So they set up a foundation for them,” she explained. “Don’t laugh. I know it’s kind of stupid.” Serena blew out a puff of smoke and giggled. “Well, it’s not like there aren’t people that need saving. I mean, what about the homeless?” “Well, it’s as good a cause as any. We wanted something that wasn’t too heavy to start the season off,” Blair huffed, annoyed. It was fine for her to laugh at the cause she’d chosen for the party, but Serena had no right. Serena steered the conversation back on course. “So is the party like, just for us, or is it for parents, too?” she asked. Blair hesitated. “Just . . . us,” she said finally. She downed the rest of her drink and looked at her watch. “Um, I kind of have to take off,” she said. She slid her bag over her arm and picked her pack of cigarettes up off the table. Serena frowned. She had taken her time getting dressed, psyching herself up for a wild night out with her friends. She’d expected a big group—Blair and the other girls, Nate and his gang, Chuck and his boys—all the people they always used to hang out with. “But I thought we would stay here for a while. Wait for everyone else,” Serena said. “Where are you going, anyway?” “I have a practice SAT tomorrow morning,” Blair said, feeling extremely superior, even though she was lying her ass off. “I need to prepare for it, and I want to go to bed early.” “Oh,” Serena said. She crossed her arms and sat back on her stool. “I was hoping we’d all wind up partying in the Basses’ suite upstairs. They still have it, don’t they?” Back in tenth grade, Serena and Blair and her friends had spent many a night in Chuck Bass’s suite, drinking and dancing, watching movies and ordering room service, taking hot tubs. Together, they’d pass out on the king-sized bed and stay there until they were sober enough to make their way home. Once, during a very drunken night at the end of tenth grade, Serena and Blair were soaking in the hot tub, and Blair had kissed Serena full on the lips. Serena hadn’t seemed to remember it the next morning, but Blair never forgot it. Even though it was just an impulse move that didn’t mean anything, thinking about that kiss always made her feel hot and itchy and uncomfortable. That was another reason why it had been such a relief when Serena went away. “The Basses still have the suite,” Blair said, standing up. “But they really don’t appreciate people using it. This isn’t tenth grade anymore,” she added coldly. “Okay,” Serena said. She couldn’t say anything right, could she? At least, not to Blair. “Well, have a good weekend,” Blair said with a stiff smile, as if they’d only just met. As if they hadn’t known each other all their lives. She dropped twenty dollars on the table for their drinks. “Excuse me,” she told the three tall boys who were blocking her path. “Can I get by?” Serena twirled her drink straw around in her glass and sipped the dregs of her Cosmopolitan, watching Blair leave. The drink tasted salty now, because she was about to cry again. “Hey Blair—” Serena called out after her friend. Maybe if she just blurted it all out, asked Blair why she was really mad, even confessed to sleeping with Nate that one time, they could go on being friends. They could start over. Serena might even start taking an SAT prep course, so they could take practice SATs together, or whatever. But Blair kept on pushing her way through the crowd and out the door to the street. She walked over to Sixth Avenue to catch a cab back uptown. It was starting to rain and her hair was frizzing. A bus roared by with Serena’s picture on the side of it. Was it her belly button? It looked like the dark pit at the center of a peach. Blair turned her back on it and waved her hand in the air to flag down the next taxi. She couldn’t get away fast enough. But the first taxi that stopped for her had the same poster in the lighted advertising box on its roof. Blair got in and slammed the door angrily. She could never get completely away—Serena was fucking everywhere. Serena reached for another cigarette and stuck it in her mouth with trembling fingers. Suddenly a pinky-ringed hand proffered a Zippo and lit the cigarette for her. The lighter was gold, with the monogram C.B. So was the ring. “Hey Serena. You look seriously hot,” Chuck Bass said. “What are you doing sitting here all by yourself?” Serena inhaled deeply, quelling her tears, and smiled. “Hey Chuck. I’m glad you’re here. Blair ditched me and now I’m all alone. Is anyone else coming?” Chuck clicked his lighter shut and put it in his pocket. He glanced around the room. “Who knows?” he said casually. “They could come, or they could not come.” He sat down in the armchair where Blair had been sitting. “You really do look hot,” he said again, staring at Serena’s legs like he wanted to eat them. “Thanks,” Serena said and laughed. It was kind of a relief to see tha............