"Sometimes you need to step outside, clear your head and remind yourself of who you are...and where you want to be." Which, for Serena, is with Dan. Rufus greets her, and she's kind, putting her hand tenderly on his shoulder for a moment as he packs up his fantasies. "It was getting a little hard to breathe, you know?" Buttoned up like that, in a Bass world like that -- Rufus gets it. She asks if he's packing up his music, and he smiles sadly. "I just...need to find something new to write about. And I will." There's apology, and care, as she leaves him and heads into Dan's room: sorry I ruined your romance, but you need to button up. Inside, all she'll tell Dan is that he was right, and she doesn't want to talk about it, and she snuggles against his shoulder. He returns to his Chaucer like Saturday never happened. "...And sometimes you have to venture outside your world in order to find yourself." (Oh, God. If Serena turns into a Humphrey I'll implode, I really will.) "As for me, I'm happy right where I am: I only wanna be with you. XOXO!" Aww, I love you, Gossip Girl. Me too.

And she's right. Sometimes you need to step outside and breathe, and remind yourself who you are, and all the things you could be and could have been. But there comes a time when you go back inside. It's not very romantic, but romance is for DUMBO. We live in a Bass world, where love is about what you do, for the people you love, and not just about who you are.

But just after six you could see a woman standing on the corner of 90th and Fifth in a cream suit, buttoned up against the cold. She knows she'll have to go back inside eventually, and all the breathing she can do outside won't help her in there. Not in a place you can see, anyway. It'll help her go on living, this moment on the corner. She will breathe it in. She'll be looking down the street as the cars go by, one by one, buses and taxis, and as they go, she'll stand still, looking down the street, getting older. Pretty soon she'll be all alone, but she will keep standing there, for all the world to see. They won't know her like you and I do; they won't love her. All they'll see is this: just some lovely woman, with her eyes shining and her heart breaking, breathing on a street corner. Just one second more, before she goes back home.