Novels by Cecily von Ziegesar: Gossip Girl You Know You ... - Weebly

Nate laughed and rolled her up in the sheet like a mummy. “And
now I will leave you here as a sacrifice to the Holy Land!” he said in
a deep, horror-movie voice.
And he did leave her, for a little while. He got up and ordered a
huge feast of Chinese food and bad white wine, and they lay in bed
and ate and drank, and he parted her Red Sea once again before
the sky grew dark and the stars twinkled in the skylight.
A week later, Serena went away to boarding school at Hanover
Academy, while Nate and Blair stayed behind in New York. Ever
since, Serena had spent every vacation away—the Austrian Alps at
Christmas, the Dominican Republic for Easter, the summer traveling
in Europe. This was the first time she’d been back, the first time she
and Nate had seen each other since the parting of the Red Sea.
“Blair doesn’t know, does she?” Serena asked Nate quietly.
Blair who? Nate thought, with a momentary case of amnesia. He
shook his head. “No,” he said. “If you haven’t told her, she doesn’t
know.”
But Chuck Bass knew, which was almost worse. Nate had blurted
the information out at a party only two nights ago in a drunken fit of
complete stupidity. They’d been doing shots, and Chuck had asked,
“So, Nate. What was your all time best fuck? That is, if you’ve done
it all yet.”
“Well, I did it with Serena van der Woodsen,” Nate had bragged, like
an idiot.
And Chuck wasn’t going to keep it a secret for long. It was way too
juicy and way too useful. Chuck didn’t need to read that book How
to Win Friends and Influence People. He fucking wrote it. Although
he wasn’t doing so well in the friends department.
Serena didn’t seem to notice Nate’s uncomfortable silence. She
sighed, bowing her head to rest it on his shoulder. She no longer
smelled like Chanel’s Cristalle like she always used to. She smelled
like honey and sandalwood and lilies—her own essential-oil mixture.
It was very Serena, utterly irresistible, but if anyone else tried to
wear it, it would probably smell like dog poo.
“Shit. I missed you like crazy, Nate,” she said. “I wish you could’ve
seen the stuff I pulled. I was so bad.”
“What do you mean? What did you do that was so bad?” Nate
asked, with a mixture of dread and anticipation. For a brief second
he imagined her hosting orgies in her dorm room at Hanover
Academy and having affairs with older men in hotel rooms in Paris.
He wished he could’ve visited her in Europe this summer. He’d
always wanted to do it in a hotel.
“And I’ve been such a horrible friend, too,” Serena went on. “I’ve
barely even talked to Blair since I left. And so much has happened. I