Butterflies and Hurricanes

Chapter 4: Tightrope

She could feel herself wearing thin. Blair would be lying to herself if she claimed to not have feelings for not only Nate, but Dan, too. They had always been there but she had just picked the path of ignoring them completely. Winter break had gone by quickly, and she saw little of both boys. It wasn't that she was avoiding them, but she had planned an oh-so convenient trip up to visit Serena in Connecticut for a week, another week in Sun Valley with her family, and she spent the other two weeks in New York visiting with new and old friends besides the two of them. Sure, they ran into each other at parties, but she always seemed to find someone else to either throw at one of the boys or something that needed to be done elsewhere.

The same kind of avoidance game went on for the first month of school. Dan was harder to hide from since he and Serena had become good friends over the first term of school. He was always popping up at their dorm, either looking for her or Serena. Blair would always excuse herself saying she had reading to finish or a paper to write when he showed up. But today was a different story.

The doorbell rang while she was in the middle of making a small salad for herself. It rang again while she was taking her sweet time to answer it. With a look of annoyance, she threw open the door expecting not expecting to see Dan standing in front of her, he didn't usually come over until later in the day. She stared at him for a second before he spoke.

"Hey, can I come in?"

"Serena's not here, she has some study group thing and she won't be back for another thirty minutes or so. Do you want me to tell her you stopped by?"

Dan shot a glance at her and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"I'm not here to see Serena."

Blair felt her stomach turn and she sighed, stepping to the side to let him in, shutting the door behind him. Dan sat down on the couch and looked restless, not saying anything.

"Are you just going to sit there? I have things to do and…"

He looked up at her, she was still standing by the door as if she was waiting for the first moment there was to open it and send him on his way.

"What's the deal, Blair?"

She was very aware of what he was talking about, but she decided to go with playing dumb at first.

"Hm?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned, getting irritated. Dan knew she knew what he was referring to and it frustrated him even more to know that she was trying to avoid this.

"Oh come on. You know what I'm talking about. We've barely spoken in the past two months, I feel like I did something to you and you're pissed or something. No, it's not even that, I know when you're pissed at me. I don't even know what this is."

His voice got angrier and angrier as he rambled on, he didn't realize how much this really tore him up inside until he looked up again to see her standing there, a slight frown painted on her face.

"Blair, I need you to tell me what's going on with you before I lose my mind."

She had moved closer to him, sitting in a chair next to the couch he was on. He didn't know what she thinking based on her expression alone, and this was new to him.