Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

What's love got to do with it?

Serena put her silver MacBook back on her desk, smothering the four shiny boarding school catalogs her mother had left there with a note written in her looping script: You know Daddy and your brother would be thrilled if you chose Hanover. As if Serena could even think about boarding school now that she and Nate had kissed. She clasped the remote in her hand and flicked through the channels, looking for something absorbing to while away the minutes while Blair took her interminable shower.

"Go back!" Blair shouted from the bathroom. The door flew open, releasing a cloud of steam, and she leapt onto the bed, fully dressed, her dark hair dripping. She tossed her soggy white bath towel onto the desk, further obscuring the boarding school catalogs. "That was Some Like It Hot. I'd recognize Marilyn's voice anywhere."

"Because it's so like her own?

Both girls stared silently at the movie. Marilyn Monroe was kissing the suave, fast-talking guy who was no good for her.

"Isn't it great how all they do is kiss in these old movies? It's like, kissing really means something," Serena observed wistfully. "Like, how romantic to say to a guy you really love, 'Let's just kiss.'" She smiled to herself, savoring her secret for a moment until she released it and it was a secret no more. Onscreen, Marilyn and Mr. Suave were looking longingly into each other's eyes. She licked her lips in preparation for her confession."

"Do you ever wonder what it would be like to kiss Nate?" Blair blurted out. She couldn't watch anybody kiss without thinking about Nate.

Serena sucked in her breath. Her whole body felt like it had been thrust under the broiler. "Um . . . Actually I—"

"I do, sometimes." Blair's thin, expressive lips curved into a shy little smile. She sighed and hugged her knees to her chest, feeling a little more sure of herself now that she was clean and wearing underwear. "Actually, I think about it all the time." She turned her head, resting her cheek on her knees. "I know I'm always acting bitchy around him and flirting, and you always tease me about having a crush on him. But the truth is, it's not just a crush. I'm totally, completely in love with Nate. I've been in love with him forever. And I've just gotten to this point where if I can't be with him, I'm going to die."

"Serena shrank back into the fluffy down pillows on her bed and stared at her oldest and dearest friend in speechless disbelief. The whole room was fuzzy, and Marilyn Monroe's voice seemed to be miles away.

"I know you think it's gross because he's like almost a brother or whatever. But I can't help it. I just love him so much." Blair rocked her body back and forth. "I even daydream about us getting married," she admitted."

Serena swallowed the enormous lump in her throat. How could she say anything about kissing Nate last night and being in love with Nate herself when Blair was talking about marrying him? If only she'd said something right when they'd first woken up. Nate and I are in love, she imagined herself saying while Nate was still lying next to her, and her cheeks burned. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and began gnawing on her perfectly manicured thumbnail. She'd never been a nail-biter, but this seemed like a good time to start.

"And now he's with that tacky bitch L'Wren," Blair whined. "You know she went to boarding school? I hate boarding school girls. They pretend to be all hippie and crunchy and laid back, but really they're just assholes. And did you notice she spells her name L apostrophe W-R-E-N? That's just so retarded. Anyway, you've got to help me.

"Serena blinked her huge blue eyes. She could feel a hangover coming on, and it wasn't pretty. "Of course," she offered, pressing her trembling knuckles into her temples. "What do you want me to do?"

"So you know how I answered that bitch's e-mail and basically told her Nate would escort her to her cheesy debutante ball?" Blair bit her lower lip anxiously and wound her dark hair into a tight, wet bun. "I'm such an idiot. I don't know why I did that. He can't go. We've got to stop him. And then I have to tell him . . . you know . . . that I'm in love with him."