her uber-macho boyfriend).

It was sort of like an affair for a while. They'd meet up after school in Central Park and sneak over to each other's houses at night. They'd only started dating about three months ago, and even then it wasn't serious. But it was like he was in love with her, or addicted or something.

Camille was his Miss Cigarette, and if he didn't quit soon he'd end up dead. Dead, meaning being married by 21 and a father at 25. She was just like that, she could draw you in and hook you for life with one kiss.

That must be why he's not returning her calls.

"Henry?" His mother's called, the sound of her voice and Louboutin's clacking against the polished stone floor-breaking him from his Camille-induced daze. "Are you home?"

Henry rolled off his bed and stumbled tiredly to his bedroom door, rubbing his eye sleepily as he leaned out of the doorframe. His mother looked up at him from the bottom of the spiral staircase disapprovingly, her lips pursed.

"What?" He groaned.

"Get dressed, you're coming out with me," Blair commanded.

"Huh? Mom, I'm tired I think I'm gonna—" he began.

"You're not tired, Henry, you're tragic," Blair said authoritatively. "You need to get out of the house before you go insane, and I need someone to carry my garment bags, so you're helping me run errands for the day."

"Mom, please!" Henry protested. "I don't need to get out, I need to rest before college starts."

"You've got the rest of the week to rest, young man," his mother announced.

Henry opened his mouth in a final attempt to protest, but Blair gave him a warning tilt of the head and he sighed, retreating into his darkened bedroom to get dressed.

xoxo

"I don't care if you have to drag her to Manhattan by her thirty-six-inch legs, we are booking Petra Havisham to walk for fashion week!" Blair Waldorf screeched down one of her many phones.

Henry sighed, leaning back in his mother's black leather desk chair as she paced her office with her free hand to her temple neurotically.

"Penelope if you don't start giving me good news, so help me God, I will staple you to your desk by your tacky bell-bottoms and make you stay overnight!" Blair yelled dramatically down the phone, before hanging up and flopping down onto her emerald green couch.

Henry knew better than to ask his mother about work when she was like this. He had learned over the years that the best thing to do was to silently fetch her a scotch and wait until she had calmed down.

"Henry, go out and get two coffees from the EAT down the street please," Blair said finally, breaking the silence.

Henry nodded, quietly edging out of the office and tottering down the hall. Usually, the only person who could de-stress Blair at times like these was his father, Chuck, but the two of them were fighting about something again. They didn't often fight, but when they did they would freeze each other out. Chuck and Blair became harder and harder to be around when they weren't on the same team, and their flaws would come out, which usually left Henry and Hadley to fend for themselves.

When will the Waldorf-Basses, children and parents alike, learn that they're stronger together?

Henry pulled his pea coat closer as he powered through the windy street. It was a particularly cruel September day, and the biting wind stung Henry's ivory complexion. He decided to sit down in EAT before ordering, as he figured his mom would need a little more time to calm down, and besides, he had a lot on his mind.

A certain French girl's face, perhaps?

"Henry?" a girl's voice said behind him. It was Scarlett Van der Woodsen, the angel-faced girl that happened to be best friends with his sister, or... used to be.

Scarlett had decided not to go back to Constance after double Photography, which was a pretty shitty move on her first day, but she was feeling pretty low and couldn't be bothered. Henry had looked so gloomy when she'd seen him sitting there all by himself, so she couldn't help but come over.

"Mind if I sit?" she asked, as she pulled out a chair, not bothering to wait for an answer.

Henry supposed she wasn't accustomed to guys telling her she couldn't sit with him. Not that he was going to refuse her, either.

"What're you doing here, then?" she asked him with a coy smile. "And I mean Manhattan, not this shop."

"I transferred to Columbia last minute," Henry said, tired of saying that sentence again. "I wanted to stay in the city." And that one.

Scarlett furrowed her brow. Not knowing things like that was one of the cruel reminders of the giant wedge between her and Hadley. That was the kind of thing Scarlett used to just know.

"Shouldn't you be at school?" he asked, immediately kicking himself for acting all brotherly.

Scarlett liked the way Henry talked to her. He seemed so mature, so polite and... present.

Unlike a certain someone staring off into space.

"I'm taking a study period," Scarlett said. "I felt like my head was going to explode so I was going to go to Barneys, but here I am."

Henry smiled. He liked Scarlett's company, and she was easy to talk to, and not to mention looked eerily like a young Michelle Pfeiffer or Bridgette Bardot.

Maybe if he stares into those crystal-blue eyes long enough he'll forget all about silly Camille.