Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

Don't believe everything you read

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P.S. See below for pictures of my transformation!

While Jenny was next door in her room, uploading pictures from her pink Hello Kitty digital camera of herself wearing her black tube top at various stages of growth to share with the digital universe, Dan sat at his desk in front of his computer and frantically whizzed through Vanessa's morbid pictures until he came to the one of Serena and her bare butt cheeks. He clicked download and then moved on to the picture of Serena and her pretty, dark-haired friend. Serena's smile was even better in that one—more otherworldly and cunning. He could always crop the other girl out. He clicked download again.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Vanessa's voice echoed down the hall from the kitchen. There was a clattering sound as various objects dropped out of Rufus's special drawer and skittered across the linoleum. Hastily Dan clicked through the fifty-odd other photos on the camera. There were lots of pictures of pigeons, puddles, people sleeping on benches, assorted garbage, and Vanessa's sister, Ruby, but no more of Serena. He yanked the cord out of the camera and hurried back to the study.

"Screw the pizza menu, I can't even find a fucking cup in this kitchen," Vanessa called down the hall from the kitchen, her voice brassy with annoyance. "Are you done smoking? Think you could maybe help me find this fucker since it's your house, not mine?"

Dan grinned at Vanessa's total lack of falsehood. She wasn't trying to impress anyone. She wasn't flirting, or pretending to be bored, or up-talking. She just wanted to order a pizza. He felt bad for sneaking her camera behind her back, but she'd never have to know about it, and it was for a good cause.

The I Worship Serena van der Woodsen Lameness Fund?

"Coming!" he shouted as he tossed the camera back into Vanessa's black waxed canvas rucksack. He hurried down the hall to the kitchen to find her seated at the cracked Formica kitchen table, busily reading one of his latest poems, her cheeks flushed with delight.

I'm turning red

It's not your fault

I'm so red

Oh, yes it is, Vanessa thought to herself, thrilled with the notion that Dan blushed when he thought about her, just like she blushed when she thought about him.

"That one's not finished yet," he explained awkwardly as he reread the poem over her shoulder, his hands trembling with embarrassment. He still wanted to add a few lines, something about how Cupid had wings so he was a bird too. Cupid was a pigeon? No, that was ridiculous. But it seemed necessary to invoke Cupid when he was discussing Serena as a pigeon/angel.

Okay, freak/genius.

"Just give it to me when it's ready. I figure I'll publish a series of five or six of your poems in the magazine. People are going to be so impressed with Anonymous when it comes out, it'll be a fuckfest, with everyone trying to figure out who she is." She slapped the book closed. "Hey, what happened to our pizza?"

Dan took his notebook back and tucked it protectively under his arm. "646-555-PEEZA," he recited mechanically.

Vanessa stood up, a full two inches taller than him. She poked him hard in his skinny stomach, all of a sudden grateful that she'd never had a brother. Boys were idiots. "Thanks, Stormfield. I'll take extra cheese and onions." She bit her lip, wondering if she and Dan were going to be doing any kissing later. "Actually no onions. Just cheese. Please," she added hastily. "And some ginger ale."

Two hours later, a wasted half-pepperoni, half-extra-cheese pizza, two cans of ginger ale, and four empty bottles of Amstel Light lay on the floor of the Humphreys' study. The Late Show flickered dumbly on the old Philips TV screen, but neither Vanessa nor Dan was really watching it. They sat on the floor with their backs propped up against the ancient brown leather sofa, their shoulders touching. Vanessa wondered if Dan had drunk enough beer now that he wouldn't have a seizure if she kissed him. She was pretty sure it would be a first kiss for both of them. He certainly acted like someone who'd never been kissed, and she knew she definitely hadn't.

Dan had been watching Vanessa out of the corner of his eye for a while. Her big brown eyes were really pretty, and her lips were really red. Or maybe her lips were having some sort of allergic reaction to the pepperoni, which she kept stealing off his slices. Vanessa was no Serena, but he still couldn't help wondering what it would feel like to kiss her. Then he felt perverted for even thinking about it. Just because she was a girl didn't mean she was a sex object, Jenny's voice scolded him. His little feminist sister who desperately wanted tits.

He stretched his legs out and yawned, sort of nudging Vanessa in the process. She giggled and kicked him back. Then she just sort of grabbed him and pulled his face toward hers until their lips were touching. It was just a little wet kiss that tasted like pepperoni: no tongue.

Dan's brain flickered off and on, like a TV set in an electrical storm. A pigeon flapped by his face and he thought he smelled the perfume from the sample Jenny dabbed on her wrists and ankles after she took a bath. She claimed it was the same perfume Serena wore: Cristalle. Then the TV set in his head went off for good.

Vanessa stared at Dan where he lay sprawled out on the floor in front of her. He appeared to be unconscious. She seized his shoulders and shook him gently. "Dan? Are you alive? Do I need to call nine-one-one?"

His eyes fluttered open. "Cristalle," he murmured with a bad French accent.

"You're scaring me," she whispered. A strand of drool clung to his pale cheek. She wiped it away with her stub-nailed thumb. "Say something normal. Who wrote Jude the Obscure?"

"Thomas Hardy," he responded automatically.

She relaxed her grip on his shoulders. Of course the boy she was falling for had to be the most immature person alive. A mere kiss sent him reeling. Maybe she was moving too fast. Maybe he needed a month or two of just sitting on the sofa feeling the electricity between their thighs and taking walks and breathing in the sultry spring air. Then finally he'd pounce on her, unable to resist.

"I think you need to stop smoking so much," she advised, helping him stagger to his feet. She led him down the hall to his bedroom. "And drink more water instead of instant coffee and beer."

The room was dark and soothing. Dan climbed into bed like a good boy. He'd always been a lightweight, but to faint like that—come on, how embarrassing. He took the glass of water Vanessa handed him and drank it slowly. His hands were shaking. Maybe it wasn't the beer. Maybe it was all the excitement of downloading those pictures of Serena.

Or the excitement of knowing he could look at them any time he wanted?

"You go to sleep." Vanessa took the empty glass and patted his hand. "I'm going home." She hesitated, not daring to kiss him again, not even on the cheek, for fear of sending him into cardiac arrest. Instead, she tiptoed out of the room and softly closed the door. Dan was so fragile, he was exactly like one of those sickly poets from England who died in their twenties because life was too full of beauty and tragedy for them to bear. He was probably more romantic than she was, more romantic than any girl.

And that kind of made her love him even more.