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“I guess I always thought we’d find our way back together,” Serena admits. She looks at Dan, who’s sitting there, attentive in that quiet, respectful, solemn way he always is. “Out of all the boys I’ve been with, you were undeniably the best.”
“Better even than Nate Archibald?” Dan asks, raising an eyebrow, smiling a little. His expression quickly becomes serious, though. “Serena, I know what you mean. What we were in high school, to each other, I never thought I’d have that. I don’t think I’ll ever experience that again, with anyone else. But the bottom line is, neither of us are the people we used to be in high school anymore. We can’t go back.”
“I know,” Serena murmurs. “I know that, Dan. But I just love you so much.” She presses her face against his shoulder, inhales, reassured by the clean smell of his detergent, the familiar shape of his shoulder bone. “I think I always will.”
Dan kisses her cheek. “As I do, you," he says, but there's a sense of finality to it, a tone she fully understands.
"You’ll always own a part of me, you know,” Dan tells her. “High school was a terrible time for me, and would’ve been completely awful, and not worth it. But I had you.”
“Do you ever wish we could go back?” Serena asks.
Dan hums an affirmative. “We were simpler people,” he says. He sounds tired, older. “We fit better, then.”
Serena wishes she felt tired or older. Some part of her feels like she’s stuck at sixteen, and will never be able to move past that.
“We still fit now,” Serena says, through the lump in her throat. “Just, not romantically.”
Dan looks at her, and he looks like his heart’s breaking. Serena understands this, because she feels the same way – like a bright and vibrant fabric left out in the sun for so long that the colour fades.
“We do,” he says, quiet. “We will always fit. You’re my best friend.”
“And you, mine,” she says, and she interlinks their pinkies, and he laughs, and that’s the laugh she fell in love with. “Now,” she says, kissing his cheek, and giving him a small smile. “Where to next?”