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Vanessa is never going to be comfortable with how unlived in the bedrooms of the Upper East Side look. Her own room is covered in CD jewel cases and the clothes she wore last week and pictures and toys from when she was little and just things. Even when it's clean, you can look in the room and tell that it belongs to someone specific. While all the kids at Constance and St. Jude's look like they sleep in showrooms or model houses. And not even the cool kind like on Arrested Development because there's no way there's a "Peter and the Wolf" album hiding anywhere around here. It's sad, and she's never going to get used to it.
However, she has gotten very used to the very well stocked bars these kids' houses have, and the fact that no one seems to care when they're a little less well stocked come morning.
"Nate's a dick," she slurs, wondering if the maids leave a mint on Chuck's pillow in the morning when they make his bed; how she ended up in Chuck's bedroom to begin with; why she's never drank alcohol that is older than she is before.
"That's my best friend you're talking about."
"Yeah, I don't so much care."
Vanessa's walking the room, running her fingers over all the immaculate surfaces as Chuck watches her from the doorway, smirking and smoking a joint she rolled for him. Tonight's been weird, to say the least. God, she kissed Chuck Bass and her boyfriend cheated on her and she's obviously way too wasted because of it all. She used to be straight edge for fuck's sake.
After touching the bookcase, a lampshade, the buttons on the flat screen TV, Vanessa strokes his pillowcase. She expects it to be starched and stiff, like hotel pillows, but the material actually feels slept on. Soft. Feeling it, all she wants is to lie down and wake up in a different world. One where Dan still loved her when she moved back home, or Nate Archibald never learned her name so he couldn't break her heart, and especially one where she doesn't go back to Chuck's apartment with him.
"I should go," she says.
"You should stay," he replies, stepping up behind her and kissing this spot under her ear that he somehow already knows makes her agreeable. "It's late," he whispers into the curve of her neck.
"Chuck..." She thinks she means to argue, but it comes out sounding more like an acquiesce, and by now he's got a hand snaking across her waist and the other holding the joint up to her lips, the end still wet from his mouth. She inhales and tries to let everything be okay. It's not, but she tries.
She says, "You're deplorable," exhaling the smoke, feeling like she doesn't even know herself anymore.
"And you're from Brooklyn," Chuck responds, like they're somehow the same thing. Vanessa almost laughs, but then he's kissing her, tasting of pot and brandy and privilege. It's all so much sweeter than it should be.
She's going to regret this in the morning, but she kisses him back.
It's just, with his tongue in her mouth, it's easier for her to feel as empty as his room. And right now, empty is better.