Eric Is Back (A Gossip Girl Novel)

16. 2009

It was beautiful.

There we were... Chuck and I... gazing up with our mouths hanging open... stuffing dollar bills into a male stripper's leopard print thong...

Sure enough, it was all over Gossip Girl...

My plan had worked.

SPOTTED! Eric van der Wooden caught blowing his trust fund on male strippers with none other than notorious bad boy, Chuck Bass! I guess Serena van der Woodsen's little brother isn't so LITTLE any more, is he?

I just lay there on my bed... staring up at the ceiling... waiting for Dan's call to come through...

Naturally, my phone was buzzing like crazy. Everyone who was anyone was blowing up my phone, wanting a piece of the action!

But I didn't care about my fifteen minutes of fame...

I cared about Dan.

Sure enough, it didn't take long before his call came through. With shaking hands, I cleared my throat and picked up with a cool: "Oh, hey, Dan – what's up?"

"What's up with me?!" he shrieked. "Um... what's up with you?! Seriously – Chuck Bass? Eric, you know that guy is dangerous!"

Faking innocence, I replied, "Chuck Bass? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on, Eric! I've seen the pictures on Gossip Girl – they're everywhere!"

I tutted. "Look, I'm just having a little fun. What's wrong with that?"

"It's Chuck Bass! I mean, just look at the way he spoke to you and Jonathan the other night at Grandma's party! Why would you wanna be friends with someone like that?"

"Jonathan and I broke up actually..." I admitted.

"Oh... y-you did?"

"Yeah."

"Oh..."

The call went silent. Dan was processing the idea of me being single. I just knew it.

"S-so does that mean you're going out with Chuck now?" he asked.

Smirking, I replied, "Maybe I am... Maybe I'm not..."

"Eric! Come on! Stop playing around! You know Chuck is bad news!"

I snorted. "A-and this is coming from you! Dan, you're not exactly a saint!"

"I know I'm not... b-but Chuck will hurt you way worse than I did!"

"Then that's my mistake to make!" I fired back. "Not yours!"

And then, dramatically, I hung up the phone, throwing it down onto my bed.

"Yes!" I cried out, pumping my fist into the air. "I've won!"

*

It was like that for the next few weeks. Chuck and I hanging out... drinking... partying... stuffing wads of cash into strippers' thongs... As time went by, more and more cellphones started to appear. People weren't discreet about taking pictures of us any more. It even got so crazy that an actual member of the paparazzi started following us, immortalizing our exploits in high definition! I even found myself ending up on Page Three in the New York Post!

With Dan, it was like a game of ping-pong. I'd do something wild and crazy and then the next morning I'd wake up to find ten missed calls from him. Naturally, I'd ring him back and listen to him go on and on about how I'm making a mistake and how I'm going to regret this.

"What are you gonna do about it, Dan?!" I snapped at him once. "You don't give a fuck about me!"

"Of course I do!" he fired back. "You're my stepbrother!"

I always hated it when he called me that. I just wished that my mom and his dad had never gotten married. That way we could have had a normal relationship.

"You weren't my stepbrother when Mom and Rufus were shipping me off to boarding school, were you?!"

"No, I wasn't!" Dan said. "But things are different now... I'm a better person."

I huffed. "Give me a break! You don't care about me! You just want to control me or something! You just can't bear to see me having fun with another guy who isn't you!"

"I DON'T LOVE YOU ANY MORE, ERIC!"

With that, Dan hung up the phone. I threw mine across the room, wanting to smash it into smithereens.

I flopped down on my bed and stared up the ceiling. As I lay there, I thought about what Dan had just said... how he didn't love me any more...

But the thing was, he'd never told me that he loved me before...

So, I'd always assumed that he hadn't...

I guess I was wrong.