The letter. She didn’t want to look at it so she did what was only logical; she got up, strode quickly over to her dresser drawers and pulled out the tiny drawer at the very top the drawer that you wouldn’t see unless your name was Blair Waldorf and you noticed when the wood didn’t math exactly, even if your mother didn’t. Ever since she discovered it when she was 8 Blair called it her Box of Treasures, even though it wasn’t a box at all and the only stuff in it wouldn’t be considered as treasure to anyone but her. The drawer contained a jumble of items that all led back to him.Him. Chuck.


She threw the letter in without looking at it, because she didn’t want to see the meticulous handwriting that she always immediately associated with Chuck because of its neatness, its carefulness. She had always found it odd that someone like Chuck, so unpredictable and crooked, could have handwriting so neat and curving and smooth and calming. Serena had once told her that you could tell a persons true character through their writing, how they shaped their letters and how the spaced the words, but this had been back when Blair had dissected every sentence Nate wrote, and she had refused, back then, to accept that Nate’s jerky handwriting with uneven spacing could really mean that he was uneven himself, unpredictable. But now, in this dark room, she began to think that Serena’s words had been right and that Chuck’s methodical, calming letters could truly reflect something buried deep underneath his exterior, something she had gotten a glimpse of only a few hours ago.


And so she didn’t look, but her eyes did slip, for one split second, and they landed on the objects in the drawer, and after that she had to touch them, had to feel them, needed to remember, because maybe the old feelings and thoughts of Chuck would help her figure out what to do with this new, dangerous one.


The first item she pulled out of the drawer was a headband, red, a lovely crisp red, her first headband; from Chuck. When they were six and it was almost Easter, Chuck had come to school one day with an Easter present for her. He had handed her the box and said proudly, “It matches you favorite dress.” And it did, perfectly so Blair wore that headband over and over again, and then even some more. But it wasn’t until seventh that she realized that her headband matched something else perfectly; Chuck’s scarf. After that she stopped wearing the headband because she was, after all, Nate’s girlfriend and she couldn’t go around matching other boys’ scarves, (although she doubted Nate would have noticed) it was unthinkable. But she kept the headband because it really was the perfect shade of red and because it was her first headband, and a girl never forgets her first.


The next memory she pulled out of the drawer was a ring. A thin silver band with the letters CB engraved and intertwined on the inside. One day in ninth grade Chuck had come to school with a new ring on his hand and when Blair went to ask him who could possibly be dumb enough to give a ring to Chuck Bass he had told her it was from his father, as a birthday present, which Blair found odd because Chuck’s birthday had been three weeks ago and no daddy could ever forget their own son’s birthday, could they? So she decided to be nice because he looked kind of sad and lonely and she asked him if she could see it. When he handed it to her silently and she saw the CB intertwined she gave a quick shriek and almost dropped the ring. When he asked her what was wrong she pointed silently to the two letters and he said with a shrug “My initials?” Shakily she laughed and nodded and said she didn’t know what had come over her. He nodded back and then they both turned away. On her next birthday Chuck gave her the ring, and her anger at receiving and re-gifted present abated slightly when she read the note attached to it; Don’t worry, I though it too, and I don’t really like rings anyways. Happy Birthday Blair. And after that day her heart skipped beat every time she heard Chuck’s full name; Charles Bass, CB, Chuck and Blair. And so she kept the ring because it had been a gift (it would have been rude to give it away), and because he had thought it too.


There were only three more items in the drawer; two of them were her Erikson Beamon necklace and a plane ticket to Tuscany. Two more memories of her old Chuck. The last item was tiny, the smallest one there and when she felt the cool metal against her palm she knew what she had to do, knew where she had to go, and she knew who she had to see. Clutching the tiny gold heart in her left hand Blair took a deep breath held it, and swore she wouldn’t let it go until she did it, until she found him, until she had him.