Fool Me Twice

xoxo Gossip Girl

A month later
April 2019

It happened when Dan landed in JFK. He had just firmly landed on New York's soil when his phone started ringing with notifications. He ignored them and focused on collecting his luggage. It so often happened that his bags got mixed up and he would end up raising complaints, tracking it down and wasting his time. He was indeed cursed.

Around the time when he collected his bags and was waiting for the cab, his phone rang. He ignored it thinking it was his agent. For the past few months he had received a sudden burst of inspiration and had submitted a manuscript proposal to his publisher. The proposal had been surprisingly approved and he had been given a deadline. But slowly his inspiration had waned and he had struggled with putting a string of words to make one sentence on the paper. That's when his father started pushing him to go back to New York, stating the big city had abundance of inspiration.

Dan had relented after a week of dry heaving on the paper. Lisa had assured him she would take care of Rufus, who was almost back to normal.

On the ride to his Brooklyn home was when he decided to check his phone, there could be a message from Lisa that he didn't want to miss.

The first few notifications were his email, which had more spam than he cared for, then there were few miss calls from Eric. Why was Eric calling him? He felt a sense of foreboding. Before he could make sense of what that meant, he saw the next notification and the shock immobilized him. It was a notification he hadn't received in years. It was from the archive blog of Gossip Girl. He tapped on the notification that led to the full blog post, one after almost six years.
It read:

'Hey Upper East Siders,

Gossip Girl here. Your one and only source to the scandalous lives of Manhattan's Elite.

A brand new year and a brand new me, or should I say the real me?
If it's shock on your faces at seeing me back after my long sojourn, prepared to be shocked a bit more. You tried to bury me, give me an alias and throw me out of your internet history, but it's time to learn I'm a bit more formidable than that.

Dan Humphrey may be an affluent writer, but I dare say he doesn't have the flair for writing gossip best served cold intended to destroy everything in it's wake.

Consider this me, successfully claiming my mantle back. I have suffered under the false identity for so long, let me bear it no more.

As to a certain ex-favourite of mine, rumor has it that B is still a Queen B with the best energy for scheming but her king was kicked out of the hive. Though you do need minions for a scheme, it isn't very wise to fall for one B.

My favorite blondes languishing away in the land of dreams, maybe it's time to come home and see what your exes are up to.

Did you miss me much? Not to worry, this time I intend to stay for a long long time.

xoxo
Gossip Girl'

Dan felt like the car was spinning. All their efforts for the past two years ruined by a single post. He checked his phone to see if Nate had called. Not yet. Was he already at his lawyer's office now preparing to serve and sue Dan?

He tried calling Eric, but the guy's phone was engaged. He cursed. It definitely felt like he was back in New York, sucked right into the biggest drama upper east side had seen in half a decade.

The moment he got dropped off at his Brooklyn loft, he was ready to run to LA if that's what was needed to talk to Nate. What had really set off the blast? They hadn't done anything in the past five months. Had Nate refused to pay the blackmail money?