Chapter One
Season 4 Finale – after Brenda and Dylan spend the night together, one week before she leaves for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Dylan sits at his the dining room table, which is covered in papers, with a shoe box off to the side. He reads letter after letter and his emotions swing from laughing out loud, to anger, to frustration, to almost ready to cry, then back to laughing out loud. He puts the letter he is reading on the table and looks out through the window. He begins to think about last night with Brenda, and how comfortable he felt with her arms wrapped around his body. Seeing that ever present loving look in her eyes as she pulled him closer to kiss him all over made him feel safer than he has felt in a long time. The moment she walked toward him and said, 'I want more than your applause' his heart flip-flopped in his chest and he couldn't wait to take her in his arms.
They had started in the living room on the couch and after finishing there had moved to the shower, then to the bedroom, where they finally fell asleep. From the moment it started, they barely spoke words, just reveled in the comfort they had always felt for each other. As they both drifted off with their arms around each other, he looked down at her and immediately words the he had written flashed back into his head.
'I don't know that you'll ever trust me enough to give me another chance. If the opportunity presents itself, I promise you with everything that I am that I will take it, just to have you in my arms and be able to kiss you and squeeze you and drift off to sleep knowing that you will keep me safe.'
He looked down at her and kissed the top of her head and tightened his arms around her frame. She moaned a little with her eyes still closed and tightened her grip around his chest and tried as hard as she could to get even closer to him than she already was. They fell asleep just like that and woke up in the same position.
He feels something on his face and it takes him a couple of seconds to realize that Brenda is kissing his forehead and cheeks trying to wake him up.
'Well, hello, beautiful,' he says, without opening his eyes.
'Dylan, it's time to wake up. I need to get going,' she says, while caressing the side of his face with her hand.
'Already?' he whines.
'Dylan, come on. As much as I'd like to repeat yesterday as many times as possible,' she smiles brightly at him, 'I need to finish getting my stuff together. I only have a week to wrap everything up before I am on a plane to London.'
'Yeah, alright, are you sure you don't want to have breakfast with me?' he winks at her, and tries as hard as he can to throw his best smoldering 'I-want-to-take-you-right-here-right-now' eyes.
'Oh, don't you dare give me that look!' she begins to laugh and play hits him in the chest. He grabs her and rolls her on top of him while she is pretending to fight him off. They stop for a moment and stare into each other's eyes. Brenda smiles down at him and drops down quickly to catch his lips. He grabs her around the waist and presses her body into his as she kisses him.
After another round, Brenda left to go finish packing and to tie up some of her affairs. Dylan went into the kitchen and retrieved a key that was taped to the back side of the refrigerator. He opens a desk drawer with the key and pulls out a shoe box full of letters and papers that he has written.
He laughs as he reflects on what happened the night before. They had fallen right back into the comfort zone they had always felt for each other with no hesitations. He pulls letters out of the box in front of him and begins to read them. Ever since Andrea had encouraged him to write about his father's death, he had taken one or two nights every week to reflect on feelings of things gone by, all the way back to when the Walshes first entered his life, some 3+ years ago.
He picks up a letter that he wrote and begins to read. He realizes that this particular letter was his attempt, years later, at trying to pinpoint his emotions after Brenda broke up with him during the pregnancy scare. He remembers trying to reflect on their conversation in the school after her summer school acting class.
Flashback – Brenda and Dylan talk about their breakup after the pregnancy scare
Dylan sees Brenda down the hallway of the school, standing with Donna and Andrea. He waits until they leave her and then slowly walks to her with his hands in his pockets. He tries as hard as he can not to starting crying in front of her, as his words get stuck in his throat every times he speaks.
'Hi,' she says, while looking down at the floor.
'Hi' he says back to her.
'I'm feeling bad, Bren," he says, with a hitch in his voice.
'Me too,' she admits to him.
'So, why are you doing it?' he asks.
With tears in her eyes she looks at him and says, 'Dylan, I need some time.'
He shakes his head. 'You know I thought that if we ever broke up, I would feel this tremendous sense of relief. I could go back to being myself. But something happened, I fell in love with you or something and I stopped being a loner.'
'Dylan, I think that's wonderful.'
'I think it's terrible. The only person in this world that I have to depend on is me and I always have to remember it?' he says with attitude.
'Dylan, that's not true. You can depend on me.'
'Oh, really?'
The tears grow larger in her eyes. 'Dylan, just because I need some time and a break, doesn't mean that I still don't love you or that this isn't painful for me too.'
'Maybe that's what they mean when they say love hurts.'
'Dylan, I got so close it scared me,' she raises her voice a little, and then says, 'I don't want to be scared with you.'
He knows she's right. He doesn't want her to be scared ever. He strengthens his resolve a little and says, 'I know.'
Shaking his head, he knows that she's not going to budge on this. His heart breaks a little more and on the verge of tears streaming down his face, he says, 'If we're meant to be together time will tell.' He can't look at her. He sniffles and lets out a few quick breaths to keep from breaking down.
She reacts to his obvious pain. She can't look him the eye and stares down at the floor in hopes of trying to keep her emotions inside.
'Can I take you home?' he tries one last effort to stay near her and convince her that they belong together.
She looks up at him with hurt in her eyes, sniffles, and says, 'No. I think I should walk. Goodbye, Dylan.'
His face falls. Her face falls. He closes his eyes, shakes his head, and begins to walk away. She turns away from his retreating form, hugs her notebook, and tries as hard as she can to keep it together. He gets to the end of the hallway and turns around to look at her.
Present Day
Dylan's eyes begin to tear up as he skims the letter he wrote which reflected on his state of emotions after that scene in the school. He remembers walking away from her and feeling hurt and angry that he possibly let someone get so close to him that he was physically sick with the fact that she did not want to be with him.
He spends the next hour or so looking through the letters that he wrote. As he puts a letter down, the phone begins to ring. He slowly gets up and walks to the phone.
'Hello?'
'Hi Dylan, its Suzanne.'
'Hey, where have you been? Nat called last night looking for you.'
'I was a little late for my shift. Kevin and I got a little carried away. I'm sorry he had to call you. I'm not sure what your plans are for the day, but would it be alright if I dropped Erica off with you? Kevin wants to take me up the coast for a drive,' she says.
'Oh, yeah, no problem. You can drop her off later on. I need to go out for a while, but I should be back around 4.'
'Great, thank you!' she beams.
He hangs up with her and goes to put his shoes on. On his way out the door, he grabs a few papers from the table that he set aside and leaves the house.
Casa Walsh
'Brenda, where have you been all night? I was worried about you,' Cindy says, as Brenda walks through the door at 11am.
'I spent the night with a friend on campus. We were up most of the night talking and stuff,' she lies.
'Well, you could have called. I know you're in college and you're about the leave the country, yet again, but I still worry about you, you know.'
'I know, Mom. I'm sorry,' she says, as she kisses her mother on the cheek and climbs the stairs to her room.
Brenda is sitting in the middle of the floor in her room going through the contents of her desk. Her mother comes in holding a box and as Brenda looks up she almost gasps out loud at the sight of it.
'I thought you'd want to go through this too. If it's still here when you leave, we're going to throw it out. Don't you think it's been long enough to be able to throw this box and all of its memories away?'
'I don't know Mom,' she says, as she reflects on the amazing night/morning she spent with Dylan.
'Well, I'll just leave it here and you can either go through it or just leave it for us to throw out, okay?'
'Okay.'
She stares at the offending box on the floor in front of her dresser. She tries to stay concentrated on the mess in front of her. 'One thing at a time,' she thinks. A few hours goes by as she goes through each and every drawer in her desk, trying to decide what things she really needs and trying to figure out how she acquired so much crap. Every couple of minutes, her eyes drift to the box in front of the dresser, but she steels herself from running to it.
A couple of hours go by, and while sifting through school papers and notebooks, she hears a knock on the front door. She hears her mother answer it and then someone climbing the stairs.
She looks up when she realizes that someone is standing in her doorway.
'Brenda, I need to talk to you,' Dylan says, as he stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets.
'Dylan, what are doing here? Didn't you get enough of me last night?' she smiles.
He laughs out loud and takes a seat next to her on the floor. She looks over at him, smiles a little, and tries to concentrate on the papers in front of her, but lets her eyes drift to the box again. He stares at her and notices the glance in the direction of the dresser.
'What's in that box?' he says, as he looks at the top of the box, recognizing Brenda's handwriting, 'DO NOT OPEN, EVER.'
She laughs out loud. 'Just memories,' she says, 'Just memories.' He reflects for a moment and suddenly remembers,
'You threw away all my stuff, huh, took down all the pictures?'
'No, they're just packed away in a box in the garage.'
'Out of sight, out of mind?'
'Dylan, you've never been out of my mind.'
He laughs too. 'Packed away in a box in the garage?' he says, as he looks at her.
'Yeah, something like that,' she says, 'Dylan, why are you here?'
He turns serious and says, 'I came across a few things that I wanted you to see before you left.'
'Dylan, I'm only going to be gone for a few weeks, you act as if I'm never coming back.'
'I know, but like you said, whatever happens in this week may change the rest of our lives.'
'Well, that's not exactly what I said,' she smiles at the fact that he changed the 'my life' to 'our lives'.
He fumbles with the papers in his pocket. He begins to think that this isn't the right time to be doing this. He wants to make this special. He wants to reminisce with her and be able to tell her how he feels in a very memorable way.
'Bren, can I see you again before you leave? There are a few things I need to talk to you about and want you to know before you take off again. I don't want you to leave with any uncertainties about us,' he says.
'Dylan….,' she says slowly, with a little uncertainty. She didn't really expect anything more than what last night was and she kind of wanted to keep that memory of Dylan. 'I…'
'Please, Bren, please,' he cuts her off.
'Okay, how about Friday? My plane leaves on Saturday night,' she proposes.
'Perfect. I will pick you up,' he says as he gets up off of the floor. He kisses her on the top of her head and leaves the room.
She sighs, 'Oh, boy. What have I gotten myself into?'