Inside Your Head (Chapter 3)
Jenny Humphrey was in the kitchen. Jenny was in Chuck’s kitchen. Jenny was standing in front of him. Something chirping in the back of his mind was telling him this should probably be some profound, movie-esque scene where two friends are reunited after a lengthy separation and music crescendos as they finally makeup. Except Nate still couldn’t seem to do anything but stare. He ground his teeth together in frustration but coherent speech escaped him. He was thrilled when she spoke first, until the words that came out of her mouth involved his best friend’s name.
“Chuck,” Nathaniel thought viciously, a million and a half accusations on the tip of his tongue. Out loud he replied, “With Blair.” And he watched her. Watched her face change, watched her unusually fragile façade flicker.
“I just, I didn’t know you’d be here.” She uttered, and Nate’s stomach roiled. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” echoed in his head. The realization that she came for Chuck, that she needed something, anything, and she came to see Chuck Bass first, to see him at all-
He stepped forward to place the glass he held on the counter before he inadvertently shattered it and Jenny shoved clumsily away from him. He heard more than saw her stumble; caught the interruption in the typically steady, confident, 1, 2 footfalls of her walk. The heavy-lidded eyes, the disjointed movement, the labored breathing, the fine sheen of drug-induced sweat; Nate had been friends with Chuck long enough to know the signs.
“What are you doing here?” he spat, when what he really wanted to ask was, “Are you high?”
Her answer was an acid taunt. She wound her tongue around each syllable in his name, dragging out, “Nathaniel” in breathy punishment. He barely caught her next slurred command, looked away as she let herself into Chuck’s bedroom with the ease of familiarity, bit the inside of his cheek, drew on the pain to ward off the chaos swirling in his mind.
The rattle of the vanity mirror against the bedroom wall almost propelled him across the open space of the living room. A thousand worst-case scenarios flitted through his head; she fell into the glass, or the mirror fell on her, or she shattered her reflection into a hundred shards and she’s bleeding all over the carpet and “why haven’t you moved your feet yet Nate?”
He starts when the bedroom door meets the frame with a resounding ‘slam’. It echoes, reverberates through the heavy silence that drapes the suite. He strains his ears to hear something, anything to quiet those nagging ‘what ifs’ and the voice that mocks when it reminds him he gave up worrying about Little Jenny Humphrey a lifetime ago. There is a faint rustling, images of silk on skin torture him, then nothing. Incessant nothing. He remembers that he doesn’t care, remembers deciding he wouldn’t care, reasons that he doesn’t have to care to want to avoid Dan’s wrath for killing his baby sister; justifies to himself feeling like a crazy person that Dan would, in fact, be pissed if he let her die, then finds his hand on the brass door handle of its own volition.
***
Nate nudged the bedroom door open slowly; suddenly unsure he wanted to see inside. He listened carefully, fully expecting Jenny to scream the door shut, but he could hear nothing. With his heart grinding ulcers in his stomach, he entered swiftly; his hesitation punched aside in favor of panic. Jenny was impossibly still. ‘Was she breathing?’ He sat on the edge of Chuck’s bed. Reluctantly he reached out his right hand to grasp the wrist that lay at her side, wrapped two fingers and a thumb around the milky skin and waited anxiously. The familiar ‘lub-dub’ of her pulse pounded under his fingers. His breathing slowed. He could see the rise and fall of her chest now. He reached out to tuck her bangs back behind her ear before censuring himself for the inane habit. She whimpered at his touch but nudged her face forward, seemingly seeking him despite her altered state. Nate swallowed thickly, his stomach heavy, an unfamiliar feeling constricting his chest. Regret was not something that typically afflicted the great Nathaniel Archibald but in that moment it was so palpable he was sure he could recount the taste of it.
***
Jenny had swallowed the Sahara. She was sure of it. Her throat felt like it had been marinated in road tar and the unwavering white light was back. It seared straight through her eyelids, regardless of how tightly she squeezed them shut. She could hear someone moving, the scraping sound of a chair being pulled out. The sensation of pressure surrounding her wrist forced her eyes open. Her vision was fuzzy but there was no one near her.
She was on a bed. A nice bed.
Chuck’s bed? Lord, help her, what was she doing?
“Wow, twice in one night. To what do I owe this honor?” Jenny’s head snapped up at the memorable voice; her eyes met those of the same woman who had starred in her dreams earlier that night.
“To be fair, Jennifer,” the brunette intoned, “the first time you were flat unconscious. Now you’re fast asleep.”
The brush of something across Jenny’s face made her flinch, a strangled noise escaping past her lips. The sudden inhale brought with it a scent long-since ingrained in her sensory memory and she found herself moving in the direction of its wake. ‘Nate’, the thought popped unbidden into her mind. Something about that smell was distinctly, unmistakably Nate Archibald. Jenny almost rolled her eyes. First crazy, strange brunettes; now she was having delusions about Nate? Whatever was in the pill Damien gifted to her, was not worth this.
The brunette’s correction was caustic, “You’re not delusional, Jenny. I believe the term you people use is, ‘sleeping it off’.”
“Damnit, would you stop that?” Jenny implored, her brain still functioning sluggishly.
The brunette raised an eyebrow, “Stop what? I’m just answering you!”
“I haven’t said anything!” Jenny argued.
The brunette started at her, unimpressed, “Please, Tallulah, I thought we went through this the first time. I’m inside your head. I know what you’re thinking before you do.”
Jenny scooted to the end of the bed, frustrated. “I’m just sleeping?”
The brunette paused, contemplating. “A little heavier than usual I guess, thanks to those pretty pink elephants you swallowed, but yeah, sleeping.”
Jenny groaned, rolling her neck and shoulders to relieve the tension that had gathered there. “Why are you here?”
“Well, dearie, next time you’re looking to take a trip go to Central Park,” the brunette quipped walking closer, “What, you mean to tell me you’re not enjoying these trippy dreams?”
Jenny slumped over to rest her head against the cool, satin sheets. “Oh my God, I’m dead.” She mumbled, her voice muffled by the linens.
The brunette rolled her eyes. “You’re not dead, drama queen.”
Jenny pushed off her forearms to look up at the other woman. “No. My father and my brother and probably my stepmother are going to kill me when they find out! And Chuck is going to have Damien murdered and Nate-“she gasped, “-oh, God, Nate. I am so dead. He hates my guts! He’s going to tell my father about this with a smile on his face!”
The brunette raised her eyebrows. “God do you ever stop?” she asked, not waiting for an answer, “Relax, Jennifer. No one knows you’re here and nobody knows what happened. Hazel and Penelope certainly aren’t going to cozy up to Dan to tell him. Chuck…” she trailed off considering, “…Well, he’s Chuck Bass. Damien is probably fucked. But that is not the end of the world.”
A ghost of a smile brushed Jenny’s lips but the brunette continued. “Nate…” she trailed off again, “Nate might be a problem.” Jenny opened her mouth to speak but the young woman cut her off. “But not because he hates you. Quite the opposite.” The brunette smiled whimsically. “He always was your Knight in shining Armani.”
Jenny’s brow furrowed and she sat up straight. “I thought you were just a facet of my drug-induced delusions.”
The brunette rolled her eyes. “Not delusions,” she sing-songed, “but what’s your point?”
Jenny stood and moved towards the chair against the far wall. “My point is that you know what I know. And I know that Nate hates me. So this is definitely a delusion.” She concluded matter-of-factly.
The brunette stood as well and approached Jenny again. “Maybe you are delusional. Because A, you are kidding yourself if you think Nate Archibald hates you, and B,” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “you’re arguing with the voices in your head.” Jenny groaned and dropped onto the chair.
***
Somewhere between 12:30 and 3 a.m., (sometime between watching Jenny breathe and deciding on the best plan to flee the country should Dan get wind of this and hunt him down) Nate fell asleep. He’d spent the whole 1:00 hour trying to call Chuck, wrath of Blair be damned, but he couldn’t bring himself to push ‘send’.
Despite the stupid things he may have said (screamed) months ago, he couldn’t hand Jenny over to Chuck. Chuck didn’t spend important events on apartment stoops with her; he wasn’t there to put her in a cab or offer a hiding place when she fell apart. Chuck didn’t know, Chuck didn’t care that she was purely better. He didn’t sacrifice exam grades for movie nights. (Booty calls were a different story.) He didn’t make sure her sketchbook was where it belonged or dig up rap sheets on photog. wannabes or drive her to guerrilla fashion shows or rescue her from sex tapes waiting to happen or stand up in front of all of New York and call her his (date).
By 2:00 he’d yielded, surrendered to his own personal brand of pathetic, tossed his cell phone at the pillows and debated the best way to remove Jenny’s dangerous looking shoes without waking her up. Or hurting himself. By 2:30 he was alternating between watching ‘General Hospital’ reruns and Jenny as she twitched against the coolness of the washcloth he’d held to her alarmingly overheated forehead, and mumbled in her sleep. He even tried praying once. The words were unfamiliar but he’d never meant anything more in his life. (…Dear Father, please look after your daughter, Jennifer Humphrey…) By 3:00 he’d succumbed to a fitful sleep plagued with nightmares of funerals and hospitals and Jason Morgan.
“Chuck,” Nathaniel thought viciously, a million and a half accusations on the tip of his tongue. Out loud he replied, “With Blair.” And he watched her. Watched her face change, watched her unusually fragile façade flicker.
“I just, I didn’t know you’d be here.” She uttered, and Nate’s stomach roiled. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” echoed in his head. The realization that she came for Chuck, that she needed something, anything, and she came to see Chuck Bass first, to see him at all-
He stepped forward to place the glass he held on the counter before he inadvertently shattered it and Jenny shoved clumsily away from him. He heard more than saw her stumble; caught the interruption in the typically steady, confident, 1, 2 footfalls of her walk. The heavy-lidded eyes, the disjointed movement, the labored breathing, the fine sheen of drug-induced sweat; Nate had been friends with Chuck long enough to know the signs.
“What are you doing here?” he spat, when what he really wanted to ask was, “Are you high?”
Her answer was an acid taunt. She wound her tongue around each syllable in his name, dragging out, “Nathaniel” in breathy punishment. He barely caught her next slurred command, looked away as she let herself into Chuck’s bedroom with the ease of familiarity, bit the inside of his cheek, drew on the pain to ward off the chaos swirling in his mind.
The rattle of the vanity mirror against the bedroom wall almost propelled him across the open space of the living room. A thousand worst-case scenarios flitted through his head; she fell into the glass, or the mirror fell on her, or she shattered her reflection into a hundred shards and she’s bleeding all over the carpet and “why haven’t you moved your feet yet Nate?”
He starts when the bedroom door meets the frame with a resounding ‘slam’. It echoes, reverberates through the heavy silence that drapes the suite. He strains his ears to hear something, anything to quiet those nagging ‘what ifs’ and the voice that mocks when it reminds him he gave up worrying about Little Jenny Humphrey a lifetime ago. There is a faint rustling, images of silk on skin torture him, then nothing. Incessant nothing. He remembers that he doesn’t care, remembers deciding he wouldn’t care, reasons that he doesn’t have to care to want to avoid Dan’s wrath for killing his baby sister; justifies to himself feeling like a crazy person that Dan would, in fact, be pissed if he let her die, then finds his hand on the brass door handle of its own volition.
***
Nate nudged the bedroom door open slowly; suddenly unsure he wanted to see inside. He listened carefully, fully expecting Jenny to scream the door shut, but he could hear nothing. With his heart grinding ulcers in his stomach, he entered swiftly; his hesitation punched aside in favor of panic. Jenny was impossibly still. ‘Was she breathing?’ He sat on the edge of Chuck’s bed. Reluctantly he reached out his right hand to grasp the wrist that lay at her side, wrapped two fingers and a thumb around the milky skin and waited anxiously. The familiar ‘lub-dub’ of her pulse pounded under his fingers. His breathing slowed. He could see the rise and fall of her chest now. He reached out to tuck her bangs back behind her ear before censuring himself for the inane habit. She whimpered at his touch but nudged her face forward, seemingly seeking him despite her altered state. Nate swallowed thickly, his stomach heavy, an unfamiliar feeling constricting his chest. Regret was not something that typically afflicted the great Nathaniel Archibald but in that moment it was so palpable he was sure he could recount the taste of it.
***
Jenny had swallowed the Sahara. She was sure of it. Her throat felt like it had been marinated in road tar and the unwavering white light was back. It seared straight through her eyelids, regardless of how tightly she squeezed them shut. She could hear someone moving, the scraping sound of a chair being pulled out. The sensation of pressure surrounding her wrist forced her eyes open. Her vision was fuzzy but there was no one near her.
She was on a bed. A nice bed.
Chuck’s bed? Lord, help her, what was she doing?
“Wow, twice in one night. To what do I owe this honor?” Jenny’s head snapped up at the memorable voice; her eyes met those of the same woman who had starred in her dreams earlier that night.
“To be fair, Jennifer,” the brunette intoned, “the first time you were flat unconscious. Now you’re fast asleep.”
The brush of something across Jenny’s face made her flinch, a strangled noise escaping past her lips. The sudden inhale brought with it a scent long-since ingrained in her sensory memory and she found herself moving in the direction of its wake. ‘Nate’, the thought popped unbidden into her mind. Something about that smell was distinctly, unmistakably Nate Archibald. Jenny almost rolled her eyes. First crazy, strange brunettes; now she was having delusions about Nate? Whatever was in the pill Damien gifted to her, was not worth this.
The brunette’s correction was caustic, “You’re not delusional, Jenny. I believe the term you people use is, ‘sleeping it off’.”
“Damnit, would you stop that?” Jenny implored, her brain still functioning sluggishly.
The brunette raised an eyebrow, “Stop what? I’m just answering you!”
“I haven’t said anything!” Jenny argued.
The brunette started at her, unimpressed, “Please, Tallulah, I thought we went through this the first time. I’m inside your head. I know what you’re thinking before you do.”
Jenny scooted to the end of the bed, frustrated. “I’m just sleeping?”
The brunette paused, contemplating. “A little heavier than usual I guess, thanks to those pretty pink elephants you swallowed, but yeah, sleeping.”
Jenny groaned, rolling her neck and shoulders to relieve the tension that had gathered there. “Why are you here?”
“Well, dearie, next time you’re looking to take a trip go to Central Park,” the brunette quipped walking closer, “What, you mean to tell me you’re not enjoying these trippy dreams?”
Jenny slumped over to rest her head against the cool, satin sheets. “Oh my God, I’m dead.” She mumbled, her voice muffled by the linens.
The brunette rolled her eyes. “You’re not dead, drama queen.”
Jenny pushed off her forearms to look up at the other woman. “No. My father and my brother and probably my stepmother are going to kill me when they find out! And Chuck is going to have Damien murdered and Nate-“she gasped, “-oh, God, Nate. I am so dead. He hates my guts! He’s going to tell my father about this with a smile on his face!”
The brunette raised her eyebrows. “God do you ever stop?” she asked, not waiting for an answer, “Relax, Jennifer. No one knows you’re here and nobody knows what happened. Hazel and Penelope certainly aren’t going to cozy up to Dan to tell him. Chuck…” she trailed off considering, “…Well, he’s Chuck Bass. Damien is probably fucked. But that is not the end of the world.”
A ghost of a smile brushed Jenny’s lips but the brunette continued. “Nate…” she trailed off again, “Nate might be a problem.” Jenny opened her mouth to speak but the young woman cut her off. “But not because he hates you. Quite the opposite.” The brunette smiled whimsically. “He always was your Knight in shining Armani.”
Jenny’s brow furrowed and she sat up straight. “I thought you were just a facet of my drug-induced delusions.”
The brunette rolled her eyes. “Not delusions,” she sing-songed, “but what’s your point?”
Jenny stood and moved towards the chair against the far wall. “My point is that you know what I know. And I know that Nate hates me. So this is definitely a delusion.” She concluded matter-of-factly.
The brunette stood as well and approached Jenny again. “Maybe you are delusional. Because A, you are kidding yourself if you think Nate Archibald hates you, and B,” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “you’re arguing with the voices in your head.” Jenny groaned and dropped onto the chair.
***
Somewhere between 12:30 and 3 a.m., (sometime between watching Jenny breathe and deciding on the best plan to flee the country should Dan get wind of this and hunt him down) Nate fell asleep. He’d spent the whole 1:00 hour trying to call Chuck, wrath of Blair be damned, but he couldn’t bring himself to push ‘send’.
Despite the stupid things he may have said (screamed) months ago, he couldn’t hand Jenny over to Chuck. Chuck didn’t spend important events on apartment stoops with her; he wasn’t there to put her in a cab or offer a hiding place when she fell apart. Chuck didn’t know, Chuck didn’t care that she was purely better. He didn’t sacrifice exam grades for movie nights. (Booty calls were a different story.) He didn’t make sure her sketchbook was where it belonged or dig up rap sheets on photog. wannabes or drive her to guerrilla fashion shows or rescue her from sex tapes waiting to happen or stand up in front of all of New York and call her his (date).
By 2:00 he’d yielded, surrendered to his own personal brand of pathetic, tossed his cell phone at the pillows and debated the best way to remove Jenny’s dangerous looking shoes without waking her up. Or hurting himself. By 2:30 he was alternating between watching ‘General Hospital’ reruns and Jenny as she twitched against the coolness of the washcloth he’d held to her alarmingly overheated forehead, and mumbled in her sleep. He even tried praying once. The words were unfamiliar but he’d never meant anything more in his life. (…Dear Father, please look after your daughter, Jennifer Humphrey…) By 3:00 he’d succumbed to a fitful sleep plagued with nightmares of funerals and hospitals and Jason Morgan.