Author's Note: I hope you guys are enjoying this so far. Lots of background information comes out in this chapter. Hope you like it!!

Torn to Pieces – Chapter 3 – Brenda remembers what it was like

Dylan comes to pick Brandon up and they take off out of the driveway. Brenda watches from her window to make sure that they are gone and then goes downstairs to wait for Donna to come and get her.

'Brenda? When is Donna coming to get you?' Cindy asks.

'Um, in like 15 minutes,' Brenda says.

'Honey, what's wrong?' Cindy says and goes over to the couch to sit with her daughter.

'Mom, I'm feeling something and I'm not sure if I should be. I kind of feel a little guilty that I'm feeling this way and I don't really know if I'm doing the right thing,' Brenda starts.

'What is it? Is this about Dylan?'

'Yeah, you know how he came over here that day after he and Kelly got together and asked me about A.A.?'

'Yes, that was a very tough decision you made,' Cindy says.

'Yeah, well, I'm not sure if I made the right one,' Brenda trails off.

Flashback

'Brenda? Can you please come down here for a minute?' Jim yells up the stairs. Brenda hears him, wipes the tears from her face, fixes her hair, and makes her way downstairs. She had been up in her room tormented over Dylan and Kelly for two weeks now and still could not stop the random outbursts of tears.

'Yeah?' she says as she walks into the living room. She stops dead in her tracks as she takes in the scene in front of her. Her parents are sitting on the couch and Dylan is sitting in one of the chairs in the living room. He does not look good. His face is red and puffy, his hair is a mess, and his clothes are quite disheveled.

'What's going on?' she says, confused.

'Brenda, sit down honey, there's a few things that we need you to hear,' Cindy says to her.

Brenda gingerly makes her way to the other chair in the living room trying not to look at Dylan, who still hasn't looked up.

'Now, we know that you and Dylan had a, well, a falling out, but there's something really important that involves you that he needs to say. I don't want you to say anything. I just want you to listen and after you've listened, I want you to go back upstairs and process what you've heard. There is a decision at the end of this that you and only you can make, but I don't want you to make it hastily without thinking it over. You know, and Dylan sure knows, that there is no way I would be encouraging this, if I didn't think it was a worthy situation. Do you understand?' Jim explains.

Brenda nods her head and looks from her dad to Dylan and then back to her dad with a puzzled look on her face. She doesn't quite understand what could be so important to her father that involved Dylan that he would try to even get her in the same room with him again.

'Dylan, go ahead,' Jim says.

Dylan finally looks up. Brenda looks at him closer than she did when she first walked into the room and sees that his eyes are bloodshot. She can tell right away from the look on his face that he had spent the night before this one drinking. She probably should have noticed that right away by the stale smell of liquor that now wafted past her nose, but she was too busy being confused to pick up on that.

'Bren,' he says softly, 'I did something really stupid last night. I was cleaning up my place and I found a letter that you had written to me stuffed in the cushions of the couch. I read it, which I probably shouldn't have done, and couldn't get the image of your face and the words you said when you found out about Kelly out of my head. You said 'Look I hate you both! Never talk to me again!' and I couldn't stop replaying that moment in my head. It just kept repeating and repeating. I tried everything I could to get it to go away, but it wouldn't. Instead of doing what I should have, I decided to drown it out the best way I knew how.'

Brenda's face fell when she heard Dylan speak. He had reverted back to his old methods of dealing with pain and instead of calling his sponsor, he went right for the bottle.

'I know it was stupid and I know that I did the wrong thing. I woke up this morning and went straight to a meeting. I talked it over with Ben and he made a suggestion that I take some action to prevent this from happening again. That's when I came over here. I know that it might be ridiculous for me to even think that you would do something for me, but I'm going to ask anyway.'

She looks at him as he speaks. He's not actually looking at her, he's kind of looking at the space between her and her father. He finally looks directly at her and she almost sits back in her chair, taken aback by the force of his stare.

'Bren, would you please continue to come to my A.A. meetings with me? You've been my support system for a long time now, and I don't think I can really stand on my own just yet. I wouldn't be asking you if I didn't think that it would be beneficial in some way. We don't even have to talk to each other while we're there. I just think that you physically being there would help. I'm really not sure how, but Ben suggested that I ask, since he swears that he's seen a difference in my recovery since you started going with me.' Dylan stops talking and looks back down at the floor.

Brenda stares at him on the verge of tears again. Inside her body the anger and disappointment she felt for him begins to well up. She sees the pain he is in just asking her to do this, but at this moment she doesn't care.

'Brenda, please don't answer now. Go and think about what you've just heard for a little while. Please,' Cindy says.

Brenda decides that her parents are actually right this time. Lashing out with anger at Dylan right now would be a bad idea and it wouldn't help anyone. She gets up and walks upstairs and closes her bedroom door. She flops onto her bed and begins to sob.

Cindy watches Brenda's face as she assumes that Brenda is recalling that day in the living room with Dylan.

'You were up there for what seemed like days to us, but it was really only about two hours. You know, Brenda, Dylan didn't move from the chair he was sitting in the entire time. I almost got up to check his pulse a few times to make sure that he was still alive,' Cindy recalls.

Brenda smiles at her mother's recollection. 'Yeah, well I cried for the first hour and a half, and then I really started to think about everything he had been through with his own family. You know, the things that caused him to drink in the first place, and I just couldn't do it. I couldn't leave him alone just like they did to deal with his demons by himself. I figured that I was strong enough, that even though I hated him at the time, I could put that hate aside for one hour a month, to help him through it,' Brenda says.

'Honey, I was so proud of you when you finally came down those stairs. You had a confidence in your step that I hadn't seen in a long time.'

'Yeah,' Brenda says, remembering. She was so determined not to let Dylan get the best of her, but at the same time, she couldn't knowingly rip away his only support system. She walked back down the steps and stood right in front of him. He took a few seconds to look up at her, but when he finally did, she told him that as much as she hated him at that very moment, she would not be able to live with herself if he went back to drinking.

A knock at the door brings Cindy and Brenda out of their reverie. Cindy pats Brenda on the shoulder gets up to answer the door. 'Brenda, whatever you are feeling right now, I'm sure this too will pass and you will find the right answer,' Cindy says as she opens to door to reveal Donna.

'Hi Donna, she's in the living room.'

'Hi Mrs. Walsh, hey Bren, ready to go?' Donna says.

'Um, yeah, sure, let's go,' Brenda says pulling all of her strength together to get up off of the couch.

Brenda gets in the car with Donna and she pulls out of the driveway. 'Bren, what's wrong? You've been kind of gloomy for the past couple of days? Has Kelly said or done anything to you or something?' Donna asks, genuinely concerned.

Brenda smiles at her friend. 'No, Donna, it's nothing like that. Look I need some advice. If I tell you something, you have to swear on everything that has ever or will ever exist that you will not tell anyone.'

'Wow, Bren that sound really serious. I swear I will take whatever it is that you are about to tell me to the grave. I swear,' Donna says.

Brenda's tells Donna the short version of what has been going on with Dylan. She tells her that while they were dating she would go with him to his A.A. meetings as his support system. She tells her that after they broke up, Dylan started drinking again and he asked that she continue to support him.

'Oh, God, Bren, that must have been awful for you. I'm so sorry,' Donna says.

'Yeah, well, I wouldn't have been able to look at myself in the mirror if I had left him to deal with it all alone. The problem here, Donna, is that Kelly doesn't know that I go with him to the meetings. She's never known, not even when Dylan and I were dating didn't we tell anyone that I went with him,' Brenda says.

'Yeah, I mean, I never knew that you went with him,' Donna say and then gasps a little.

'Oh, God Bren, what if Kelly does finds out? She will go crazy. She's not going to be too happy with this. I mean, she already gets irritated every time he goes to a meeting for no apparent reason, but this is going to send her right over the edge.'

'I know, Donna, I know. It's not my decision to tell her. It's not up to me, it's up to Dylan.'

'Well, what do you need advice from me for? You're not going to tell her, so that can't be it,' Donna says confused.

'Well, here's the problem. I think Dylan's latching on to the fact that I'm supporting him but outside of A.A. I think he's projecting the good feeling he has when he's at the meetings on me, but it's showing up in school. This is the first time since I agreed to do this, that I'm having doubts as to whether this was such a good idea.'

'Wow, that's really heavy, Brenda. I mean, there are so many variables in this situation, how could you possibly have prepared yourself for all of them?' Donna says.

'Yeah, well, I've got to nip this in the bud right now. Brandon suggested that I just talk to him about it. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but I'm not so sure anymore.'

'Bren, I agree with Brandon, you've got to talk to Dylan.'

'Really, you think so too?'

'Definitely, you'll just tear yourself apart thinking about it and worrying about it. You should just talk to him and get it over with. Find out for sure what's really going on. Now, let's go watch this sappy movie, shall we?' Donna says with a smile.

Brenda couldn't help but smile back at her friend. 'Yeah,' she says.

Casa Walsh

Dylan and Brandon pull up in the driveway after spending the night playing some pool and kicking each other asses at video games at the arcade.

'Well, B, it's been real. Thanks for needing a 'guys' night out. I think I needed one too.'

'No problem, D. Thanks for being so accommodating,' Brandon says as he high-fives his friend.

Brandon looks up at the front porch and sees that Brenda is there waving at him. Dylan looks up at the same time and sees her.

'Bran, I think something wrong with your sister. She doesn't look good,' Dylan says.

'Yeah, I think you're right. I better go see what's wrong? Do you mind coming with, she really doesn't look good,' Brandon plays it off.

'Yeah, let's go,' Dylan says as he and Brandon get out of the car.

'Bren? Are you okay?' Brandon says as he approaches her. He looks at her closely and notices that her teeth are clenched tight and she's trying as hard as she can not to cry.

Dylan walks up behind Brandon and steps off to the side to get a better look at Brenda. He also notices that she is about to lose it.

'What happened? Did something happen?' Dylan automatically moves to stand beside her and begins to stroke her arm with his hand.

Brenda swallows hard and slowly turns her head to look at Dylan standing beside her. She is a little surprised that he automatically came to her side and began trying to comfort her.

'Dylan, I need to talk to you,' Brenda chokes out.