Butterflies and Hurricanes

Chapter 6: Undertow

Their first year at Yale was behind them, as was their first summer as college students. The last month of school had been a time for rebuilding what the three of them once used to be, or as close as they could get to that. Blair had barged into their room one afternoon in early May, looking disheveled and frustrated beyond belief. Both boys took in her appearance and held back snickers. She placed a hand on her hip and glared at both of them until Dan cleared his throat and spoke,

"To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"This is so stupid."

Both Nate and Dan looked at her oddly hoping that she wasn't expecting them to decode whatever she was saying. Nate muted the TV and raised an eyebrow at the petite brunette standing in the room with them,

"Uh, what is?"

"This!" One of her hands flung out and gestured between the three of them. Neither of them still seemed to get it by the looks on their faces, and she sighed, knowing that she would have to elaborate.

"Look, we're all adults. Sort of. Anyway, this whole 'Let's avoid each other and not spend time with one another and together because there's the chance that it might be awkward' thing is getting really old, really fast. I miss my best friends. And it's so not fair that you two get to see each other all the time while I feel like I've been banished from your worlds or something!"

She took a deep breath after finishing and studied both their faces looking for any sort of reaction. They both looked at her for a minute, then at each other, smirks appearing on both their faces.

"Glad to see you're still such a fireball."

"Oh shut up, Archibald."

"Looks like she's lacking on witty comebacks."

Blair threw her hands up in the arm and stormed out of the room, the sound of the laughter coming from the two boys filled the hallway as she left the building.

The three of them had hectic summers. Dan spent most of it working as much as he could in order to get a little extra pocket money and to take the load off of his father. His scholarship covered most of the tuition cost but he still wanted to make it as easy as possible for his family. Nate was constantly going back and forth between the city and school, needing to be there for summer lacrosse. His mother had demanded that he come home part of the time, he guessed it was to make things more bearable since his father seemed to behave whenever he was around. Blair's summer was mostly spent in Europe with her father and his partner. She would call at ridiculous hours of the night forgetting what time it was in New York, but neither of them minded.

Fall flew by. Now that they were all familiar with how college worked, this one in particular, the days seemed to pass by in a few short hours. Things between the three of them remained as normal as they could, considering the circumstances. It was like the pink elephant in the room, but they had no choice but to shut up about it and try their best to deal.

The winter chill was just beginning to creep its way into the air. The leaves had turned from green to red, yellow, and brown before they started to fall off of the trees. Serena had begun dating a boy named Carter and that left Blair with more alone time than she wanted, so she often found herself at the house that Nate and Dan shared with two other fraternity brothers. She was always a welcome guest, and the two other roommates – Jeremy and Scott, had grown to like her. Blair was trying to teach herself how to be more independent, and her idea of that was learning to cook. She spent at least four or five nights there a week testing out new recipes on her guinea pigs, and they never complained.