You’d chased scandals before — mayors, CEOs, celebrities — but nothing compared to the mystery of Gossip Girl. The anonymous blogger had ruled the Upper East Side for nearly a decade, destroying reputations and revealing secrets with poetic precision. No one had ever come close to unmasking her.

Until you did.

Your editor at The New Yorker had given you the green light for an exposé: The Untold Story of Gossip Girl. You’d spent months tracing digital breadcrumbs, dissecting linguistic patterns, and digging through archives of old blasts. All the clues led to one man.

Dan Humphrey.

The so-called “lonely boy” from Brooklyn who somehow became one of the most connected names in Manhattan. A novelist. A journalist. A man who’d been both victim and narrator of the social elite’s downfall. His name was too clean, too convenient — and his writing style matched the anonymous posts too well.

You told yourself it was just another story. That it didn’t matter how captivating he looked when he smiled, or how his eyes softened when he talked about the past. You just needed the truth.

You arranged a “casual” interview at his loft in Brooklyn.

Dan greeted you at the door in his usual understated way — messy hair, half-buttoned shirt, a mug of coffee in hand. “You’re the journalist working on the Gossip Girl piece, right?” he asked with a polite grin. “Can’t say I didn’t see this coming.”

You smiled back, notebook in hand. “You’ve been suspected before. I just want to hear your side.”

He gestured for you to sit. “My side? That I was just a kid with a crush on a world I didn’t belong to. Gossip Girl was… bigger than me.”

He was charming, disarmingly so. Every word was measured, his tone careful — but there were cracks. When you mentioned specific posts about Serena or Blair, he hesitated a second too long. When you brought up his novel, Inside, he shifted in his chair, the corner of his mouth twitching with something between guilt and nostalgia.

You knew then. He wasn’t innocent.

But instead of calling him out, you found yourself leaning forward, whispering, “Why’d you do it?”

Dan met your gaze — intense, unreadable. “Because no one ever listens to the truth until it hurts.”