Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
Chapter One:
She didn't turn up. I looked around Kelly hoping to see her walk in, hoping to finally introduce her to my Dad but she didn't turn up. Jim had interfered again.
As I get into my board shorts I feel the anger vibrate through me. I'm so sick of this, I'm sick of everything being so hard. I just want life to be easy like it used to be. Surfing, school and no expectations, no drama, no choices, no hurt feelings, no forgiveness required.
As I hang up my suit, knowing I'd need it after Kelly and my swim, I see a slither of gold hang out of my pant pocket. Lifting my hand I go to push it in secure it from being lost, but my hand having a mind of it owns pulls it out further. Without thought the medallion is in my palm, and my finger is tracing over the D. I know what I'll find if I turn it over, I know what is on the other side. I know the guilt it still stirs in me seeing it.
It was at that moment that my stomach truly dropped. It was on reading those words in her kitchen did I fully realise that I'd floated further than I ever imagined. Let the tide push me away into easy that summer, and it had been, it had been easy.
What had come after, the months of guilt, the months of hurt, of anger, of unhappiness for everyone had not been easy. It had been harder than even being alone for a year in that hotel room. Back then I was alone with no mother and a father who kicked me out. Now I was alone surrounded by people. Alone because I'd been lying to everyone Bren, Brandon, Kelly- I'd been lying since the summer, and I was sick of it.
As I tuck the watch chain back in my pocket out of sight, out of mind, I move over to the draws and pick up my keys and wallet. In a hotel suite full of people I should put these in the bedroom safe, shit my watch should go in there as well. As I move back to the wardrobe I grab the watch and bend to the safe in the corner, setting the safe by entering my go to number combination for everything 0271.
This hotel a few floors down. This was Bren and my hotel. That night. That room.
It was in that room that I finally understood what it meant to make love, finally understood what Byron was talking about, craved beyond everything else. Even with the amount of sex that man had, and the lust he felt for others nothing could hold him for long. The lust, the others eventually burnt like paper away leaving nothing but ash that disintegrated on touch, like it hadn't been there at all. An illusion. Love though that stayed, it left a melted mass when it burnt because it wasn't so easily lost.
In two years and three months I had never slept with anyone else. I'd made out with Stacey, I'd been offered it on a silver platter by the ranch owner, and I had been tempted by the fire with Kelly but I had never gone that far. I'd crossed so many other lines but I had stayed faithful in that. I didn't know if Bren would see it the same, if she'd see it as me being monogamous. If the shoe was on the other foot I know I wouldn't, and that was the problem. The forgiveness needed was like the Grand Canyon between us and she didn't even know it.
As I put the watch and my keys in I go to pick up the warm leather of my wallet that is resting between my bare feet on the carpet. If I push hard on the soft black skin of the wallet I know I'll feel the indent of half a heart, I know because I've done it countless times before. My hand in my pocket when I'm stressed running over the leather looking for the reminder, the comfort that only she has ever been able to give. Even months after we've broken up I still find myself doing it, I did it a few hours ago nervous of what a night of being Jack McKay's son would feel like again.
There's a knock on the door which propels me out of my haze of confusion. A confusion that has been there since Christmas since I was asked to choose, since I found out that she wanted me back again. The door opening pushes me to drop the wallet and slam the safe door shut pressing the button to lock it.
"Dylan?"
"Yeah Dad?" As I stand and come out of the wardrobe, I look at him.
"Son you've got a pretty girl out there waiting on you, it's not good to keep them waiting." I chuckle internally. That's what I've been doing to them both for nearly eight weeks, or Kelly since our first disastrous date four months ago? She's been waiting for me to decide and I've left her waiting. She's waited and I haven't been phased. She put herself out there blew up her friendship with her best friend and I went and nearly took up the offer of the ranch owners. She came tonight and I immediately looked past her for Bren.
"Usually when a guy hear's a pretty girl is waiting for them… well most single guy's are out the door." Is that what I am… single? I haven't felt it. I haven't felt free. I'm intwined too much with her to ever be free and it's my own fault. The watch, the wallet and the look over Kelly's shoulder flash through my head- it doesn't feel like I'm free. "Son is this about Brenda?"
"I wanted you to meet her, I wanted her to come tonight." I can feel the anger creep into my voice, "doesn't matter though it's… it's just too hard, her and me, and well she obviously thinks that too otherwise she'd be here, she'd have gone against Jim. She's done it before for me-"
"Dylan calm down it's just a party. Now I've wanted to meet her for over two years, it can wait another few hours." I give him a confused look, a few hours? "The Peach Pit that's where you hang out right?" I nod. "Why don't you call and invite her to breakfast there tomorrow? It's a public space and a place her parents are comfortable with her going. Christine has a hair appointment in the morning so it will just be the three of us which would be much better. I'll get to know the girl who can make my usually emotionally reserved son lose his cool. She must be something to get you this worked up over. Call her see if she's free, and we can get to know each other before you both head off to school. Sound okay?"
I don't even realise I'm smiling until I feel my cheeks lift higher than they have in months, the muscles pulling too tight from not enough use, and I guess they haven't had much use in nearly ten months- since Baja. "Yeah."
"Okay you call your girl and I'll get your friend Kelly a soda while she waits."
