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Not that anyone cares, but Nelly Yuki saw him first.
It was early freshman year, in the passing period between pre-calc and AP Lit. Nelly was balancing a stack of copies of Lord of the Flies that her teacher asked her to grab from the library, because Nelly was the kind of nice, reliable girl that teachers loved to ask favors from, when a stray shoulder knocking into hers sent the books tumbling out of her grasp. Nelly doubted it was malicious - the courtyard was always crowded during passing periods because it had cross traffic from both the boys and girls side and Nelly was constantly getting jostled - but the culprit in question, some girl Nelly shared a Spanish class with, didn’t even stop to apologize. In fact, no one stopped at all. They just flowed around Nelly and her scattered books like they would one of the tables or any other inanimate object.
Socially speaking, Nelly was a non entity. It used to bother her more.
Nelly sighed and stooped to collect them one by one, struggling to balance the stack as it grew once more while dodging any further collisions. It wasn’t like she’d really expected anyone to help. Not at Constance.
So it came as quite a surprise when a hand holding the final copy entered her field of vision. Even more so when she looked up and found that it was attached to a guy. A cute guy, with a sharp jawline, close cropped hair and a small (but nice) smile.
Nelly ogled at him, too shocked to maintain decorum - cute guys did not often willingly associate themselves with her. When a beat had passed and she still didn’t move to take it from him, he’d said, wryly, “I assume this is yours. Unless there’s another William Golding superfan somewhere in the quad that I’m not seeing.”
It was funny. Nelly should’ve laughed. Instead she dully explained, “It’s for English class. I’m helping.”
She lifted her stack of books slightly, like they were proof of her veracity, like it mattered at all. The guy politely nodded. He was still holding out the book.
Nelly's hands finally caught up with her brain and she took it from him, perhaps too roughly, and added it to her stack. She wanted to say something funny back, or something cool or interesting that would make him keep looking at her, but her brain felt like it was melting and leaking out of her ears. She managed a squeaky, “Well. Thanks!”, and then to her total embarrassment, turned on her heel and walked away, blushing fiercely.
“Uh, no problem?” He called after her, which made her cringe so hard she almost dropped her books again, but she didn’t turn around. She could imagine his baffled expression well enough.
As soon as knew she was out of sight she collapsed against the nearest set of lockers, banging her head against them in time with her thoughts, with the pounding of her heart. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Once Nelly Yuki’s brain had a chance to reform from the puddle of gelatinous sludge it had devolved into, she realized how odd it was that she hadn’t recognized him. Constance was a (mostly metaphorically, thankfully) incestuous place. Everyone knew everyone - or at least everyone’s parents knew everyone else’s parents and playdates were a great way to get a foot in the door for business deals, so ipso facto, Nelly had gone to school with pretty much the same people since Pre K. She just failed to make an impact on most of them. She could barely remember the last time there was someone new, let alone new and nice.
She wanted, desperately, to find out who he was. The only problem was, she had no idea how to go about actually doing so. He wasn’t in last year's yearbook - she checked - and Nelly’s social circle wasn’t what she would call thriving, and there weren’t exactly a lot of people she could ask if they knew a Mr. Tall Dark and Cheekbones.
But there was someone that knew everyone. So in a fit of desperation, Nelly stooped to consulting her lab partner and school gossip monger, Kati Farkas. Surprisingly, it actually yielded pay dirt, though it took about twenty minutes for Kati to get narrowed down to who Nelly meant and her final review hadn’t exactly been favorable.
“Do you mean Dan Humphrey?” Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Nelly, ew. Isn’t he the-“ her voice dropped low, like even being overhead saying the word would be social suicide, “scholarship kid? Who cares about him?”
Verdict delivered, she went back to favorite lab time activity: texting her other half, Iz Coates, while Nelly finished the experiment by herself. That suited Nelly fine. Talking to Kati always threatened to lower Nelly’s brain cell count; she refused to let Kati do the same to her GPA. Besides, it gave her time to think.
A scholarship kid… that did put a little damper on Nelly’s half formed fantasies about being one half of a new Constance-Jude power couple, but it meant he must’ve been really smart. Maybe not Nelly Yuki level smart. But certainly enough to keep up.
Nelly suppressed an eye roll as Kati giggled at a message from Iz, who, point of fact, sat exactly one row behind them. Nelly didn’t understand why Kati couldn’t just turn around and talk to her. It’s not like the teacher cared. It’s not like anyone in the class cared about anything but partying, pills, and Prada except Nelly.
Dan Humphrey was smart. Nelly liked smart. Nelly could work with smart.
Nelly noticed him all the time after that. They didn’t share any classes of course, but they’d pass each other in the courtyard during the same period they’d had their fateful first encounter and, as Nelly serendipitously discovered, he cut through the hallway her locker was on to get to his sixth period class. He tended to keep his head down, and sometimes Nelly would stare at him so hard it felt like her eyes were going to pop out of her sockets and she’d mentally command: Look at me! Look at me! I’m right here!
Nelly’s brain was formidable, but her telepathic abilities must’ve needed some work. He never so much as flinched.
Eventually she built up the courage to sit near him sometimes at lunch. Not next to, but near. Close enough that she could see his brow furrow as he read, watching him fidget with the pen in his hand when he wasn’t carefully annotating with it. Sometimes all he did was scribble in a little moleskin journal. Nelly spent a lot of time wondering what he was writing about. She had this persistent fantasy where he’d leave his notebook behind on a table one day and she’d notice and dutifully try to return it only for it to accidentally fall open and reveal that it was all about her, the shy girl he’d helped once and couldn’t get out of his mind since. And then she would track him down and hand it to him and say, even in her head the words coming out in one rushed sentence: Hi my name is Nelly Yuki and one time you helped me with some books so I thought I’d return the favor and I’ve noticed you’re by yourself a lot and do you ever get lonely because sometimes I get so lonely I feel like I could crawl out of my skin and for some reason I think you probably get that too don’t you? And he’d at her and he’d see her and he’d say Yeah. Yeah I do.
It was ridiculous. But the ridiculousness was almost part of the appeal. Nelly was a thoroughly practical girl. She set goals and worked hard until she achieved them - National Merit Scholar, Peabody Scholar, and some day, the light at the end of the tunnel: Yale.
But for twenty minutes a day, carefully penciled into her schedule between violin practice and meeting with her Spanish tutor, Nelly allowed herself a thoroughly impractical dream, one where artsy boys from Brooklyn dreamt about awkward, overly studious girls with double astigmatism and an intolerance for lactose.
If someone were tasked with describing Nelly Yuki, the terms “amphibious” and “Rastafarian” would probably make the cut before “party goer”. Still, when Kati invited her to her birthday party - ostensibly as a favor for singlehandedly keeping her from failing physics but really because everyone knew she was trying to one-up the birthday party Penelope Shafai had thrown the previous week and she wanted to maximize the people in attendance to pad the stats - Nelly surprised herself by agreeing to go almost immediately. If asked, though she wouldn’t be, Nelly would attribute it to fear of retribution over a perceived snub. Nothing to do with the fact that maybe, possibly, Nelly yearned for acceptance from her peers more than she’d ever let on, even to herself.
Whatever her reasoning was, it was a massive mistake: Nelly didn’t drink and Nelly wasn’t actually friends with anyone there. One of those might’ve been tolerable in isolation, but the two combined made for a miserable, boring night. She felt horribly out of place among the twinkling streamers and bubbly teenagers. After twenty excruciating minutes of failed mingling, Nelly ended up where Nelly always seemed to end up: off to the side alone while everyone else had fun.
Her very first high school party, she thought glumly. Probably her last.
She didn’t think she was going to be missing out on much. As Nelly sipped her Coke and Coke and surveyed the room, she noticed that it wasn’t all that different from how things were at school. There was Blair Waldorf making out with Nate Archibald in the corner, Blair’s arms slung around his shoulders and his around her waist. There was Hazel Williams, desperately flirting with a guy so clearly gay that the astronauts stationed on the ISS were probably having a laugh at her expense. There was Dan Humphrey- Dan Humphrey?
Nelly did an actual double take, certain that her eyes were playing tricks on her, certain that Dan Humphrey wasn’t actually attending a birthday party for a girl who regarded his general existence at the same level as a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her Manolo shoes.
But, as rare as it was, even Nelly was wrong sometimes. It was Dan Humphrey, live and in living color.
He looked as out of place as she felt, standing against the wall with only a half empty solo cup of beer for company and radiating discomfort like he was lit up in neon. No one was talking to him either. She’d bet good odds that this was his first party too.
Well, he looked cute at least, in a smart blazer and a blue flannel shirt that might’ve brought out his eyes if she ever got close enough to see them.
Look at me, she thought, more out of habit than anything else. I’m right here. Look at me.
Dan looked up.
He might as well have taken out a gun and shot her.
As much as she wanted his attention, she’d never actually thought about what she’d do if she had it, nor had she realized just how creepy it would be to look up and find a near total stranger staring unblinkingly at you. Nelly hastily arranged her features into what she hoped was a pleasant, I’m-normal-I’m-not-a-serial-killer smile and prayed the distance between them would soften her awkward edges.
He didn’t recognize her. She could tell by the blankness of his expression. But then, the thunder after the lightning strike, recognition- not for who Nelly was, but for what she was: the only other lone figure in a room full of people who couldn’t care less about them. It was hard not to feel solidarity in the face of that. Nelly thinks even if she never knew him at all she could’ve fallen in love with him just a bit right then.
He smiled back, small and restrained but seemingly genuine nonetheless, and tipped his cup to her in an ironic toast. She returned the gesture so fast some Coke sloshed onto her hand. Nelly suddenly became aware that she was grinning like an idiot or the Cheshire Cat and hastily turned away.
As a general rule, Nelly didn’t believe in fate - if you wanted something badly enough you worked to get it and if you didn’t you only had yourself to blame - but even she couldn’t ignore a sign from the universe this apparent.
This was Nelly’s shot. She would march across the room and introduce herself and he would make a joke that she would actually laugh at and they would make fun of the drunken idiots that were their classmates and she would be cool and confident and nothing like the Nelly Yuki she usually was.
Except in the two or three minutes Nelly had spent sufficiently building up the courage to face him, Dan had moved from his spot on the wall. She frantically looked around and found him by the stairs talking to Serena van der Woodsen. Serena was as Serena as she usually was, a loud, charming tangle of golden limbs and even more golden hair. Nelly had decided years ago that she was too perfect to even bother trying to hate, but she was rapidly revising that opinion.
It wasn’t that she was talking to Dan or the drunken, meaningless flirting. It was the way he was looking at her. It was the way everyone looked at her. Like- like- like she was the sun. Like their lives were incomplete and she was the missing piece. Like no one ever looked at Nelly before.
Nelly was embarrassed to find herself welling up. Stupid. Dan Humphrey was supposed to be different, but he was just like everyone else at their stupid school.
Well Nelly was officially over it.
So she left. She went home and she slammed the door to her bedroom so hard the walls shook and nobody cared because God only knew where her parents were but it made her feel a little bit better. Then she cried her eyes out, all ugly, chest wracking sobs and snot.
The next day she still felt so awful that she did the unheard of (for Nelly anyway) and actually called out sick. The idea of even seeing Dan made her feel nauseous, even though intellectually she knew nothing had changed for him because there was nothing there to be changed in the first place.
But it was different for Nelly. It was her first ever teenage heartbreak. It felt like she’d been shattered into a thousand identical pieces and she was trying to put them together blindfolded. It wouldn’t take much to break her all over again.
So when she finally worked up the nerve to go back to school, Nelly avoided the courtyard, went to her locker after fourth period instead of sixth, and started eating lunch in Mrs. Kessler’s empty English classroom, and she wasn’t any more lonely than she was before she ever started fantasizing about hopeless causes. She was done being ridiculous.
She had more important things to worry about, liking maintaining her perfect GPA or padding her college applications with extra curriculars. In less than four years, she was going to get out of here, and then she’d be at Yale and she’d never have to see anyone from Constance or St. Jude’s stupid face ever again.
Who needed Dan Humphrey anyway?